Smart Thinking

The mysteries of hiring salespeople unlocked: Part 2

In the January 12 issue of CBT, I gave you five ways to upgrade your sales force. Hiring top-performing sales people gets tougher and tougher every day, largely because past performance in days of rapid growth and cherry-picking orders does not predict future excellence.

As business owners and sales managers, you need to constantly be on the lookout for great talent and continually raise the bar for your company. These ideas will force you to look past the resume and inside the candidate in front of you.

• Can the candidate talk about money comfortably and easily? If he can’t, how will he ever discuss accurate budgets with prospects, let alone with current clients? Ask him questions like, “How much did you earn last year?” Watch for “the stammer,” “the avoidance” and “the honesty” in his response. If he lacks confidence and comfort in the money conversation, he will stammer or avoid the answer. If he is overly honest and blunt, will he be nurturing enough with prospects who are uncomfortable talking about budgets?

When it comes to honesty in past earnings, you are looking for several things. First, are his earning requirements realistic for the position? The No.1 reason people leave a company is lack of growth potential. Make sure you can keep him challenged with further salary growth in addition to personal growth for years to come. Second, what was the formula for the salary? Was it 100 percent commission, 100 percent salary or some other combination? This information will help when you ask him about his key performance indicators or behaviors.

• What is her current ratio of calls, appointments and sales? As I mentioned in my last column, use Sandler’s Rule of Three. It takes three questions to get to the real truth. Keep digging because you want to discover if her behavior levels and ratios match the requirements of her previous earnings.

You also want to find out what her comfort level is in prospecting behaviors. Will that number of contacts be adequate to take this person to the top position of your company? If you aren’t upgrading, you are downgrading. This is another reason to use the proper assessment tools. They help you to establish an objective bar with which to measure.

• What is his money concept? By this I mean, what is a large sum of money to him? Consider this. A sale or contract for your company averages over $10,000. Your new salesperson considers a major purchase to be anything over $200. How is he going to hold margins in front of a prospect? He may develop creative financing to fit his budgets, not the prospect’s budget. How do you find out what his money concept is? Ask him what his last big purchase was, and then ask him how he went about buying it.

• What is her “buy cycle”? This uncovers some of her hidden traits that will explain why salespeople don’t use the skills and techniques they have. “Buy cycle” refers to how she makes a major purchase. The way people buy is directly related to the way they sell.

Let’s use Jim as an example. Say Jim sells office copiers. He knows his sales system so well he can role-play in his sleep. However, Jim hasn’t had such a great couple of years, so a $700 new refrigerator is a major purchase for him. He spent nights online matching options and specifications of the latest and greatest models. He combed weeks of Sunday newspaper advertisements. He took weekend family trips to every appliance store to stick his head inside the refrigerators and see how accessible the coils were. He finally found the model, brand and color that fit his home after two months of searching and pondering.

Now, Jim is in front of a prospect who needs, wants and can afford Jim’s best copier. Only the prospect says, “Jim, you are the first company we have talked to about this purchase. We like you and think you have done a great job here, but we need to think about this and ask around to see what your competitors have to offer.” At some level, Jim thinks to himself, “That makes sense. I would too.” So Jim let’s them go, and another one swirls down the drain.

What hidden weaknesses or head trash are your current people hauling around with them? What about your new candidates? Change your current hiring system to find out before it is too late.

Hire well, and then train them to succeed inside your corporate culture. We’ll talk about training in the next article.