If you have followed this blog to any degree at all, you’re probably aware of the importance of putting your sales hiring candidates through the Advanced Hiring System screening process to determine values and styles. This is an essential step because the sales personality test allows you to save hours of time by narrowing down the field of prospects to a manageable three or four before you even begin the first interviews.
When you’re looking for salesmen who can dramatically outperform the average, mediocre salespeople you may have hired in the past, you want prospects who have scored high on the “Power” and “Money” areas of the Values Matrix of the sales personality test.
Now, don’t think of these scores as an indication that the prospect is power-crazed or money hungry; just know that he is a person who feels that financial security is important, and he achieves fulfillment by influencing others (in a perfectly civilized manner).
While we may associate power with aggressiveness, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a prospect that scores high in Power on the Values matrix is going to be someone who will exert pressure on customers; we’re not talking about that kind of power. He will, however, display a level of confidence and assertiveness so that he can remain in control of the sale, standing toe-to-toe with difficult customers—even hagglers—without backing down.
Once he’s successfully completed the selling process, he feels he has controlled the emotional state of the customer and guided her to close the deal. He has achieved his goal, and he savors the rewards of power. You may not be able to detect that kind of confidence in a resume or an interview, but a sales personality test will spot it.
As the world of commerce continues to get more complex with an economic environment that refuses to be predictable, as well as new terminology, techniques, and tools, it’s the salesman who scores high on the Money profile that manages to stay focused on the essential outcome: the sale. Since he is motivated by his internal drives and values, the external distractions are merely annoyances that he can push aside.
On the job, these core values serve to focus the salesman’s concentration on the most effective strategies for selling. In meeting his personal goals, a stellar salesman understands that the way in which he deals with customers is vital. His first priority is to understand the customers—their needs, their problems, and the way they think. He takes this knowledge to present a unique perspective on how his product or solution can help the customers in ways that they had never even considered.
Because an applicant whose core values are based on Power and Money will be driven to produce results, you can be confident of your decision to trust the results of the sales persoanality test and add this candidate to the sales team. Chances are, it won’t be long before you have another top producer.
