Selling Strategies That Work

It's

2006.

Time

to

Win.

11 Tips for Interviewing a Sales Candidate

By Dave Stein, Author of How Winners Sell

In addition to consulting, training, and speaking, I perform a lot of interviews of sales candidates for my clients.

Twenty years ago, when I was first a VP of sales, I had had no professional training in hiring. I was lucky enough to hire some winners who were able to contribute to my company's (and my) success. But I also hired those few reps who sold me during the interview but couldn't sell enough to make their numbers.

Using what I learned and experienced over the past twenty years, I developed an extremely effective and successful process for hiring sales reps. No process is perfect, but over 93% of the reps hired using this process are currently over-delivering against quota.

I'd like to share with you 11 tips I wish I'd had twenty years ago, that will enable you to improve your interviewing effectiveness, resulting in making fewer mistakes:

1. Make sure you know what you are looking for. If you are looking for the same kind of rep you were hiring five years ago, please reconsider. It may be time to upgrade your sales team, even if it's one rep at a time. First, you'll need to reevaluate the requirements for that position. What are the market, customer, and competitive pressures? What skills (e.g. communication, business, industry knowledge) and personal traits (e.g. intelligence, integrity, tenacity) are required to win now? Put time into this. This is very important.
    

2. Prepare your questions in advance. If you've followed tip #1, you'll know what skills and personal traits are required for success in this job at this time. The questions you design should result in the candidate recounting their actual behavior and thoughts during selling situations rather than surreptitiously relating concepts, theories, or what they wished they would have said and done. You must include questions for every critical skill and trait.
    

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(c) 2005 -- The Stein Advantage, Inc.

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