you hired your competitors habits
Brought to you by The Art Of Positioning Podcast
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“At my last firm, we...” should come with a bloody warning.
Every time I’d interview, that was the first thing I’d hear, and well, I know you’re reading this going, what the heck, B, because the logic behind it makes sense. They want to help, they’ve got the experience you hired them for, and hecks, that was literally the point. 10 years at the competitor down the road, all the right certifications, knows how things are ‘done’.
Except how things are ‘done’ over there is how they’re done everywhere in your industry.
So, why the heck should it matter?
Well, fast-forward 6, 8 months, and the big deals are still landing on your desk. You’re still the one on every big call that matters, the proposals are starting to read a lot like the competition’s (funny that), and the conversations keep ending up at price, or with the buyer going with the bigger name anyway.
And the conclusion from every hiring article? You hired the wrong person. Find someone with even more experience next time.
Why isn’t my new salesperson closing?
Okay, so from what I’ve seen, they’re selling the only version of your business they know how to sell. The industry version.
Problem is, that version’s already taken.
By everyone in the whole darn industry.
I know, you have better service and do a better job but the buyer’s heard it from the 3 other names on their shortlist, from people who’ve been saying it longer and with 10x on ad spend, and we went through how that shortlist gets written last issue. When everyone says the same thing, the buyer goes with the name they already know, or the cheapest option. Ugh.
It’s a bit like hiring Gordon Ramsay (the Hell’s Kitchen version) to run your café and then being surprised there’s yelling in the kitchen. You got exactly what was on the CV.
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She had to reposition her entire business to break through to $10M. Generalists became specialists. Gut-feel decisions became data-driven. And the hardest part? Helping longtime team members let go of roles that defined them so they could become experts at one thing.
Nicole Downer calls it "ghost org charting" - imagining what the company looks like at $10M, then working backward to reposition today. It forces hard conversations. Especially with people you care about.
This is what repositioning for growth actually costs. Not just new messaging. Your entire operation and your people have to transform alongside the business.
"Repositioing to $10M" is up on The Art of Positioning Podcast across platforms - listen here.
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Should you hire salespeople with industry experience?
Every hiring article out there seems to say yes.
When it doesn’t work out? The advice is to look at whether they lacked the skills, weren’t motivated enough, didn’t fit the culture, or were only in it for the commission.
None of them ask if you gave them a different edge to sell.
Meanwhile, Harvard’s Boris Groysberg tracked 1,000+ kickass Wall Street analysts, the ones every firm fought over. When they switched firms, their performance dropped straight away and stayed there. The teams they joined got worse at working together. And the firms that hired them? Their market value tended to dip.
Why? Because a big chunk of what made those analysts great was the firm they’d left. Its systems, its people, how things got done there. That isn’t a movable asset.
So basically, they brought their way of working... but not the firm that made it work.
You’ve hired the rulebook, in person. And if nobody’s ever written down what makes you different, they’ll fill that gap with whatever they knew from their last role.
What does a bad sales hire actually cost?
You’ve probably guessed by now it’s more than the salary.
Wharton’s Matthew Bidwell found that outside hires get paid around 18% more than people promoted into the same job, and get worse performance reviews for their first two years. So you’re paying extra... to wait.
Every month they’re out there selling the industry version, your edge is buffed to match everyone else’s.
You’re still on the biggest calls. Literally the reason you hired them.
When it doesn’t work out, the move is usually to hire someone even more experienced…so more of somebody else’s habits, at an even higher price.
And if the next hire starts in January with nothing written down about what makes you different, they’ll fill in the blanks with how their last company did it.
So yeah, that’s a *ucking expensive way to stay where you are.
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Bad hires are on par with rebrands. Inc. Magazine ran a piece where we spoke about avoiding that thin spread. When a rebrand is the answer, and when it's lipstick on a pig.
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What should you hire a salesperson for instead?
Your edge. Clear enough that someone who’s never met you could hire against it, and sell it without you sitting in on the call.
I saw this with a hardware business I worked with. They changed their position to be the hardware partner designers brought in early, months before anyone else got a look. And the hardest part of that change was the team. They’d spent years being very good at the showroom kind of conversation, price on a list, and the new role required them to move away from that. So every single one of them had to be retrained.
Now imagine they were hiring someone new, with that edge doing the hiring:
The job ad says what the job actually is: getting designers to bring hardware in early, before the builders start. “5+ years in hardware sales” drops to the bottom, or off the page.
Stage one cuts anyone whose experience is all about closing fast at the counter. Closers are great, but this job needs people who are happy to get involved months before anyone’s ready to buy.
The interview has one question that tests the edge: “Tell me about a time you got involved in a project before the customer even knew what they needed.”
In their first couple of weeks, they listen in on a few calls with your best customers and hear why they picked you, before anyone hands them the old price list.
And that’s just one hire. The same edge then decides how the rest of sales talks, what customer service flags early, what you say no to... hiring’s just the door it walks in through.
Can you fix this before the new year?
Yep, but only if your edge lives somewhere other than your head before the next round of interviews.
That’s what we do. We review your competitors and market, and find the one thing you do that they can’t follow. Then you get a 90-day plan for what changes as a result, including hiring to fit that direction, what they’re interviewed on, and what your team actually sells.
So, how do you take this and run with it?
🏏 Badass tip
Grab 2 or 3 people on your team who talk to customers, and pick one line they always use. The opening of the sales call, the first paragraph of the proposal, the way they explain your pricing.
Then ask them why they say it that way. And then why again. 5 times. (Yes, like a toddler. It works.)
Around the third or fourth why, you’ll hit the real reason. It’ll either be “because that’s what makes us different”... or it’ll be “that’s how we did it at my last place”, “that’s how everyone does it”, or “I found a template”.
Then hold those answers up against where you want the business to go in 2027.
If most of them end somewhere else, your team’s selling a competitor’s pitch on your payroll. And that’s exactly what your next hire will learn.
“At my last firm, we...”
Badass. Now find out how we do it here.
🦘 B
