Let’s face it, when it come to hire salespeople is like crawling around in the dark for most managers. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I was lucky when I first started at 25 as a Sales Manager to hire salespeople. My boss, Mike, told me that training was secondary to sales hiring. He taught me that if you hire a lousy salesperson, all the training in the world will not make him great. He’ll just be a well-trained lousy salesperson.

He also taught me that if you want to get great when you hire salespeople, you have to keep records. For me that morphed in keeping a journal — well actually two journals. I’ll talk about the second journal in a minute.

But first in the management journal it is important to track which candidates you get with each ad. In this way, you know which ad pulled winners. (And which one pulled mostly duds.)

You also then track how your salespeople do at regular benchmarks. My benchmarks are 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years. At those dates I jot down the level of productivity of the salesperson.

In the Advanced Hiring System, we have incorporated this journal into the sales hiring system. (We’re looking out for your career here.) Plus we want to make it easier foir you to see how well you’re doing with the system.

If you follow this very simple system, you’ll improve every time you make a sales hire.

The second journal, well, that is a personal journal. Life is tough and having a record of your thoughts is invaluable. Being able to look back at notes I made 40 years ago are the most powerful self-improvement tool.

If you’d like to know more about tracking candidates click the button below. We’ve put together a short survey that will help you improve your sales hiring strategy.

Can DISC Profiles explain why some couples, like my wife Leah and I, have stayed married for 43 years? Or why other couples “throw in the towel” long before “death do us part?”

I didn’t pick my wife based on her DISC profile — in fact, I didn’t know beans about DISC Profiles when I first met her. I just really liked being around her. However having learned to read DISC styles has helped us stay together.

Our marriage has had its ups and downs. There were many times over the past 43 years that I was ready to call it quits and so was she.

DISC is a personality style system. It’s a tool that’s been around for nearly 100 years and has gone through constant refinements. In DISC we measure four aspects of the human personality. We then look at the relationship of those aspects. Then establish both a Natural more permanent style and an Adapted situational style.

In order for DISC styles to be helpful in making a marriage work, the interface of the two partners styles needs to be managed by them. This is easier for some styles to do than others — regardless it can be learned. For a marriage to work, often the responses need to be “Oh, its their personality style that is causing them to…”

I think one partner will tend to compromise more than the other. Certain styles are more happy to bend.

In a society that values Drive and Achievement, we focuson maximum achievement. In my opinion, this tends to partner two high Drives. Unless Drivers are very self-aware, this is often a prescription for disaster.

The four aspects of DISC are Drive, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance.

DRIVE: That voice inside my head saying “I’ve got to make it”, “I can do it”, “I’m the one who can make this happen”, “It’s all about me”. Drive is about putting my ego on the line, if I fail I am hard on myself. The Drive voice inside my head talks tough to myself.

Under pressure Drivers tend to push people, rather than lead and they become impatient.

INFLUENCE: My ability to communicate with others in a way they like to be communicated with. Influence is about my flexible communication style. Influence is my ability to measure the effect of my communication on others. How I adjust to get my message through.

Under pressure Influencers become all heart over head. They rely too heavily on verbal ability.

STEADINESS: My desire to stay for extended periods of time on one physical location. Steadiness is the desire for less movement and more stability. It is my desire for routines.

Steadies under stress resist change. They internalize feelings when they should be discussing them.

COMPLIANCE: My belief in the value and importance of rules. My comfort in following the rules.

When feeling pressure Compliants experience analysis paralysis and avoid controversy.

As it turns out, my wife Leah and I have complimentary styles. Fortunately despite be a Driver, I had the good sense to look for someone who is kind hearted and let’s things go.

Oh, and we don’t marriage counseling here at Advanced Hiring. We use these power tools to help clients hire great salespeople. If you’re looking to hire great salespeople we’ve put together a quick one minute quiz that will help. Click the button below to take the short quiz.