Love and marriage

sThink of the hiring process similar to the dating process that led to you choosing your spouse or significant other. If you are a full-fledged member of the institution of marriage, I think you know what I mean. For those of your not yet “institutionalized” then you’ll have to take my word for it.

A sales hiring decision is a decision you should take nearly as seriously as that decision of a spouse was for you. That’s because once you choose to hire an individual, you are now in a full-time marital kind of relationship. You’ll see the good and the bad in them; you’ll see them at their best and most likely at their worst and you’ll need to stick with them through thick and thin. The hard part is that unlike dating your spouse, you typically only have two or three “dates” with this individual before you are forced to pop the question.

This doesn’t give you a whole lot of time to figure out who they truly are, so you had better make the best use of your time with them. This means not only listening to the answers to the questions you ask them, but to also listening to how they answer those questions. Use all and every possible clues available to you, taking into consideration all the subtleties of their personality, both verbal and non-verbal.

Equally important is how you interact with them. They may answer all the questions you pose to them correctly, or in a way so that you feel comfortable with how they would react to similar circumstances on the job, but in the end can you see yourself working with them for long stretches at a time?

“Hire good people, if you do, nothing else will matter, and if you don’t, nothing else will matter.”

-Dick Moley, CEO StrataCom

If you think about that statement, really think about it, truer words were never spoken on hiring.

If you make the right hiring decision, life is so sweet, nothing else will matter.

However, if you rush it, don’t listen to your instincts and make a sloppy hire, without doing all your homework, your professional life could turn into a living nightmare.

Once again, nothing else will matter, but in the exact opposite way.

“Every minute I devote to putting the proper person in the proper slot is worth weeks of time later”

-Colman Mockler, CEO Gilette

To find out more about motivating your sales team visit my blog about sales motivation at http://www.topsalesmanagerblog.com