When I  introduced the six step sales hiring process, I said you will increase your sales hiring success rate if you implement my program. Success in hiring yields success in revenue growth. In this episode I talk about what it takes to qualify a sales candidate. Can they make the grade and move on to the next step?. Qualifying a candidate doesn't take a huge investment in in time if you have the right skill set.

Three episodes ago, I introduced the six step sales hiring process. A good sales assessment provides insight into the potential candidate. Can they succeed in the sales role you outlined? What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? Assess before you interview!

• Assessment: Not an instant stamp of approval.
• Sales assessments are not personality assessments.
• How a sales assessment helps the hiring process.
• How to effectively use a sales assessment.

"The assessment is a tool. It's not there to tell you to hire someone. It's there to tell you to proceed."

"On the positive side it tells you the likelihood of success in your company that’s based on the specific role that you’ve outlined. Are they coach able and trainable? Do they have sales skills? But you know what it’s not going to do? It’s not going to tell you if they’re a cultural fit in the way you sell and how your company operates."

"Personality assessments are not predictive of sales performance. They talk about you as a person, they talk about you in social situations. They don’t measure the things you need to know to be successful in sales."

"Don't be fooled by the wolf in sheep's clothing. Don't be fooled by the personality test that bills itself as a sales test or the personality assessment that pretends to be a sales assessment, it’s not.  You need a true sales assessment to measure the capability of the person you’re attempting to hire to make sure that they meet your standards."

"I don’t need a recruiter to tell me they’re going to be successful, I don’t need a resume, I have something very definitive. An objective point of view that says to me this person has the will to sell. In other words, they'll do what it takes to be successful. Because the assessment is telling me that."

"If I'm looking for a hunter I want them to come back with that competency. If I'm looking for a farmer it’s the same thing. And if I build the profile right, identify exactly what I'm looking for the job then I can use the assessment to narrow the field. To give me the right person back."

"Effective use is by pre-screening. A pre-screen of the candidate. That way you can eliminate the pretenders and you can put yourself in a position where you don’t like a candidate you haven’t met."

"First I’m going to build out the profile and identify exactly what is it I’m looking for. Then I’m going to put you through an assessment, and if you meet that assessment criteria enough to get to the interview process that’s good. But I haven’t made any decisions yet because all I have is the assessment and your resume. I can read the assessment, I can put some notes together, I can push hard on the questions that are strengths and I can dig deeper on the weaknesses. I can benchmark against what they’re telling me on the resume and what they’re responding to in that resume. It gives me a tremendous amount of interview intelligence so I have a leg up walking into that interview."

• Join me on October 6th at 3:00 P.M. for a webinar on the 6 Step Sales Hiring process where we will explore the process. At the end of the webinar you will have a chance to ask me questions. I will stay on the webinar until all questions are answered.
• Set up a free one on one 30 minute consultation to discuss your specific sales hiring situation.

We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this episode. Please feel free to reach out to us if there is a specific sales topic you would like me to cover.  You can find me on Twitter at @Sheajohnr or email me at [email protected].  And if you get a chance, please feel free to review us on iTunes.

Two episodes ago, I introduced the six step sales hiring process. And as I said when I started this series, you will increase your sales hiring success rate if you implement a hiring process. Success in hiring yields success in revenue growth. In this episode I talk about  searching for the right sales candidate and where to find them.

• Good salespeople aren’t where you think they are.
• Marketing and sales one on one is a formula for attracting candidates.
• It’s more than writing an ad
• Recruiters need to be managed.

“Great salespeople make up somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the total sales population. And managers are starting to realize that hiring the best salespeople takes a little bit more time, effort, and resources.”

“Unfortunately, what I’ve seen is, instead of taking the time to hire the right sales folks they are trying to fill the void, to just put someone in the seat because they’re desperate to make a hire, and basically you’re guaranteeing that you’re going to hire the wrong person.”

“If you’re looking on job boards as your only means of finding a sales person you’re looking in the wrong place. It’s really hard to find good sales people on a job board.”

“One of the things I’ve learned, when hiring sales people is that highly successful people aren’t downsized: they’re revenue generated. When downsizing occurs they’re getting rid of an expense to the bottom line. Not something that generates revenue.”

“Now I wouldn’t go crazy on that, but wouldn’t it be nice to know if someone is overachieving? Now we want to find out why, what the circumstances are around that, but it could be a nice starting point.”

“If you have a good website, a good inbound marketing program, and a good sales team behind that, you can combine your efforts and really drive revenue. First you put quality product and content on your website, you attract the right people into the pipeline, they become leads, you sell them. Sales reps build credibility by contributing content and with their outbound activity deploying some of those inbound techniques.”

“Through really good marketing, really good branding, really good outreach, good inbound techniques, writing about your company, testimonials from employees…the same way you do inbound marketing and branding: you attract good salespeople.”

“Create some competition! You deploy the same tactics for bringing customers in, attracting customers to you, and you use that same sort of process to attract quality sales candidates so you’re not spending your day mining the job boards.”

“Be very specific about the job and about the qualities they must possess. Nail it down: “This is what you have to do in this job, and this is what we require.””

“If you start by hiding compensation, then you’re not really that comfortable with what you’re paying. If the average income in the role you’re trying to fill as $120,000 and your posting a $60,000 salary, you’re going to get a $60,000 employee.”

“You don’t have to post the full compensation plan but you can post the income. You not only can post the income but you can post their income requirements, how much they would had to have made just to interview with you. You want somebody that hits the levels you’re looking for.”

“I’m very realistic about compensation because I want people to know what they’re getting into.”

“Why is that important? Well if I am looking for someone to sell to CEO’s of fortune 500 companies I’m not going to want to hire somebody whose only experience is purchasing managers at mid-level companies. It’s two different types of people. Two different skill sets required to penetrate the market.”

“You only want to attract people you want to hire you don’t want to open it up to the vast, wide open, market of salespeople. So the more specific you are the more narrowed the field becomes and that’s better for you.”

“This is how I hire, it’s not a secret, there’s no secret, they can prep the candidate all they want but the end of the day they got to get past me, this is how I operate, this is my program for hiring sales people.”

“I’m going to be very clear on where there’s wiggle room and where there’s not. And they’re going to tell me all the reasons why my process needs to be tweaked and I’m going to say no. I’m going to hold true to what I believe and be very specific in what I’m looking for.”

“The candidate needs to take the assessment prior to me even considering them. It’s great because it gives me a thumbs up or thumbs down. I’ll review the assessment and then I’ll look at the resume and then I’ll determine, do I want to bring them in based on the assessment results?”

“I’m not going to accept them sending somebody to me that doesn’t meet my expectations.”

“The minute you start going down the road of accepting the mediocre and accepting the people that they send to you… Because they’re selling them in their email, about how great they are and they’ve tweaked the resume and sent it over to you: You’re in trouble.”

• Join us October 6th 3:00 P.M. for a webinar on the 6 Step Sales Hiring process where we will take a deeper dive into the process. At the end of the webinar you will have a chance to ask me questions. I will stay on the webinar until the last question is answered.
• You can set up a free one on one 30 minute consultation to discuss your specific sales hiring situation

We would love to hear from you. Let us know what you think about this episode. Please feel free to reach out to us if there is a specific sales topic you would like me to cover.  You can find me on Twitter at @Sheajohnr or email me at [email protected].  And if you get a chance, please feel free to review us on iTunes.

Who are you looking for?

The first step in the hiring process is identifying the qualities and skills you are looking for in a sales rep. Spend time on the front end determining exactly what skills are necessary so when the candidate search begins, you have a clear understanding of what is necessary for the position. A solid candidate assessment begins with creating a profile of the ideal candidate. Time is value in any organization, and wasting time weeding out candidates who cannot function in the position is best done using an assessment.

It’s more than a job description

The biggest mistake made when hiring sales people is overgeneralizing. All sales positions are not the same.  Failing to identify the behaviors, sales DNA, and activities necessary to be successful in the role is a reason a percentage sales reps fail when placed in new positions. Sales reps who lack required skills, that were never identified as necessary or important, have been put into a position they are not qualified to hold or skilled enough to perform. Recognize the skill set fundamental to being successful will within your sales department and you are on your way to hiring a highly qualified sales person.

Understand your sales environment

When formulating a job description, it is important to document the following conditions:

• Difficulty level of the position
• How much resistance a rep should expect
• Competition
• Sell cycle
• Average size of an order
• Management style

The applicant should be aware of the job description and conditions that exist prior to applying for the position. By clearly delineating responsibilities and expectations, the sales person has the opportunity to either continue onto the application process or move on if the fit is not appropriate. A clear job definition eliminates surprises on either end of the spectrum.

The ideal candidate

In a perfect world, what skill set would you like the candidate to possess and how would you like the candidate to perform? These are the parameters to use when creating the ‘ideal candidate’ on paper. Clearly define the skills, experiences, habits, and results that are required to perform at an optimum level within the sales position. Develop the profile and benchmark against the ideal for the assessment.

Keep Filling the Funnel

Take the time necessary to identify the requirements of the sales position and the ideal candidate. Reduce the risk of a poor hire and increase the quality of the candidates you bring in to interview. You will be well on your way to developing a high performance sales team.

Why is it so hard to find great sales people?

Sales managers, entrepreneurs, and business owners have a poor track record when it comes to hiring sales talent. Highly qualified sales people are always in demand and the key to finding one requires dedication and hard work. It is essential to improve recruiting techniques and put time into the development of interviewing skills. Follow the six step sales hiring process outlined in this podcast and you will see improvement in your recruiting and hiring track record.
Clearly define the position.An accurate job description delineates the responsibilities of the position and sets the stage for hiring the most qualified sales person.  Not only will you attract appropriate candidates, you will have a clearer understanding of the role that individual will fill within your company. Document what defines success within the position and be able to clearly discuss that with candidates. There should be no ‘gray area’ left up to interpretation; both in the role and what defines success.

Use a candidate assessment.

Often I hear from clients that they ‘go with their gut’ when they hire sales reps. While you should not ignore your intuition, it should never be the main force behind a hiring decision. I highly recommend using a candidate assessment prior to interviewing sales people. If you have clearly defined the position and outlined job expectations, the next logical step is to hire a sales rep who will be a top performer. A high quality candidate assessment weeds out those individuals who are not qualified for the position prior to you taking the time to interview them.

Improve your interview skills.

Developing and improving interview skills is a professional development piece that is neglected in most management training. Time invested cultivating this skill set is never wasted. Learn how to ask the right questions and actively listen to replies. Be careful not to provide the answers you are looking for, rather ask questions in a way that allows candidates latitude with their responses. Interviewing is a vetting process. You are attempting to substantiate the candidate is an “A” player over the course of the interview. Verify the candidate’s achievements by confirming what is on the resume. Make sure success stories shared are truth. A good sales process for hiring sales reps weeds out the pretenders and pinpoints high quality candidates.

The six step sales hiring process

Reduce the risk of making a mistake and increase your odds of success by implementing the following six step sales hiring process within your organization.

1. Identify the ideal candidate on paper.
2. Search for a sales person.
3. Access the candidate pool and reduce the risk of a poor hire.
4. Qualify the remaining candidates.
5. Interview the sales candidates.
6. Hire the best candidate and set expectations for the position.

Reduce the risk of a poor hire and grow your sales team by implementing a six step hiring process. Hiring highly
qualified sales reps is a step in the right direction when building a high performing sales team. While it is a first step, it is not a guarantee of stellar job performance. Onboarding new employees is essential for maximum talent
development and growth of sales skills. But that is a topic for another day.

Sales enablement is a relatively new term and its definition varies depending on the size of the organization. I define sales enablement as aligning marketing, sales messaging, processes, and goals. It includes supporting sales people with tools that deliver data and prospect information; enabling a sales rep to move an opportunity seamlessly through the pipeline. The goal is to put sales reps in a position to sell more and offer targeted assistance to their clients.

Do your sales reps have access to prospect data? The right CRM allows sales reps to view prospect data and use that information to their advantage. Choose a CRM that allows you see what pages a prospect has visited on your website and documents they have downloaded. Why? When a sales rep knows what a prospect has spent time with online they can garner a general idea as to what the prospect is interested in. Then, when a connection is made, the conversation is appropriate and contextual.

If your sales process is not aligned with how your prospect buys, deals are being lost in the transition. A careful examination of process, along with the addition of goals that allow measurement, is essential to creating a sales process that is seamless.

Effective prospecting requires reps to have direct access to lead intelligence. Reps should be familiar with, and take advantage of, technology available. Teach sales reps the nuances of reaching out to prospects using a variety of online platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter. Your company website should be clear, professional, and easy to navigate. Educate reps so they have the ability to identify a good lead versus a poor one.

Teach sales reps to recognize when they should engage with a prospect and how to do it. Engaging at the right time with the right touch is a skill that can be practiced and honed to achieve mastery. It takes a level of nuance to start a conversation that will be productive. Both sales and marketing should learn to score leads and adjust the cadence of their conversations depending on the level of prospect engagement.

Making sure sales and marketing are on the same page is key to creating a process that will generate higher revenue. Create a SLA that defines what a marketing qualified lead looks like as well as what a sales qualified lead looks like. Teach both sides of the team how to effectively score leads. Communication is key to setting the foundation for solid sales and marketing alignment. When roles are defined, and each team understands their part, a company moves forward. The more data sales feeds marketing, the better data marketing can provide to sales. This communication is critical for success and is the hub of the entire sales process.

If you are not measuring results, how do you know what is working? Examine stats and open rates on pages, emails and offers. Determine what is working, and what is not, and adjust material as necessary. Update and tweak your website frequently for optimal performance.

In the digital age, it is easy to become overrun and overwhelmed with information. Look at everything and ask this question, “How important is this and is it necessary?” The value of decluttering is that valuable content is no longer buried among the digital clutter. Content mapping puts relevant information at the fingertips of all that need to access the material.

Heavy manual input is a tremendous waste of time that takes away from a sales reps time in the field. A solid CRM is functional for a sales rep and provides them with an excellent pipeline management tool. Any activities reps are performing within the CRM should automatically be logged into the system with no additional input from the rep. This allows reps to be highly functional which in turn allows them to spend more time on sales activities.

Sales Enablement is about putting sales reps in the position to become more efficient at what they do; sell. Equip sales reps with tools that will provide valuable information and they will be able to function efficiently. Teach reps how to use those tools effectively and they, in turn, will be able to spend more time on sales related activities. True sales enablement drives revenue for reps and the company and that is good.

John Pulley joins us for a second week in a row on the Funnel. John is the Vice President and Business Development Director of Prospect Builder. Having many years in sales, he has set up and used multiple CRM’s over the years including ACT, Sales Force, custom CRM’s, and HubSpot. This week, we talk about the HubSpot Sales CRM and some of its features.

John originally had apprehensions about moving to HubSpot because it was new at the time and new can mean growing pains. He looked at the CRM and evaluated what it could do from for him as a sales rep. It was the sales insight John gained that sold him on the product that he continues to use today.

HubSpot took a complex system and created a usable product for sales people. There is great benefit to having all company data integrated in one place. The CRM is a robust pipeline management tool. The sales side of the product, just like the marketing side, is able to track and create custom fields. A timeline of activities allows sales reps to track the movements of online prospects. Some CRM’s require heavy manual input, but on this site reps eliminate busy work and focus on driving business. The reason is, all lead data is automatically populated into the system. A sales person can manage their daily activities from their laptop or smartphone. If a rep is doing research on a prospect who has not come through the website, there is a button that adds all of the prospect’s information in one click. The HubSpot database it is well connected and currently contains 23 million businesses, adding more each month.

John Pulley works inside the CRM every day adding notes, making phone calls, sending and tracking emails, attaching documents, scheduling meetings, and creating tasks. It is an excellent hub for tracking his work and progress.

When this product was rolled out, it took a giant step in the direction of aligning sales and marketing teams. The CRM allows sales reps to leverage lead intelligence they are receiving from marketing departments and manage those opportunities by adding data as they progress through the sales process. Sales enablement is about giving reps the support they need to manage their time more efficiently. By putting all of the information about prospective clients under one umbrella, it easy to access content and get the maximum sales time out of each day.

This week on the Funnel we focus on CRM’s and the importance of actively managing sales activities for maximum financial gain. Over the last few years HubSpot has grown into a nice product. For a free CRM, it is pretty robust. A small to medium sized company working without a sales CRM or using a complex product should take a look at HubSpot’s product. For organizations already using HubSpot on the marketing side, the sales side of the house should definitely be using the CRM. Take control of your sales activities and maximize your bottom line.

On this episode of the Funnel, Lindsay and I are joined by

John reflects on how selling one way for 20 years and then

The value of sales and marketing alignment is everybody

HubSpot has defined their inbound sales methodology in 4 steps.

Learning to identify a true sales opportunity can make the

Traditional, or legacy sales techniques, taught sales reps to

When the buyer expressed interest, legacy sales techniques

Presentations are tailored to the needs of each customer,

The Inbound Sales Certification from HubSpot is a solid course

Today on the Funnel, Lindsay and I talk about creating content that can be ‘found’ on Google. Rand Fishkin, of MOZ, hosts a weekly whiteboard video and he recently explored 10x content, which is content that is 10 times better than your competitors. The internet is a very crowded space. In a sea of content, how can you differentiate yourself and stand out from your competition?

One of the premises HubSpot was founded on is that all companies, large and small, have the ability to create high quality content and be heard. They stating the playing field had been leveled. My fear has been companies with massive content generation machines have the ability to pump out copious amounts of content and rise to the top of search engines. Large organizations crush their competition in SEO and smaller companies are not gaining the foothold they were expecting. How do you compete in that world?

To make your content memorable, find your niche. That ‘special something’ will separate you from the competition. Develop a unique angle for presenting your information. Make sure your niche is appropriate for your space in the marketplace; you want to be memorable for the right reasons.

Present your content in a format that is mobile responsive. People consume information on varied devices. If your website is responsive, the content will automatically adjust depending on device it is being viewed from. Google recognizes if content is not responsive and will filter information out of searches. Nothing like being kicked off the team before the game has already started.

Information on your website must consistently, high quality content. This requires time and effort researching topics and crafting top quality information for your prospects. Individuals are looking for information that is useful. If you provide that type of content consistently, you build a level of trust with your audience. Prospects know they can read your blog or watch your videos and gain value from what you have to offer. Not only does that build trust, you gain repeat visitors.

Think about the last time you read, heard, or watched something that moved you. Good content should evoke an emotion. You want your prospect to stop and think about what they have just interacted with on your website. Information presented should be engaging and entertaining as well as reality based. Try to translate the human element of your organization to your online prospects.

Research problems your prospects are encountering on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Your product performs some function within their company so they can perform their job. Your products and/or services provide the connection between online visitors and the services they offer to their clients. Provide information that helps your visitors find solutions to their problems and you are positioning yourself in the appropriate online space.

Lindsay and I often talk about technology and how it shapes business functions and interactions. This week, we decided to center our discussion on video conferencing; a technology that we both use with our clients. I am not talking about the occasional video chat, I am talking about productive, weekly meetings with clients scattered throughout the country.

Our transition into video meetings was born out of necessity. When Lindsay and I founded Alignment Group, we lived 60 miles away from each other. Meetings required us to commute and that resulted in loss of work time due to travel. Driving for about an hour to meet in person at a Starbucks was not only time consuming, it was a distraction. We began using video conferencing as a solution for our individual situation and it was highly successful. That got us both thinking about broader implications for the platform.

I began to transition to video calls with my clients when I acknowledged and addressed the amount of time I was spending commuting to client engagements. The impact ‘travel days’ had on my work week was significant, and not in a good way. I was losing hours each week sitting in the car. Once I transitioned with local clients, I recognized the potential to engage with individuals from greater distances without incurring travel expenses. That made my services more attractive to out of town prospects. I was no longer tied by geography to clients.

Video meetings are now my ‘norm’ and how I prefer to communicate with my client base. I have more time on task when I do not have to get into the car and drive to a client’s office. My day has become much more efficient with more hours dedicated to work and less to commuting.   Conference calls do not work for me for two main reasons. As a sales person, I gather a tremendous amount of information from face to face meetings with a prospects. There is much to be learned from interface and body language. I want to see the person I am talking with and I want them to see me. When that is missing, I lack vital cues that guide the discussion and allow me to keep my finger on the pulse of the conversation.

Conference calls also lend themselves to distraction. If the person you are talking with is not visible, there is a higher probability of both parties multitasking and becoming distracted. During video meetings, my clients and I are engaged and interacting. The laser focus on the task at hand is necessary for effective and productive meetings.

Both Lindsay and I use GoToMeeting for our meetings with each other and individual clients. In our opinion it is the most reliable format for meeting online. It is inexpensive, reliable and has features that enhance meetings. Screen sharing allows us to view our client’s portals in real time and take action. This has been especially helpful in working with my coaching clients, who have to prepare for each meeting and have weekly assignments we review together. The GoToMeeting platform also allows meetings to be recorded. This allows individuals to review meetings and offers an opportunity to reinforce material covered during the session.

Is there ever a need for a face to face meeting? Absolutely. I typically meet with clients prior to signing a contract and beginning an engagement. However, after signing, this is how client interaction works for me at Alignment Group. Most clients are initially uncomfortable when they hear meetings will take place via video conferencing. New is uncomfortable and this is outside the box.  However, within the month, meeting online is as natural as meeting in person. I treat my video meetings as I would a face to face meeting and the expectation is clients do the same. Appointments are set in stone for the same time each week.

On this episode of the Funnel, Lindsay and I discuss the value of video meetings in business. Lindsay conducts approximately 50% of her client meetings online and my client interaction is closer to 90%. When we record the Funnel, you might assume Lindsay and I are in the same studio, but we live in two separate states. Technology allows us to interact in a manner that is both personal and highly effective. Listen to this week’s episode of the podcast and decide if video meetings can improve your productivity.