Video Rant #9

A Big Reason Why Your Company Struggles
To Hire Salespeople Who Can REALLY Sell

One of my best friends sold for me 20 years ago at Radio Profits Corporation. AMAZING salesperson. Once he gets the prospect in his crosshairs, they may as well just hand over their wallet. The beauty is, they don’t know they’re being sold. Everything Bruce says is just totally logical. No pressure. No emotion. Just comfortable as hell.

People love him. His prospects become his customers and his friends.

So then we sold Radio Profits. Bruce went to work for a company selling environmental testing and construction testing. It’s a BIG market. Companies need a lot of scientific tests to comply with government regulations. For instance, companies have to satisfy a long list of health regulations, to keep things safe for consumers and avoid problems with the government.

So testing is a monster business. Bruce sold for one of the biggest companies that do this testing. One day he showed me that company’s compensation strategy. It was like a maze. Every paragraph had something you couldn’t figure out. It was so convoluted, the company sales team used to joke about it.

Bruce sold more of this testing than anybody else on the East Coast, double or triple the #2 guy. And he’d only been with them a year or two. He was stomping it. BUT he wasn’t the top earner. And THAT was extremely de-motivating to him. Company eventually went broke. They just weren’t very profitable, because the sales team wasn’t being paid very well for the deals they brought in.

It’s not that unusual. A LOT of compensation strategies are not well-engineered. Too complicated. BIG mistake.

A star salesperson who’s considering joining your sales team sees it as a very bad indicator if your compensation plan is hard to understand. A good salesperson looks at that and thinks, “These are smart guys. They could make it easy to understand. But they didn’t. If they make it tough for me to figure out how I’m being paid, then THAT makes it easier for them to screw me.”

That type of compensation plan will NOT result in a strong bottom line for your company.

This is Alan Fendrich. I’d be happy to give you my thoughts on your company sales compensation plan. Give me a call.

We’ve been working with clients to hire top performing salespeople for 16 years.  In truth, from time to time, I feel like I’ve said it all.

And then, I read an article on LinkedIn and realize, once again, why more than 3 out of 4 sales hires fails.

First of all, focus on what you are looking for in an interview. In our System, we profile sales applicants before we meet them.

Because we do this, we know  the values and personality style ahead of time. We know the applicant matches the values and style of most top salespeople.

In the interview you’re looking for the applicant to give examples in their lives  of:
•    Stick-to-ive-ness
•    Follow through
•    Ability to overcome adversity
•    Entrepreneurialism

Second, structured interviews get you high quality answers. Never “wing it” in an interview. Have all your questions planned and prewritten.

Third, ask the same questions, in the same order, of each applicant. By nature we tend to like people we “bond” with. But we’re not looking for a friend here.  We are trying to determine if they applicant is tough enough to do the hard work of selling.

By asking the same questions in the same order,  you are able to compare the applicant’s answers.  This is a key point.

Finally, never ask the following questions that Afa Front in the LinkedIn article suggests. They are too open-ended. You won’t get any information that will help you pick the best applicant.

1. Tell Me About Yourself
This is a horrible question. It gives the applicant to take control of the interview. If you believe that is what selling is about, you’re bound to hire duds.

2. What’s Your Greatest Strength?
Another bad question because you won’t be able to compare the answers you get. One applicant will tell one lie, another applicant will tell another lie.

3. Why Should We Hire You?
What would be a right answer? Exactly there is no way to score this answer. Skip it.

4. Do You Have Any Questions for Us?
Can you imagine a lawyer asking that of a witness in a court room? Bad  question. Only gives up control of the interview.

Delivering a structured, scripted interview for every sales applicant puts you ahead of 3 out of 4 sales hirers – and is one of the keys to successful sales hiring.

Video Rant #2

My client Tom has used our service to build a team of solid sales pros.

He laughs a bit and tells me the 3 words he’s SO thankful to get from us, because they’ve saved him SO much time and SO many headaches. And the 3 words are…

“DO – NOT – INTERVIEW!”

When you get THAT message from us, it means the prospect profile testing shows an applicant who does NOT have the values or style of a top salesperson.

And that means the chance is sky-high if you hire that person, they’ll cost you time, money, and headaches. They’ll flame out. And then you’re back at the beginning. You have to start all over again.

I’m telling you now, you MUST NOT INTERVIEW any applicant who has not passed our profile testing.

And it gets tricky, because if you DO interview these guys, they often really impress you in the interview. But then, you pay the price later. You’ll NEVER build a solid sales team when your applicant pool is full of people who are not money-motivated. They can fool anybody in the interview. But they can’t fool our testing.

You GOTTA understand how crucial this is. I can’t tell you how many companies have come to us in bad, bad shape. And when I profile their sales force, it turns out their sales team is a bunch of people who are NOT motivated by money and power. THAT is the kiss of death.

Look. I know it’s hard for you and me to believe this. But the vast majority of sales applicants are happy JUST to earn a living. Oh, they may have wet dreams about kicking butt revenue-wise. But they just will never make the effort necessary to make it happen. They will NOT put themselves in front of a consistent stream of qualified prospects, day after day, week after week, month after month. They can’t handle the rejection. It’s too much PAIN for them. So they go into hiding. Those guys will NEVER bring home the bacon for you.

Our profile testing identifies WHICH of your applicants are clones of legendary salespeople, and which ones are hoping you’ll be their next sugar daddy.

You NEED us to test every applicant you have. It will change your life.

This is Alan Fendrich at Advanced Hiring System. Give me a call.