How I hire great salespeople
11 Jan 2009
One of the things that I believe keeps me really sharp and enables me to stay at the top of my game is that I always keep selling myself. I don’t mean selling my speaking and training services which is what most other speakers and trainers do. I mean actually selling someone else’s products or services – being out there and doing what my clients and my audiences have to do – sell!
It has become increasingly difficult to find a company I can do this for in the limited time I have available, so this year I decided to purchase a franchise from an organization for whom I also act a non-executive director and small shareholder; so in effect I bought a franchise from myself. And yes – I did negotiate a pretty good deal!
Having made the investment and wanting to ensure I get a good return on my money, I also decided I needed to hire at least one salesperson to work the operation full-time to start with. So I put the word out, placed a couple of small ads and waited for the CVs to come in. To cut a long story short, I ended up with three candidates of apparently equal talent and experience to select from.
As I’ve helped many of my clients to recruit a sales team, I have numerous recruitment tools available to me; psychometric testing, interview questions and techniques etc etc. I also know that if there is one thing that most half decent salespeople are good at, it’s being interviewed and selling themselves. So there’s one thing I really look out for which overcomes most of the techniques they use to sell themselves. It’s the ‘glint’ or ‘twinkle in the eye’. It cannot be faked – they either have it or they do not.
When I see the glint in the eye, I know they are not just looking for any sales job – I know they are excited by the prospects, are already seeing what they can bring to the role, that they are seeing success and seeing a bright future. I know they have passion for the role and will give it everything they have got. I know they are not just looking for any sales job – I know they want mine.
Only one of the three candidates had that glint in their eyes, and it got brighter as the interview went on. They were the one that was hired.
So if you are recruiting new sales staff – use the ‘glint or twinkle in the eye’ technique.
If you are having to let go of some salespeople during these troubled times – keep the ones that still have a twinkle in their eyes.
If you are a salesperson – take a look in the mirror. Do you see that twinkle. If you do – great! If you don’t, do whatever it takes to put it back there fast! A great plan for increasing sales, a vision of what increasing your sales dramatically will do for you and your company, a renewed enthusiasm for your product or service and what it can do for your customers or clients will all help to restore that twinkle.
Writing this Newsletter isn’t easy so I need your help please…
There’s very little that’s new in sales. As Tom Peters once said, “selling is the oldest profession – some say there’s an older one but that’s just a sub-division of sales”. So it becomes increasingly difficult as time goes by to come up with new material for this newsletter every week. Maybe you can help please?
Do you have any questions you’d like my thoughts or comments on? Are you having a particular difficulty with any aspects of your selling? Is there any advice you need. If so, please e-mail me with these so I can address them publicly in this newsletter. I won’t of course mention your name when I respond.
Thank you in anticipation.