December 11, 2014 | By RGR Marketing Blog

Know Who You Want to Hire, Before You Start Interviewing

When it comes to closing deals, your marketing leads are only as good as the sales team you’ve hired to work them. Your front-line customer-facing employees are often the first contact customers make with your company, and your business’s ultimate key to success. It doesn’t matter how great your offerings are if those who are communicating the benefits don’t inspire the desire to act in prospective customers.

So what should you look for in new sales team members, and which traits do the most effective salespeople have in common?

Entrepreneurial Spirit

When going over potential candidates’ employment histories, be sure to look for evidence of a person with an enterprising nature. Those who have started their own businesses, especially those who have done so early on in life, tend to have an entrepreneurial spirit, and that’s definitely a positive quality in a salesperson.

Such candidates tend to view their positions as businesses in themselves, rather than merely jobs. Because of this, they’re going to be more likely to take the initiative and to find ways to bolster their own numbers, rather than waiting for the company to find ways to do it for them.

Accountability

Successful salespeople are always looking for ways to improve their performance and their paychecks, and taking accountability for their shortcomings is a key part of this process. When interviewing potential new hires, ask them how they’ve handled mistakes that they might have made in the past.

If they talk about identifying the factors contributing to their mistakes, learning from them, and preventing them from happening in the future, it’s a good sign. If they seem to want to pass the buck or make excuses, you should probably think twice about adding them to your sales team.

Competition

Great salespeople are driven to be the best at what they do, because they’re naturally competitive people. By asking potential candidates about their standings among peers in past positions, or about their experiences playing sports or competing in other arenas, you can bet a pretty good indication about their attitude toward competition.

As an added bonus, salespeople who are competitive in a friendly way can help to boost morale and drive other members of the team to bring their “A-game.” And nothing will get your veteran sales team members like a bit of healthy competition.

Tenacity

Some prospects are easy to close, and others take real perseverance. Because of this simple fact, you want to hire salespeople who won’t throw in the towel when the going gets tough. Ask prospective hires about challenging goals they’ve taken on in the past, how they handled setbacks, and whether they’re still at it. Getting them to tell a story about a real commitment they’ve made to improve themselves over time, or to accomplishing a multi-step goal can be a good way to gauge their tenacity in life and in work.

Pride in Appearance

Whether your sales team interacts with clients in person or over the phone, you want to hire salespeople who take pride in their personal appearance. Candidates who show up to interviews dressed to impress are likely to make extra efforts to make excellent first impressions on clients, as well. And by helping themselves in this manner, they’re also going to help your business.

Know What You’re Looking For

Most sales positions have several things in common, but the finer points may vary. In addition to looking for the qualities we’ve already discussed, it’s a smart idea to consider the characteristics of those who’ve been successful in your sales department in the past, and to look for those crucial qualities in new hires, as well.

[Photo Credit: HEC.edu]

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