Do you have them on your team? How do you find them, hire them, train them and keep them?

If you think about it, Rep owners are quick to hire, and long to fire their salespeople. We don’t have a Human Resources Department (or person) to do the search, screening and selecting, and this causes some reps to neglect the very important steps of hiring a new salesperson:

• Interview an ample amount of candidates. More is sometimes better, just to get you (back) in the groove of conducting a good interview process. Don’t rule out everyone by their resume, especially if it lacks some experience. We put ourselves in a box, and sometimes cause good candidates to not apply if we say, “10 years of proven sales success required.”
• Interview well and hard. Don’t give the candidates a bunch of softball questions. Find out who they really are, and ask them tough questions and give them difficult hypothetical situations to see how they react. “Heck, don’t you have a bunch of history of tenuous meetings with customers and principals?”
• Conduct a personality dynamic inventory. They are not expensive. See AxiomOne.com or call Mike Norton, or better yet, come see his presentation at MANAfest! This tool tells you unbelievably accurate information about your final candidates. It makes a solid yes/no recommendation on hiring people.
• Reference checks are a must. Sometimes we get to this point, and we like the candidate so much, we just hire them. Don’t do this without extensive reference checks, including contacting people who are not on their reference list. If they told you that they called on specific customers or distributors, and you know these accounts — call them. Most people on their list are going to give them glowing reviews, and you might get more honesty from calling a candidate’s mother. Call all of their previous employers which typically are not listed as references.

OK, now you have hired them, what next? In the past, we used to say, “Here are the car keys, here’s your cell phone, here’s a bunch of literature and samples — now go sell a bunch of stuff!” Training is key, and even though it is tough to afford today, I strongly suggest that your salespeople visit all of your top factories. This is for application training, but it is more important that they meet and spend time with the people at that factory. (This is also key!) Take them on lots of sales calls with you and with your other salespeople (if you have others). Constant coaching is a must and you need to give them all of the tools to succeed. Continuous feedback and over communicating is the best.

In the times we face today, it’s tough to motivate even the best salespeople. Everyone in your firm needs to look for diversity and ways to differentiate your offerings and your position with customers. On an extremely positive note, there are lots of really good and talented salespeople looking for jobs today. Yep, I know, “how do you afford to hire them today?” Maybe there are some creative plans that you could work out with them, based on future dollars and successful growth. They are hungry — think about it!

Be open and honest with all of your employees, and be candid about their performance. Be certain that their expectations are clear, to them. Many employee issues are more related to the lack of clear expectations and performance objectives, rather than to them not having the capability and talent to do the job well.