|
Recently,
a CEO of a medical device company asked me how I
screen candidates to identify the best salesperson. He
has an early stage company, is about to hire his first
salesperson, and cannot afford to make a mistake. He
is looking for an "A" player.
He
is wise to be cautious. Hiring the best candidate is
particularly challenging when recruiting a sales
executive. Why? Because sales people make their living
by getting others to trust them. The good ones (the
ones you are most likely to hire) know how to engage
others, to put their best foot forward, to think on
their feet and to tell you what you want to hear.
Essentially, they are selling themselves from the
moment you meet them. But all engaging salespeople are
not created equal, so how do you find the real
"A" performers from among the "A"
interviewers.
While
we ask a number of questions in multiple interviews
(more on that later) to determine suitability such as
punctuality, preparation, good communication and
listening skills, evidence of past success, a passion
to succeed, high standards, etc., there are two simple
and often overlooked questions that are critical for
today's sales environment.
When
interviewing, ask the candidate:
1.
Explain in detail what problem your product or service
solves for your current target customer.
2.
How does it solve it better than your competition?
Why
are these two questions so important? Because we are
in an age when solution selling is the order of the
day. Customers don't want to spend money, they want to
invest to solve a problem and improve their business.
The candidates should be able to answer these
questions confidently and without hesitation. If they
can't, you can be sure that they are not as successful
as they would have you believe, and you can also be
sure they won't be successful with you. Your product
or service must solve a problem for your customer, and
your sales team had better understand that they are
selling solutions. These two simple questions are the
best at getting to the bottom of whether or not you
are sitting across from a super-star or a
"sales-ghost"---a candidate who interviews
well but never delivers.
One
last and important tip. Be sure to conduct multiple
interviews of the top candidates, and leave some time
between meetings. The best candidates will be
consistent in appearance and behavior at all meetings.
They will have done more research about your company
and industry between each meeting, and they should be
able to ask more specific questions about your
product, company and marketplace each time. In
addition, it will give you an opportunity to see how
they follow up between meetings. Be sure that multiple
members of your team are involved in the interviews
and get together after each session to talk about
everyone's impressions.
If
you're thinking that this all seems very costly and
time consuming, consider the hard costs (salary,
benefits, training) and soft costs (lost sales
opportunities and customer costs) of hiring the wrong
sales person.
While
there is no perfect system that can guarantee a
perfect hire every time, you can improve your odds by
asking these simple questions and by having the
patience to follow a careful process.
Patricia
Romboletti can be reached by email at romboletti@mbsearch.net |
