Video Rant #3 – Without a Sales Hiring System, You Are Screwed

I’ve seen a lot of successful businesses over the years. One thing they all have in common is, they have systems for EVERYTHING. So they can break every aspect of their business down into steps. And once you can see all the steps, you can pretty quickly analyze what’s working and what’s not. Now … if you’re not overjoyed with your company’s sales production right this moment, then you absolutely need a system for sales hiring.

Have you ever hired somebody you KNEW was the PERFECT salesperson? And then 6 weeks in, you’re thinking, “Uh-oh! THIS does not look good.” Three MONTHS later, they quit. Or you fire them. If you go thru that WITHOUT a system, you have no way of knowing WHERE you screwed it up. And I guarantee you, EVERYBODY who’s hired even just a few salespeople has screwed it up SOMEWHERE along the way.

So creating a system gives you the tool most sales hirers just don’t have. You can identify what’s working, what’s not, where they screwed up, where they got it right. That’s why you NEED a tested, proven sales hiring system.

Many companies only start looking for a salesperson when one of their people fails or quits. All of a sudden, it’s a tight time-frame. Let’s say your rep gives 2 weeks’ notice. Do you really think you can hire an effective salesperson in 2 weeks?

You gotta stop what you’re doing, get ads up, wait for people to call, decide which applicants to interview, do the interviews, make an offer. It’s a tight position. And last-minute sales hires rarely ever work.

You’re on a short road to failure. We know, statistically, 75% to 90% of ALL sales hires fail in their first year. Your odds of success are bad.

Look. I’ve been hiring salespeople for more than 16 years, for my own business and, of course, for clients. In 16 years, I’ve gone thru a QUARTER-MILLION sales applicants. And number one, natural-born salespeople are rare. Number two, hiring people who are NOT natural salespeople and turning them into salespeople is close to impossible. It’s WAY easier and more efficient to hire people who are CLONES of tested, proven, successful salespeople. That’s why you’ve GOT to have a good applicant profiling system.

People tell me, “Well, we train them here.” Yeah, RIGHT! To some degree, training can work. Listen. Let’s say, all of a sudden, you decide you’re gonna be an artist. No proven ability, but you’re gonna be a painter. But your FAMILY depends on YOU to produce art that’ll pay to support them. So my question is, what’s your ramp-up time? You suddenly have to successfully do something that is not at ALL your natural tendency. Over time, maybe it works out, to some degree. But it sure won’t be a quick solution. And it will almost certainly involve a LOT of pain for you and everyone in your family.

Think about a time you were talking to a salesperson. And whatever they were saying, you just wanted to buy. You felt GOOD talking to them. They had an ABILITY to move you in their direction, to make it EASY for you to go along with them. THAT is a rare, rare talent. Can you train THAT talent? Maybe, in some cases. But our data shows it mostly does NOT work. I’ve talked to some of the best sales trainers on the planet. They tell me they’re OFTEN handed salespeople who just CANNOT sell. Their personality does not mesh with sales.

They can’t quickly establish rapport. They can’t think on their feet. Lousy language skills. And more than ANYTHING, they CANNOT take rejection and keep on going. A salesperson has to deal with disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. That’s why only 3% of the population shine at sales. All the rejection just kills them. It takes a very, very, very special person to handle constant rejection. And whatever sales hiring process you’re using right now, you are NOT finding those special people who will stick with it, no matter what. And it’s not easy to find them, because they are so rare.

And THAT is why you need Advanced Hiring System. I’m Alan Fendrich. Give me a call.

Video Rant #4 – 5 Secrets To a Successful Sales Hiring Interview

Most companies interview salespeople to find out if they are persuasive. And they come away from the interview saying, “They really handled themselves well in the interview.” In other words, the candidate was persuasive in the interview. The interviewer felt persuaded. So they come away from this interview basically saying, “Wow, this applicant was really persuasive.” But it turns out the candidate was ONLY persuasive for the interview. Once they got hired, they never persuaded anybody. And a fair number of them never even went out and made sales calls.

At Advanced Hiring System, we’ve been hiring salespeople for a long, long time. It’s WAY more effective to use a psychological instrument, a personality test, to screen your applicants, than to try to screen them by interview. Before you ever even schedule an interview, you’ve GOT to know for sure you are talking to someone who is motivated the right way.

You’ve GOT to know, do they really enjoy the process of persuading prospects to buy something? You MUST find this out BEFORE you ever bring them in for an interview. You want salespeople who are motivated by money and power. MOST of your applicants will NOT be in that group.

And if you don’t filter them BEFORE the interview to determine whether their values and personality styles are suitable for sales, then you are creating ONE BIG MESS for yourself. If your goal is to discover their personality and values in the actual interview, then you will NOT accomplish what a sales hiring interview MUST accomplish. So Secret #1 is, NEVER interview an applicant who has not already passed values and styles personality testing.

Your purpose in the interview is NOT to determine if they can persuade you. You need to find out if they have emotional maturity and stick-to-itiveness. Will they follow through? You’ve got to KNOW that, because most people you hire will NOT follow through. And how are they going to handle rejection? Selling is a great career with a ton of disappointment. The vast majority of people who try selling just get beat up by the rejection. If you’ve done ANY selling, you know that the vast majority of a salesperson’s time is dealing with rejection.
• You think they’re going to buy today, but they don’t buy today.
• You think you’ve got an appointment today, but they cancelled the appointment.
• You think you’ve agreed on a price. But when you come down to the final details, they won’t buy at the price you need to sell it for in order to make the deal.
A salesperson’s life is disappointment after disappointment after disappointment. It takes a special, special person to handle that.

What keeps the salesperson on track is to continue to work the prospect and work the prospect, and work the prospect. A successful salesperson MUST have the ability to stick in there and to keep moving forward. THAT is your number one goal in the interview. So Secret #2 is, your goal in the interview is to find out if they can take a licking and keep on ticking, as the old Timex commercial said.

In our experience, what works best is a MINIMUM of three separate interviews of each candidate who passed the styles and values profiling. You start the 3 interviews knowing that the first two are generally just a bunch of BS. Really, it’s only by the THIRD interview that they see YOU as someone they can trust. They can talk to you openly then. And THAT is Secret #3. You will not start getting actual high-quality, TRUTHFUL information until that THIRD interview. Yes, I wish it was not that way. But in real life, it IS that way, so you MUST do at least 3 interviews.

Also – interviewing best practices require that you DO NOT SELL in the interview. Just stay objective. Sit back. Pretend you’re not involved emotionally in the process. Just objectively analyze the quality of the answers.

Secret #4: Scripting is ESSENTIAL for an interview. Ask the SAME questions in the SAME order for every applicant. That’s the only way to accurately compare one applicant against another. You need a grading system to establish the quality of the answers, so you can objectively calculate who your best applicant is. The sad fact is, MOST sales managers get tricked into hiring the applicant who created the most rapport. Or the one with the prettiest smile. Or the guy in the Brooks Brothers suit. You’ve got to SCRIPT your interview, GRADE the answers, and compare accurately.

And Secret #5: At the end of Interview Number THREE, you should stress them out. Indicate to them that you are NOT going to hire them. See how they come back and sell themselves to you. Do they demonstrate the ability to keep going, despite rejection? If they don’t handle that rejection well, or if they just give up … then that is EXACTLY what they’ll do when they’re out there selling for you. You’ve got to eliminate those guys.

So those are the 5 interviewing xxx that most companies do not do. Try ‘em. You’ll like the results. This is Alan Fendrich with Advanced Hiring System. Give me a call. 1-703-229-4224.