Sale Personality Test and “The Art of Learning”

I just finished reading Josh Waitzkin’s The Art of Learning. Josh was the young chess champion star of the movie “In Search of Bobby Fisher.”  If you haven’t seen the movie it’s a 2 Thumbs up from Advanced Hiring System in the human excellence category.

The Art of Learning is different from the movie in that Waitzkin discusses how he learned to first become a world chess champion and, then, a world champion martial artist.

Pretty amazing stuff to achieve that level of excellence — to be both a world champion chess and world champion martial artist.

The book  is about learning strategies he used. It’s applicable to Sales Managers who are charged with training top sales performers to achieve even more in their careers.

One criticism I had with the book is the author never mentions how to identify personality styles with the predisposition to achieve high levels of success. (Sales managers looking to hire salespeople would use sales tests.)

Having worked with Sales Managers for nearly 14 years who are responsible for hiring salespeople the question is “Is this applicant I am interviewing a master interviewee or a master salesperson?”

All too often managers make that mistake of believing the applicant who sells well in the interview is a good seller. We disagree.

Virtually no one hires an applicant who interviews poorly – yet only a small minority of sales hires are top performers.

Here we have found that sales managers who use Advanced Hiring System’s scientifically validated sales tests achieve much higher levels of sales hiring success. Because they are able to be sure that the applicants they are interviewing actually have the proven personality characteristics of top sales performers.

The AHS Sales Hiring Interview Module

Client Jay Siff at MovingTargets offered a comment the other day in a regular client service that caught me by surprise. Jay’s a smart guy, runs a couple of successful businesses and has been a client for over six years now.

We were reviewing some profiles together on his sales candidates. I reminded him to use the 4-Part AHS Interview Module. Jay asked “What’s that?”

I was a bit shocked that after six years he didn’t know about the Interview Module. Its one of the most important pieces of the Advanced Hiring System. Its also one of the most valuable parts of the AHS System. It is free to clients.

Maybe that’s the problem. We should charge for it. Ten years ago the CEO of an executive search firm told me the 4 Part AHS Interview Module would be a $10,000 consulting project if they did it. True.

So what is this valuable Interview Module?

The Interview Module is a step by step interview strategy. It contains four separate interview scripts together with the answers and rationale behind what you are looking for.

Using the AHS system profiles, you have filtered your applicants down to the three best candidates. If you have less than three good candidates before you start interviewing you should go back to the Recruiting stage.

In the Interview stage you want to be comparing applicants. That’s one of the keys to hiring a top sales performer – you want be interviewing more than one “Money Motivated Persuader” applicant.

The Interview Module gives you a way to compare and grade the quality of your applicants You want to interview each applicant according to the script contained in the module. Don’t ad lib your sales hiring interview. Deliver the script so you can get past the deadly “they handled themselves well” or “they got past our screener well.”

The point of the interview is to find whether your applicant has demonstrated the qualities of:

• Stick-to-it-iveness
• Follow through
• Ability to overcome adversity
• Ability to manage their internal state
• Entrepreneurialism

Applicants who can give you examples in their life experience where they have demonstrated these personality characteristics are who you are looking for. The best salespeople have these qualities in spades. And you need them – especially now after the morons in Washington have gotten done wrecking the economy.

How to Conduct an Interview – Two Sales Interview Goals You Are Looking to Achieve

If you are reading this after having selected applicants by reading resumes and want to know how to interview them — sorry, you need to go back to square one. Using resumes as a strategy for picking sales applicants in the words of Richard Milhous Nixon is “as useful as a pot of warm spit.”

Resumes are “BS” squared — they are too inaccurate to use as a selection tool. Look here for a better strategy for selecting applicants to interview.

Warning aside, once you have at least three applicants who have passed a scientifically validated profile, interviewing them right is the key to making great hires.

The purpose of the interview is two-fold:

1. You are looking to determine if you applicant has applied their natural talents. What have they accomplished in life? Where have they shown follow-through?. What adversities have they successfully overcome? Have they demonstrated an entrepreneurial style?

You’ve determined from the profile they have a natural talent toward sales.. Yet, sadly, most people never do anything with their natural talents. (Or maybe among “sales types” they sell themselves on not doing the work.)

2. You want to find out if the applicant will fit in your “corporate culture.” Each of our companies has a “culture” based on what we produce, the type of people who work in our company and the kind of people who buy our product. Determining whether the applicant will fit is key.

You want this decision to be a good permanent solution, not some quick fix — get more sales in here thing. Good salespeople become more valuable to you over time. Ask yourself whether they belong in your type of organization.

To ascertain what sales hiring method is right for you so you don’t waste time and money on profiling tools that don’t work, Take our FREE Survey here to get your sales hiring scorecard.