Avoiding Recruitment Mistakes Recruiting good sales people and making them effective quicklyThe top 5 do’s and don’ts of effective sales recruitment Don’t… - Assume that the candidates have to come from your sector. Too much emphasis is often put on technical and industry knowledge. The truth is that good salespeople can sell almost anything to anyone.
- Rely on sales recruitment agencies to select ‘suitable candidates’. All they are interested is placing the body and collecting their fee. The emphasis is on you to screen out the rejects - wasting your time and money.
- Believe what you see on a CV. Rather like an iceberg, nine tenths of the real story is beneath the surface.
- Use your top sales performer as a role model for your ideal candidate. They may get good results for all sorts of reasons—most of which cannot be duplicated by another sales person on another territory.
- Expect it to be a quick process. Do you want it quick or want it right? Recruiting inappropriate people can cost you dearly longer term.
Do…. - Specify very accurately the job in terms of results and activities. Profile the ideal person not just in terms of their competencies but their attitudes and habits too.
- Include role playing in the selection process to enable candidates to prove their sales ability beyond what they say on their CV!
- Be aware of past success being an indicator of future results. Make sure you scrutinise the ‘hows’ as well as the ‘whats’.
- Make sure you plan an effective induction for the new starter to harness and maintain early motivation.
- Take up references before you make a job offer - preferably by telephone where people tend to be more open.
Whatever your recruitment issue - replacement or expansion, Salespunch™ can help you to get it right first time and every time. Its unique combination of practical profiling tools and sales skill assessment devices, delivered by your Salespunch™ coach can help you to take the grief out of sales recruitment. Contact Salespunch™ - Now! |
Sales Role Definition is the essential platform for ensuring that the right people are in the right slots for optimising sales effectiveness. In addition to the outputs of the job (revenue targets etc) it is important to define the key measurable sales activities that are required to achieve the sales objectives. This will help to define the knowledge, skills and experience that are necessary in order for job applicants (or incumbents) to be successful in the role. Contact your Salespunch™ coach to investigate how an SRD™ can be applied to your sales functions to avoid costly recruitment mistakes.
Beyond the SRD™, it is vital that an accurate profile of the ideal candidate is drawn up. Many recruitment mistakes are caused by inadequate attention being paid to the type of person and the 'in-the-round' characteristics required to be successful in the job. The KASH™ Analysis tool ensures that, in addition to the Knowledge and Skills required, careful attention is paid to Attitudes and Habits. For example: - How flexible is the candidate's attitude in relation to the length of the working day?
- How far are they prepared to travel?
- What's their attitude towards helping to coach more junior members of the team?
All these attributes are profiled using KASH™, scoping 'essential' and 'desirable' levels. Contact your Salespunch™ coach to investigate how KASH™ Analysis can be applied to your sales functions to avoid costly recruitment mistakes.
Sales people make a fantastic study. It’s strange that we don’t even realise that sales is a legitimate profession - probably, until our twenties: who decides to go into ‘sales’ at University? It’s a bit like the now out-moded aversion to people who are ‘in trade’ – as opposed to a) being gentle-persons of leisure or b) in ‘the professions’, which is absurd really: name another job – apart from trading or selling or managing equities in the City – where, in my industry at any rate you can be comfortably earning 6 figures by the time you’re 30. And yet, let’s face it, most sales people are rubbish. Apart from the usual paranoia around the 'just a suit' and 'gift of the gab' themes, you know the complaints: they don’t listen, they’re lazy, they don’t understand their products, they’re not organised and they hate admin ('oh, and they get paid far too much and I can do it much better myself anyway')........ Click here for more To arrange an exploratory conversation with your coach, please contact Salespunch™ - Now! 01883 621088 |