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Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again with Chris Croner #210

In this episode we meet Dr. Chris Croner  author of the book, Never Hire a Bad Salesperson Again.  In his book Chris shares his psychological research and practice in identifying the non-teachable personality traits common to top producing salespeople. Chris has  identified this problem by focusing on personality traits. He found that the most important factor for success in sales is a person’s Drive – the inner fire that ultimately determines if he or she will thrive or fail. Chris and I discuss his system for identifying salespeople with the Drive to success, helping businesses improve their sales teams while avoid underperformers.

Have a Structure When You Hire

It’s important to be process driven in your hiring procedure.Too often hiring managers go with their gut vs a methodical process.  The interviewer should be the one to take over the conversation. To make sure you never hire a bad salesperson again, do the following:

• Effective assessment – Focused on persuasion, relationship-skills, organization skills
  • 3 non-teachable skills Chris looks for he calls Drive
    • Need for Achievement – Win for winning sakes
    • Competitiveness
    • Optimism
  • During the resume review – ask the critical questions:
    1. job description,
    2. your rank on a sales team,
    3. what got you to move on to the next position,
    4. if you could have changed 3 things in your past (magic wand) to have motivated you to stay, what would that be?
• Past sales metrics – how much did you sell, how did you compare with your peers

Assessment Questions

One way of finding the true values of a candidate is to force them to pick one attribute over another. Consider the following assessment:

Rank these most like you , somewhat like you and least like you

1. I consider myself a leader
2. I have great relationship skills
3. I am very organized

Other questions that further identifies their character include:

• What kind of sacrifices have you made?
• When were you the most competitive?
• When you you the most upbeat when everyone around you lost hope?

Remember candidates are on the best behavior. If you see ANYTHING wrong, this is bad. DON”T HIRE THEM!

Note people from big companies have infrastructure to help them succeed. Look for sellers of a similar sized company past.

Flatliners: People merely motivated by Money.  It doesn’t last like those with a Need for Achievement

Looking for a Sales Job?

Be prepared.  Make a list of behaviours sales managers would appreciate. Next to each item write down an example of where you’ve done that in the past. During the interview, use this list to drive the conversation. Make it clear, to your future boss, you have what it takes to knock it out of the park.

How to Find Chris Croner

You can easily find Chris on LinkedIn

Chris’ LinkedIn

Chris’ Google+

Links to Sales Drive

SalesDrive’s Facebook

SalesDrive’s LinkedIn

SalesDrive’s Twitter

SalesDrive’s Google+

SalesDrive’s Pinterest

This is the free assessment link mentioned during the interview: https://salesdrive.info/free-trial-request/

How to Manage Sales Teams

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about sales management. Here are past episodes you need to listen to now!

• Why Commissioned-Based Sales Plans Fail to Work with Justin Clark
• How to Hire a Sales Rep that Hits the Ground Running #174
• The Invisible Sales Organization with Mitch Russo #147
• How To Be Your Customers Hero with Adam Toporek #104
• Strategic Sales Skills from Sales Management Author Ken Thoreson #57
• 6 Simple Steps of a Sales Process: Sales 101

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Why Nobody Gives a S*%T About Your Sales Goals with Mike Dannenfeldt #190

Highly effective companies collect and measure sales goals. These goals drive performance and results. Mike Dannefeldt and I talk about process management, goal setting and how to manage sales staff. The challenge is to meet and exceed the goals. Yet success is dependent on buy-in and communication.

Why Sales Goals Not Met

Nobody cares about company goals if the vision has not been communicated. Goals by themselves do not motivate. They they must have  meaning and value to all in the organization.

Leaders must be transparent about strategic goals to ensure employees understand and buy-in (communicate and collaborate). Too often transparency is non-existent.

Tools Drive the Process or Process Drive the Tools?

• We talked at length about the distinction between process and tools. Paper processes are rarely followed.
• The data collected must benefit all parties. Especially true if employees are responsible for data input
• Establishing regular metric review meeting drives performance growth and results

Take Action Advice

Establishing regular metric review meetings to communicate vision and drive performance with results. Mike gave us advice on how to set this up:

• Set up recurring weekly meetings
• All departments attend
• Everyone contributes and reports on progress, at least two goals
• Include sales goals and product/service goals
• Place something up on the screen so all can see. A dashboard with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

Memorable Quotes

Sales Goals quotes shared during the episode:

Goal without a plan is just a wish

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face – Mike Tyson

How To Find Mike Dannenfeldt

You can find Mike on LinkedIn 

• Mike on Twitter @zecutiv.
• Go to zecutiv.com    You can get a 20%  off if you use the  Promo code “salesbabble” 

How to Manage Sales Teams

• How to Hire a Sales Rep that Hits the Ground Running #174
• The Invisible Sales Organization with Mitch Russo #147
• How To Be Your Customers Hero with Adam Toporek #104
• Strategic Sales Skills from Sales Management Author Ken Thoreson #57
• 6 Simple Steps of a Sales Process: Sales 101

Sales Goals to Manage

There are two goals to focus on:

• Nudges – an interaction with a suspect that advances the sale by a prospect responding
• Appointments – the suspect becomes a true prospect when they agree to meet.

Sellers should focus on maximizing nudges. They will lead to appointments. Managers should assume  opportunities with appointments have a high likelihood to close. All should focus on the true nudges.

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Sales Management For Dummies with Butch Bellah

In this episode we meet  sales management expert Butch Bellah.  Butch just completed  the book Sales Management for Dummies  to be published in Fall 2015. 

In this interview Butch and I  cover a number of topics:

• Hiring 
• On-boarding new staff 
• Managing quotas
• Compensation

These topics are a must for any  business owner or sales manager who is starting to work with sales professionals.

Sales Management for Small Business

The highlights of this episode include the following:

1. Hire hard (only good staff).
2. Your bad hires will take up 80% of your time.
3. On-board  new staff  to make sure they have a great experience and  immediately start making sales.
4. Set up quotas that are realistic and allow new hires to quickly earn wins and  confidence.
5. Never mess with compensation. Never be cheap. Pay people what they’re worth.   If they excel, so too will your sales revenue. 
6. Performance reviews support continual growth and use it as an opportunity for coaching.

Links To Butch Bellah

You can find Butch throughout Social media. He is the owner of B2 Training and Development

• Email  butch@ butchbellah.com
• Twitter:   @salesPowerTips
• LinkedIn:  www.linkedin.com/butchbellah
• Facebook:  www.facebook.com/B2TrainingandDevelopment

Get Butch’s free book for Sales Babble 

You can preorder Sales Management for Dummies here.

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• Be Yourself
• Add Value
• Make Sales

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