How to Hire Sales Superstars

Today’s Reality

Selling in today’s competitive environment requires more skill and expertise. Gone are the easy deals and the “low hanging fruit”. Today’s buyers have become more knowledgeable and sophisticated, and they are taking a more cautious approach to buying. To compete in this new environment, companies that want to make their numbers and hit their budgets will have to learn how to “Top Grade” and put a stronger sales team on the street.

Of course you already know this. The question is how do you do it?

The Answer May Surprise You

You start by changing your beliefs about what makes a great sales person. Most hiring sales managers think that sales skills, industry experience, product knowledge, education and an outgoing personality are good predictors of sales success. While these things may be helpful, there is no correlation between any of these and success in sales.

Success in sales is almost totally dependent on innate personal talents. According to the Webster’s Collegiate dictionary a talent “is a characteristic ability, aptitude, or disposition of a person that produces a recurring pattern of behavior”. Examples of talents would include things such as: results oriented, goal achieving, self management, resiliency, self starting and interpersonal skills. While there may be room for discussion as to whether these talents are the result of nature or nurture the reality is that by the time an individual reaches adulthood these talents are neurologically hard wired and cannot be taught or learned easily.

The Dilemma

How do you know if a sales candidate possesses these crucial talents? Resumes do not reveal this information and interviews seldom reveal these characteristics because candidates are auditioning for the part of sales person. Previous employers cannot help because they don’t know. So what do you do?

The Good News

Imagine having a tool that would allow you to look into someone’s head and determine if they possess the crucial personal skills and talents before you hire them. There is such a tool. This tool will allow you to:

See past the façade that most sales candidates present
Determine who the real person is behind the mask
Predict with great certainty whether or not this person will sell
Know how they will respond to your management style before you hire them
Know whether they will fit your company’s culture and
If they posses the “right stuff” for sales success.

The Tool

The tool is our revolutionary TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System. Success in sales requires three sets of skills:

Job Skills
Selling Skills
Personal Talents and Skills

Hiring managers often make their hiring decision based on Job Skills and Selling Skills. They look for things like industry experience, product knowledge and sales experience.

What Researchers Have Learned

Contrary to what hiring managers may believe researchers have determined that sales success depends almost entirely on Personal Talents and Skills not Job Skills or Sales Skills.

When sales people under perform and are either terminated or quit it is almost always because they did not possess the requisite personal talents and skills for success in selling.

Job Skills and Selling Skills can be learned by a motivated and committed individual. However, personal skills and talents are difficult if not impossible to learn.

If you doubt this ask yourself can sales training really teach someone such skills as being a self starter, goal achieving, resilient, self management, or results oriented. These are raw talents that cannot be taught easily once someone reaches adulthood.

Without these important personal talents and skills your sales people will not be able to stand the pressures of competitive selling and will only become mediocre performers at best.

The Solution

Quit making hiring decisions based on resumes, interviews and industry experience and start using sophisticated, objective psychometric instruments that will give you a clear objective view of who the real candidate is. You need to find these things out before you hire them not after. That’s exactly what our TriMetrix Assessment System does for you. TriMetrix is exceptionally valuable in the hiring process because it’s the only assessment system that allows you to assess people and jobs – using the same criteria. There’s no mystery or magic involved…it’s just a simple way to find out how well an individual fits in a specific job. The TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System is:

Based on decades of rigorously validated research
Easy to understand
Designed specifically for workplace use
Capable of uncovering and examining things you can’t find on resumes or in interviews
Focused on helping you hire Sales Superstars

The TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System is the only sales assessment in the world that measures the 3 Critical Dimensions…and over 80 Core Skills. The TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System incorporates three interdependent assessments rolled into one easy-to-use platform. It measures three dimensions to give you a complete picture of each individual.

1. Personal Talents and Skills – Will this person sell?

Answers questions like:

- Does this person have a strong sense of personal accountability?
- Is this person results oriented?
- Is this person a self-starter?
- Can this person manage himself or herself?
- Are they goal oriented?
- And more……

2. Personal Motivations and Values – Why does this person choose to sell?

Answers questions like:

- How money motivated are they?
- Are they motivated to learn new ideas and concepts?
- Are they motivated to take control of their destiny?
- Are they flexible or rigid?

3. Behavioral Style – How does this person sell?

Describes their natural selling style and answers questions like:
- Do they display a sense of urgency?
- Are they accommodating?
- How detail oriented are they?
- Are they a high powered direct person?
- How friendly, open and charismatic are they?
- Do they have a service orientation?
- And more…

How Does the TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System work?

Step 1 – Benchmark The Position

We start by helping you assess the sales position so that you know exactly which talents and skills each sales position requires. You get:

A Job Benchmark — A “blueprint” of the ideal candidate that clearly defines the qualities needed for success in the job.
A complete set of recommended interview questions that is specific to the job’s attitude, behavior and values requirements.

Step 2 – Assess Your Candidates

You decide which candidates you would like to assess and give them each a password for our easy-to-use online assessment system. You get:

Instant access to the complete profile of each candidate.
An at-a-glance Comparison Report that tells you exactly how each candidate’s personal skills stack up against what the job requires.

Step 3 – Identify Candidates Whose Personal Skills “Fit” The Position

Using the standard you established in Step 1, our experts help you evaluate each candidate’s assessment report in the context of your unique work environment and the specific requirements of the position. You’ll be able to:

Identify the best candidates before you spend valuable time bringing them in for interviews.
Focus on possible areas of concern in each candidate’s assessment that you might want to discuss in the interview.

With three easy steps, TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment System gives you the power to:

Minimize Risk – arm yourself with all the information you need to make a sound decision.
Reduce Turnover – By getting the right people in the door.
Leverage Interviews – You’ll know who to spend your interviewing time with and what questions to ask.

Coach em Up

Recruiting top talent is only the beginning to building a great sales team. If your new hires are to reach their full potential they will need professional sales coaching. To help you coach, motivate and manage each new hire we will provide you with a “blueprint” on how to best coach, motivate, train and manage your new hire. This coaching report will give you insight into their communication style, goals, values, attitudes, skills, strengths and weaknesses. It will also give you insight into:

How you should manage them to get the best possible results
The best way to communicate with them
What their potential strengths and weaknesses are
What additional training they may need
What might cause conflict between them and you and other team members

This coaching report contains over 60 pages of targeted instructions for managing the new hire and helping them achieve their maximum potential. Once you identify and hire the RIGHT person, and you know exactly how to coach and manage that person, you won’t have to struggle to keep them motivated and you won’t have to worry about them leaving your organization.

Click here to see a Sample TriMetrix™ Sales Assessment
Click here to see a Sample TriMetrix™ Sales Coaching Report