How You Can Recognise A Willingness to Achieve

When interviewing people for a position in sales you need to identify their willingness to achieve. After all, any sales skills they lack can be developed later with targeted sales training. Thus, the central question in any interview of a potential sales person is: is this someone who possesses both commitment and stamina? These two factors are critical to future success in the increasingly testing times faced by those in a sales position.

When interviewing candidates, the sales manager should attempt to gain a full picture of the applicant through specific questions and by the use of systematic analysis of their personal history. It is beneficial to have a repertoire of standard questions that you can use in the same form to ask every applicant. This approach will give you a feel for how to read between the lines of the different answers given. Use the examples below to help you develop your personal ‘catalogue of questions’ appropriate to your industry.

The successful sales person will have ambitious financial objectives. However, too much financial pressure can admittedly put a stop to success. To gauge a sales person’s financial motivation you can ask questions such as:

• What do you earn at the moment?
• What do you want to earn a year?
• What do you want to be earning in 3-5 years’ time?
• What is the ceiling to the amount, as you see it, you probably won’t exceed in earning?
• How important is financial reward for you compared with the other factors which make you happy or unhappy in your job?
  

These questions are important - a materialistic outlook forms part of the motivation of a good salesperson. But a salesperson whose motivation is exclusively material will be hard to motivate and stretch during the barren periods. Work must also be enjoyable and suit the salesperson’s temperament. To test for non-material motivation of the sales candidate you should ask them questions such as the following examples:

• Ignoring money for the time being, what positive aspects does selling have for you?
• What arguments would you use to persuade a close friend that they should become a professional sales person?
  
• What problems/drawbacks would you also tell them about?
  
• What periods in your career do you like to reflect back on?
  
• What times don’t you like to recall?
  
• If a job was tailor-made for you what would it be like?

Don’t forget that you can find out a lot about the candidate’s interest in selling and the form of their achievement motivation from the questions that they ask you about the new job. Note down the questions they asked and analyse them after the interview has finished. Secure motivation ‘stands on two feet’: in good sales people both material and non-material work motives must be present in a balanced mix.

To assess the candidate’s personal objectives a different set of questions is required. These can usefully include:

• What do you intend doing over the next 3-5 years?
  
• What plans and desires do you have in the professional and private field?
  
• Regardless of the outcome of this interview, what do you hope will alter for the better for you over the next few years in your work, and outside work?
  
• What level or position do you want to get too in the medium term?
  
• When you look at your life now, what do you want to remain the same and what do you want to alter over the next few years?

Achievement-oriented salespeople have very clear personal objectives and strong ideas about their future. Where these are lacking, the capacity to be self-motivated is wanting too. You must be prepared for candidates to come prepared for such questions and so give you pretended objectives. You will need to listen closely and ask precise questions in order to find out how genuinely the candidates stated objectives really are.

In the interview you will also need to form a judgement on whether the candidate is really up to the challenge of the job. Here the Sales Manger has to work out a sober equation: what know-how does the applicant currently possess and how does this match the job on offer? Both overstretching and understretching a newly appointed sales person can be disadvantageous. You should beware of obviously overqualified candidates who are simply looking for a job out of an emergency situation. There is a big risk that they will quit just as soon as an opportunity presents itself. When you are in doubt, always favour the underqualified candidate. These people are more likely to see the new job as a challenge which mobilises their energies. Of course, in such cases it is highly likely that you will have to invest in a programme of sales training for the candidate to bring them up to speed quickly.

You should also check whether the candidate, particularly if new to sales, identifies with the role of sales person. You can do this by setting the scene and then asking questions, similar to the examples below.

• Imagine you are asked by strangers at a party what job you do. What do you introduce yourself as and how do you describe your work?
• Why do you think a lot of people enjoy working selling?
  
• What negative opinions and prejudices do people have against sales people and selling?

These questions are projective in nature: the answers really reflect on the candidate’s own attitudes and opinions; they simply put these in the mouths of other people. Therefore, it is good practice to always ask questions in a general and indirect way when you are after an unvarnished response from the candidate.

Remember, many people have become successful salespeople without selling being their planned career move. What is crucial is whether, over the course of time, they have identified with their role as sales person - or whether they use defensive descriptions of the job such as ‘consultant’, ‘agent’ etc. to describe what they do.

You will also want to find out why they change jobs. If their record shows frequent changes of company and job this could point to low staying power, little willingness to identify with the role and/or a tendency to ‘change up’ financially. To identify the reasons they have ask these types of question:

• Why did you move from company x to company y at that time?
  
• What was your salary when you left x, and what did you start off with at y?
  
• Which of your original expectations were met at y and which were not fulfilled?
  
• What reasons do you have that make you ant to change your job now?
  
• What would have to change for your current company to retain you?
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• When assessing changes in job, you should subtract one year from the length of employment at each company. This is because training and familiarisation take half a year, and another six months go by between the internal notice, the search for a new job and the expiry of the period of notice. Thus, someone who has changed company three times within the last five years has, in fact done only two years of ‘real work’. In assessing job changes you should also take account of factors such as individual’s age, industry and economic situation.
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• Asking questions that get the candidate to make self-references can help you check out the maturity of the candidate. You should count self-critical statements made by the candidate as a sign of maturity and of having a realistic self-image. Experience also shows that active leisure interests (such as competitive sports, club activities etc) are indicators of high willingness to perform at work. The following questions can be helpful in determining this.
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• Where do you see your weaknesses as a sales person and what are your strengths?
  
• What makes a good sales person in your view?
  
• How have you got on with your Sales Mangers so far?
  
• What would your ideal manager be like?
  
• If you could re-live your past, what would you do differently (and why)?
  
• Have you ever had a barren period in your career, What did you do and how did you cope with this?
• What do you do when not at work?
• What hobbies and interests do you have?
  

In summary, to select the right person for a position in selling requires you to prepare a number of specific questions designed to explore the key areas that demonstrate not only current selling ability but also a willingness of the candidate to achieve in a sales role. Identifying the motivations of a candidate at the selection process is important: skills can be taught and honed through sales training but the underlying attitude, commitment and stamina needed to succeed in sales in today’s challenging climate must be present.

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