12 May Hiring Top Salespeople

“Time spent on hiring is a time well spent”- Robert Half

Great talents are hard to find, one of which is hiring a skilled salesperson. Candidates for the
post of ‘salesperson’ are found in bulk, but only few deserve to stay. Hiring salespeople is not
a tough job, but hiring the ‘right’ one indeed is. On the part of the recruiter, it is yet another
added responsibility. If the company goes through a severe blow or experience fall in sales,
then it rightly means the base of the company is not firm, which is nothing but its salespeople.
Therefore, it is crucial to hiring top salespeople not only by examining their resumes, but
resorting to few other things that you were not yet aware of.

The few essential characteristics of top salespeople are:

• Impeccable honesty.
• Responsible enough.
• Goal-oriented.
• A thick skin- Someone who does not take criticism to heart.
• Friendly- He should be one who can approach customers without feeling uncomfortable.
• Self-disciplined and self-determined.

Other vital points to keep in mind while hiring top salespeople:

• Never mention an “experience required” tag in the sales recruiting requirements list.
• Sometimes, experience is not everything. A burning desire with a strong work ethics will always do the trick.
• Word of mouth- Ask clients or suppliers for their referrals and tell everyone you think would know. The most unused sourcing resource.
• When placing any add, make sure you specify what you really want. For example, ‘self-motivated” or “self-starter”.
• Describe the person not the position. You want a candidate reading your post saying to themselves “That’s me”. 
• Do not get prompted to hire any person who walks through the door. Have some patience and wait until you get the person who fits your business appropriately.
• The first step to hiring top salespeople pre-qualifying them on phone.
• Make a hiring profile for the salesperson. What skills, talents, and habits you are looking for. This will give you a drift of what your company is exactly searching for.
• The interviews should comprise of basic things like back ground checks, resume review with few questions related to your business.
• Hire as slowly as you can as a bad hire will cost you twice the hired persons annual compensation.
• Try not to ask questions that can only be answered in ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Try using open-ended questions so as to get as many insights about the person.
• Do not go by your guts instincts but try choosing the candidate by objectively accessing his/her abilities.
• Do not appoint any person just because you ‘like’ him. Go into the depths of examining a person.
• Make sure you ask the salesperson to sell you the product. This will give you an impression as to how they are going to work in the future.
• Your work for hiring top salespeople does not end here. Your on-boarding process is vital to their future success.
• Keep motivating them in the form of appraisal or just a pat on their back will uplift their morale to keep serving the company in the right spirit.