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Hiring--A
Vital Key In Sales Management Success
By
Virden J. Thornton
Recently, I was
asked to spend some time on the
telephone, coaching a client’s
administrative assistant on how to
check out an employment candidate’s
references. After each in-person or
telephone conference, I complete a
brief written report going over the
information discussed. The information
that I gave this worker was so vital
to the company’s overall sales
management success that I felt
impelled to share the report in my
periodic client e-mailings, feeling
that it might be of value to others
that I serve. The information is so
vital to the management process, I
decided to reproduce it here as well.
After over 24 years of advising
managers, I’m convinced that the
hiring process is the primary key to
management success. If you hire right,
your job of managing staff is made
much easier. Here are the suggestions
I made along these lines:
Julie:
It
was good to talk to you yesterday.
we
discussed, the assignment you've been
given by management to call each sales
support candidate's references, is
vital to the company's future sales
success. As I teach in my coaching
workshop, if you work hard at the
hiring process, it makes managing
staff members much easier over the
long term.
You
were right when you commented that
calling references "is not that
easy." I agree that there is
resistance by many business owners and
managers to giving out information in
today's litigious business
environment. However, the process we
discussed can help you overcome this
refusal to help you complete this
important assignment.
The
Steps To Checking References:
1.
You need to obtain from three to five
business references from each of the
candidates approved by management.
2.
Call the candidate's references and
use the following script in your own
words to obtain the information needed
to make an informed decision in hiring
a given candidate:
"We
plan on giving (candidate first name)
extensive training to help her (him)
to be successful in this new position.
Could you please help me with several
suggestions on areas we need to train
(candidate) so she (he) can make a
smooth transition?"
3.
Next, ask the reference to give you
two or three names of other managers
or co-workers who could give you
insight into helping the candidate
make the transition.
4.
Then, call the reference's references
and use the same script outlined in
step two above to elicit additional
information about the candidate.
It’s so easy to make a couple of
calls and then give up on finding
information. You really need to work
hard at this process to help
management make sound decisions about
the top candidates for a given
position. This assignment is vital to
producing consistent sales success.
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VIRDEN
THORNTON is the founder and
President of The
$elling Edge®, Inc.
a firm
specializing in sales, customer
relations, and management training and
development. Clients have included
Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM,
Deloitte & Touché, Bank One,
Jefferson Pilot, and Wal-Mart
to name a few. Virden is the author of
Prospecting:
The Key To Sales Success
and the best selling Building
& Closing the Sale, Fifty-Minute
series books and Close
That Sale, a video/audio
tape series published by Crisp
Publications, Inc. Menlo Park,
California. He has also authored a
Self-Directed Learning series of
sales, coaching & team
development, telemarketing, and
personal productivity training guides.
To obtain a substantial discount on
two of Virden's new manuals, 101
Sales Myths and Organizing
For Sales Success, just
click on either of the titles above.
Note:
You
can contact Virden at virden@TheSellingEdge.com.
You can also see an expan- ded
biography at http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/bio.htm.
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of our training guides are
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