hiring salespeople
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Sales Selection Case History – The Fix for This Insanity Works 99% of the Time
- October 2, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
If you had a crystal ball to predict whether or not your next sales candidate would succeed in a difficult selling role at your company, wouldn’t you want to use it? Heck, you would want to look into that thing even if it wasn’t a difficult selling role. But what if you were recruiting kids right out of college? What would you do then? Would you just recruit a whole bunch of kids and keep the ones who didn’t quit? Would you hire three times more than you needed and just keep the ones who were successful? Would you just hire anyone who looked and sounded good and go from there? What if you could use the crystal ball? Could that even work with college grads? Recently, we had an opportunity to study and answer that very question and the results will surprise you!
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Why You Must Hire Salespeople Right Now
- June 4, 2015
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Forbes conducted a survey of Fortune 500 CEO’s and 82% of them said they would be hiring more people within 2 years. Why should that be important to you?
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Top 5 Keys to Select and Hire Great Salespeople in 2015
- December 8, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
I’m always amused when an email comes through with a message that says something like, “Maybe we should target candidates that aren’t recommended” or “Why do so many candidates lack Commitment?” or “Your assessments are only recommending 1 out of every 5 candidates!” or “The questions don’t fit the role!” or “Thanks for saving us so much time – we would have hired some of these losers last year!”
I can usually determine, just from the comment of the email, exactly who, by title, must have sent it to us. Here are some funny examples:
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2 Biggest Mistakes Companies Make with Sales Candidates
- February 24, 2014
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
At this point in the process, the candidate is the appetizer, movie trailer, and test drive – all rolled into one. If they don’t complete the application and assessment, then why do sales managers and HR managers try so hard to get them to do it? Haven’t these candidates already shown you all you need to know about their follow-through, follow-up, attention to detail, ability to work a sales process, ability to take direction, and commitment to the result? These candidates might even be thinking, “Not if I have to work this hard…”
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What Google Might Know about Hiring Salespeople
- June 22, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The NY Times posted a story on June 20 about Google, their recruiting efforts, and big data. The story really doesn’t reveal that much, but there is an interesting quote (that I will get to shortly) that is relevant to hiring salespeople. When we help companies get the sales selection piece right, there are several components that we tweak. We help them get the following things right:
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Latest Research on Personality Assessments for Sales Selection
- April 15, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Two articles caught my attention today.
The first, 10 Traits of Successful Salespeople, was typical of the misinformation that often passes for must-read information:
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Sales Hiring Chronicles: The Doctor, The Drug Dealer and The User
- January 31, 2013
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Recruiters think that all of their candidates walk on water. Clients think that because of our assessment, quality advice and guidance that we walk on water.
So the recruiter sends 5 of the best candidates ever to the client, who has them assessed, and 3 are not recommended. The recruiter is upset, “Why are you using that stupid assessment? You don’t need that! I know these candidates and they’re awesome.”
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Top 10 Things – The First Minute of a Sales Candidate Interview
- February 2, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
In the first minute of your interview with a sales candidate you should know whether you don’t want that candidate working for you. Think about it. If you decide in minute one that this candidate is NOT for you, there are options. You can end the interview and find yourself an hour that you didn’t expect to have. You can complete the interview for practice or you can do it to see if the candidate succeeds at winning you over during the remainder of the interview. If you can be won over after you have written a candidate off, that is exactly what you want in a salesperson.
What should you look for in the first minute that would suggest you don’t want this candidate?
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After Accepting the Sales Job Will the Salesperson Back Out?
- January 17, 2012
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Did a sales candidate ever accept your job offer only to back out prior to the agreed upon start date because the individual decided to stay with the current employer?
This happened to a client and it had a tremendous ripple effect.
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Selling Power Hit and Then Miss the Mark on Sales
- November 17, 2010
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
Yesterday it was the Harvard Business Review article and today it’s a Selling Power article.
They pointed to three qualities that are highly predictive indicators of a top sales performer. Let’s see how their claims (using data from personality assessments) stack up against real sales science (using Objective Management Group’s data from sales specific assessments).
They said the 3 highly predictive qualities are: