How do you identify the RIGHT sales person for your business?
The best way is to implement a disciplined, methodical interviewing process with good questions.
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Our methodology is adapted from the book Who: The A Method for Hiring by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, with the aim of to teaching you the 4 Elements of a Disciplined Interview Process, tailored specifically for salespeople.
Step 1: Telephone Screening Interview (20-30 minutes)
The goal of the telephone interview is to pre-screen your candidates before you invest a lot of time to invite them in for an in-person interview. Certainly, some candidates just might not present themselves well enough for you to feel they should be given an in-person interview, but there are also a number of questions you should use to dig deeper into their experience. This will also give you an opportunity to assess how they handle themselves in an impromptu conversation where they are selling themselves.
Step 2: Top Grading Interview (60 minutes)
For your select candidates who made it past the telephone screening interview, they will participate in the next phase – the Top Grading Interview. In this in-person interview, have the candidate walk you though their resume chronologically.
Ask specifically about their sales performance for each role using various benchmarks for comparison such as sales vs. quota, sales vs. previous year and performance vs. their peer group.
Step 3: Focused Interview/Presentation of 60-day Onboarding Plan (60 minutes)
This is a unique aspect of our interviewing methodology because it is somewhat unconventional, but it is perfect for assessing numerous key aspects of the candidate’s skills.
In addition to bringing in other key members of your team to assess the candidate based on their own set of interview questions, the candidate is asked (in advance) to conduct a presentation outlining their 60-day ramp up plan (assuming they were hired for the role).
It is important here to allow the candidate full creative control of the format for the presentation (I have seen some quite impressive ones…in addition to a few that weren’t so impressive!). This will reveal a lot about their creativity, presentation skills in addition to their level of professionalism and preparedness for the session. They will also give you an indication during this presentation as to how quickly they feel they can get up to speed, given what they know about your business at this point in time.
Step 4: Reference Interviews
In the final phase of your process, which will only be done for that final one or two candidates you are looking to hire, the candidate will present 3 past employers to be contacted for a reference.
We HIGHLY recommend this step NOT be outsourced to your HR department or a recruiting company – this step should be done by the hiring manager.
With reference interviews, it is too easy for the reference to simply say ‘yes’ or ‘great’ to every question you ask (otherwise the candidate probably wouldn't have named them as a reference!), so try prompting them with information you obtained from the candidate to probe deeper. For example,“John mentioned it was difficult to hit quota last year, why was that such a challenge?”
Other Keys to a Successful Hiring Process
There are some rules we like to live by for every hiring process. These ensure that your company is seen as a great place to work that respects people’s time – because bad word about employers travels fast!
First, do not let your interview process drag on more that 3 weeks. We realize you are busy, but when you decide to hire a key person for your team, this should be your top priority. This will also minimize the chances of losing a candidate to another role due to process fatigue and uncertainty.
Second, don’t “sugar coat” the issues or challenges with your business environment. All companies have issues and you should be up-front with the candidate about both the pros and cons of working with your organization.
Lastly, don’t hide the process and next steps from the candidate. Let them know where there stand in each stage of the process, and if they aren’t a good fit for the role, be up-front with them about your reasons.
In these turbulent times, we are providing free weekly sales training via our webinar series.
You and your teams are welcome to join any and all.