It’s possible to hire sales people who will outperform your average employees without using any complicated hiring procedure that’s costly to implement. Advanced Hiring System shows you how. All you have to do is change your sales hire system.

Why Do Your Hire Sales People?

You probably want more sales. Who doesn’t? But you have to ask yourself a few other critical questions before starting to accept job applications.

• What salesperson do I want to hire? What qualities am I looking for in him or her?
• What makes a good salesperson? Do I have any success stories in my company that I could take as model?
• How much can I pay my best salespersons? Can I afford to hire the top performers? Will they be content with what I can offer them? Why would they prefer to work with me and not my competitors?

It’s important to have answers to all these questions before you hire sales people, if you expect to make your hiring process more effective, and so reach to the top performers out there.

The DISC Assessment

DISC is a behavioral model based on the work of psychologist William Marston. It’s the most used business personality assessment model, and many will say that it’s the best.

You have probably used the DISC assessment already when hiring sales people – almost all sales managers do. Advanced Hiring System relies on the DISC model, but expands on it, making it an even more effective personality assessment that will help you hire sales people who outperform your existing sales department employees.

What Makes a Good Salesperson?

The right values and the right personality. While every salesperson is ultimately unique, there’s one thing that all salespersons have in common: a drive for money and power. That’s why, using the DISC model, you want to find and then interview those applicants who have a strong tendency for money and power.

But that’s not all. To hire sales people who will outperform the rest you have to compare your applicants’ personality with that of proven top salespersons. In this way you can spot those few applicants who have the most potential, and who you really want to interview. When comparing personality styles, you really want to look at the graphs, which provide the most conclusive evidence.

Advanced Hiring System

Advanced Hiring System proposes a simple method to compare personality styles quickly and effectively, so that the application screening process, with its search for the top performers, will go smoothly, even when you have to deal with many candidates.

The system includes styles analysis graphs, as well as the success insight wheel. To learn why candidates who score in the conductor and promoter areas of the wheel are good, and why those who score in the persuader area are great, check the Advanced Hiring System sales hiring course.

To hire sales people who will surpass your expectations you need to use the right hiring system. Great candidates are always there, the tricky part is to identify them. And Advanced Hiring System does just that – with it the sales hire process becomes a lot easier, and much more effective.

Is the sales personality test ethical? Is it even legal? Some sales managers hesitate to use pre-employment testing, thinking the job interview is much more important than the salesperson profile. Applying information from DISC assessment tests and recruitment management software is sometimes thought of as unnecessary or even crossing a line. We’ve known how to hire salespeople with the right qualities for decades. Or at least that’s what we’ve convinced ourselves is true of our ability to build a strong sales team without extra insight.

So why are so many sales-oriented companies using the sales personality test to find good salesmen for their teams? Because, plain and simple, it really works.

Are Salespeople the Only Applicants Required to Take a Sales Personality Test?

Not at all. In fact, here are some very important roles filled by first analyzing the results of a personality test or other testing requirements.

• Colleges and Military Academies – Applicants are typically tested before allowed entrance.

• Government Jobs – Civil Service Exams are required of most applicants. The higher up in government you go, the more personality testing is desired.

• Public Schools – Even public schools require that students be tested for their abilities before “graduating” to the next education level. Why wouldn’t we ask our sales job applicants to be tested for their important skills and traits, as well?

Good salesmen can be hard to come by. The institutions above have learned what successful sales managers know, too. Testing helps both the potential employer and potential employee recognize strengths and weaknesses that need addressed before the job begins.

A Sales Applicant’s Civil Rights are of the Utmost Importance

Sales personality testing is – and should be – strictly about the sales applicant’s abilities relating to the job itself. An applicant’s religion, race, sex or nationality should have no relevance for job testing or job performance. Any sales personality test that would in any way address or question those factors is a test to be completed avoided.

What you want your sales personality test results to measure is an applicant’s natural and adaptable personality styles regarding sales job performance. Always use the same test for each job applicant, for fair and ethical results. Try recruitment software programs for keeping track of the information you learn, for ease at hiring decision time.

For in-depth details about how to conduct and analyze these tests properly, consult your AHS Sales Hiring Course member information.

To Test or Not To Test?

It’s your choice whether you make sales personality testing part of your sales hiring formula, but we highly recommend it. Knowing how to hire salespeople with the right values and traits depends on having as much information as possible. With the sales personality test, the good salesmen you’ve interviewed will more obviously and accurately rise to the top of your list.

A client sales manager recently made this comment to me, “Truth is, I never would have looked at him based on his resume.”

He went on to say, “And more than that, at first impression he didn’t seem very impressive. But your Advanced Hiring ValuesMatrix™ and Advanced Hiring StyleMatrix™ said he had great potential.”

“So, I interviewed him and the more we talked the more I realized he might be a ‘diamond in the rough.’

“That interview was over six months ago. Today, he is our top sales performer in terms of new business development.”

Contrast this to the way most sales managers pick salespeople and you see the difference between the Advanced Hiring System strategy vs the old way of hiring salespeople.

Salespeople who are top performers have a special way of looking at the world. These top sales performers have a strong score in their AHS ValuesMatrix™ in either Money or Power. They are what Maslow calls “High Practicals.” They are most concerned about gaining a greater sense of practical control over their environment.

The AHS StylesMatrix™, next is where we look for top salespeople who have a strong ego drive. They live or die based on their actions and they put their egos on the line in their drive to succeed. They are like a top performing athlete who drives to make the goal.

Another important component revealed in the AHS StylesMatrix™ is the top sellers ability to use language well. Not like an Professor of English, but where they are able to mold the message in a way that the prospect understands it. The measure of their success is whether they can engage the prospect.

Finally, the AHS StylesMatrix™ identifies potential top sales performers who see that sometimes we need to break the rules to make the deal. Without this ability salespeople get hung up on the rules and miss the opportunity to close the deal.

When you finally come to the realization that the rules for sales hiring have changed — you can succeed today. Only hire salespeople who’s personalities match those of the other top 10% of salespeople. The technology is so powerful that without it you are stuck in the 20th Century and going to miss the ‘diamonds in the rough.’