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Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, and various
specialty sites are often used by sales managers and
recruiters alike. Industry associations are an effective
way to find qualified talent from consumer to
the B2B segments. Sources of potential sales reps
include the following:
• A rep who has risen through the ranks of a
company, affectionately known as “homegrown,”
knows the company’s products, customers,
and methods and has the advantage of
institutional memory. However, these reps may
lack a broader perspective and may have problems
with flexibility, because they have worked
so long for one organization.
• Hiring a former competitor as a sales rep has
several advantages. The outsider can provide a
company with a potential source of new market
growth by bringing his or her clients along,
which is called buying share. The outsider
knows the market, the competition, and can
bring a new perspective to the job. He or she
also probably has a sense of the company’s
products, customers, and methods from studying
former competitive intelligence. However,
the outsider may have trouble dropping his or
her old competitive feelings and may not be
accepted in the sales organization.
• A sales rep who is a former customer brings
unique perspectives to the job, knows the view
from the other side of the desk, is reasonably
familiar with the company and its products or
services, and knows his or her own customers
well.
• A sales rep who is hired from a different business
altogether brings a new perspective to the
job and a new approach to sales and customer
relations, adds to the overall knowledge base,
and often can rejuvenate a stagnant workforce.
Selection of Applicants
A successful salesperson requires a combination of
selling talent, judgment/adaptability, and training.
Companies select the best candidate by using a
combination of impartial written tests and subjective
questioning by a panel of experts that may
include HR consultants, industrial psychologists,
and the company’s successful sales and management
teams.
Sales Training
The goal of sales training is to effectively hone selling
skills. The successful salesperson must assimilate
both hard and soft skills. The hard skills, which
include technical and product knowledge, market
awareness, and the ability to gather intelligence, are
fundamental and can be taught. The soft skills,often
called people skills, tend to be more instinctive.
However, there are some soft skills that can be
taught or fine-tuned, including listening behaviors,
the ability to make things interesting to a specific
audience, negotiating skills, and ability to observe
the characteristics of customers in an effort to
understand them better as individuals (known as
reading the room). Management can help by providing
training, but the individual salesperson must
commit to learning these disciplines.
Often, the company that has the clearest corporate
mission, vision, and strategic framework, and
that can concisely impart that vision to its sales
force will have an advantage in the marketplace.
A uniform framework for sales training usually is
the best foundation for training and will meet the
long-term needs for corporate team building.
Training usually is done when someone is hired,
although additional training typically is provided
throughout a career. No one method of sales training
is inherently superior to another. Initial sales
training can be done effectively through manuals,
teaching, role-playing, or mentoring. Mentoring is
the use of seasoned sales personnel to reinforce
teaching and to establish positive role models for
younger and less experienced sales personnel.
As with any other job category, it is important
for salespeople to sharpen and refine their job skills
as they progress along their career path with a company.
A salesperson’s continuing education and
training should be done in small increments that
are more easily learned and retained. A sales force
will stop paying attention to too much information
in too short a time span. Sales seminars, sales conferences,
conventions, the annual sales meeting, and
PERSONAL SELLING AND SALES FORCE MANAGEMENT 157