By John Carroll

As a sales manager, all of your best efforts training, motivation, reward, mentoring, communications, evaluation, can be wasted by one poor choice: hiring the wrong person at the outset.

Choosing the right candidate for a sales position has proven to be one of the toughest parts of the job for many sales executives. Why is this so difficult? Here are a few reasons:

1. Too dependent on one information source : Some sales managers believe, "It’s best to go with the gut," and trust their intuition based only on the interview with a candidate. Or they learn that the candidate has a successful track record with another company in the same industry. Regardless of the source, this one-dimensional selection basis can turn into a large and costly mistake.

2. Too dependent on a single interview :This one is so simple that it’s almost self-explanatory. Some candidates have learned to interview very well and can leave a person with the best impression when they have a single opportunity.

3. Hiring people just like themselves : As with other hiring decisions, many managers tend to hire those whose style and approach is similar to their own. This can blind the manager to "red flags" about the candidate.

4. Hiring under the gun : Crisis hiring (or hiring by a certain deadline when there are few, if any, reasonably qualified candidates) can lead to a plethora of problems down the line. The sales manager may look briefly at several information sources without giving the decision the proper amount of time and focus, causing headaches for weeks and months to come.

5. Prolonged hiring decisions :The hiring manager can lose his/her best prospects by taking too long to make a decision. Many managers look back with regret on "the one who got away."

W. Edwards Deming said the cost of an error is "unknown and unknowable." The cost of a hiring mistake is easily quantified, at least in the short term. Here’s how: Take the figure that represents what a first-year sales representative is likely to make in overall compensation at your company. (Note that compensation includes salary, commission and all benefits.) Let’s say that figure is $40,000. If you lose that person in less than the first 12 months, it has cost you at least $40,000, and, according to some experts, as much as three times that amount. In this case, that would be $120,000. The "unknowable" part of the equation is the hard-to-quantify cost of what this person may have done to customer and prospect relations, as well as your internal relationships.

These costs are often considered soft and are rarely singled out on a monthly profit and loss statement. They are costs nonetheless. They manifest themselves as the sales manager who is so busy interviewing new candidates that there’s no time to coach and lead other team members. That leads to losing key people and having even more vacancies to fill.

These mistakes also keep sales managers out of the field and away from visiting customers and prospects. Bad decisions cost them time they could invest in training their teams and working proactively on projects designed to keep the company ahead of its competition. The boss may also begin to wonder about this manager’s ability to find, attract and keep good people. How does that impact the career path of the sales manager?

When it comes to a candidate for a sales position, there are three primary questions the sales manager must answer:

1. What is the sales potential of this candidate? :What volume is this person capable of selling?

2. How long will it take for this candidate to reach her/his potential? :What’s the cycle time from hiring to full productivity?

3. How much time, energy, money and other resources are required for this candidate to reach his/her sales potential? : What will it take to get this person up to speed?

With the answers to these questions, the sales manager can make a solid, informed decision.

As a sales manager, the ideal process is, of course, the one that works for you. Here are the elements you may want to consider as you work on improving yours:

· Recruit regularly : Keep your eyes open for new talent wherever you go. The top sales executive at one company I know was "discovered" while waiting tables.

· Follow the Rule of Threes in interviewing : According to Brian Tracy, you want to interview at least three people three different times in three different settings. Interviewing three candidates gives you basis for comparison. Interviewing three times gives you the chance for additional information. Interviewing in different settings (e.g., in your office, at lunch and over coffee) gives you a better overall feel for the candidate.

· Check references thoroughly : Candidates will only give references of those who will speak very highly of them. Call the references anyway and ask them for the names of others who know the candidate professionally or personally. Then call these people for additional information on the candidate. Past performance is just one of many valuable indicators. Don’t be one-dimensional; check as many as you can.

· Run a routine background check : Why take chances that your favorite candidate may be bringing otherwise unforeseen problems into your organization? Use a service that provides these for a nominal fee and consider it an investment in your own peace of mind.

· Involve your team in the selection process : Make your receptionist’s first impression a strong indicator of how this candidate will approach your prospects. If the candidate doesn’t have the savvy to make enough of a positive impression to land this position, why should you expect anything more when that person calls on your customers and prospects?

· Use objective assessments whenever possible: Give yourself the edge by using an instrument or two that tells you what you want to know. Our clients use several assessments to put the odds in their favor that they’re making the right choice. (You can test drive a free sample of one such assessment by simply going to the free services section of our website.)

Once you feel you’ve found the right person for the position, ask yourself these few soul-searching questions:

1. How would I feel about having my son or daughter work alongside or report to this person?
2. How am I going to feel about working with this person 20 years from now?
3. Can I think of any good reason right now that I could later regret having hired this person?

The candidate who passes all these steps might well be your most valuable player in the months and years to come.

John Carroll is President/CEO of Unlimited Performance, a Mt. Pleasant, SC, firm focused on organizational and individual performance improvement. Brian Tracy International, a worldwide network of consultants, has recognized him for sales excellence. Contact him at 1-800-672-4277 toll-free, email at jcarroll@uperform.com, fax at (843) 881-6746.

© 1999 John Carroll All rights reserved.