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Finding The Best Salespeople
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Most advertisements for sales positions recommend, or even require, a candidate send a resume. But an alternative method saves time and increases the chances of hiring the right person.
This method is founded on the belief that one of the most important skills a salesperson must have is phone skills, because the telephone is often the most cost-effective tool for identifying business opportunities and dealing with customers.
To find a salesperson with good phone skills, do the following:
- Set up a dedicated phone number with voicemail (this typically can be supplied by the phone company). Program the number to go into voicemail within two rings; never answer the call.
- Record an outbound message such as, “Thank you for contacting us regarding a sales position. At Company XYZ, we believe good phone skills are a must, if you are to be successful selling our products and services. After the tone, leave us a 30- to 60-second message telling us why we should consider you for this position.”
- Return the calls of only those people whose messages impress you as professional, and ask them to send you their resumes. This way you’ll be able to judge their writing skills as a second-level test, as well as their responsiveness to requests.
If you do this, you’ll save the time you would otherwise spend evaluating resumes of people who won’t be effective selling your products. You’ll also likely increase the number of responses, because good salespeople would rather make phone calls than send resumes. Just be sure to change “Send your resume to ...” to “Call us at ...” in all your ads for open positions.
Have a great week!
Gill
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