Interviewing and hiring a new salesperson is one of the most challenging skills for any sales manager…and a skill most managers have never received training or coaching. Join me as I share five key ideas you can use to help you become more persuasive and effective with your interviewing skills so can find, and hire, the best candidates for the job!
Hi. Jim Pancero, helping you become a stronger leader of your sales team. The reality of the day is a lot of sales managers are doing a lot of interviewing of new salespeople to join their team. How effective are your interviewing skills? If you would allow me to offer five ideas. The first idea is to make sure that you do your homework before the candidate comes into your office. Let's consider the ultimate tackiness in an interview if you sit there as a candidate and then the manager that's interviewing you reads your resume for the first time while you're present in the room.
But the second thing is make sure you've looked them up, that you know their presence on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram and all the social media sites to see if there's anything about this candidate you can learn or to make sure this is the kind of person you want joining your company. The second idea is to let them talk. Too many times the managers do all the talking in the interview, especially in the first half. You'll spend a great deal of time telling them all how great the job is, how great the company is, how great the support is, how great your products are, but you never let the candidate talk.
What can you do to make sure that the candidate spends at least two third of an interview talking and you only spend one third actually as the manager saying anything to them? This is a chance for them to talk. We need to pull them out by asking them questions, not by giving them long presentations. The third suggestion is to make sure that you focus more on the hows of the job than the what's, the hows of their background and the whats. I'm not concerned what you sold last year. My concern is how did you sell it? I want you to explain the process you went through of how you sold your accounts, how you managed your territory, how you did your job, not just what your accomplishments are.
But too many times we're looking for credentials, we're looking for accomplishments, when we really should be looking at understanding of process. The fourth suggestion is to ask how they would sell to your company. They tell you all the background of all the selling they've done and say it's great, and say that ... A great idea is to say, "Let's assume now that our company needs what you used to sell. Walk me through how you would sell us," to help you understand if they have any process or understanding of the multiple steps of selling or if they're just going to start asking questions and go into a presentation.
The fifth and final suggestion is make sure that any candidate interviews with more than just you. So many times a manager misses key problems or challenges with an employee because their personality was too similar to yours. One of the best things you could do is have somebody opposite of you, outside your department, also interview this candidate just to see what they can read in that person. If they see and believe that person has the values and the focus, that's going to be best for your company. The reality is most sales managers have to do a lot of interviewing in their careers, but usually have had very little training in how to interview. What can you do to apply these concepts so that you can become more persuasive and more effective in your interviewing so that you can attract the best candidates to your company?