How do you find quality sales staff ?

This is in response to a question posed to me through my LinkedIn account.  The initial question was “How do you find quality sales staff ?” and there was a follow up post that indicated, and I am paraphrasing, that it is directly related to the amount of compensation you are willing to pay.

Since this request came from the Grand Format Printing Group on LinkedIn I am going to focus on that industry.  However, I feel it is worth noting that many of these qualities reach across all sales careers.

I think first and foremost you have to find someone who likes … or better put … loves the product they are selling.  In addition, they understand the real value it provides to customers.  You know this salesperson when you meet them.  They might be selling something you couldn’t possibly imagine selling in your wildest dreams and they love it.  

This passion will help them get through the tough times of slow sales and rejection.  This is one of the key elements in The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracey and something I have found to be true.

I have been fortunate to have worked with some great sales people and I believed they could have been successful selling anything they wanted.  And in many cases they probably could have earned more money by selling other products or services.  But, because the loved the industry they were in, the products and services they sold and the customers they sold to they stayed.  I think this also helped keep them in this industry.

I had people hired away from me and I have recruited people from competitors.  Neither is a sure thing.  I attribute that to culture and if the person you are hiring cannot fit into your culture they won’t be successful.

Therefore, you may have gathered that I do not believe sales people are motivated solely by money.  I do believe they are motivated by what money can do!  This may sound like double talk but it is a very important distinction.  A person will take greater pride in being able to send their child to college (via their sales efforts) than they would by earning the same amount of dollars it costs.

The key word here is pride.  Pride in your work is the one thing that separates everyone.  It is to the best of my knowledge un-measurable.  Yet, if you can find the “pride switch” in someone you can motivate them beyond their abilities and create a working environment that breeds success.

My good friend Alan Jett (ajett@customercentric.com) coached me to ask three specific questions when interviewing a potential new salesperson.  They are:

·         Tell me about your biggest or best sale.

·         Tell me about your worst loss.

·         Tell me how you are different than your competition. 

Each of these answers will help you understand the candidate from different perspectives.  If you are interested in the underlying information you can gain from these feel free to comment and I’ll follow up.

I am a fan of sales profiling.  However, not as a direct yes or no to hiring but rather as a tool for management to follow when bringing this person on board.  It is something I have used and shared with the new hires to let them know where they may excel and where they may be deficient and what I will be doing to help them overcome these plans.

I would also suggest a formal interview and hiring process.  It should include a full disclosure of your expectations for the candidate.  Be as detailed as you can.  If you know how many calls you want this person to make each day then tell them upfront. 

This will help you to be consistent and develop a baseline by which you may be better able to predict success.  In that process I suggest using an outside independent interviewer along with your own internal people.  I recently used Dave Fellman (www.davefellman.com) for a profile, interview and analysis and found it to be extremely helpful.  It is much less expensive to pay for this service then it is to churn through bad sales people.

Internal candidates and / or growing your sales people from within have always have been my preferred path to sales success.  These people are often easier to replace than sales people are to find and they are “pre-tested” with regards to the cultural requirements of the company.  You can’t cut corners with these people.  They should be subject to the same hiring process and evaluations as any candidate and that needs to be explained to them up front.

Finally, track your successes!  Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but experience has shown me only 1 out of 3 new sales hires will make it.  That makes for a tough success rate.  If you measure your successes you will know if you are getting it done.  If you are getting results you are happy with then keep doing what you are doing.  If you are not then you better change something. 

Good luck with what I feel is the most challenging aspect of running a business.  If I can be of assistance feel free to contact me at sales_marketing_support@comcast.net.