Screening for Super Sales Professionals
Situation: A large mid-market retail company was initiating a new program to sell luxury products and services to high-end customers. In order to rapidly ramp up their program, they needed to hire a large cadre of highly motived sales people with a history of success in relationship-based selling to high-end customers – a different kind of salesperson from those who were already working in their stores.The company leaders were relying on the new initiative to bolster the company’s bottom line. They wanted the program to be a success right from the start. Initial branding was critical to the growth of the program, and they could not afford any mis-hires on the sales team.
Action: A consultant from Gail Golden Consulting met with the leaders of the initiative to gain a thorough understanding of the new program. In addition, she met with one of the first-hired sales people, who was driving considerable success in the new program. From these interviews, the consultant developed a Success Profile, a list of the key success factors for the new sales professionals. This enabled her to create a toolkit for the assessment process, including:
An interview protocol to identify candidates who fit the Profile
A set of brief, focused on-line assessment tools, selected in collaboration with the client’s internal Human Resources Department, to augment the interview data
A very short, customized assessment report that provided test results, ranking on the success factors, a brief narrative description of the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, a hiring recommendation, and suggestions for helping the candidate to rapidly integrate into the new role.
As the search firm identified likely candidates, they were referred to GGC and screened through this process.
Outcome:The assessment process worked quickly and efficiently to identify high-potential candidates and eliminate those who were not a good fit. Within two months, the company had selected an initial cadre of sales people and was putting them through a training program. Initial reports on the success of the program have been very positive.
