Inside Strategic Coach: Connecting Entrepreneurs With What Really Matters

The Surprising Reason Great Salespeople Fail At Hiring

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Jul 8, 2025

Successful salespeople often struggle with hiring due to their inherent bias toward closing deals. They may prioritize persuasion over proper evaluation, treating interviews like sales pitches. A mindset shift is essential; interviewers need to adopt a buyer's perspective instead of a seller's. A systematic and objective hiring approach is crucial, with a focus on non-verbal cues and clear communication. Ultimately, the best candidates sell themselves on their contributions, while interviewers should remain discerning evaluators, not eager persuaders.

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ADVICE

Salespeople Shouldn't Interview

Avoid having salespeople conduct interviews because they treat them like sales pitches.
Instead, ensure the applicant does the selling by convincing you they're the right fit.

ANECDOTE

Selling During Interviews Can Mislead

Shannon Waller shared an interview where she was selling the company despite a big red flag.
A colleague stepped in to stop the hire, showing the need for dispassionate hiring evaluators.

INSIGHT

Poker-Faced Hiring Evaluators

Strategic Coach’s hiring team acts like poker players—neutral and without tells.
Dispassionate evaluators better identify the right candidate fit.

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Just because someone excels in their role doesn’t mean they should interview new hires—especially if they’re a salesperson. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller reveal why great salespeople often make the worst hiring decisions, how to spot the right evaluators for your team, and the mindset shift that separates a persuasive seller from a discerning buyer.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

The role of a job seeker in an interview.
The role that an interviewer should be playing.
Why Dan isn’t involved in the hiring process at Strategic Coach^®.
A secret ingredient in the Strategic Coach hiring process.
The powerful question you should ask every prospective customer and team member.

Show Notes:

Salespeople shouldn’t conduct interviews because they’ll treat every interaction like a sale—focused on overcoming objections rather than evaluating fit.

Great salespeople are wired to close deals, which means they’ll prioritize getting a "yes" over finding the right candidate.

A sales-driven interviewer risks hiring the wrong person simply because they couldn’t resist "winning" the interaction.

As the person doing the hiring, you’re the buyer, not the seller.

It’s the job of the applicant to convince you they’re the right fit.

It’s not the interviewer’s job to get the applicant excited about the position.

Your hiring team should be dispassionate evaluators—think poker players, not persuaders.

The best hires are those who sell you on their ability to contribute to your company’s future.

Confidence in hiring comes from being decisive, not from convincing someone to join.

Trust your instincts—if a candidate feels off early on, that feeling rarely improves over time.

Resources:

Unique Ability^®

Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan

How To Improve Business By Asking Good Questions

Always Be The Buyer by Dan Sullivan

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage