1. Take Great Notes in the Margin of the Resume

Make note of statements from the interviewee that you may have any kind of doubts about. As opposed to asking the question immediately, jot the statement down, let them finish off and after that at some point later (this will likely even be in the next interview), inquire your question regarding that statement.

This can be really valuable in jogging your memory on essential statements and detailed information that you may make use of to later challenge and test the mettle of the prospective sales hire. The data you’ll jot down now might seem simplistic and not at all related to the candidate selection process, but later it will make the real difference between making remarkable hiring selections.

2. Shut Your Trap…For Now

It’s exciting to talk about the business, the job, your “management style” and all that good stuff. The issue with this strategy is it doesn’t allow you to hire the right sales candidate.

The idea is this; any time you spend in an interview needs to be spent with you finding out about them, not you telling them about you. Should you keep it that way you’ll reveal much more about your applicants as opposed to you babbling the whole time.

3. Never Reveal Your Hand

Only at the end of the final job interview should you start letting them know the character elements you are interested in in “the ideal sales candidate”. Don’t at any time discuss this at the start.

What you’re looking for is for them to tell you what they’re all about. And then you complement their particular talents and expertise to the necessary skillsets and knowledge necessary to be successful in the job.

4. Use Uncomfortable Silences

In each and every job interview, you will find inevitable uncomfortable silences. Resist the temptation to fill them with words, as a substitute utilize them to your advantage.

If you find an irritatingly lengthy silence, the applicant may feel it more the longer it goes and will want to fill it up with something, for the reason that it’s so awkward for them. Remain silent, see what they have to say instead.

Its in occasions like these that sales candidates reveal their true self because they have used up all their canned answers. What they say next will be unscripted and will provide you with precious knowledge into who they are.

5. Don’t Steer the Witness

When you ask a question and the candidate suddenly seems to lose their train of thought or has problems with the answer to a question you have asked, allow them to have plenty of time to answer.

Whatever you do though, do not answer on their behalf. The purely natural human inclination is to “fill the gaps” and be reasonable and useful.

The response will eventually come and you will want to write this down in the margin to review it later on in the interview. If you feel that the problem they’re having is because of the manner in which you asked the question then simply re-state the question in more straightforward terms.

Start using these five tested ways to interview your next salesman and you will be very impressed at the quality of applicants you’ll then be able to hire.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get more great information on sales management.

A word of caution however, it doesn’t matter what company or industry you are in, don’t ever hire right after a single interview. It’s simply too little time to actually discover what someone’s all about.

It doesn’t matter how bad the anxiety gets in order to hire quickly, always keep to the very same six-step program we outline in this sales management training. This sales management hiring procedure assures uniformity so that you can appraise each applicant in as consistent way as possible.

The 6 Step Hiring System:

1.Define Your Hiring Criteria

2.Perform detailed resume screening

3. Hold the First Interview (one hour)

4. Hold the 2nd Interview (one to two hours)

5.Carry out Background and Reference Checks

6.Put together the Offer

Total time investment for all steps: two to six weeks along with practically three-plus hours of time (perhaps more should you do the 3rd interview)

This may appear to be an awful lot of time and energy invested for one lousy sales hire?

Look at it this way; you are selecting somebody that will feed your household…if that isn’t a good enough rationale to make sure you’re doing all you are able to do in order to make the ideal decision I don’t really know what is.

Each step in the operation is in a timed order mainly because you will need time to reflect, think about and contemplate the meaning of the info you’ve uncovered in each phase. Your mind simply needs time in order to process all this material!

When interviewing prospective salespeople you’re going to be acquiring a huge amount of data at one time; most of which ought to be carefully considered and processed. To prevent rash, uninformed or ill-thought decisions, make use of a sequenced series of steps that enables you enough time to process all the details necessary to make an informed decision with a bare minimum of disruption.

More notable, you will need to be in a position to compare and contrast all of your prospects on an even playing field. In employing the framework laid out above, this is able to take place.

Every single minute you devote right now in carefully finding the right candidate could save you days of your time on the back end in case you make the hasty decision and hire before you fully uncover what the particular candidate is actually about.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get more great information on sales management.

Motivating and retaining a high-performance sales force is an important undertaking. You need to start with the right people, set attainable goals, find effective ways to motivate your team and ensure that everyone – including you – completes appropriate sales training. These key steps will get you and your team moving in the right direction:

• Hire internal sales staff rather than outsourcing.

While it might be tempting consider outsourcing as a way to save money, it’s best to have a sales force that is focused exclusively on your products rather than one that is juggling multiple clients. An in-house sales team will allow you greater control over the sales function and enable you to set strategy for the entire sales organization.

• Look for certain characteristics when hiring.

The best salespeople share certain characteristics in common. To assemble a winning sales team, look for candidates with the following traits:

o   Eager to learn

o   Highly competitive

o   Great listening skills

o   Undaunted by rejection

o   Confident and optimistic

• Be clear in your expectations.

Before sending your team out into their territories, make sure that all team members are aware of their responsibilities and your expectations. Review goals and objectives with each person, and put their deliverables and compensation in writing. Clear communication helps eliminate questions or confusion.

• Use both financial and non-financial incentives to motivate your team.

While a commission-based compensation plan provides strong motivation, including base pay can help you attract and retain great people. This approach guarantees a minimum income during lean times, which helps keep morale high and minimizes the risk of losing experienced staff. A comprehensive benefits program can help you compete for the best salespeople, and public recognition is another way to encourage and reward outstanding performance.

• Obtain formal sales training for your team – and yourself.

Invest in some form of professional sales training for your entire staff, to ensure that all team members have a consistently high level of knowledge and skills. Consider online sales training that your reps can enroll in together but complete at their own pace and on their own schedule. An online certificate program offers the added benefit of official sales credentials, which can be a strong motivator. But don’t overlook your own training needs, because even the best managers have room for improvement. If you’re new to your role, look for sales management training designed to help you make the transition into a supervisory role. If you’re a veteran sales manager, seek out expert-level sales management training.

By following these steps, you can put your sales team – and your career – firmly on the path to success.

This is a guest post by the University of San Francisco who offers a sales management training master certificate program.  The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of University of San Francisco and do not necessarily reflect those of Top Sales Manager Blog.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

Maybe, the one you just let go couldn’t cut it…

Or maybe your company is going through an expansion and you have to hire an entire sales force at once…

Or perhaps your best rep just got promoted (congratulations by the way – even though it does kinda suck for you) and you have to hire quick…

So what do you do?

When you’re under pressure, the tendency is to do a “one and done” interview and hire. These are the “one interview – one offer” kind of sales hires. If you go this route, you’ll regret this later…trust me, Ive done it and it’s the worst thing you can do.

What you need is a strategy to screen resumes, determine which ones you want to either phone screen or interview, then interview, then hire.

You’ve go a lot to do…but you’re busy trying to get sales going in the right direction.

Well for the next few posts, we will be gong through this entire process step-by-step so you make the right decision, minimize the chances of making the wrong decisions, and hire the next sales superstar for your team.

So let’s get into the first step in the entire process of interviewing: resume screening.

Step 1: Examine your hiring criteria

The first real step is to identify what your hiring criteria really is.

Like many companies, you most likely have a job posting somewhere on your company’s website for all to view to the world. It may go a little something like this:

• A Bachelors degree in Business, Marketing or the Life Sciences
• 5 years successful front line sales experience including strong “closing” skills
• Knowledge of the healthcare industry and the general economics of business
• Ability to develop and sustain strong customer relationships
• Strong business planning and organizational skills
• Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills
• Solid PC skills including knowledge of Microsoft software
• A valid driver’s license

Well there you go, all you need to do is find all that and you’re on your way to hiring a sales superstar!

Hardly. I’m guessing that this is not the exact candidate you’re looking for….

The problem is that with most postings looking like this, there is really nothing in the posting that will help you to screen out the resumes you don’t want and help you bring in the ones you do want. Nor does it give you any indication of the types of talents that you are actually looking for.

However, at this point, its okay because all you want to do is just have the bare minimum requirements of the job laid out.

Remember, this isn’t the core characteristics you are looking for…we get into that later. All you want to write down is the job description and the bare minimum qualifications you need to hire.

Write out the complete job description. For example, put in writing the following:

• The leg work that must be done prior to making a sales call
• What kind of sale is it: transactional vs. consultative
• How you expect existing customers to be serviced
• What essential personality traits are required
• How you expect records to be maintained
• How many calls should be made in a week
• Talents needed to be successful in the role
• Determine if industry experience is essential
• How many years of experience is absolutely required
• Education level

Think through the entire sales process and detail how you want it to be done, what tools will be used, and your expectations for their results.

This exercise should include not only what you want sales reps or account managers to do, but how you want them to approach it. Think about the style of selling you want them to use.

The profile and ad you create may change over time – that’s okay because its sole purpose is to screen out and attract in, at a very rudimentary level, the candidates that could be most well-suited for the job. All it really is a first step in a lengthy process.

With all the work you have to do…you’re gonna need to get some help sifting through the bad resumes so you can focus on the good ones.

And to save you TONS of time, we’ll give you a big clue how to get someone else besides you to do this for you – so you can stay focused on other things, like sales…in our next post.

In the meantime, get writing.

To learn even more about sales training, get our free ebook.

Do you have your own hiring criteria? Please leave a comment after this post.

They notice stuff.

They notice what their salespeople are good at…as well as what they’re not so good at. They then leverage the stuff they are good at to coax even greater performance out of their salespeople. They largely minimize the weaknesses.

The average sales managers sees those same weaknesses and thinks that he can fix them. He spends all his time doing just that.

That’s why he’s an average sales manager.

Let’s show an example…

Here we have two top performing salespeople, both having achieved the highest sales awards in their companies:

Jane

Jane has has an incredible talent for building rapport, easily weaving pleasant conversation with the true sales pitch. Her manner is easygoing and laid-back, but hides a profound inner drive.

She’s completely in control of the situation at all times and asks many layered questions of the prospect to uncover their needs. Instead of being “all business”, she talks about jewelry, kids and other non-business activities; easily mixing in rapport building with selling through out the process.

She doesn’t take herself too seriously, taking time for some self-deprecating asides, but constantly driving towards the sale. She uses no real reference pieces, instead relies on her easy, trustworthy manner to build credibility. When it comes to the end, she doesn’t really “close” per se as much as she just assumes they will be moving on to the next step.

Tom

In contrast, “Tom” is incredibly persistent, although a little bit awkward in his approach, people respect him due to his aggressiveness and “never taking no” mentality.

When he is in a sales call, he’s all business, no rapport building whatsoever, but asks few precisely worded questions to uncover his client’s needs.

When he hears objections, he aggressively asks the reasons behind the objections. He then pulls out reference materials to overcome the objections and validate his claims. At the end of the sale, he asks “alternate close questions”, awaits responses before proceeding and aggressively pushes for the next step, and is very successful in doing so.

In our little hypothetical scenario, let’s say Tom and Jane report to you. Would they look at the above scenarios and think: “If I could just get Jane to use more reference materials and ask more hard close questions and Tom to just lighten up and build some more rapport, both of them would be even better!”

In both cases, the sales manager would be falling into the most common, yet well-meaning trap that average sales managers make. They would be trying to perfect them both.

I have news for you…they’ll never do it.

Instead, get more out of your salespeople by harnessing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses.

Not only is it a far easier (and more fun) way to mange…but its a far more effective one too.

Post a comment below and tell me what you think.

In our continuing series on how to screen a sales resume, today we touch on:

Does there seem to be a logical progression of promotions throughout the salesperson’s resume?

Most companies, after a set period of years, will typically enhance a salesperson’s title to reflect increased stature and seniority. This is usually awarded in concert with achievements at the “lower” level, but not always.

If you see this logical progression, this simply tells you that the candidate is well-regarded, but will not necessarily tell you that they can sell at a high level.

If they have solid achievements alongside steady advances in promoted titles, then this is certainly a positive.  Accolades, as we’ve discussed before are the hallmark of a great sales resume and are an absolute “”must have” in order for you to even consider them for a live interview.

However, if the salesperson has been at the company for five or ten years and their title never changes from “sales executive” to “senior sales executive” or another some such thing, this may be an indicator that you have an underperformer on your hands. This is especially true if the sales achievements in the time period mentioned are sparse or worse yet, non-existent.

However, if you see a strong progression of title changes, as well as diverse job experiences such as promotion to a specialty sales role along the course of their time at a particular company, then you’ll probably want to interview them. This is especially true if this progression of promotions is in your company’s industry.

Remember at this stage of the interview process, you’re only at the  second step of the whole hiring process, what we call the “Six Step Hiring System” which we do teach to our Academy students.

Your main goal at this stage is just to do one thing: determine if they are worthy of your time in a live interview…nothing more and nothing less.

Bottom line here is this: if you see a logical progression of steady promotions, mixed with top accolades, get ‘em in for a live interview. This sales rep could be a keeper.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

What do you think? We want to know, don’t be shy. Post a comment below.

In today’s post, we touch on:

Where and in what geographic areas have they worked?

When screening new interview applicants, the best case scenario is if they have current experience in the market and the geography that you are hiring for. This isn’t essential, but very nice to have. So this is a plus.

However, another more important factor to consider is, if they are working for your direct competitor and have been calling on the same market and the same geography, then you and the candidate may have some serious credibility issues with former customers of theirs.

So be careful here. You’ll want to consider this in your resume screening, as the right answer will largely depend on your industry and market dynamics.

Does there seem to be a logical progression of promotions throughout their resume?

Most companies, after a set period of years, will enhance a salesperson’s title to reflect increased stature and seniority. This is typically awarded in concert with achievements at the “lower” level. If you see this logical progression, this simply tells you that the candidate is well-regarded, but will not necessarily tell you that they can sell at a high level.

If they have solid achievements alongside steady advances in promoted titles, then this is positive.  However, if they are at a company for five or ten years and their title never changes from “sales executive” to “senior sales executive” or another some such thing, this may be an indicator that you have an underperformer on your hands. This is especially true if the sales achievements in the time period mentioned are sparse or worse yet, non-existent.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

Post a comment below and tell me your insights in screening a sales resume.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sales Management | How To Screen A Sales Resume For Accolades (topsalesmanagerblog.com)
• How To Screen Sales Resume Like A Pro – “Power Words” (topsalesmanagerblog.com)
• Sales Management | 5 Proven Methods To Screen Out A Bad Sales Hire (topsalesmanagerblog.com)

Remember that the goal here is to filter out the less than worthy candidates, before you take the time to do live interviews.

How many jobs has your sales applicant had…and for how long?

You can reference age on this one because this one is a biggie. If you see them changing jobs every two years, why would you think this applicant would stay working for you any longer?

They may have a fear of commitment or they may just get easily distracted. Either one is not so attractive to you.

The truth is that they may just wear out their welcome after a certain point in time. This will most likely be the case if they come to work for you. What you are really looking for here is what kind of person are they and time spent at previous employers tells you a lot about them and could mean any of those things previously mentioned.

To be fair, many salespeople get laid off, downsized or outsourced, so don’t necessarily jump to any firm conclusions here, but if you do choose to interview, this point should be addressed when you meet them face to face.

How long have they stayed at each position or company?

This is similar to the point above, but slightly different. The longer the candidate stays at any one given job, gives you an indication that either they were making such great money that they could never leave, they flew beneath the radar and were never found out that they were sleeping under their desk, or they really liked working there. I’d be willing to bet it’s the last one.

Look carefully at the job duties of the job they spent the longest time at. Their job duties and performance gives you a good indication of what they are about. If they were there for eight years and have no accolades in that time, then forget it – dump that resume.

Additionally, if there is a good track record, that longest stretch of employment tells you a lot about what they like and what drives them, whether its good or bad. Regardless, this is something you would need to ask them about by asking them: “you were selling for Crazy Coffins, Inc. for eight years, you must have really liked it there – what did you like so much about it”.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

Tell me your ideas on how you screen sales resumes by posting a comment below.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sales Management | 3 Proven Tips To Tell If A Sales Resume Is Truthful (topsalesmanagerblog.com)
• Hire in Haste. Repent in Leisure. (mpdailyfix.com)

In this sales training series on screening sales resumes we tell you exactly how to do it…so you can get your sales superstar quickly…while wasting minimal time.

“Power Words”

When describing their achievements or does the sales candidate use powerful “power words” to describe their accomplishments or “passive words”?

Sales is a combination of action and results. You definitely need someone who takes action to be working for you – especially someone who proactively creates action, without you have to “motivate’ them to do so.

Words like “achieved”, “won”, “accomplished”, “catapulted”, “exceeded” and “generated” are action-oriented “power words”. They bespeak confidence and striving, both important traits that all high performing sales representatives possess.

However, “passive words” like “managed”, “responsible for”, “completed” or “promoted” are far more submissive. If you see too many passive type words, it may indicate that you may have a passive candidate.

To learn more about sales management training, click here to get your choice of free sales management training courses.

How about you? Do you pay attention in this kind of details? Please post a comment.

Without even talking to a sales candidate face to face, you can tell a lot about a potential sales candidate by simply analyzing their resume.

In this sales training series on screening sales resumes we tell you exactly how to do it…so you can get your sales superstar quickly…while wasting minimal time.

Age, GPA and Education

They tell you in every interviewing course or class you ever take and in every interview book you ever read…

Human Resources rails you for it if you ever ask it…

Its the “age question”.

OK, so keep everyone happy (and you from any sort of legal issues) – don’t ask it, just figure it out instead. Either way, you’re only in the resume screening phase, so don’t sweat it.

Determining the age of a sales candidate is an important part of the resume screening phase of hiring a sales person. As important is examining their degree and GPA – very important tidbits of info you can gather way prior to meeting a candidate. In this tip, we show you how to do it so you can screen out the junk and get to the good.

1. Determine their age by when they graduated from college.

If they graduated from college in 1992, than as of this writing, the candidate would be roughly 37 years of age or so.  Not that age really matters, but at this stage all you are trying to do is to get a clear sense as to who the person is, so gaining a mental picture of their approximate age is a useful tool to deploy.

Whatever you do, don’t discriminate due to age, because great sales people come in all sizes and shapes, as well as all ages.

2. Is there a Grade Point Average?

Under the “Education” section, you’ll either find a G.P.A. listed or not. The G.P.A. is a good indicator of the “self-starting”, internally-driven nature of the candidate. If there is no GPA, there’s probably a reason why. It simply means its not that good.

GPAs are easy to check and are done in most background checks with employers, so if its missing, that means that the candidate purposely chose not put it on there.

In my opinion, if you had a high GPA in college, you were either naturally smart, very disciplined or both. As you may know, there are a lot of distractions in college, so a candidate who achieved a high GPA may indicate that he is impervious to distractions, self-starting and focused – all good attributes for a sales candidate.

3. Do they have an advanced degree?

If they do, then that’s great. That degree, even though it looks real good, won’t necessarily help them sell any better however.

If they are in the process of completing their advanced degree, then the current GPA will tell you a lot about their ability to manage time effectively.

Even better, if they are pursuing an advanced degree and concurrently have outstanding sales accolades, then you may have found your next sales executive!

However, be cognizant of your company’s tuition reimbursement program, because the candidate is bound to ask you in the interview, so do your homework.

To learn more about sales management training, get our free video on the sidebar of this post or by clicking here.

Please post you comment and insights below.