How can you identify the great salesperson in a job interview? Well, it’s not easy.

First of all, true sales virtuosos are scarce, even though there are many good salespeople and sales is one of the most common and necessary types of jobs. Also, research shows that the job interview is notoriously unreliable as a predictor of job performance. And it’s even worse if you are interviewing salespeople. Because if there is one thing that all salespeople – from the great ones to the average ones – have in common, it is the ability to interview exceptionally well.

So, how can you use an interview to increase your “hit rate” in hiring the best salespeople? Naturally, you want to look at their history, references, performance on pre-employment tests, and the like. You want to ask the usual interview questions (Tell me about yourself. Why did you leave your last job? What are your strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures? Etc.).

But salespeople are experts at getting past a typical interviewer. So here’s your challenge: How can you turn the odds in your favor? How can you interview in a manner that will reveal whether the person sitting across the desk from you will be first string on your sales team or will be a sales underachiever?

As a psychologist who has spent decades interviewing and counseling salespeople, I have learned that there are certain patterns that keep coming up so frequently in interviews that they have become highly predictable. Using the power of communication, here are 3 powerful interview tools to add to your interview approach:

# 1. “How will our company be better off if we hire you?” This is the mother of all hiring questions. It speaks to whether the sales applicant is focusing on your bottom line. Most applicants are primarily worried about how to explain themselves and how they come across in an interview. But you want to see if their major focus is on helping your company become more successful. Especially in sales, you are looking for someone whose has a laser-beam focus on bottom-line sales productivity – making money for the company, expanding the company’s customer base. You don’t want to hear about what this applicant did for Imbecile Machines in 2004; you want to know what he or she can do for you NOW. What they did in another job is only an example of what they can (presumably) do for you, not an answer to “Why should we hire you?”
# 2. Think about what is the most challenging thing about the job you are offering. Then say, “This job requires a lot of cold calling [or whatever is hardest]. Looking at your background, I’m not sure you can do it. How do we know you can do it and can keep doing it?” What you are actually doing here is presenting an “objection.” How does the applicant handle this objection? How they handle your objection will tell you a great deal about how they handle objections when actually selling your product or service.
# 3. Pick something from your desk (such as a pad of paper, a paperweight, or a pencil) and say, “OK, sell this to me.” This requires the applicant to do more than say the right things about themselves and about sales. It requires more than their often well-prepared responses to your questions. It requires them to actually do what you are hiring them to do. And who better to evaluate how they do it than you?

There are three areas to watch for in following up:

# A. Look for specific examples. If an applicant makes a strong claim but cannot think of a specific instance in their history that illustrates it, watch out.
# B. Look for what is avoided or missing. For example, training can consist of reading, coaching, participating in workshops, being mentored, and of course experience. If any of those elements are missing when the applicant discusses training, this is another potential red flag.
# C. Look for evidence not only that the applicant can perform the sales task, but also that he or she can do so on an ongoing basis. For example, if the job requires cold calling, and the applicant says they are good at cold calling, ask how much they cold call (how many hours a day or week, how many months on a consistent basis).

Adding all of the above ideas will increase the depth of your interview and give you more specific and better information to help you make a good sales hiring decision. And if you find that some variation works better for you in your particular situation, by all means use it.

At the moment I am meant to be working on a video about how to build a web site that will attract good clients. Everything has been thrown out of kilter because a piece of software I ordered three weeks ago hasn’t arrived.

Can someone explain to me how it can take three weeks to send a disc 250 miles? When I ordered it I explained that I needed it urgently and was prepared to go and fetch it, but they knew better and insisted that it would be with me in a week. I am a good client of this supplier but they let me down consistently and I can’t find anyone else who produces the software that they produce.

This is a typical instance of a small company where the driving force, the founder, works IN the business too much and doesn’t spend enough time working ON the business to make it function well.

It is always easy in a small business to get wrapped up in what you’re doing and take your eye off the effect that you are having on your clients.

The problem starts well before you even open for business. Ask yourself this question: “why did you decide to start a business like yours?” The answer is probably something along the lines of: “because it’s something I enjoy doing.” And that is the trap, you spend your time doing the things you enjoy. Well, why shouldn’t you? It is your business after all.

Yes, but it’s a business and the only way it will thrive and survive is if you find, win and retain good clients.

Somehow you have to find both the time and the inclination to spend time thinking like your good clients and talking to them. They are the life blood of your business – value them and treat them like your best friends.

Coming up in my video series are movies about how to attract good clients and how to sell to them with confidence and conviction. I am pressing ahead with the selling video because I can’t complete the movie scheduled for release this week.

I hope you’ll enjoy How To Win Good Clients by Selling With Confidence and Conviction. It is a subject very dear to my heart because when I started out I was really bad at selling. It scared the pants off me. But now I really enjoy the challenge. The turning point was when I learned how to make myself more confident. I’ll tell you more about how I did that in my next article.

A Sales Manager's Responsibility Does Not Focus on Selling but it Does Focus on the Promotion of Sales

Sales managers are often promoted and then expected to continue to handle their most lucrative accounts. This decision is often made by management for the fear of losing major accounts. The new sales manager hardly ever protests as it is an affirmation as to his worthiness and ownership of those accounts. These decisions leave little time for coaching their sales teams or strategizing about future sales initiatives. Field sales people may end up with the perception that their personal growth potential may be limited. The sales person replacing the sales manager that was promoted may feel that the company lacks confidence in their ability to handle major accounts. This is not the kind of orientation you want to adopt when assigning new sales personnel.

What are the Sales Managers Real Responsibilities?

A fair question and the answer may apply universally across the majority of industries. The answer focuses on four key concepts:

1. Developing the Sales Strategy --- Creating a discipline within the sales force to identify specific growth targets which include:

• Increased penetration of existing accounts

• New account development , pipeline management

• New product introduction and promotion

2. Developing the Sales Force --- This key responsibility includes self development and required leadership skills.

• Coaching and mentoring

• Providing training resources

• Hands on buddy calls

• Monthly territory/account discussions and review sessions. (one on one)

• Policy & procedure enforcement

• Accountability

3. Managing Activities – Measuring Results --- Defining key activities and then managing those activities is a prerequisite to success.

• Designing a sales effectiveness process that requires account action plan activities that include but are not limited to:

--- Targeting

--- Goal setting

--- Opportunity reporting

--- Pipeline management

--- Performance scorecards

4. Advertisement & Promotions --- This is budget based and may be coordinated with marketing in many companies but should include the following:

• Open house

• Lunch & learn

• Client seminars

• Social and event selling

• Public awareness, speaking and writing articles

• Testimonials and referrals

Although the scenario outlined in the opening paragraph (Sales managers are often promoted and then expected to continue to handle their most lucrative accounts.) was very common ten years ago, it has slowly been changing as companies recognize the importance that needs to be placed on developing the sales force. Being the number one sales person is no longer the primary criteria used to determine who the next sales manager should be. Many companies now acknowledge that the skill sets required to be a good sales manager are different than those of a good field sales person. Sales managers today must be focused on coaching their sales staffs, strategizing about creating new business and delegating day-to-day operational issues to other staff members.

The Truth Is Simple

You can not effectively manage a sales force and have primary responsibility for the maintenance or development of specific accounts. It is like trying to win the super bowl with player coaches on the field and nobody on the sidelines looking at the big picture and taking care of the overall game plan. Quit scrimping. If you promote someone to sales manager; let them manage and pay them according to the profitability performance of the overall sales team. You also need to invest in skill development in the area of coaching and mentoring for your sales managers. In fact all managers need this type of skill development. Everybody talks about it but very few companies actually train their managers on coaching and mentoring.

Gaining the Respect of the Sales Team

I often hear the argument that a sales manager needs to gain the respect of the sales team by demonstrating their skill at selling by handling some accounts. That is a myth. More precisely; that is Hogwash. There is no correlation between a manager's sales ability and leadership skills. That is why promoting your best sales person to sales manager more often than not falls short of expectations. Indeed, if you were to adopt that theory you may initiate an ego contest between the sales manager and the sales team which could do irreparable harm. Think about this. How can a sales manager live up to the responsibilities outlined in this article and support his sales team through coaching and mentoring if he/she is out in the field selling directly to an account base? Sales managers gain respect and trust by demonstrating respect and trust in the sales team; not by trying to outsell or sell along side of them. The sales manager’s job is to be the coach and strategist. If the job is defined accurately as being a coach, then he/she doesn't need to prove their sales ability. They just need to gain the trust and respect by becoming a good strategist, coach, mentor and problem solver.

The Professional Sales Manager Characteristics:

The next time you are faced with hiring or promoting someone to the position of Sales Manager, use the following characteristics as a baseline for your selection process.

1. Highly Self Motivated

2. Optimistic

3. Excellent Relationship building Skills

4. Skilled at Team Selling – Team Building

5. Calculated Risk Taker

6. Listens Well --- 80% of the Time

7. Plans Well

8. Ability to Think Outside the Box Because They Know What Goes on Inside the Box

9. Always Lives Up to Their Commitments

10. Always On Time With Assignments

11. Exceptional Positive Attitude (Does Not Whine or Make Excuses)

12. Excellent Communicator

13. Inspires Excellence in Others

14. Strong Social and Interpersonal Skills

15. Commands a Presence

16. Honesty

17. Integrity

18. Develops Trust and Respect by Showing Trust

and Respect for others

19. Embraces Accountability – for Self and Sales Team

20. Knowledgeable of Selling Concepts and Best Practice

A Top-Level Balanced Scorecard is a great tool to summarize an organization’s top objectives that stem from its Strategic Planning process. The tool has more than a decade of application and proven results, so a well-deployed Balanced Scorecard is a sure way to provide focus, accountability, communication, and a predictable way to achieve strategic goals.

The first step in building an organization's top-level Balanced Scorecard is to copy elements from its strategy map, if one has been created. A strategy map is a simple, visual depiction of an organization’s highest-level strategic objectives, grouped into high-level focus areas, called perspectives. These groupings should take the organization’s key "stakeholders" into account. The four most common perspectives that frame a company's strategic objectives are Financial, Customers, Internal Processes, and Learning and Growth. These may be modified to reflect different or additional stakeholders.

Perspectives become “buckets” into which the high-level objectives fit on both a strategy map and on a top-level Balanced Scorecard. Objectives are the eight to ten most critical organizational goals from the current year's strategic plan. They take the form of short verb-noun statements. For example, an objective under the "Customers" perspective could be "Improve Customer Satisfaction." These critical objectives may often be derived from a “SWOT Analysis,” which uncovers key Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that should be addressed.

The next step in building the scorecard is to identify measures that will best determine if the company is on track to achieve each objective. Measures, also called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) or metrics, are the one to three strategic indicators of success per objective. Using the example objective above, "Improve Customer Satisfaction," a company could measure "Average Customer Satisfaction Score," plus one or two additional proven indicators for this objective, such as “Product Return Rate” and “Number of Customer Complaints.” The measure should also have a specified goal or target. By comparing actual performance data to this goal, a Stoplight Indicator can be triggered, which provides a quick visual reading – typically a red, yellow, or green arrow – of each measure’s current status.

Key to a good top-level scorecard is maintaining focus. By adhering to the maximum numbers of objectives and measures suggested above, focus will be clear. To help achieve these rules of thumb, keep in mind that day-to-day tactical or line-level quality measures should be contained in lower level, “cascaded” scorecards.

The final step in building a top-level Balanced Scorecard is to identify initiatives that will address critical areas of underperformance. Initiatives are time-specific projects with identified start- and end-dates that should be aligned to critical underperforming measures or objectives. These help close the gaps and turn red or yellow stoplight indicators green.

A few best practices to remember:

1. Perspectives, objectives, measures, and initiatives should all be aligned with the strategy to ensure that the correct road map will be followed.

2. Only the critical few (eight to ten) objectives should make it onto the top-level Scorecard and no more than three measures should be tracked for each objective.

3. Finally, a single, top-level scorecard will not drive results. Scorecards must be cascaded down and across the organization to really see results.