We’ve talked about what makes a good salesman before—a high-energy individual with a strong sense of integrity; someone who is a quick study; someone who works to keep the momentum going in good times and bad, etc. But have you ever thought about what good salesmen can do for your brand? After all, your brand is what defines your company, your reputation, your message, and your image. When you’re building a sales team, assessing  the personality traits of your candidates will ensure that, not only are you hiring the right people for your company’s financial success, you’re building customer loyalty by boosting perception of your brand.

                  When you understand what makes a good salesman, you’re more likely to be hiring salespeople who will not only close the sale, but will also exercise behaviors that engage with customers, let them know what your brand stands for, and deliver on the brand promise.

Now, you may or may not be one of the millions of fans of Justin Bieber, but that’s irrelevant in this context. Justin  is a great example of a concept who became a brand, who became a phenomenon. It didn’t just happen, it took a fair amount of work. Once he was discovered on YouTube by an individual who essentially has a great salesperson profile, it was time to promote, promote, promote. In this case, social media was the mode of “selling” Justin’s brand, since that’s the preferred means of communication for  Generation Y, his target “customer.”  It took about three years, but then, as anyone knows who hasn’t been living under a rock, Justin’s brand took off, and now he’s flying higher every day.

OK, so Justin isn’t really a product, and your product is not Justin Bieber; the point is, without all the work and promotion, Justin would still be just one of the millions of YouTube videos instead of the youngest person to ever appear on the cover of Forbes magazine. The ability to promote a product is what makes a good salesman.

If you know you have good salesmen, but they haven’t been relating the value of your brand as part of the selling process, you can start now to consider brand impact as part of what makes a good salesman. Implement brand education as part of your sales training, so that each member of your sales team has a clear understanding of the importance of your brand to them, the message you want your brand to deliver, and a specific way of communicating its relevance to customers.

As your sales force grows, you can be assured that every new hire you make using the Advanced Hiring System will fit the salesperson profile to be a motivated go-getter who will not only work to advance his own success, but the success of your company’s brand. And, since the AHS Sales Hiring Course supplies all the steps to assuring that you understand what makes a good salesman, chances are good that your sales team will help your product evolve to a brand, then to a phenomenon.

When you’re a sales manager, you generally wear a lot of different hats, but you wish you could leave your sales hiring hat it the closet. You have to develop and implement marketing strategies, prepare action plans, oversee sales tactics, keep an eye on expenses, monitor goals and profitability, and provide feedback to your salesmen. And that’s just the short list!

Your job keeps you running hither and yon, doing this and that, with barely enough time to catch your breath. That’s why many sales managers consider sales hiring to be an intrusion on their routine. And, if the new sales hire doesn’t work out for some reason, you end up with more work than if you had never made the hire in the first place.

Granted, using the Advanced Hiring System to hire sales people takes some time if you do it right, but consider this: the success rate of old-fashioned methods of sales hiring is only 1 successful hire out of 4. Isn’t it worth it to invest a little more time in a process that will bring you 3 successful hires out of 4? When you have that kind of success rate you can concentrate on getting your job done, instead of running around putting out the fires started by a bad hire.

Of course, no hiring system is perfect; if it were, the success rate for sales hiring would be 4 out of 4! When you make the effort to follow the path laid out by AHS and do the right kind of targeted recruiting, use a sales personality test to screen the applicants for candidates that fit the salesperson profile, and conduct a scripted interview using your “engineer persona,” you will be rewarded with salesmen who are energetic, focused, and creative. Moreover, they will be quick thinkers who can solve problems for themselves, instead of running to the sales manager. . . you . . . at   every little bump in the road.

The truth is, a bad hire costs more than your time and effort. If someone is not pulling his weight, it seems that the salary, training expenses, and benefits package he receives are just money tossed out the window. That amounts to tens of thousands of dollars. Factor in lost customers and sales opportunities, and the figure can soar upward to the triple digits. If you decide to un-hire a bad hire, there is the problem of an increase in your company’s unemployment rate to make this misstep even more expensive. PLUS, you have to begin the sales hiring process all over again. There’s just no way that anyone can win with a bad hire.

Hiring managers and business owners have to rely on more than their instincts when looking to hire good salesmen and more are requiring applicants take a sales personality test before they even consider interviewing them for a sales position. Testing job applicants has been the norm for many businesses for years, with tests often developed by psychologists to help hiring managers read into the person’s personality to determine if they are going to be a good fit for the position.

The tests do not necessarily help managers understand how to hire salespeople; rather a sales test can help them hire the right people for sales. Not everyone can be effective in sales as it does take the right personality. Most are outgoing, giving them an edge at becoming what seems to be friends with their prospective clients, but a sales personality test can be a better judge of whether they have the personality for the job or not.

Being able to influence the one who make buying decisions can be extracted from the results of a sales personality test, but so can the person’s penchant to either follow directions or think on their own. In many instances good salesmen will be able to make adjustments in their presentation in order to influence the buyer without getting off track from the company’s guidelines. While the sales test being able to determine the applicant’s ability to adapt to changes, if they do not have the natural style and drive to succeed, they may not make the best salesmen.

When managers are first learning how to hire salespeople, one of the first things they should know is what the results of a sales personality test shows and how to read those results. Some applicants will attempt to beat the system, so to speak, by answering the test questions in a way to influence the results more favorably. However, a quality sales personality test will be able to detect attempts at manipulating the results and if you know how to read the results can quickly determine that applicant won’t be the best fit for your company.

The best results from a sales personality test will show the applicant’s ability to influence others as well as their dependability in completing the job assigned to them. Meaning, they are willing to do whatever it take to reach a successful conclusion on sales jobs, even if it means dedicating more time and effort to be the best.