I’ve heard a lot of managers describe the process of hiring sales people as little more than a ‘crapshoot’. I have never really bought into this view but it does speak to the fact that hiring sales people does have risks. The financial stakes are also really high. Probably far higher than most of us would ever feel comfortable risking in a real game of chance. If you think I am exaggerating just think about the tremendous financial rewards of hiring a winning sales person vs. the huge losses associated with hiring a sales failure.
As a hiring manager you are expected to make a single critical decision about someone you know very little about. If you are right your company will profit handsomely. If your decision is wrong it will cost your company dearly. I don’t know about you but when it is put in writing in this way it sure takes on the feel and aura of gambling.
Faced with a complex and high stakes decision such as this how do you approach it? Do you take your chances, hope for the best and let the chips fall where they may? Perhaps you see yourself in the role of ‘handicapper’ who analyzes every little detail in order to eliminate all the risks? More likely you are somewhere in the middle, having learned from experience that you can’t know everything about sales candidates. You do though, perform your due diligence as best you can with what tools you have.
If you would like to give your sales hiring a valuable edge in order to improve your odds of hiring winners our sales assessment test is a quick and economical solution. How would this work? Used initially to test a sampling of your top performers, we would analyze their test results and identify the traits that they have in common. From this we establish the benchmarks (we actually call them Target Profiles) against which all future sales candidates are compared and rated. The sales candidates who get a high rating (we call this a Suitability Rating) have very high potential for success since they share the traits of your proven sales winners. When you hire these high potential sales candidates you have dramatically improved the odds that they will also be successful.
Will you eliminate failures? No. Will everyone be a top performer? Again, no. Will you improve the odds? Yes! Will you hire more sales winners? You can bet on it!
If you think you are ready to take a chance on using a sales assessment test to improve your hiring odds I would enjoy hearing from you.
