There is one thing you can do to get better sales people on your team: improve your outdated sales hiring system to find and ultimately hire better people for the job. Advanced Hiring Systems (AHS) can help you do just that.

AHS offers a comprehensive 4-step sales hiring course that shows you how to hire a salesperson effectively. The next 7 tips draw on the course, and will help you get better sales people for your company.

1. 1.                   Ask the right sales assessment questions during the interview process.

The truth is that most companies ask irrelevant sales assessment questions, which do not shed light on the two applicant characteristics that are most important to you, the employer: values, which help you determine his or her motivators, and personality, which helps you determine his or her persuasion ability.

1. 2.                   Do the sales hiring process differently.

If you do it like everyone else does it, you’ll end up with 4 mediocre sales persons for each 1 good sales person. And when you’re building a sales people team, that rate is a disaster.

1. 3.                   Hire salespeople constantly.

If you go about searching for people to hire only when you need positions filled, there’s a good chance that you won’t reach the best possible candidates. Be on the lookout for good sales person all the time – do this and hiring better sales persons becomes much easier.

1. 4.                   Don’t select applicants based solely on their resumes.

These days salespersons know how to tweak their resumes to make them as appealing as possible for potential employers. The resume alone is not trustworthy enough when seeking to hire better sales people. Focus on assessing values and personality instead.

1. 5.                   Know exactly what people you want to hire.

You won’t be able to screen applicants effectively if you don’t know exactly what applicants you need. Do you want to refresh you aging sales team? Do you want to bring experience to your team? Whatever it is you want, know it.

1. 6.                   Know how to hire a salesperson who will outperform the average member of your sales team.

A top salesperson can generate even 800% more than the average salesperson. That’s crazy, isn’t it? But how to spot those few fantastic salespersons when browsing through applications? Use the right hiring process and the most effective screening techniques. AHS sales hiring course can show you how to do all that.

1. 7.                  Avoid asking common interview questions sales persons know how to answer.

There are common questions that all employers ask: What do you expect from this job? What motivates you? Where do you see yourself in x years after you join this company? Ask stock questions and you’ll get stock answers. AHS sales hiring course will show you which questions are worth asking, as well as how to ask them.

To get better sales people on your team, try to improve the hiring system you use. You’ll notice remarkable improvements in sales, as well as in company reputation. Advanced Hiring Systems sales course is exactly what you need.

With the help of the AHS Sales Hiring program, you’ll get very good at knowing how to hire sales people. The next question is; how will those salesmen perform once they’re under your sales manager’s guidance? You have to take into account the personality and values of your sales manager just as much as you do your sales hires. Building a sales team with top performers means nothing if the sales manager running the crew is a weak link.

Personality Profiles Matter with Managers, Too

Great salesmen have certain personality styles. DISC personality assessment tests show great sales hire applicants have these styles in common:

• High Drive
• Influential
• Steady and Focused
• Compliant

To hire and excel at training sales people with these personality styles is your goal. It’s also your goal to make sure your sales managers have the same traits. The bad news is top performing salesmen aren’t always the best sales managers. Make sure these traits are in place and then learn how to look beyond them for the additional traits of a great sales manager.

The Difference between Great Salesmen and Great Sales Managers

Another personality style you’ll notice with top performing salesmen and saleswomen is that they are usually very independent. Hire sales people who are self-motivated and you’ll have a much stronger sales team. The flip side of that coin is what happens when you make one of those highly independent top performing sales people a manager. A manager that is too independent won’t best serve the needs of the team.

The great sales manager finds a way to adapt their independent personality style that made them a great sales person to begin with.

Natural Style vs. Adapted Style

Successfully training sales people and building a sales team require that your sales manager have or develop an adapted personality style. This means that they are capable of taking their natural sales personality style and cater it to fit the demands of the sales manager role.

• Natural Style – Salesmen and sales managers have a personality style that comes naturally. This is their natural default way of approaching their jobs. They are usually naturally independent, steady, influential, etc.

• Adapted Style – This is how salesmen and sales managers see themselves needing to behave in order to do the job well. Salesmen who show signs of being capable of adapting their personality styles tend to be more successful sales managers. This is where the fierce independence of a top sales performer can be adapted to the team player mindset of a strong leader.

How Do You Know if Your Sales Manager Is Adaptable?

The DISC assessment test can be given to sales manager applicants. This test will analyze the potential sales manager’s natural vs. adapted personality styles and give you an indication of their ability to head your sales team.

Remember this important point. A sales hire applicant can show all the signs of being a top performer throughout the interview, but still fail after a few months on the job if your sales manager isn’t the right fit. Make sure your leader has the traits and adaptability necessary to support and guide the successful sales team your company deserves.

It may sound trite to say that money and power are what motivates the best sales people, but it’s true. Money and power is one of the key motivators in what makes a good salesman. There are tests available that you give to candidates for your open sales positions that will determine their individual values. While some may argue that those that do not score as high on money and power on their list of values can be performers as well, it can also indicate that their priorities will not mesh well with yours.

It is during the interview process that you have the opportunity for hiring the right people, and unless you have put in place hiring solutions to only hire the best, that’s what you will end up with…ones that are good but not necessarily the best. After you have established a job description and developed the right questions to ask the candidates, you have to decide on who is going to be conducting the interviews.

Sales managers often believe that since they will be giving the directions and helping the sales team succeed they know what makes a good salesman and should be the ones interviewing them. This argument may hold some water but not all sales manages are good at managing people or know how to hire people. You have to take a good look at your sales manager and determine why they are in that position in the first place. If they were promoted because they were a top sales performer, they may not be in the right position and would be a mistake to have them hire what many would see as competition.

While a job description should provide guidance to your sales force your top performers are the ones that think more independently. It was their independent style and money and power motivation that made them a top performer but those are the same traits that could make them a bad sales manager. Having them conduct the interviews is a mistake as  they may know from their own persona what makes a good salesman very few candidates will be able to meet their expectations.

Managing a sales team requires a different approach than being a top performing salesperson. Being able to relate to clients and influencing the ones who make buying decisions is part of the salesperson’s performance repertoire. They also have to know what will motivate their clients and while your sales manager, who previously had all of those traits, may not see those same traits in potential new hires. They were good at sales but their personality may not teach them how to hire employees.