Having a sales hiring system means, you have a system for sales hiring. A system is a system because the steps of the system have been tested and measured. Each step has been optimized in terms of time and result.

The Advanced Hiring System is not about tests. It is about following the steps of the System.

Because other profile vendors often just sell tests – I can rely on getting a call every week that Vendor X’s tests just didn’t take care of helping them hire a good salesperson.

Not surprising. Any company that claims that their test is a super secret to hiring well has either invented something I’ve never seen in sixteen years or is attempting to mislead the market.

Tests are important, no doubt, in hiring top sales performers. I wouldn’t interview a sales applicant without seeing both of the tests: ValuesMatrix™ and StylesMatrix™.

However before the test, I’d make sure that my Ad was written according to the formula in the AHS Ad-Writing Module and it was running in a place that matched the formula in the AHS Ad-Placement Module.

Most important, I’d make sure to get at least 3 applicants to pass both the ValuesMatrix™ and StylesMatrix™.

Finally, I’d interview each of those applicants 4 times using the script in the AHS 4-Part Interview Module. I’d grade the answers each applicant gave me, tally the scores and hire the one who scored the best.

Following that system I know I am most likely to hire a stud. Conversely if I take shortcuts in the steps I know I am relying on gut feel. Art Sobczak at Business by Phone says, “Gut feel hiring usually just gives you a pain the gut.”

The company ideal is that Type A, kick-butt salesperson. However – the ads are often written by someone from Human Resources. So you have polar opposite personalities trying to make the right hire.

A Human Resources “salesman” ad asks for somebody with customer service skills or account management skills or someone with emotional understanding. Sure, great skills. But you have NO chance of attracting a top sales performer. Customer service is important for companies. But it’s not sales. Sales directors and sales managers have to win the Wrestlemania bout and write their own ads, or they’ll have zero chance of finding the superstars they want.

Doug Wick of Positioning Systems tells me that more and more of his clients are shifting to add a telemarketing effort to their sales teams.

Implementing a telemarketing program today is a lot easier from a technological standpoint. However technology doesn’t fix the problem that most companies are having implementing a successful telephone sales program.

When I first started in sales I was prejudiced against telephone sales.

I was a successful outside salesperson, had a college degree, dressing well, driving a nice car and making serious money in sales. My mental picture of a telephone salesperson was a part time housewife in a house dress calling me to subscribe to the local newspaper while I was eating dinner.

Then, one day, when I was at the local Wheat First Security office checking on my stocks, it hit me: Gordon Granger IV, my broker, was a telephone salesperson. He had a college degree, dressed well, drove a nice car and was making serious money.

Point #1: Telephone salespeople and outside salespeople are very similar.

Both inside and outside salespeople demand comparable incomes – that is if you want to hire a Gordon Granger not some housewife in a house dress.

Appearance is mostly irrelevant.  Telephone salespeople can potentially be more casually dressed, but it’s not a particularly useful criteria.

Values are also very similar between both types of salespeople. Top salespeople whether outside or telephone need to be High Practical’s. When you look at the ValuesMatrix™ that’s high Money or Power.

I’ll devote another post to the differences and similarities between the two types of salespeople because it requires a more complete explanation. For now, the short answer is most telephone salespeople are very much like outside salespeople. However, super cream-of-the-crop telephone salespeople are different in one key personality characteristic.  In an upcoming blog post I’ll spell this out more clearly.

Next post we’ll talk about the nuances that can really give you an advantage and save you time in turnover.