A dynamic, driven salesperson is an asset to any sales team. Certain personality traits can make a salesperson near unstoppable. When you look at your own sales team – or applicants for sales job openings in your company – how closely do you pay attention to their personality traits? We think it’s about time you made personality a priority. Along with the values of your sales staff, specific personality traits can make or break great sales.

Dr. William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) was an American psychologist who developed the DISC assessment behavioral model used today by professionals like doctors, educators, employers and sales managers for personality analysis. DISC stands for Drive (or Dominance), Influence, Steadiness and Compliance (or Conscientiousness).

The DISC assessment questionnaire is often given to sales job applicants before hiring decisions are made. This assessment helps the sales manager determine if the potential employee has the kind of personality traits a high percentage of top sales performers display.

• Drive – The ego drive. The salesperson’s desire to overcome obstacles in order to achieve what they want.
• Influence – Your sales employee’s ability to communicate with others in a way that makes people comfortable and convinces them to act.
• Steadiness – The ability to adapt to the current conditions or environment, like having to sit at a desk in one location all day.
• Compliance – The salesperson’s relationship with the rules in place. Do they feel rules are set in stone or can they be manipulated to better suit a circumstance or get the sale?

Using DISC assessment tests can help sales managers determine the personality mix of their sales team. Knowing this information could help:

• Build better sales teams
• Resolve conflicts
• Create awareness that allows a salesperson or sales manager to adapt better to the needs of the job or the team
• Support healthier interactions

So what are some of the personality traits you’re looking for? You’re looking for a blend of a salespersons drive, influence, steadiness and compliance traits which allow them to communicate well with your company’s clients for better sales. The AHS Sales Hiring Course further discusses how to measure a sales applicant’s personality style. By analyzing DISC assessment graphs, you can successfully determine which applicants have the personality style like those of top sales performers.

Taking the extra steps to assess the personality traits of your salespeople can be the difference between hiring top sales performers and average sales performers. Your business could depend on it.

Knowing how to hire employees with top sales performance skills starts with you. Are you sure you know how to conduct an interview correctly? Do you know what makes a good salesman a top performer? Do you know what it takes to entice and excite top salespeople to apply at your company? Well, you’re about to find out. Take the quiz below to see how ready you really are to be a sales recruiting powerhouse. How to hire employees with the right stuff might require changing your mindset about how to get the job done right.

1. 1.      Which job applicant is most likely the best salesperson in the bunch?
   1. The one who values knowledge above all else.
   2. The one who values money above all else.
   3. The one who values creativity above all else.
   4. The one who values social acceptance above all else.

The answer is b: The one who values money above all else. Believe it or not, that’s exactly what makes a good salesman. Top sales performers are creative and knowledgeable, but they show up for work every day to make money and make lots of it. Knowing how to hire employees with this trait is as good as gold. The more income they want to make for themselves, the more they’ll make for you.

1. 2.      What’s the best role to take with applicants during the job interviews?
   1. Educator Persona – They are the student and you are the teacher. Treat the interview like an initial training workshop, educating them about the job as you gather information.
   2. Mentor Persona – Excite and inspire the applicant during the interview process, showing lots of emotion to keep them excited and engaged with you.
   3. Engineer Persona – Stick to the questions and do a lot of listening. Stay objective and don’t show excitement. The applicant should do most of the talking.

The answer is c: Engineer Persona. This approach allows the applicant’s personality to come through naturally instead of simply as a reaction to yours. The other personas might find the applicant trying to adapt to what they think you want to hear. The more reserved Engineer Persona allows you to observe and really listen. Successful sales recruiting means sitting back and letting their authentic personalities shine through.

1. 3.      What are the great places to post sales job listings?
   1. Social media accounts
   2. Internet job boards
   3. Shopper papers
   4. Church bulletins
   5. All of the above

The answer is e: All of the above. Most of those suggestions are obvious, but church bulletins, you ask? Mega churches can have congregations of more than 2000 members. If it makes sense to the kind of business you do, tap into the church bulletin readers. They deserve great sales jobs, too.

1. 4.      Which of these applicants should you interview based strictly on the information below?
   1. The one with the best resume.
   2. The one with the best looking suit.
   3. The one with the prettiest face.
   4. The one who wants your job.
   5. None of the above.

The answer is d: The one who wants your job. Assuming you’re the business owner or sales manager, you should know how to conduct an interview that reveals an applicant who wants power, leadership and has an entrepreneurial mindset. As for the resume, it tells you nothing about a job candidate’s true ability to be a top sales performer. Only pre-employment testing and proper job interview practices can achieve that. It is best of you learn how to hire employees without using the resume as a crutch.

1. 5.      What’s the most important question to ask a job applicant’s former supervisor?
   1. What is the applicant’s age?
   2. Would you consider this applicant a horrible or wonderful person?
   3. Was the applicant an A-Player?
   4. All of the above.

The answer is c: Was the applicant an A-Player? This question requires a simple yes or no answer and simply asks if the sales applicant was a great asset to their previous employer. The other questions above aren’t legal for former employers to answer. If you guessed either a or b, brush up on these important details before calling any of your job applicant references.

For more insightful instruction about how to hire employees for a top sales team, become a member of the AHS Sales Hiring Course.

There is nothing that will change the course of your business’ success as quickly as hiring top salesmen. Quite simply, top sales performer are able to find ways to sell your product that average salespeople never will.

The problem comes in in the hiring of top performers. Most managers who are in charge of the hiring process are TOTALLY CLUELESS on how to spot one of these Tiger Woods of sales. On top of that they fail to approach the project systematically.

Here then, is your definitive, if abridged guide, for hiring a top sales performer:

Step 1) Write an ad that speaks to top sales performers. The mind of the top salesmen is different from that of mere mortals. Top sales performers think of themselves in very concrete terms, By that I mean they are motivated by practical values – money and power. Mention the money and be specific. If they can’t make a lot of money they are not going to consider applying.

Top performers are also very strongly ego driven. Make sure you appeal to their sense of being able to reach heights reserved for only the superstars. Mediocre salespeople want it safe, top sales performers want the stars.

Step 2) Advertise for your top performer. There are a lot of choices here on how to attract good applicants to apply for your sales position. Our clients are reporting that www.Linkedin.com has become a good source of applicants, but it is not free. On the other hand there’s www.SimplyHired.com – the best part is its free. Post your job here (but be sure to make sure you’ve done Step 1 above) http://www.simplyhired.com/a/add-jobs/request?type=feed

There are many other places to advertise your need for a top sales performer. Be sure your website and Facebook page has a place for applicants to apply. Also, set up a Twitter strategy to get the word out.

Step 3) Evaluate your sales applicants. Here is where most sales managers screw things up, so pay attention. You do not want to read resumes for previous sales experience or previous industry sales experience. Most managers do, but most sales hires are weak. You decide whether you’ve got the guts to do it right here.

Applicants should at this point be evaluated with a validated series of personality profiles. We offer them and you can sign up to try one on yourself here. If you don’t use ours, make sure that the one you use is offered by a company that knows something about hiring salespeople. Most, in our opinion, don’t.

Step 4) Interview your applicants, but not like everybody else. At this point you have filtered your applicants for qualities that top performers exhibit. This means that they have the personality style of top performers. It does not mean they’ve done anything with their talent. Some people call this emotional intelligence. My Dad used to call it getting off their asses and doing something.

Your interview must be scripted. No winging it. Your interview must ask tangential questions. Don’t ask the same stupid questions that every other sales manager does. You must ask questions that get them to show you were they have demonstrated:stick-to-it-iveness, follow through, the ability to overcome adversity and discipline. Make them show you where they have been great in their lives.

Also, you don’t sell in the interview. Pretend you’re boring. Be an engineer. Make them sell, but don’t get all excited with them. Maintain control.

Step 5) Evaluate references. There are some amazing tools out there to support reference checking. It gives your references a chance to anonymously respond to your request for information on the applicant. They cost but they are worth the investment.

That’s the system. Five steps to hiring a top sales performer that take eight weeks to implement. If you’d like more information on how to implement the steps, take a look at www.advancedhiring.com