Exceptional manufacturing sales professionals have the right blend of technical skills, product knowledge, customer-centric focus, and cultural fit.
Consultative selling skills, motivation, persistence, and overall sales acumen are particularly important in manufacturing and industrial sales where cycles are long and decisions involve multiple stakeholders.
By evaluating candidates against clearly defined criteria—while also remaining attuned to intangibles like relationship orientation and value-selling philosophy—you’ll dramatically improve your hiring success.
Remember that a bad manufacturing sales hire costs far more in lost revenue, damaged customer relationships, compromised technical credibility, and team disruption than the cost of a thorough hiring process.
In technical markets where trust and expertise differentiate winners from losers, you cannot afford to get hiring wrong.
8 Fundamental Skills and Qualities to Look For
1. Consultative Sales Skills
Consultative selling is an approach where the salesperson acts less like a traditional “closer” and more like a trusted advisor. Instead of pushing products, the seller focuses on understanding the customer’s needs and helping them find the right solution—playing the long game: building relationships and focusing on customer success. Over time, this typically leads to better outcomes for both parties over time.
2. Emotional Intelligence in Industrial Settings
Understanding customer emotions and organizational dynamics matters as much in manufacturing as in any other environment. Can candidates read social cues in customer facilities? Do they adapt their approach for different stakeholders—practical plant managers, analytical engineers, cost-focused procurement teams? Can they navigate organizational politics and identify decision influencers?
3. Coachability and Collaboration
Manufacturing sales requires ongoing learning about products, applications, industry trends, and customer operations. As a result, even experienced hires need to adapt to your methodology, technology, and markets. During interviews, assess candidates’ willingness to accept sales coaching, act on feedback, and collaborate with internal experts.
4. Relationship-Building Over Time
Manufacturing sales professionals must build and maintain relationships over months or years. Evaluate candidates’ relationship-building approaches. Do they stay in touch with prospects naturally? Do they find legitimate reasons to add value during long sales cycles? Have they maintained customer relationships that survived competitive threats?
5. Long-Term Orientation
Manufacturing capital equipment sales cycles can span six to 18 months or longer. Candidates must possess the patience and strategic thinking to nurture opportunities over extended periods without getting discouraged. Candidates who expect quick wins or need constant validation often struggle with the reality of manufacturing sales cycles.
6. Intrinsic Motivation Beyond Commission
While compensation matters, the best manufacturing sales professionals are also motivated by solving complex customer problems, mastering technical knowledge, building long-term partnerships, and helping customers achieve measurable operational improvements. Probe beyond surface-level answers to understand genuine motivations.
7. Track Record of Resilience
Manufacturing sales involves project delays, budget freezes, specification changes, and lost deals despite months of effort. Ask candidates to describe times they faced significant setbacks—lost major opportunities, had customer relationships that soured, experienced market downturns that impacted their territory. Resilient candidates take ownership, learn from setbacks, adapt their approach, and maintain optimism through challenges.
8. Industry Knowledge and Network
For experienced candidates, evaluate whether they bring relevant industry relationships, market insights, or competitive intelligence that provides immediate value. Do they understand industry trends like automation, sustainability, supply chain challenges, or workforce issues that impact customer decision-making? Have they built a professional network that could accelerate their effectiveness?
How to Assess and Evaluate Sales Candidates
Getting to know a candidate shouldn’t end with interviews, and it shouldn’t depend solely on intuition. Consider these evaluation techniques for objective insight into manufacturing sales capabilities.
Sales Assessments
Validated sales assessment tools can measure attributes that are difficult to evaluate during interviews, including communication preferences, driving forces, analytical thinking, persuasiveness, and relationship orientation. For manufacturing sales, look for assessments that evaluate technical aptitude and consultative selling capabilities specifically.
Technical Role-Play Exercises
Have candidates conduct discovery conversations about operational challenges, present solutions to technical stakeholders, or handle objections about price versus value. Present real scenarios from your industry. How would you help a customer justify the higher investment in your equipment versus a competitor? This reveals both technical understanding and consultative instincts under pressure.
Problem-Solving Exercises
Assign realistic projects such as developing a territory plan for a geographic area, analyzing a customer’s operations to identify opportunities, creating a value proposition for a specific application, or outlining a strategy for a competitive displacement. This demonstrates analytical thinking, technical application knowledge, and strategic planning capabilities.
Plant Tour or Technical Observation
If possible, have finalists tour your manufacturing facility or a customer operation. Observe what they notice, what questions they ask, and how naturally they engage with technical subject matter. The best manufacturing sales professionals are energized rather than overwhelmed by technical environments.
Technical Team Interaction
Have candidates meet with your product specialists, application engineers, or technical sales support team. Get their assessment of the candidate’s technical aptitude, communication style, and likely effectiveness working with technical resources.
The Manufacturing Imperative: Hire Right or Pay Later
Manufacturing sales roles require unique combinations of technical knowledge, consultative selling skills, strategic thinking, and patience that are not easily found or quickly developed. Take the time to find candidates who not only can sell but who can become trusted advisors to your customers, represent your technical capabilities credibly, and contribute to building a culture of value creation.
By fostering a culture of continuous technical learning and value-based selling—and by hiring professionals who embrace these principles—you can build a manufacturing sales team that drives sustainable growth through genuine customer partnerships.
Find out how The Brooks Group can help you hire, train, and retain a high-performing industrial sales team.
