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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 where you learn to hire the best sales people.
Top salespeople are effective at every step of the sales process. They are great at finding enough prospects, setting appointments, turning the appointment into a fact-finding session where we discover needs, making impactful presentations, effectively handling objections, closing the sale, and then following up with the new customer. In this video today, I’ll be talking about how to measure, during the interview, the candidate’s ability to set enough sales appointments.
There are three traits that determine a salesperson’s ability to effectively set enough first appointments with a new prospect. Whether a person is contacting prospects by phone or attempting to schedule appointments by dropping by the prospect’s office, the traits needed for scheduling enough sales calls are all the same.
During my first sales job, I had the opportunity to be mentored by Ron. He was excellent at finding the prospects and using his skill and charm to persuade them into meeting with him for a first appointment. If he had a few minutes in between appointments, Ron was always dropping in on a business owner attempting to turn a cold call into a scheduled appointment.
Ron had three important traits that helped him be successful.
1. Sales Skills
He studied other great salespeople and watched training videos to improve his sales language and skills. I eventually learned that knowing what to say and when to say it was something that didn’t come natural to Ron, but he had worked very hard to learn from other great salespeople.
2. Confidence
Ron had a natural, confident charm. It wasn’t a superficial charm, but one that quickly put people at ease.
3. Concern for Others
Ron had a genuine concern for the welfare of his customers. He had a strong desire to take care of others.
So, how do we discover these three traits when interviewing candidates?
To discover whether or not our candidate has these appointment setting skills, ask this question,
“Describe the sales process you use.”
Then ask,
“Pretend I’m a prospect and tell me what you would say on the telephone to schedule an appointment to see me.”
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There are three personality traits which make up Ron’s natural, confident charm. We measure these using a personality assessment. We want to see:
- High scores on the Social Assertiveness trait
- High scores on the Need to Impress trait
- Moderate scores on the Desire to Nurture trait
You see, Ron’s confident charm is part of his genetically hardwired personality.
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The third component to measure in our candidate is the character trait of concern for others. Ron had the benefit of some good training from his parents who taught him the importance of helping and serving others. We measure this trait during the interview with questions like,
“In order of priority, what are the three most important things in your life?”
Another good interview question is,
“When you’re not working, what are some things that are important to you that you spend time doing?”
We’re looking to see if they tell you about their involvement in things that benefit other people outside of work – things like family, charity, volunteer work. We also want to know if the three most important things in their life involve caring for other people.
To summarize, to measure your candidate’s ability to set first appointments, measure for 1.) skills, 2.) the hardwired personality traits of social assertiveness, need to impress, and desire to nurture, and 3.) the character trait of concern for others.
Thank you for joining me. See you next time on the Can They Sell video blog for more sales job recruitment training. As always, forward this video to anyone who will benefit. Now go enjoy recruiting the best, and use these interview questions to measure your candidate’s ability to get first appointments.
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
- Sales test, sales assessment, CPQ, Craft Personality Questionnaire (now the CTS Sales Profile personality questionnaire)
- Sales interview tips
- Sales job description – page 79, Can They Sell book
- Tips for screening resumes – Chapter 13, Can They Sell book
To YOUR Success,
Steve Suggs
SalesManage.com/Recruiting
CanTheySell.com