First, never hire a seller who can’t tell you how they accomplished what they say they accomplished on their resume. Sales resumes are notorious for being filled with awards and candidates exceeding goals, being top performers and opening new markets. That information is fine on its own, but they need to be able to show that they can replicate those results in your business.
[bctt tweet=”If candidates can tell you how they got great results, they can replicate those results for your company.” username=”EngageColleen”]
Next, never hire a seller that has no memory. At the end of the interview, you should always ask your candidate what they remember. Get them to summarize the conversation they had with you. If they can’t do that, that means they haven’t been listening and if they won’t listen to you, they probably won’t be listening to your clients or prospects.
Finally, never hire a seller who doesn’t come equipped with questions. If they’re not qualifying you and your company as an opportunity for themselves, they aren’t good salespeople. They should always be prepared with key questions that you need to answer to make sure that they feel happy and comfortable with the solution.
Any seller that has these traits should not be hired. Eliminate them from your recruiting process right away and you’ll have a much more successful sales team.
P.S. Are you a speaker, trainer, consultant or small business owner? Don’t miss my upcoming limited-attendance event on creating never-ending value client relationships, presented along with Alan Weiss in Miami Beach! Learn more at: www.EngageSelling.com/grow
I have found asking them to walk me through their selling process gives me the same feedback as you described in the first tip. The answer is two fold, it shows me if they know what they are doing and secondly if there is something we may be able to use in our process.
Excellent strategies on avoiding dud sellers Colleen. They are bang on. Stand out idea for me is to ask the seller to summarize the interview to see if they were listening.
Thanks for sharing!
Very informative and eye opening, if a sales person cant spell out the HOW,not attentive to pick the customer’s/prospect’s story, and not asking quality questions- its hard for them to deliver results given the competitive landscape.
[…] want to build on the tips that I discussed with you last week about the sellers that you should not hire. Something that remains true is that we want to hire […]