Salespeople: getting the best for less; step-up hiring can be a great way to grow your own sales stars - column

Salespeople: Getting the best for less Ad director's fantasy: You are the ad director at Fortune, where you have talented sales reps inundating you with unsolicited resumes, and you have a budget that allows you to pick and choose among the best and the brightest.

Ad director's reality: You can't afford the best and the brightest because they get paid a mint to work at Fortune. But you did get an unsolicited resume six months ago from a rence college graduate who got your name from SRDS.

If you are trying to hire a sales rep to work for your small publication, you may discover that the experienced applicants you can afford are not worth hiring--and the few gifted candidates you meet will command larger salaries or greater opportunity elsewhere.

But you don't have to settle for mediocrity if you pursue a hiring strategy of stepping someone up. This means spending extra time in the hiring process to find raw talent to grow your own sales stars.

At small publications, it's easy to forget that the job of "sales rep"--and the talent, skill and experience needed to execute the job--can be many different things at different publications. To discover the kind of person you

need at your mazagine, take a step back and ask yourself some questions:

1. What kind of "sell" works best for my industry or demongraphic? In some industries, relationship selling works fine; in others, it is considered one step above prostitution. For some industries where the products are complex or technical, product knowledge can be very useful. Is the area you cover a high profile industry where image and style count for more than they should? Hire accordingly.

2. How does my magazine get sold? What percentage of your reps' selling time is spent in face-to-face calls, over the phone, at trade shows, through letters or where? Don't hire a brilliant presenter and then stick him on the phone all day.

3. What is my market position? If you are in a number-one or number-two slot, it's probable that a consultative selling style is appropriate to expand the ad page market overall. If your book is number six in a six-book market, you may need to hire a good closer.

4. What kind of salesperson am I? Assume that you are going to drift toward hiring in your own image. This can be bad if you eliminate talented candidates who simply would get the job done differently then you would have. But also consider that the synergy between yourself and your salespeople is important--especially if you'll spend a lot of time on the road with them.

5. What are my clients like? Research tells us that the closer the seller and buyer are in age, personality and lifestyle, the more likely it is that the sale will be made. If your typical client is a balding 60-year-old man who smokes cigars, that summa cum laude you just hired fresh out of Radcliffe could have a tough job of it.

6. Does my company have a value system as it relates to selling style? Some companies focus on immediate sales, some on long-term selling. What are your expectations?

Accompanying this article is a list of skills and personal characteristics that you need to prioritize for yourself and your company, in descending order, before you take another step. I've already given you one priority under "Personal characteristics." Now you do the rest.

When you really get serious about looking for raw talent, you will find there is precious little of it around. Anywhere you can get good applicants--go after them. References, head hunters, space reps you compete with, classified ads. Talent follows no rules. Talent is where you find it. And don't forget, the best time to be scouting for talent is when you don't need it. This gives you the opportunity to really look around and evaluate carefully.

Most often, you will be running a classified ad to attract applicants. Writing a classified is not like writing an ad to sell products. Here you get no benefit from attracting a large volume of resumes. The most perfect help wanted ad you can write will attract only one response--from the perfect candidate who accepts the job when you offer it.

If you aren't paying top dollar for the position, state the compensation in the ad: You'll save everyone a lot of time. And describe your expectations in as specific terms as you can. Shown here is an ad I ran the last time I hired a sales rep. Do you think the applicants knew what I was looking for?

Reading resumes right

Robert Half, president of Robert Half International, one of the largest executive recruiting firms, writes, "Resumes are a necessary evil. They're tedious to plow through, and rarely yield an accurate picture of a candidate ... some of the most talented candidates I've ever come across simply refused to spend time on their resumes, and some of the weakest candidates I've interviewed prepared resumes worthy in their own right of a Pulitzer Price."

The challenge for step-up hiring is to read between the lines of the resume, to look more at the person and less at the experience, to look for patterns, not positions.

* Patterns of employment stability: Has the candidate changed sales jobs every year for the past five years? Forget him. With a step-up hire, you will have to wait six months before your candidate really knows what he's doing. If he's gone six months later, you've lost big.

* Patterns of career direction: When your candidate changed jobs, was it a step up or just a lateral move? Too many lateral moves can indicate lack of direction or determination.

* Evidence of improvability: Has this potential step-up hire initiated any self-improvement programs or classes, or taken on any extra responsibilities?

* The next step: Would the job you are offering seem like a logical next step if added to the resume you are looking at?

Conducting the interview

One great misconception about interviewing salespeople is that you are there to buy, and your candidate is there to sell you. An interview is not a sales call, it's a tool of evaluation. If you are a passive interviewer who sits back and picks the best pitch that comes at you, your chances of hiring a star are random at best. Far beneath the big smile, firm handshake and enthusiastic demeanor is a person who may or may not be improvable, organized, motivated, intelligent, persistent or hard working.

Interviewing salespeople is hard enough because, in a sense, they earn their living by going on interviews. Have you ever met a salesperson who didn't give a great interview? For step-up hiring, it is far more importnat to evaluate the person than the experience. Your challenge: Find out what this person is really like by using the most crude and easily manipulated of all evaluative techniques: the job interview.

You find out about a candidate's job experience and skill level by asking direct questions such as, "What were your biggest accomplishments at your last job?" But if you are trying to uncover the "inner" candidate, direct questioning simply does not work. The answer to "Are you a competitive salesperson?" is completely predictable and will offer little insight into the candidate. But there are ways to uncover the inner candidate through the technique of indirect questioning. Consider the following questions as alternatives:

Q: Can you describe some sales you've made in your career that have been the most satisfying for you?

For a real street fighter, a good competitive win will be the most satisfying one. Other wins for differently oriented candidates could be when a friend was made or respect earned from a hostile buyer (satisfaction coming more from a need to be accepted personally), or when a big commission check got written (working more for money and less for the thrill of the kill).

Q: What is your current market share among your competitors?

A true competitor knows precisely where he stands and takes his market share very seriously. The more concise the market share knowledge, the more competitive the individual.

It takes preparation to use indirect questioning properly. Before the candidate arrives in your office, think through just what you need to know and work up a series of questions. You may need to ask several indirect questions about the same characteristic to gain the insight you need. Following are some questions I've used to reveal the deeper traits of various candidates.

1. Is the candidate improvable? Ask if the candidate has recently taken any career related skill building courses on his own initiative or read any books.

2. Does the candidate have organizational ability? Ask him to describe step by step what he did yesterday. If a candidate can think sequentially (i.e., step by step) the question will be answered easily. People who can think sequentially usually have organizational ability.

3. Is the candidate motivated? The behavior pattern of motivated people is different from others. Motivated people take initiative and go above and beyond in other areas of their lives, not just on the job. Ask about responsibilities asked for on previous jobs, and extra job related activities (joined professional organizations, etc.). Ask about volunteer work or clubs and organizations they belong to. If they are a member of a club, were they ever the president or treasurer?

4. Is the candidate "driven"? This goes beyond motivation. No one wakes up one day and becomes a driven salesperson because he can make a few more bucks or because his boss says "thank you." Being driven is something about the most successful salespeople that burns deep inside. I believe it comes from having had to overcome some serious obstacles earlier in life. Ask, "What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome in your life?"

5. Can the candidate think on his feet? Put them to the pen test. Ask, "See this pen I'm holding? Sell it to me!" Can he formulate a logical persuasive argument on the spot, or does he make a joke, or look embarrassed and stall for time?

6. Is the candidate persuasive? Ask your candidate to write you a sales letter. Good writing is good thinking. If your candidate can't persuade in print, where he has time to weigh every word, how will he do on the road? Also, the style of persuasion used can vary tremendously.

It's important to interview a person at least twice to get a clear picture of the inner candidate. Also, have someone else in your office interview the candidate as well. You'd be amazed what another person's perspective adds to the evaluation process.

Check them out

There is no interviewing technique or psychological test that can't be beaten. I'm sure you've heard horror stories of newly hired, abrasive salespeople who offend clients instead of selling them. Your best defense against such a hiring disaster is to check references. In today's environment, which is sensitive to the legal ramifications of giving references, many former employers will not bad mouth an ex-employee--no matter how bad an apple he was. Why should they? You are an unfamiliar voice on the phone, and the publishing industry is a small world.

While the process of checking references does have limitations, here are some ways to get the best out of an imperfect process:

Ask only for direct supervisors as references. These are the references that problem employees will have the biggest difficulty coming up with. The first question to ask when you call (and I do mean you--don't delegate this) a direct supervisor is what the employee/supervisor relationship was. If you were given the names of quasi-supervisors or supervisors who were only in the department a short time, or coworkers, be wary.

Compare the list of supervisors to the most recent positions on the resume. Are there any significant omissions? Once you get an ex-boss on the phone, first ask what specific responsibilities your candidate performed best and worst. Often the boss will dodge the "worst" option, but note which characteristics were not ones in the "best" category. Ask how well the candidate did overall.

No one your candidate gave you will give that person a bad reference, but few people are willing really to rave about someone. Does the person you call rave or just acknowledge a job well done? Ask if, given the opportunity, the person you are talking to would hire the candidate again.

Is it time to step up?

Let me close by offering some thoughts on the risk of pursuing four specific step-up hiring strategies.

1. Promoting a junior salesperson to bigger accounts: Can this person handle more complex accounts? Evaluate the candidate for organizational ability (to handle more responsibility) and intelligence (to deal with more sophisticated clients).

2. Hiring from a schlocky publisher: Sometimes old habits are hard to change. If the person you hire has been closing hard issue to hard issue over the phone, can he get used to selling contracts face to face? If your candidate is used to offering up editorial favors or special positions for ads, can he sell readership? Sometimes this transition does not work.

The longer your candidate has worked at a schlock publisher, the harder it will be to make a convert. The personal characteristics you will need to interview for are improvability, willingness to change, and ability to function in a more sophisticated selling environment.

3. Hiring a salesperson who has not sold ad space before: Selling ad space is inherently different from selling most products because space is an intangible. Someone who is great at selling cars or stereos can fail miserably at space sales because it requires the more subtle skills of selling ideas and concepts. Be wary of hard, one-shot closers. Evaluate for improvability, intelligence and the ability to sell value and other abstract concepts.

4. Promoting someone into sales who has not sold before: This is the riskiest of all step-up strategies simply because many people cannot handle the constant rejection involved in a salesperson's life. You must evaluate your candidate's ability to deal with this. Here, a sales aptitude testing service such as The H.R. Challey Group (Dayton, Ohio) could provide helpful insights.

Step-up hiring is more risky than more conventional hiring. It is likely that the first few months of a step-up hire will not go as smoothly as the first few months with a seasoned pro. But it's over the long haul that step-up hires prove themselves.

As your candidate matures on the job over the years, it is possible that any cost saving you realized initially will evaporate as you maintain a competitive salary structure. But you will have more talented, brighter, more motivated salespeople in place--people you would be hard pressed to hire out of the small, highly visible pool of proven sales talent that was available when you began your hiring process.

Josh Gordon is the former associate publisher/ad director of CableVision.

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