Understanding the Sales Force

One attendee asked about my comprehensive guidelines for on boarding new salespeople during the first 90 Days.  I believe that most companies set their new salespeople up for failure.  I believe you should prepare your new salespeople for success.  While I have probably posted about this subject on various occasions, I’ll try to get it all in here.

Most management teams don’t have a clue how to interview a sales candidate.  I’ve seen them waste precious time reviewing their job history.  I’ve seen them put candidates through hypothetical situations, and attempt to pass judgement on whether candidates have sales ability despite the fact that most of them don’t know how make that determination!

What does it take for a company to achieve consistent, predictable sales performance? 

So what can you do if you have to fill one of those sales positions that won’t pay the sales major league minimum? You must somehow rework your compensation plan, and raise the bar in terms of what a good salesperson should generate in revenue.

We were so impressed that our little five-year-old knew seven of the planets and laughed so hard that he included Krypton.  He still isn’t old enough to know the difference between fantasy and reality in certain situations.  Like salespeople.

Please listen to your salespeople make their calls.  They have to be able to do better than this!

We assessed nearly 100 candidates and half of them were recommended.  I still have a surplus of 12 more recommended candidates I can screen by phone should the need arise. I interviewed 5 candidates yesterday and have 1 scheduled for Tuesday.  The client already has 2 perfect candidates to choose from.

I interviewed two candidates for a client yesterday.  Candidate #1 had great people skills and didn’t answer a single question head on.  In other words, he heard the question and answered something completely different than what I asked.  Why? He didn’t have a good answer for what I asked so he chose a story he was comfortable with instead.  It’s a good strategy but I can see through it.  Can you?  The stories were great and show the candidate in a wonderful light, but do the stories you are told in the interview really answer your questions?  Always inspect the answers and when they aren’t answers to the question you asked, point it out and ask again.

There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t get an email or a call from someone, attempting to hire salespeople, where they are complaining about either the lack of candidates or the lack of hirable candidates. This week, rather than advising clients, I conducted a turn-key recruiting project myself.  Here are the results for the first 4 days: