Recruiting
Great Sales Managers Recruit the Best
Changes continue to occur each day in our businesses and for the customers we serve. Technology seems to move the world at an accelerated pace. Customers demand quality and timeliness. Competition doesn’t rest and new sources of it seem to appear in unlikely places. Product offerings sometimes change over night. And, more customers know more about what they buy.
It’s hard enough for us to keep up and compete - much less bring someone else along - especially someone we have to drag along. 50% of new recruits last 6 months. And, when we lose one person, the costs range from $8,000 to $200,000. The effects of turnover vary from negativity and a poor sales team culture to lowered team production.
To manage effectively much depends on our ability to recruit effectively!
Great coaches sometimes get away with less than the best. And, mediocre coaches win lots of games with great players - the one thing they do well is recruit!
Recruit the Best Philosophy
People do better in jobs suited for their personality and unique makeup. In these positions, they experience less stress. In the sporting world, linebackers stop the run and receivers catch the ball – catchers catch behind the plate and pitchers pitch – point guards dribble and centers rebound.
We believe that recruiting people for sales positions is serious business. We believe that it is the most important responsibility of a sales manager. Recruiting never ends. And, we believe that it is important to hire character first then personality. For example, honesty is more important than goal-orientation.
And, finally, we believe that you must believe in your profession, your company and its products and services, and in the incomes it affords those you recruit.
Recruit the Best System: Process, Tools, and Skills
The Recruit the Best System contains a three-stage process, a set of tools, and skills for using the tools. This system, driven by your attitudes and beliefs, builds a high-performance sales team.
Process
Before you use the Recruit the Best process, write down the personality traits and the character strengths that you need in a great salesperson? Here’s a way to do this. Answer these questions:
- “What are the three toughest things for your salespeople to do?
- "What personality traits enable people to do these things well?”
- “What are three character strengths that you want within the people on your team?”
Now, imagine a funnel – just like a sales funnel. This funnel has three stages through which candidates pass until only the best for your position reach the bottom and receive offers of employment.
First, your various sourcing methods provide you with candidates for the first stage of the funnel – Screening. In the screening stage, you screen the resume, screen the candidate by phone, and possibly screen by email. If the candidate passes these screening steps and perhaps others, they move to stage two – Profiling. In this stage, use our Craftprofiles.com profiling tools. We believe they are best for many reasons. You may investigate these for yourselves by following the link. If people pass the profiling stage, then they move to the final stage – In-depth Interviewing. To progress through to each successive stage of the Recruit the Best funnel, a candidate must show evidence that they have the personality traits and character strengths that you require
Remember some birds hunt better than others - some horses plow - others race. Some salespeople sell retail, others business to business, and others sell major accounts. Some hunt – some farm.
The Tools
As you work candidates through the funnel, you need several tools to make your efforts efficient and effective. These include funnel management folders, a spreadsheet, or an online tool like Salesactivities.com.
Matching Sheets show the personality traits and character strengths recruited for placed down the left margin and evidence for and against the candidate placed in columns to the right. The recruiter compiles these evidential notes as the recruiting progresses.
Profiling tools (see our Craftprofiles.com) provide between 20-35% of the input required to make a good decision. These tools compare the personality characteristics of high-performing sales reps with those of each candidate. The profiles show a high, moderate, and low matching rating with an explanation of the matching and non-matching traits in the candidate. Our Craftprofiles.com profiles also provide customized information for the most effective management of each new recruit.
Other necessary tools in a Recruit the Best process include sourcing methods, screening strategies and questions, and structured in-depth interviews all designed to attract and identify candidates that match your requirements.
The Skills
While using the tools, managers learn or strengthen recruiting skills. They learn to ask various types of open-ended questions in a structured interview. They listen, paraphrase, and take notes. Sales managers learn to redirect the candidate when they get off track and to find candidate weaknesses and strengths. They also learn to analyze personality profiling output and to understand the coaching requirements and time for each person if hired.
Recruit the Best Installation
We want to help change your recruiting culture - the attitudes, habits, and behaviors that lead to finding and recruiting the best salespeople. We want to help you increase production and retention. We want to help you recruit people who love to win in sales. We install our philosophy and system in three stages:
- Preparation
- Delivery
- Follow up
Each stage builds on the progress of the previous stage. These installment stages provide for an overall strategy to achieve better recruiting results with a better philosophy and system.
We prepare for delivery by providing a recruiting questionnaire to each sales manager. We also help sales managers isolate the top traits of high performance salespeople in their business. Then, we profile existing salespeople and sales managers. With this information, we customize a company’s Recruit the Best system and the delivery process.
In two days, we train managers and in-house trainers to understand and practice the Recruit the Best system (see the above sections). Everyone learns how to utilize a process - its tools and skills - to recruit salespeople whose traits match the position’s requirements.
To insure that sales managers grow into new and better habits, we design and install a follow up process that lasts from 4 weeks to 6 months. We determine the length and breadth of this follow up process based on a company’s size and recruiting challenges. During this time and afterwards, everyone measures the productivity and retention impact of improved recruiting.
We want you to contact us for further information. Please go to the contact portion of our site and send us information about your recruiting challenges. We will read these and schedule a time to discuss them with you. Thank you.
