Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Hiring A Sales Superstar: The Wrap-Up

"Between stimulus and response there is always choice"
Victor Frankl

All right now, you have put you candidates through the prescribed series of interviews, tests and simulations. You are down to the candidate you want to hire so now what?

1)Invite the candidate(s) to an offer meeting

2)Prepare for said meeting by putting together your Minimum Expecation Agreement, here is one example Body%20Tek%20Minimum%20Activity%20Expectations.doc .

3)The offer meeting needs to be exploratory and definitive in nature. Let the candidate read any prepared documents and ask if they have any questions, concerns or problems.

4)Either answer questions then make the offer or if there are no questions roll into the offer.

5)Explain in as much detail as you can and answer any questions they may have.

6)At this point you either have a hire, "I have to think about it" or NO! Regardless of the answer make sure you have a definitive followup or logical conclusion to the hiring process.

6A) Hire: Schedule their start date and everything you expect out them before, during and after their first day.

6B)"I Have to think about it": This is a perfectly acceptable answer, just make sure you have a definitive call time to followup.

6C) NO: Ask their reasons and either thank them for their time or make a fight for them.

7) Regardless of the outcome start the hiring process over again because hiring is an all the time thing. You ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS want to have an "Ongoing Bench". Never be put in the situation that you are a rep down. Why would you want to lose that revenue? Especially because it was just you being lazy and sitting on your as... I mean resting on your laurels.

Alright, that concludes "Hiring A Sales Superstar" now what comes next? Well once you have a new hire they need to hit the ground running. How do you do that? It is called P.O.D. Productive Orientation and Development tune into my next post and we will start the discussion.

And remember you can either make sales or make excuses but you can't do both!


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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Hiring A Sales Superstar: Constructing & Conducting a Sales Simulation


"Mistakes Are Temporary But Regret... That Lasts Forever"
John C. Kolencik

When I was a kid and would get into trouble almost always my parents would find out. The next 20 minutes, after their discovery, I would spend apologizing, trying to avoid the inevitable punishment that was coming. That's when my parents came right back everytime and said "John Christopher Kolencik your actions speak louder than your words" emphasis THEIRS!

Why do we take a candidate's word for it when they say that they can sell? Oh, right it says they can on their resume'. Yea, and their references said they can too. Well I have waited a long time to say this instead of hearing it "your actions speak louder than words".

Sales simulations are a KEY tool in discovering the actual skill level of any potential sales hires. Think about it, what tells you more about a person besides how they actually react in a particular situation? And the beauty of the sales simulation is that you can construct it EXACTLY to the experiences you have everyday.

There are a 1o steps that must be adhered to so the simulation will yield the results and information you need to help in your hiring selection. I will detail 9 of them today and the 10th will be in my next post.


  1. Give the candidate access to any advice or resources that a currently employed sales person would have but don't prompt them to specifics. If they ask great but if they don't, well that tells you something right there doesn't it?


  2. Make sure that the simulation is based in your everyday reality. Harder is better than easier but straying to either extreme garners you nothing but wasted time.


  3. Each step in YOUR actual sales process should be simulated, no short cuts!


  4. Detail out, internally, how you define success in the simulation. This gives you an un-biased road map to grade/assess the candidate.


  5. There should be multiple "actors" in any simulation. When was the last time you were involved in a sale that didn't have multpile parties involved?


  6. Write defined roles and direction for the "actors", don't rely on their "acting chops". This removes any bias or random mistakes.


  7. Include "planned interruptions" during the course of the simulation. What sale have you been a part of where your meetings were never interrupted?


  8. Always include a letter/proposal writing segment in any simulation. What a deflation it is to find your new star sales hire "don't write too good".


  9. Record it, minimum audio but preferably video. See my last post as to why.


  10. Conduct a Critique Session.

That's it for today. If you have any questions or need any help constructing/conducting a Sales Simulation give me a call at 216-347-6729. Make sure to check back for my next post where I detail out Number 11; How to conduct an effective Critique Session. And believe you me if you thought the Simulation was an eye-opener just wait to see what you will learn by critiquing your candidate's performance.

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Posted by blog at 9:08 PM | | Comments