Month: February 2018

One thing I’ve noticed when talking to hiring managers about sales testing is that today they are, almost without exception, highly cognizant of the costs of making a bad hire.   This is a big change from when I started this company in 1986. Then it was fairly common to speak to even senior managers who just had no clue about how expensive it can be to hire a sales dud.

When one calculates the financial costs of a failed sales hire and one looks at the potential financial upside of hiring more sales winners, the dollars spent on sales tests are like the proverbial ‘drop in a bucket’. This is nothing new. What is new is that unlike managers of the past, modern hiring managers know this intuitively and therefore have no argument with it.

Nevertheless, I am sure there are still at least some hiring managers who might see the few dollars spent on sales testing as an unwarranted and unjustifiable expense. So, in the mindset of words that ‘bear repeating’, I thought I would spell out a few areas that show, both from an upside (potential profit) and downside (potential loss) perspective that the financial justification for a sales test is clearly a ‘no brainer’ decision.

Because the dollar cost of using a sales test varies dramatically, as does the number of tests used when hiring a single sales person I am starting with a couple of simple assumptions. Our service tends to be quite inexpensive. The customized version of our service works out to be about $32 per report. Assuming you test 8-10 candidates to hire one sales person I have pegged the total cash outlay for a single sales hire at a nice round $300.

So the question you need to ask yourself is whether you can justify spending $300 to not only avoid a bad hire but also to ensure a good hire. You decide!

Cost of a Hiring Failure

I’m starting off with my big gun here, the cost of hiring a sales person who fails and is terminated. Here is a link to our Cost of Failure Calculator. You can input your own specific numbers and be as conservative as you like. You will see that even if you are really conservative and look at things very narrowly a bad hire will cost in the tens of thousands of dollars at a bare minimum.

Working with Borderline Candidates

Hiring a real dud like the above situation vs. a top performer is easy, in the sense that what you are dealing with and how you deal with it is pretty clear. What is more common, or at least more difficult is when you realize you’ve hired a rep who is borderline-not quite bad enough to let go but just not making it. You can often avoid this with a sales test but if you find yourself in this situation the test results provide insights about training, motivating and managing the rep. These insights save you valuable time.

Higher Sales Higher Profits

Have you ever run the numbers to compare the sales and profits from a top performer vs. an average performer? Every business is unique of course, but the financial difference, if looked at over a one to two year period is significant. A major benefit of using a sales test is the ability to hire sales candidates with the same success traits as your top performers. A sales test that is customized around the traits of your top performers is a very precise tool for truly understanding who has the potential to be a sales rock star.

Time is Money

I looked it up and this famous phrase was indeed coined in 1748, by none other than Benjamin Franklin. If it was true then it is even truer today. Using a sales test saves time in many ways. Below I’ve listed just five.

1. Time saved by working with high potential vs. low potential salespeople.
2. Time is saved because test results show you how to manage, train and motivate from day one.
3. You save time by identifying and vetting job candidates much faster which is critical in the current tight job market.
4. By testing early in the process, a sales test enables you to devote your valuable interview time exclusively to top candidates.
5. Using a sales test with your current staff identifies not only the success traits of top people but also clearly tells you if you have been wasting time training someone who will never thrive.

The Bottom Line

How much is your and your manager’s time worth? What did your last failed sales hire cost you? How profitable will it be if your next hire is a top performer?

Does the cost of a sales test seem justifiable to you?

 

If you are currently hiring, or planning to hire sales people, you are no doubt well aware of how tight the job market is. In fact, as this recent New York Times Article explains, the unemployment rate, which was recently at 4.1 percent is presently at a 17 year low. Furthermore, since the economy is forecast to continue to strengthen, employers should expect it to become even harder to hire suitable talent for the foreseeable future. It may seem counter-intuitive to some but now is a perfect time to incorporate a sales aptitude test into your hiring regime.

It is true that some managers might view using a sales aptitude test in the current job market as an additional and unnecessary barrier to hiring the best sales talent. If, rather than viewing the sales aptitude test as a barrier, you instead view the sales test as a tool to speed up the vetting process and widen the ‘net’ it will be clear that your sales recruiting will definitely gain a valuable edge. Below I have listed five areas where a sales test will pay big benefits.

Faster Vetting Process

Despite the basic point of the old adage about ‘hiring slow and firing fast’, speeding up the vetting process does not have to mean a lessening of candidate quality. Obviously anything you can do that helps you connect with the high potential applicants faster and earlier in the process is a benefit. This is one reason why many companies now use a sales test at the beginning of the hiring process. By front-loading the administration of the sales test, you will quickly and efficiently identify the high potential candidates prior to your competitors. You are then able to expedite these top candidates through to the next hiring step such as a phone screen and face-to-face interview.

Always Be Recruiting

Hiring experts will invariably advise you that recruiting top sales people should be an ongoing and continuous process rather than something that you do only when you actually need to fill a role. These experts suggest keeping your eyes and ears open for sales people that you meet in your daily business and personal life. It could be a sales person who is selling something either to you personally or for your business. By having an economical sales aptitude test at your disposal whenever you need it you can very easily evaluate these passive candidates in a very non-committal manner by having them agree to take a sales test.

Less Than Ideal Candidates

Despite your efforts to maintain the same hiring standards, it is inevitable that in a tighter job market you will have to hire sales people that you otherwise might not have. Candidates whose qualifications are less than ideal are not all the same. A sales aptitude test will give you valuable insight into the candidate’s specific strengths and weaknesses.   It may be the case for example that one candidate’s shortcomings are easier to contend with and to work around than another candidate’s. The information that the sales test uncovers can be very valuable in this scenario.

 Casting a Wider Net

Most managers continue to try and hire sales people from their own industry in the mistaken belief that product and industry knowledge are critical.   On the contrary, all the available evidence indicates that sales people very rarely fail because of these factors. This is because industry and product knowledge can be taught. In fact, sales success mostly has to do with how the sales person’s personality fits the role. This being the case, one of the benefits of a sales aptitude test is your ability to evaluate sales candidates from other industries. Essentially you are casting a wider net in order to identify suitable candidates. For example, if you are looking for hunter type sales people it might make sense to identify successful hunters in other industries or businesses. If they are shown to have the potential from this perspective you may be able teach them about your products or services.

Getting Them And Keeping Them

It is true that you choose sales candidates but it is also true, especially now, that candidates choose you. The insights gained by using a sales aptitude test give you a thorough understanding of the candidate’s specific motivational drives and ‘hot buttons’. This ‘under the hood’ understanding of the candidate is invaluable in shaping how you present the role and what your company and management team brings to the equation. If the candidate is worth hiring isn’t it worth this extra effort to know how to give it your best shot?

If you are interested in learning more about the many benefits of sales aptitude testing or just to share your unique sales hiring challenges I would be pleased to hear from you.

First of all, you could give me 5 back up parachutes and I would still not jump out of an airplane! Unlike the brave souls who get their thrills from skydiving I remain perfectly content to keep my feet firmly planted on the ground. Recently though while watching a skydiving demonstration from the safety of good old terra firma, it crossed my mind that using a sales assessment test can be likened to packing a back up parachute. Okay I have to admit it is a big stretch when you compare the failure of a parachute with a failed sales hire but I really needed a good visual image to go along with this article.

Seriously though, when interviewing and hiring sales people, a lot can go wrong in your efforts to understand the candidate and hence to make the right decision.  Given the financial consequences of a bad sales hire isn’t it just sensible to use a sales test in order to provide additional peace of mind and to ‘just make sure’? Here are five ways a sales assessment test will do just that.

Improved Reference Checking

Most reference checking is useless because it is basically just a verification of facts-dates, positions etc. Having access to the results of a sales assessment can make your reference checking much more effective. Why? Because when you talk to the reference you have the ability to exhibit a far greater understanding of the applicant. When you exhibit insights about the candidate and frame these insights around job activities the reference is more likely to open up and give you useful and job relevant feedback.

Better Interviews

The same insights that make you better at reference checking will definitely improve your interviews. Firstly, you can, if you wish, restrict your interviews to only the most qualified candidates by using the sales assessment early on. This means you can have fewer but more comprehensive interviews. Secondly, by having the sales assessment results at hand you can zero in on any red flags. In essence the sales assessment results will put you firmly back in control of the interview.

Uncover Concerns

A sales assessment provides insights into areas that are just not apparent to even the best interviewer. Whether these concerns are ‘deal breakers’ or not, just having the information helps.

Confirming What You Know

For better or worse sometimes a sales assessment confirms what you already think and feel about the candidate. If your negative view is confirmed at least you can feel comfortable that you have done what you can to make sure. If your positive impressions are confirmed the sales assessment results will lend some objectivity to your positive impressions.

Shorter Ramp Up

The results of a sales assessment can be particularly useful with new sales employees even just as the catalyst for starting an open and frank dialogue. Better communication will usually mean a better working relationship. Furthermore, the results will be particularly useful in understanding how to manage, train and motivate the new hire.

Conclusion

When you contrast the financial costs to make a bad sales hire against the many benefits of using a sales assessment test, hiring a sales person without using one makes about as much sense as jumping out of airplane with no back up chute. You wouldn’t do that, would you?