In a recent sales training and sales management training program in Sydney Australia we asked both sales people and separately their sales managers “how were you recruited and interviewed”.
The growth of any organisation is only as good as its sales people. If you hire poorly, your reputation and, eventually, the bottom line will suffer even if your products and services are the best on the market.Far too many organisations leave the recruitment of new sales people to the sales managers and yet far too often the same sales managers have not been trained on how to actually recruitIn a recent sales training program in Sydney Australia we asked both sales people and separately their sales managers “how were you recruited and interviewed”.The responses were terrible and varied from:1. The manager/interviewer did 80 – 90% of the talking2. The manager/Interviewer had a prepared list of tasks the successful interviewee was expected to do, then went through the list asking “Can you do this? Can you do that?”3. The manager/interviewer hadn’t read the interviewees resume4. The interviewer was not from a sales background however had a huge sway in the final decision5. The manager/interviewer asked hypothetical questions instead of BEI questions based on past experienceThis was exactly the case with a company that approached KONA last summer.3 years ago the company, thanks to its superior products, had been the industry leader. However, last year it was lagging far behind its top 2 competitorsWhat happens when this is the issue?Even the best sales managers will struggle if their people don’t have the right skills and attributes for the job. After all, it is primarily the sales people not the manager, who regularly goes in the field and meets with customers.Additionally, you may stop getting as many new customers each month as you did before. Winning new customers is a tough task that requires both skills and hard work, and is not something that a below-average sales team can do effectively.How to solve this issue?A good sales manager does not automatically make a good recruiter, unless he/she learns and cultivates the necessary skills.Identify exactly what specific skills and type of experience you requireWhat are the specific skills you want a potential employee to have?What experience should they have?Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because someone has come from within the industry they have been successful.Ask numerical questions including:I. How many new clients/customers did you win a month/year?II. What % increase in sales did you have year on year?III. How many targets a year did you hit?IV. How many new proposals did you present a month, on average?Learn Behavioural Event Interviewing skills“The best indicator of future performance is past behaviour”Behavioural Event Interviewing (BEI) is a way to plan and hold a structured interview by asking questions based on the interviewee’s past behaviour, activity, situations and resultsEffective as these 4 tips are, they alone cannot guarantee recruitment of the best sales people. For that, you need a professional coaching program. KONA Group’s Australian sales training and sales management trainingand coaching programs trains sales managers on how to identify and interview the right people.
