Welcome to the Advanced Hiring System E-course.

If you’re looking to avoid the pain that comes from hiring dud salespeople and instead to hire salespeople who really can sell This E-course is for you. In fact, if you follow the steps in this E-course you’re going to find your ability to not get fooled into hiring losers is going to change forever.

I learned how to hire salespeople when I had a sales team of 200 salespeople. Through a lot of good luck thinking up a hot product in the mid-1990’s my company found itself in the position to drastically build our sales team.

As a sales manager, I had experience hiring 10-15 salespeople. Now I was to hire 100 salespeople a year! By the end of the second year we had 200 salespeople on staff. Great for growth.

Except our top 40 salespeople were producing four-fifths of our revenue. The 80/20 rule was hurting our ability to be profitable 160 of our 200 salespeople were weak, we were constantly in danger of turning them over at any minute.

Looking at the production numbers we asked.
What was it about these top 40 salespeople that made them unique?
What was it they held as valuable?
What was it in their personalities that made them great salespeople?

I became a man with a mission. I needed to figure out why those few good salespeople produced, while most sales hires failed. A retired accountant forced me to think analytically. He helped me realize that if I could figure out what made these 40 top-performers effective I would increase our revenue — better sales hiring is more valuable than any training, packaging or better leads.

Because I had a large sales team I was able to test and compare hiring strategies. I figured out what I call the 6 Basic Rules of Sales Hiring.

In 2003 I sold that company and retired for six months long enough to realize I didn’t want to retire after all. Since then I’ve helped nearly 1000 managers learn the system I developed. I created this E-course to show sales managers who are fed up not being to hire salespeople with more confidence. It’s free and there’s nothing held back

There is no perfect way to select salespeople but there are better ways than most do it.

Do you review a bunch of resumes (or LinkedIn profiles)?
Sort for previous work experience?
Or better yet previous industry sales experience?
That process has never worked and will never work!

Stay tuned next issue will reveal the one secret to hiring top sales performers.

I’ve heard it so many times over the last 14 years. At this point I just chuckle…

In a monthly client service call, Angie, the GM of a client radio station told me she had hired applicants last month.

“Three”, she said, “Were based totally on the system. And the fourth one didn’t ‘pass’ but he got great references and was an experienced industry salesman.”

“How’re all four doing?” I asked.

She went down the list and told me about each hire. “The fourth one, the one who didn’t pass, I fired. He was so disruptive everybody was happy to see him go.”

No surprise he didn’t work out.

He was a natural High-S style. But to do his job well he had to go out and make sales calls. High-S’s don’t like to leave the nest. He was very unlikely to want to leave the building – hard to be an outside salesperson and a High-S.

I’m posting the 4 graphs below. If you can pick the applicant who was too High-S for outside sales, we’ll add 5 additional profiles to your bank of profiles. If you’re not an AHS client, we’ll create a Free Trial Account to put your 5 free profiles into. We’ll announce the answer and winners on next Friday February 7, 2014

Join the sales hiring conversation and Leave a comment below.

Pick the Sales Dud

Most of us will admit that self-esteem is an issue that develops in our childhood and follows us throughout our lives, and hiring managers know that high self-esteem is a key factor in what makes a good salesman.  As long as a person has a high level of self-esteem, he will most likely also have many of the other traits that determine what makes a good salesman: enthusiasm, self-motivation, energy, competitiveness, resilience, and a positive outlook. These are all fundamental aspects of sales success.

A healthy level of self-esteem is what gives salesmen the confidence to go after a target and follow the process just to experience the greatest sound in the world, “YES”. Each sale builds more self-esteem, which creates more confidence, which leads to more sales, and the cycle has the power to repeat itself indefinitely. When a candidate shows the potential to engage in this cycle of success, you know he has what makes a good salesman.

Combined with a competitive nature, high self-esteem translates into a persuasive disposition, which in turn translates into an almost irresistible force (for good). Salesmen with these qualities see the influence they have over others—the way they are able to inspire others to make decisions—and it makes them feel good, not only about themselves, but good in general.

Even in cases where salesmen are rejected, and those cases do occur, a high level of self-esteem enables them to bounce back and keep going, rather than see the rejection as some kind of personal failure that makes it harder and harder to face the next challenge. Like the Energizer Rabbit, good salesmen keep going, and going . . . .

This is not arrogance, nor is it narcissism. Most hiring managers want to avoid the salesmen that customers perceive as obnoxious. A high self-esteem enables a salesman to be proactive, not pushy; strong-willed, not mule-headed; motivated, not confrontational; and confident, not smug. With high self-esteem, salesmen feel natural in any situation, and they can control it with no sign of obnoxious behavior.

Even though good salesmen may have a healthy self-concept, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have some limitations. Rather than ignoring those limitations or despairing of ever improving themselves, good salesmen constantly self-evaluate to stay connected to an  awareness of both their weaknesses and their strengths; they work on creating a balance to capitalize on their strong points, but remain realistic in their expectations and goals.

Sales managers probably most appreciate the fact that the salesmen who exhibit high self-esteem will be the ones who aren’t always looking for emotional and/or professional support from others. As long as supervisors follow recommendations revealed in the pre-employment tests, such as the ones in the AHS sales hiring materials, to recognize their achievements, reward their successes, etc., these salesmen will always maintain a high performance level in every phase of the job. They are the self-starters who will set challenging goals for themselves, and will do everything within their power to achieve those goals. That’s ultimately what makes a good salesman.