From a CNNMoney.com article this morning (emphasis mine):

Private sector employment fell more than expected in September, but the pace of job losses continued to slow, according to a report released Wednesday.

Automatic Data Processing, a payroll-processing firm, said private-sector employers cut 254,000 jobs in September, down from a revised 277,000 in August. It was the smallest monthly total since July 2008.

The decline was greater than the 200,000 loss economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast. But the difference was “not statistically meaningful,” according to Joel Prakken, an ADP spokesman and chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, LLC.

“Not statistically meaningful” – tell that to the 54,000 people who lost their job this month.  Safe to say 10% unemployment is only a couple months away.

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Don’t flame me on the title, there is a method to this madness.  I like cliché questions for sales interviews.  There, I admitted it.  Now, I should clarify, I’m not talking about an entire interview of these questions, but rather some strategic ones sprinkled into your question list.

Here is why – if the question is cliché, the candidate should have a sparkling answer.  Their answer may be well-rehearsed – that is fine.  You, as the interviewer, simply need to drill down on their response to get to the unvarnished truth.

However, the catch to this approach is when they don’t have a strong answer.  I am always concerned about candidates who provide weak answers to expected questions.  They should have expected some of these questions and, more importantly, should have prepared for them.  This lack of preparation is often indicative of how they will prepare for an initial meeting with a prospect.

Here is one I often incorporate, “Tell me about a time when you had to go well beyond your normal responsibilities to close a deal.”  Simple, cliché, but here is why it works – I want to hear a good, real example.  I’m looking for what they perceive as being a stretch for their role.  There is much to be learned in their response.

There are many sales prima donnas who have a high maintenance attitude.  Some tasks, in their opinion, are beneath them.  I’m always looking for where they draw the line in that I don’t want a salesperson who tries to do everything themselves either.  There is a happy medium that works for your position.  My experience has shown that smaller companies expect salespeople to do more tasks while larger companies expect more specialization.

Keep those cliché questions handy next time you interview a strong sales candidate.

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Good leaders must be good followers.  That is paradoxical, isn’t it?  This article from CNNMoney.com chronicles an M.B.A. students journeys from grad school to the Marines to a tour of duty in Iraq and back to grad school.  It is a fascinating first-hand account (h/t to JustSell.com).

This is profound (emphasis mine):

In many ways there’s probably no better preparation I could have had for the business world than joining the Marine Corps. The Marines teach you how to be both a leader and a follower.

I don’t have to lead in every situation – but I’ve come to enjoy stepping up in a time of chaos. When I’m working with a group now, I can honestly say that I think about the team first. The “I first” approach has been drilled out of me.

Therein lies a common problem I encounter with business leaders – they are not good followers.  Leadership has a way of removing empathy over time.  Some leaders forget what they personally experienced when they were in follower positions.  Other leaders develop what I refer to as “god complexes” where they believe they are all-knowing.  Usually they are not, but you can’t illustrate that point to them.

For instance, I know of one business owner who is a subject-matter expert in his field.  Unfortunately, that field is not a business field.  However, he believes his subject-matter expertise transcends the subject into business management.  His employees, some of whom do have business expertise, attempt to contribute to him in these areas.  He will not receive the input.  Instead he forges on making independent decisions that have cost the business dearly.

If you read the entire article you will see a unique process, employed by the Marines, to teach team-building amongst leaders.  The best sales leaders I have encountered are the ones who know how to empower their employees, direct through difficult situations and make the tough decisions at critical junctures.

That last sentence sounds trite, but it is true.  The gist of it is the opening sentence of this post – good leaders must be good followers.

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I come across this often – a company wants to hire a superstar salesperson and the hiring manager’s first instinct is to find a loquacious talker.  Perhaps you have seen this approach too?  Clearly no readers of the Hire Sense would administer this approach in their hiring.

Right?

Ok, maybe not.  The point is that smooth talkers are not categorically the best salespeople.  I am appreciative of good communicators, but being good at talking is the lesser part of communication.  Being an active listener is more important.  This fact is often overlooked in sales hiring.

The reason this ability is important is that is supports the foundation of successful selling – qualifying.  Salesopedia.com is featuring an article this week by Kelley Robertson that addresses this point (my bold):

The most common mistake sales people make is to immediately launch into a product presentation or “pitch” when they first meet their prospect. They extol the virtues of what they sell and tell the prospective buyer how good, fast, reliable, inexpensive or easy to use their product is. They talk, talk, and talk hoping they’ll convince the buyer that their product or service is of value.

The problem with this approach is that the “pitch” seldom addresses the issues or concerns of the buyer. Because their needs have not been addressed, there is no compelling reason for them to consider using your machines or to change vendors. If you really want to give prospects a reason to buy from you, you need to give them a reason. One of the most effective ways to do this is to ask a few well thought-out questions to uncover what is important to the prospect.

Exactly right.  One of the more overlooked aspects of a sales interview is to pay attention to a candidate’s questions, both the content and the sequence.  I try to write all of them down in an interview to review them afterwards.  The candidate’s questions in the interview provides a glimpse into their qualifying ability without asking the candidate about it.  It is most important that you, the hiring manager, observe this ability closely both on a phone screen and during a face-to-face interview.

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Here’s a headscratcher from an ad I read today, Sept. 10:

On September 30, 2009, ABC Company will be upgrading the technology we use to receive job applications. Due to the upgrade, you will be asked to reapply to any jobs you have bid on. Any job applications, resumes, and/or cover letters that are submitted to ABC Company prior to September 30th, will not be converted to the new system.

They are advertising for a sales position…today.  So my assumption is that if I am a candidate, I can apply today and hope they are so overwhelmed they contact me immediately.  Right?  Otherwise, I will need to reapply in a few weeks.

If they are going to Taleo their entire process is whacked.

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This is an actual title from a sales ad I read this past weekend:

TSM-IL (203684-022)

Good grief.  Unless you are hiring a specific model of robot, do not do this when writing your title.

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This is the opening sentence from an email caught by my junk filter:

Sorry for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer as it is utterly hell confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature.

“…utterly hell confidential” is a new construction for me.  This example is anecdotal – the larger issue is the prevalence of email communication in selling.  The days of cold calling are receding while initial email communication is advancing.  This fact adds another factor to successful sales hiring.

The ability to be effective on the phone will always be important in successful selling, but the email approach is replacing the cold call.  In our business, we’ve worked hard to attract interest in our services.  The attraction piece, where prospects contact us, has moved to a 50/50 phone call vs. email split.  When we started this company over 5 years ago, almost all of the initial contacts were phone calls.

Unfortunately for many salespeople, writing ability seems to be a less common skill in today’s world.  Ridiculous sentences like the one listed above are becoming more common.

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I’m back from a needed break in this sour economy.  Everywhere I go I ask people about their business.  It is fairly consistent – something from “could be better” to “really down.”

That economic context allows some freedom for hiring companies to incorporate what I call contextual hiring techniques.  These are typically techniques that take longer to measure and allow the hiring company to see the salesperson in action.

Some examples:

Job Shadowing – just as it sounds, the candidate spends time with an existing sales rep to get an understanding of the position.  Peggy McKee at Medical Sales Recruiter has a post on this topic.  A friend of mine recently did this for a sales position that provided him the opportunity to ask many questions that would be difficult to ask in a formal interview.

I am a fan of this approach especially if the job market is slow.  It can be difficult if the market is hot and candidates have many opportunities.  However, this approach is a strong qualifier for the candidate’s interest.

The one caveat here is to pick the right salesperson for the candidate to shadow.  My friend learned many topics about the hiring company from the sales rep.  The topics that the rep offered up were too much of “inside baseball” to be sharing with a good candidate.

Trial Periods – yes, every position is technically a trial for the first 90 days.  What I’m talking about involves is a 30 – 60 day trial for observing a new salesperson.  Again, I’m a fan of this approach in this type of economy.

The main topics that can be ascertained in this time period is the candidate’s fit to your culture, his or her approach to the job and his or her interaction with you the boss.  Unless you have a short sales cycle, you won’t be able to observe them through the entire sales cycle.  You will have to monitor/observe their activity and extrapolate from that data.

It is a short window, but combining pre-hire assessments with a day of job shadowing and a trial period and you will have an in-depth understanding of your newly hired salesperson.

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