Interviewing

How to Stop Getting Tricked Hiring Salespeople Who Can’t Sell

Most companies have one thing in common when they hire salespeople.

The Number One tool they use to screen sales applicants is…

The résumé or LinkedIn profile

Have you been burned enough times yet by the Perfect Résumé or LinkedIn profile?

You’ve probably realized that most sales applicants are a COMPLETE waste of time.

They all have the same problem. They cannot sell. No matter what their LinkedIn profle says.

A few years ago, the CEO of Yahoo! was forced to resign… After it was discovered that his résumé was full of… A bunch of jobs he never did… And a bunch of schooling he never had.

THE CEO!!!

You've almost certainly seen stories about famous résumé cheats.

It’s pretty standard for job-seekers to fake… Their education, their experience, their skills, and their references.

So choosing who you interview based on their résumé means…You are probably using a couple pages of BS as your first step in hiring… the one person who is MOST responsible for creating your company income.

Not long ago, we were called in to help a large publicly traded religious broadcaster. This stations had good listener ratings. Very popular stations. But their sales were weak.

We analyzed their sales hiring practices. They hired salespeople 100% based on résumés, LinkedIn profiles and interviews. They ONLY interviewed and hired salespeople… whose résumé showed they were fired up with the station's religious mission.

But we know that the BEST salespeople are MOST motivated… By MONEY and/or POWER.

Religious views are not a significant factor in sales success.

Sales is about making sales. It's hard work. If your applicant is not motivated by the right things for sales… Then when the hard part comes (and it will)…

… They fade and stop doing the hard work. They have to deal with rejection time after time after time. To keep making calls, they have to REALLY want that money!

When their highest values don't match those of proven top sales performers… That is a BIG problem for you.

Solution?

Start using a values-based assessment to screen applicants. Stop wasting your time on applicants with beautiful résumés…Who are not money-motivated and who cannot sell.

If you're not getting the right kinds of salespeople on your team we've created a quick survey that will help you get it right.

The quiz will take you less than a minute to complete. It will help you laser in on what's keeping you from hiring the best salespeople.

Its our gift to sales managers who want a simple easy formula for hiring quality salespeople. Just click the link and you'll be taken to the short survey.

It'll give you the results instantly. Go ahead click the link and complete the survey now.

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Why DISC Scores Consistenly Lead Sales Managers to Ruin

When I first came across DISC in 1989, I was skeptical about DISC. How could the 20-30 set of words in a DISC test help me recruit quality salespeople?

I had signed up for a marketing conference in L.A together with 200 other attendees. One of the presenters Jim Cecil, a Vistage coach, distrtibuted my first exposure to DISC .

It was pre-Internet so administering the test was quite different. in the end, 200 attendees to a $25,000 a seat conference were“ooing” and “ahing.”

Jim explained that DISC alone, is not enough to identify best sales candidate. Without an test to elicit Values, you won’t find top performers.

That said, I took that tool back to Virginia and we began running 100’s of profiles every month. And what I discovered very quickly was the version of DISC we were using was too difficult to use in sales hiring.

Today, sales hiring done right, means getting lasrge numbers of applicants.

We tell our clients 50 applicants per postion minmum. (We used to say 20-30 but applicants have become more clever at faking a track record of success.)

Using the version we had been using with its 20-30 pages of dialogue was too confusing. Plus the verbiage was open to interpretation in any number of different ways.

SInce 1989 I tested 14 different versions but never got closer to a tool that gave us “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”

In 2003 I decided to create my own proprietary DISC. What I needed was a sales test that told me, “Should I call this applicant in for an interview or not?”

Most DISC tests have one fatal flaw: They are too vague because they are for many positions. That’s why the Advanced Hiring CORE Style Filtration Extractor(tm) is a sales-only.

We’re happy to share it with any sales manager who is sick and tired of being disappointed with their sales hires. Click the button below and we’re happy to show you an easier, more accurate way to use DISC.

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Sales Best Practices During Pandemic

A near complete shutdown of the economy is an unprecedented event. This did not happen during the great depression, not as a result of any world war, nor ever before as a response to a contagious illness. But here we are. Focusing on the important big stuff and developing some best practices will go a long way to helping your sales organization survive, if not thrive, during the pandemic.

The World is Closed
Photographer: Edwin Hooper | Source: Unsplash

A solid sales team is important to any business. We typically devote most of our time to helping companies build great sales teams. If you’re in need of building your team, click HERE to learn more about what we do.

We do, however, talk with some of our larger clients about issues outside the scope of our sales recruitment coaching. I have included some ideas on best practices during a pandemic that we have discussed over the last few weeks.

  • Focus on customer relationships. Retaining your base of regular customers will prove lifesaving for your business. Of course you need to get new business and your competitors who are not focusing on their customer relationships might well be a good target for getting it. Strengthen your customer relationships to make them a tough target for your competitor.
  • Adjust your pitching process. Adapt your offerings to address specific pain points of your prospects. They likely have more time now and perhaps product demonstrations or free trial periods might attract interest. When things return to normal, these prospects might want to keep a valuable product you’ve introduced.
  • Offer flexible terms. Money is tight for most businesses, likely including yours. Minimizing the pain of more drains on cashflow will not only help your prospects, it will also let them know you’re trying to shepherd them through the current environment.

Selling is a challenging profession even in good times. COVID19 is making it an increasingly tricky game. Helping your sales team develop new best practices will go a long way toward recovering the ground lost to the shutdown.

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