We had a chance to contribute to an article that appears in Ragan’s Management Resource’s newsletter Employee Recruitment & Retention this month. The article is titled Experts explode the HR industry’s biggest myths and reads like a collection of short essays on many surprising HR/hiring topics.

My contribution (I get the byline though Lee assisted me) involves debunking the conventional wisdom that all good salespeople are extroverts. Nope, that isn’t true. The tease:

My advice would be to look at a salesperson’s qualifying skills in the hiring process as opposed to their linguistic mannerisms. Watch for their ability to ask pertinent questions regarding the opportunity. Some candidates will be outgoing, jovial, and entertaining. And they will prefer to hear their own voice over that of anyone else in the room. At the end of the interview, they will have talked much and asked few, if any, questions. What did they qualify about the opportunity?

The author, Frank Sennett, has provided us with a complimentary copy of the article to share so you can get a taste of the articles offered in the Employee Recruiting & Retention newsletter. Please read the entire piece – it is an entertaining read with sound advice from many experts.

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This:

“a high level of connectivity and collaboration with employees at all levels of the organization – but especially with young, like-minded professionals.”

According to a short article in Managesmarter.com’s What Gen Y Wants At Work. The one item we have seen the most in this generation:

Connection. This is often lacking. Just over 80 percent of Gen Y workers say they feel disconnected from the information flow, politics and career opportunities in their organization.

We have seen some fairly brash Gen Y candidates, but I think the confidence many of them exude is valuable. This generation has an incredibly flattened hierarchical mindset. They view the company org chart in one dimension. As long as there is respect, I find this approach refreshing.

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Yes, you read that correctly. This is the topic covered in SHRM’s February issue of HR Magazine. The article titled “Days of Contemplation” (membership required) has the tagline “Have a problem employee? Give him a time-out to decide whether to come back fully committed or to move on.” The article discusses the use of paid decision-making leaves or “days of contemplation.” Here is the premise behind it’s use:

Adult learning theory will tell you that when you treat people like adults, they will respond in kind. Unlike formal discipline, which tends to punish workers formally for substandard job performance or inappropriate workplace conduct, decision-making leaves are much more subtle. More important, they don’t negatively affect the worker’s take-home pay, so there’s no element of resentment toward the employer or embarrassment for having to explain to a spouse or family member why the paycheck is less that particular week.

“This element of holding people accountable without negatively impacting their personnel file or payroll tends to catch people off guard, because problem employees, like problem children, are often expecting negative attention for their bad behaviors,” says Tim Field, principal of The Field Consulting Group in Los Angeles. “When thrown into this new adult perspective of responsibility and accountability, workers tend to respond, well, like adults, and their assuming responsibility for the problem or at least the perception of that problem often times works exceptionally effectively at shifting their mind-set and fixing the problem once and for all,” says Field.

“The value in this exercise is in shifting the traditional disciplinary paradigm that a day of contemplation provides,” says Field. When workers are disciplined, they’re angry, and anger is external, so the problem is someone else’s fault. When they’re held accountable without formal discipline, they’re feeling guilty, and guilt is internal. That’s always where you want to be when dealing with your subordinates because that’s where problems get fixed once and for all.

The author says that when using decision-making leaves they are best used on the Gen Y-ers, longer-term employees or executive family members to correct performance problems or conduct issues. They do not work well to correct problems arising from tardiness or excessive advertising. The article also explains how to use them effectively. So please, before you send someone home with a time-out because you read it here, check with your HR department and read through the article so it delivers the results you want.

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We€™re looking at a €œbolt-on€ aptitude that is quite complementary to last week€™s trait – Practical Thinking. Problem Solving has become a much needed sales trait in that salespeople today need to be subject matter experts. Prospects expect salespeople to be able to diagnose the prospect€™s pain points. This trait also assists a salesperson in bringing back the needed information to formulate the best solution for his or her presentation.

Problem Solving
This is a salesperson€™s ability to identify alternative solutions to a problem and to select the best option. This basically means to be able to identify the system component that is causing the error as well as the options available for resolving it and completing the task.

A salesperson with strength in this trait is able to pool together multiple capacities and talents to assess all aspects of a problem from beginning to end, from identification to resolution.

A weakness in this area indicates an inability to isolate the process in which the error occurs. Further, they are unable to identify the components of the process which need changing in order to correct the problem.

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Salesopedia has this article on their home page this week – Six Common Mistakes in the Sales Hiring Process. Obviously we are going to read that one. First off, great quote from Zig Ziglar in the article:

“Sales people are really the only people in business who pay the bills!”

That provides some perspective on the importance of strong sales hiring. Here are the 6 mistakes as outlined by the author:

1) Assuming the hiring manager knows how to qualify people
2) Not defining EXACTLY what you are looking for in a new hire
3) Assuming specific business functions know how to hire like talent
4) Over emphasizing a hire candidates personality or looks
5) Not effectively checking previous employment references
6) Hiring in your own likeness

In our process, number 2 is by far the most important. You cannot find the right person if you do not know what the sale requires.

Number 5 is important, but not in the context of the article. Here it is in its entirety (my emphasis):

If you consistently miss critical insights into a salesperson’s capabilities, motivations or character prior to hire, it is generally because you chose not to or did not effectively investigate a candidate’s previous employment history. Given the potential cost of a poor hiring mistake, it makes financial sense to spend a nominal amount of money and have a professional check out a candidate’s references.

References are important at the end of the process, but they do not provide accurate insight into a salesperson’s capabilities (aptitudes) or motivations. How objective do you think that reference is going to be? Safe to assume the candidate will not provide a bad reference. In terms of the verification agency, the laws are fairly stringent as to what a previous employer can say in a reference check call.

Use an objective, validated assessment to discover the aspects of the candidate that lie below the water line.

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“Don’t Make These Top 10 Selling Mistakes!” Bet that got your attention. I found it on the Business Buyer Directory which provides a non-traditional means for business buyers to locate businesses for sale worldwide. The article is a couple of years old, but makes some excellent points, in fact ones that applicable to a hiring process.

4. NOT Looking the Part – Selling involves approaching strangers, people who have never met you before. People naturally base purchase decisions on first impressions. Look the part you are playing, or better yet, exceed the common image expectation in your industry. Always dress and groom one level above your targeted audience. It portrays success and gives you an opening edge over your competition. The least you can do is look like you know what you are doing!

In regards to the hiring process, does the candidate look the part you are expecting them to play? How will your clients and prospects perceive them? These are questions you probably ask yourself when you first meet your candidates. Don’t let your bias jump in here, really think about what your clients are looking for.

We once had a customer who wanted to base their decision entirely on a candidate’s looks and speech. The strongest candidate fit the stereotypical engineer look (I’m not going any further than that statement) What was astonishing to me was that is our client didn’t think he was “professional enough” to call on President’s and CEO’s. Fair statement and that task may have been a bit of a stretch for him. However, this position actually called on plant managers, engineering managers, manufacturing, etc. He was able to speak to these position’s needs.

6. Not Knowing Your Product or Service – Believe it or not, depending most on your product or service knowledge to get the order is one of the most common mistakes made in selling. Understanding the common application benefits and associated features of your offerings is critical, but constantly regurgitating nebulous product and services details to a customer will quickly send them to your competitor. Mastering knowledge of your competitors offerings is also critical to selling success.

How does the candidate apply his or her experiences, skills and talents to your position’s needs? Do they attempt to qualify the position and then focus their responses on how they will fit into the position? No two companies are the same, how you go to market, the culture and the team all vary greatly even between close competitors. What you need to look for is how they apply their product (their skills) to your needs (position’s requirements).

Again the article is well worth the time, if nothing else as reminders for pitfalls to avoid during the selling and hiring process.

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Selling Power’s The Challenge of Your Competition provides an interesting back story to a large electronics company and how it was started. I won’t spill the candy on the article, but I thought the closing graphs were insightful (my emphasis):

Everyone learns from the competition. Some people learn how to improve; others learn how to lose gracefully. Some want to be the only kid on the block; others want to be the best kid on the block. If nothing else, your competition will reveal what kind of person you are.

Remember, you cannot hold a person down unless you’re willing to stay down with him. Grow with your competition; allow them to be the absolute best that they can be. And then, be just a little bit better yourself.

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If you haven’t bookmarked Salesopedia.com, I suggest you do so now. It is a relatively new site but is full of excellent sales advice. Clayton authors a great sales blog over there that I highly recommend reading.

His latest entry discusses an article by one of our favorite sales authors – Jeff Thull – titled Ten Timely Tips For Mastering The Complex Sale. Point number 1 is one we preach:

1. Every sale is not as good sale. About 35% of all sales are bad sales. In one way or another, they leave the customer disappointed or the seller with excess costs and diminished returns. Often salespeople are so concerned with getting the order that they write business that is not good for themselves, their company or the customer. Walking away from a situation that is not profitable for anyone is the right thing to do.

We work with many sales managers and this is one of the most difficult lessons for them to accept. It is tough to walk away from a prospect, but you can’t make a bad deal good.

This lesson is one that the sales manager has to impart to his team also (another difficult task for them to accept). Some times a sales manager has to let the salesperson go down the wrong path and lose a prospect to learn that it would have been better to walk away. Of course, we tell them only allow this bloody-nose lesson to occur with a small prospect.

And here is a point that cuts across the grain of traditional sales processes:

5. Never ask for the order. If you have to ask for the order it should be clear that your customer has missed something, and its your fault. If the diagnostic protocols have been followed, and the customer has recognized problems that can be eliminated by the solution you offer, the decision to buy will come as the next step in a well-executed quality decision process. The arm-wrestling of the traditional selling process is replaced by the acknowledgement that a mutually beneficial business relationship is developing.

I can sense the eyebrows being raised by this one, but Thull is right. Qualified deals close themselves. A “strong closer” is actually a strong qualifier.

The article is filled with modern-day sales wisdom and well worth your time to read it in its entirety.

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This topic – discounts – is one that was beaten into my head as a young sales rep. Selling Power offers the article How Much Is that Discount Really Costing You? that cuts straight to the core of discounting.

Discounting is a real problem among salespeople and especially one type of salesperson – the type that is commmissioned on revenue and not profit margin. A straight percentage of the sales revenue is an invitation to discount. The author of the article goes right after this problem:

2. Update the compensation plan to maximize profits instead of volume. Switch the plan to a margin basis, or at least a blend of volume and margin, to counter the discounters on your team.

That is the first key to stopping discounts. The second is found in the author’s next point:

3. Require that all daily transactions pass the average margin test and contribute to the bottom line. Manage by exception in this area, cautions Foster. Require that any transaction priced below the budgeted company margin must be approved and signed off. Then have a margin catch-up plan to recover those losses.

We used to call them a waiver – sheepishly wandering into the sales manager’s office and explaining why it was so important to discount the price. I worked under a system like this and I learned more about maintaining margins than any other job I had.

There is another piece to this puzzle. Prospects normally fish for a discount, but rarely does it cost you the sale. If you have properly qualified the opportunity and placed your value proposition in play, you will get the deal. If your solution to the prospect’s problem is indistinguishable from your competition, lowest price will win. If that is the case, shame on the salesperson for getting deep into a bad deal.

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One of our readers sent an email this past week questioning the “experts” that claim the vast majority of communication is nonverbal. I searched around for more information on this topic and found this about.com page – Types of Nonverbal Communication. This page breaks down 8 different forms of communication:

1. Facial Expression
2. Gestures
3. Paralinguistics
4. Body Language and Posture
5. Proxemics (personal space)
6. Eye Gaze
7. Haptics (touch)
8. Appearance

Quite a list with communication channels I did not consider. Appearance is an excellent point – think of a candidate who appeared for an interview and looked like an unmade bed. That appearance communicated something beyond poor clothing.

Or how about this one:

When people encounter people or things that they like, the rate of blinking increases and pupils dilate.

That fact may only interest a psych major like myself. At any rate, I am still tracking down the percentage breakdown, but this article is worth the quick read.

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