If you want to achieve high performance when incorporating a vendor into the team or when finding an answer to low individual performance, this key aspect of each representative is often ignored in many such selective and diagnostic processes.
Based on sales management consulting experiences, the search is usually done starting with the title of the notice that will be published to recruit applicants to interview and that generally express something like: "Leading Company in X, Will Select Sales Representative with experience in…"
In 98% of the cases experienced, only a vague visualization of the representatives sought was kept in mind, which inevitably affects the result obtained shortly after making the final selection and incorporation decision.
The interesting thing about this assessment is that it is also repeated.
The candidate who transmitted a high potential for results begins to have a performance far from what he promised and doubts about the correctness of the selection made begin.
Once the responsibilities of the case have been assumed or delegated, the action is restarted but this time making small modifications to the notice (?) Or perhaps publishing it without any change.
It happens that all the candidates who apply for an advertisement like the one described, have a certain sales potential and surely have a certain experience in first-line companies.
The first rationale in this selection process is to recognize that: "Not all marketers with industry experience will be appropriate to join."
From this foundation, the following logical question arises: what should the seller be like to be incorporated?
The answer is to reflect beforehand and take the necessary minutes to write on a sheet of paper the aspects that you are looking to find in the person of the seller to incorporate. Let's see what aspects should be defined before starting any search action:
- Sex, age, marital status, nationality, etc. Without experience or with experience in an item or items related to the niche in which the company operates. The experience must be specified regarding what: sale of products or services, in customer service premises or at the client's home, knowledge of PC with the Microsoft Office program, etc. "A seller who invoices with a handwritten ticket is not the same as a seller who invoices on a PC." Likewise: "a seller with experience in musical instruments is not the same as those who sold CD's." expression of ideas and concepts, natural sympathy and good humor, intelligence applied to solve unexpected situations in its management,Honesty, etc. Establish if you are running for sales position out of necessity or vocation.
This reference is for illustrative purposes only, since each company must establish its own requirements considering the type of product or service, the brands they represent, their management system, the target of customers in their niche, the philosophy and level that you want to transmit on each contact, etc.
Once all the elements that are expected to be found among the applicants have been described, the "position profile" is the ideal of what needs to be objectively incorporated in each new representative.
Said idealistic condition should be relaxed in the evaluation of each candidate, also specifying which aspects are negotiable and those that are exclusive.
In this way, the "profile acts like a pearl sieve", where only those that by their caliber exceed the requirements that were established in their configuration will remain.
Before undertaking your next actions in this regard, it is important to take into account the benefits of companies that use "the profile", update it and apply it consistently over time:
- They have a team of representatives with high potential to train and retain loyalty within the vital productive structure of the company. They form homogeneous sales teams and to the extent closest to the salesperson ideal that the organization requires. They avoid incurring costly costs of repeated "trial-error" that affect not only the results of the equipment but also, harm the attention of the current clients without a representative They obtain sales results with greater consistency and quality over time, as a result of the aforementioned.
After this analysis regarding the search for the ideal seller, you can choose your best path: continue the traditional search with "trial and error" or start enjoying the benefits obtained by applying the "ideal profile" criterion.
By joining, other fundamental aspects that will guarantee your "loyalty to the company" and its performance, will be defined in the "induction process" and in your "tailor-made training". But these topics are so important and broad as to be developed in a future article.
© Copyright 2008, by Martín E. Heller
