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Hello, I am Steve Suggs, sales recruiting expert and author of the book, Can They Sell. Welcome to my sales recruitment video blog. 5 minutes of learning to hire the best salespeople.

Every week, I receive multiple phone calls from salespeople. Some are more skilled than others in breaking my preoccupation and getting me too interrupt my busy schedule to listen to them.  Since I’m a salesperson, I have a great appreciation for other salespeople, so I‘ll typically spend a minute or so giving another salesperson a chance to put their sales skills to use. But, I’m always conscious of my time, so I expect salespeople to have done their homework. During the first few seconds of the phone call I ask the question,

“What do you know about me and my company?”

Most of the time, salespeople want to sell me a high-ticket item but they haven’t taken the time to learn about me and my company.

I ask this question for two reasons.

1.)  I expect salespeople to take their time looking at my website and educating themselves about me and my company before they call me, rather than me taking up my time to educate them during the sales call.

 2.)  The degree to which they are prepared for the phone call gives me an indication of the degree to which they will service me if I decide to buy from them.

How hard somebody works on the front end is almost always an indication of how hard they will work throughout the sales process.

I believe this same principle applies to hard-working salespeople during the interview process. That’s why I like to give sales candidates homework prior to the initial face-to-face interview.

After you invite candidates in for the first interview, send them an e-mail instructing them to go to your website and learn about your company along with the link to the description of the job.

This homework assignment will save you a lot of time during the interview process preventing you from having to give multiple detailed explanations about your company and the job.

The amount of time a candidate spends on this homework assignment will help you measure these 3 traits:

  • work ethic
  • personal responsibility
  • the sales skill of being prepared for the sales call

The strongest candidates will also spend time on LinkedIn learning about you personally.

When a candidate comes in for the interview, use these questions to measure whether or not they passed or failed the homework assignment.

  • What do you know about our industry, our company and what you’d be doing as a salesperson at our company?
  • What do you think this position requires for success?

Do your homework also. Go to the candidate’s Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. I am amazed at how much I learn about candidates prior to the interview.

Thank you for joining me. See you next time on the Can They Sell video blog for more sales job recruitment training. As always, please leave your comments below and forward this video to anyone who will benefit. Now go enjoy recruiting the best, and have fun in the sales interview.

 

Learn more about the following:

 Where to find sales people, where to find sale reps

• What to look for while recruiting salespeople – 5 Dimensions of the Best Salesperson Profile Hiring sales, hire salespeople, hire sales people, hiring sales people, hiring sales reps, IT sales recruitment, recruiting sales people, sales job recruitment
• How to look for the 5 Dimensions – get questionnaires – interview questions for sales, interview questions for salespeople, sales interview, interview questions for sales people

 

To YOUR Success,

Steve Suggs

ssuggs@salesmanage.com

SalesManage.com/Recruiting

CanTheySell.com

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