As a student of sales hiring and sales management, I follow the work of quite a few trainers. One of the best is Jim Cecil.

I first met Jim Cecil when he was one of the key presenters at a week-long marketing event in Los Angeles. “You’ve got a good memory,” he said, “that was 20 years ago.” Seems like yesterday…

Jim is the “real deal”. Having lead hundreds of sessions for Vistage throughout his career, you don’t get to be a regular presenter for Vistage without being a true achiever in business.

Yet, despite his business mastery, Jim Cecil, is one of the most genuinely giving men you’ll ever have a conversation with. There’s not a sense in talking with him (as is so often the case of achievers of his caliber) of haughtiness. He gets a kick out of sharing his ideas on what makes sense in marketing and management.

This week as Jim and I were talking, he touched on two of his favorite topics: how to select top sales performers and how to get and keep customers.

On selecting top sales performers, Jim said, “We introduced the concept of using profiles nearly thirty years ago. And, yet, it’s incredible that the majority of small businesses still hire salespeople without profiling. It’s no wonder that so many sales departments have so many weak salespeople.”

True story: when I first heard Jim talk about the concept of user-profiles as a selection process in Los Angeles 20 years ago, it changed my view of hiring salespeople. As a result, I went on to build a team of 200 salespeople. The statistics on our team was unheard of at the time. We destroyed the 80/20 rule and had a much lower turnover rate than anyone else was achieving – I owe it all to the ideas Jim shared.

In my next post, I’ll publish some of Jim’s thoughts on one of his favorite topics next, “Drip Marketing – Or How to Get a Meeting With Anyone (And Why They’ll Be Looking Forward to the Meeting and Hearing Your Ideas.)”

If you have questions for Jim, post them here.

My youngest is now 16, so its been a long time since I’ve read children’s stories to anyone.

One of my four kid’s favorite stories was about the wise man who was approached by the Roman Emperor with a deal. Teach the Emperor all of wisdom while he stood on one leg and he would be allowed to live, if not “off with his head.” The wise man quickly said, “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is simply commentary.”

In successful sales hiring there are also simple “truths.” You can learn them while standing on one leg.

The simple truth is that the more applicants you really review in the initial stages of the search, the more likely you’ll pick a good one. You must glean your list of applicants down to the best three applicants and interview each of them intensively.

Most sales hirers make a serious strategic error in the very beginning when applicants start applying.

We get overwhelmed with resumes — especially in today’s environment where it is so easy to submit a resume. So we quickly flip through resumes, looking for previous sales experience or, even better, previous sales experience in our industry.  Huge mistake.

A much better way is to go through your applicants looking for indications of personal values and personality characteristics sales winners exhibit.

Your best applicants exhibit these personality characteristics:

• highly practical values,
• stick-to-it-iveness,
• follow through,
• ability to overcome adversity and
• ability to manage their internal state.

To find these qualities more accurately and quickly, use technology tools founded in validated personality profiles. These tools  have been refined to a high degree of accuracy today and have an amazingly high ROI in the 2000% range and more!

Quick. Which are the highest paying jobs?

According to Wiki, right behind Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers and Airline Pilots, Sales and Marketing are the highest paid jobs.

In our society (even if governments of every stripe have screwed things up royally in the economy), people still want to make more money. Overall, as a society, we value it. We ooh and aah at the Bill Gates and Warren Buffets because they’ve made a lot of it.

Those who weren’t willing to sit for an extra four to eight years in school to become Doctors, Dentists or Lawyers, can still make tons of dough in sales.

Sales has a proven track record to making serious money!

Why Money in Sales Hiring Is the Problem

The desire to make a lot of money is important for success in sales, but it’s not enough of  a qualifier. Just because your applicant wants to make a lot of money is not enough.

Applicants for jobs as Doctors need certain diplomas as a condition to being hired. We’ve shown our clients that there are also certain  “diplomas” you must require of your sales applicants.

These “diplomas” for successful salespeople have to do with your applicants’ personality styles. Make that, too, a requirement for joining your sales team and watch your sale hiring successes rocket!

I thank you for the time and patience in getting us on board!  Process worked beautifully and my new hire  is most certainly a keeper.  I can see how the time and effort paid off already!

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