I’ve been assessing many existing salespeople over the past couple weeks and have seen many different levels of abilities. The ones that stick in my mind are the salespeople who are presently struggling with their revenue production. Sales is one of, if not the most stressful positions within any company. The overt issue with a lack of sales performance is that everyone in the company can see it. The numbers are very visible. One underperforming salesperson I talked to recently has hit a true low point. He’s not certain where to start. I thought about that discussion for quite some time afterwards. The lack of performance becomes a spiraling nose… Read More
Continue ReadingBig Personalities In Selling
We’re an assessment company so you can imagine how adamant I am about assessing candidates (not just for sales positions either). However, in sales it is crucial to use assessments to cut through the sales candidates’ well-developed social skills. Unfortunately, many assessment tools focus on personality only which is not a reliable or repeatable predictor of sales success. My experience has been that most people focus on big personalities when it comes to selling. If the person is a good talker, tells funny stories, lights up the room, etc., then they must be a good salesperson. The bigger the personality, the more they will sell. Ok, I grant you that… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Like A Detective
Yes, the title is a bit quirky, but it is true. A significant portion of successful hiring involves being a good detective. I have always taken that approach when helping our customers find the right salesperson for their position. To be a good detective, you need to be a bit skeptical. Sales candidates blow sunshine. Few have ever missed quota, most state their primary weakness is being a workaholic and all have earned everything they have accomplished. Right. In reality, most have missed their sales quota at some point, many have real weaknesses discussing money and handling rejection and most have benefited from somewhere be it marketing, territory, company market… Read More
Continue ReadingBattle Lines
I’ve been busy over the past week or two handling a myriad of business topics and tasks which has decreased my blogging time dramatically. One item has come up during this time at one of our customers – a battle of wills amongst managers. This is no small battle, it has turned into an ongoing war for which I am now in the midst of the battlefield. Without going into specifics, I can tell you where we start in these situations – motivations. The first place to look when there is interpersonal conflict within an office team is the motivation pattern for each individual. In the instance with our customer,… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Social Motivation
I have recently come across the Social motivation when assessing some sales candidates for a couple different customers and now I just heard a sales rep on the radio revealing his motivation. Here is what the salesperson said on the radio: I just met with a company yesterday who was paying almost twice as much to our competitor for the same service. They were getting ripped off and it isn’t right. I don’t deny the nobility of his position, but the reality is that very few services are exactly the same (despite prospect’s claims). A strong salesperson will define their value to the prospect who will make a decision about… Read More
Continue ReadingSalespeople – Born Or Made?
The nature vs. nurture debate is one for which I am most intrigued. My Bachelor’s degree is in psychology and this topic was a popular debate topic in my courses. Yesterday I came across this article from CNNMoney.com – Are entrepreneurs born or made? As I look at the stats, I tend to interpret the result as saying entrepreneurs are made: Shane and his fellow researchers compared the entrepreneurial activity of 870 pairs of identical twins — who share 100% of their genes — and 857 pairs of same-sex fraternal twins — who share 50% — to see how much of entrepreneurial behavior is genetic and how much is environmental.… Read More
Continue ReadingTalent Is Dreadfully Cheap
How about this quote from Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (h/t JustSell.com): … talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force — a force so great that the knife is not really cutting at all but bludgeoning and breaking… Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle.
Continue ReadingThe Trial Hire
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… Read More
Continue ReadingEven Airlines Use Assessments
Short background here is that Delta bought Northwest Airlines and now I am in the process of switching my frequent flyer program to Delta. Being a free miles junkie, I completed Delta’s online travel profile. I thought it was simple background info/preferences for me. At the end of the 15 questions I receive this information: Speed Racer Comfort Seeker Opportunist Grand Planner YOU TRAVEL IN THE FAST LANE, WITH MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY. As one of those rare, special people who gets things done quicker when there’s more to do, you prioritize your time to your advantage. You always find a way to be more efficient, and you never met an obstacle… Read More
Continue ReadingDo Values Change In A Recession?
That is a tough question since I think values are primarily hardwired into each of us. We assess this trait in sales candidates – call them motivations. Each person tends to have two of these motivators that drives their behaviors (some people have 3 primary motivators). We have assessed salespeople who were in slumps, who were unemployed and who were candidates. These are stressful situations that should impact their values. When we had the opportunity to assess the same people at a later date (years later), we did not see an appreciable change in their values/motivations. Granted, this was no scientific study, but rather a consistent observation. BusinessWeek.com provides this… Read More
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