Recruiting Salespeople: The Personality Trait of Goal-orientation Sets the Pace of Work

When recruiting salespeople, Goal Orientation is one of the most important hard-wired personality traits that will help a sales leader understand the way a salesperson will approach sales tasks. The scales on this trait range from laid-back, even paced on the low side to restless, with a sense of urgency on the high side.

Work Ethic is one of the most important, learned character traits that impacts Goal Orientation.

High amounts of Work Ethic will keep the high scorer on the Goal Orientation scale focused on important tasks and disciplined when bored. 

“Racehorse” is the term used to describe this person who approaches sales tasks with an intensity and restlessness.  They work on short term goals attached to a task that ultimately leads to the main goal.

“Unfocused” is the common word used to describe the salesperson lacking the character trait of Work Ethic and the personality trait of high Goal Orientation.  The low work ethic salesperson who gets bored with phoning for appointments schedules a lunch with a friend to explore an additional business opportunity to supplement their income.  The unfocused, highly Goal Oriented person has many plates spinning and a floor full of broken plates representing unfinished projects.

High Work Ethic keeps the low scorer on the Goal Orientation scale moving at a quicker, even pace and focused on shorter term deadlines. 

“Plow Horse” is the term used to describe this hardworking, plodder who stays steady and even-paced until the job is complete.

“Lazy” is the common word used to describe the person who lacks Work Ethic and has a low score on the Goal Orientation scale. This person did not learn the relationship between productivity based on visualizing the end result necessary for success and the steps necessary to achieve the end result.  Since they lack the natural sense of urgency, are slow paced and lack work ethic, they put forth the least amount of effort and depend on others to supply their needs. 

When recruiting salespeople, remember many studies show that most successful high activity salespeople have a combination of high work ethic and high scores on the Goal Orientation scale of the Craft Personality Questionnaire. 

In my upcoming blogs, we will look at the personality trait, Need for control, and the impact this trait has on executing the sales process. 

Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.

If you are not subscribed to this blog, enter your email address in the upper right area of the blog page.

Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.

When Recruiting Salespeople - Why is High Social Confidence Critical Throughout the Sales Process?

"We all agree that you are a people person, but we're looking for a closer not a professional visitor."

Every important moment in the life of a salesperson involves asking a prospect to take a step.  Each step moves the prospect closer to being a customer.  Socially Confident and trained salespeople know how to act and speak in a manner that causes the customer to gladly move through the sales cycle to a buying decision.  Confidence contributes to quickly earning trust and increases believability, leading to less buyer's remorse. Recruiting salespeople with the personality trait of high social confidence is critical. 

High Social Drive moves the sales professional into social situations where business relationships are possible.  High Social Confidence causes relationship-building actions to occur when in the social situations.  Networking with as many people as time allows for the purpose of doing business is the achieved objective.  

Layer High Social Confidence on top of High Social Drive and High Goal Orientation, and you have the Peyton Manning of sales; all of the natural talents are in alignment.

This bundle of potential simply needs the training and tools necessary to execute all phases of the sales process in a high activity manner.  Teaching and coaching is soaked up like rain on the desert floor.

The level of the top three character traits of honesty, work ethic, and personal responsibility will dramatically impact whether or not the perfectly wired salesperson reaches potential. Without all of the character traits in alignment, the impatient, confident, socially driven racehorse may dabble into too many non-income-producing activities.  High confidence will take on the appearance of arrogance.  While in social situations, the desire for recognition can lead to life-of-the-party behavior that turns prospects away.

Struggling, Low Socially Confident salespeople timidly tiptoe around the possibilities of the prospect moving forward, creating uncertainty in the mind of the buyer.  Prospects sense the lack of confidence in the trying-to-be-nice voice of the low socially confident salesperson.  The on-target intuition of the smart buyer senses their lack of belief in the product.  Most do not buy.  Sales activities slip further behind. 

Knowing the level of Social Confidence with certainty is critical while recruiting salespeople.

In my upcoming blogs, we will look at the personality trait, Goal Orientation, and the impact this trait has on executing the sales process. 

Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.

If you are not subscribed to this blog, enter your email address in the upper right area of the blog page.

Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.

Recruiting Salespeople: The Personality Trait of High Social Drive, Energized to Network

While recruiting salespeople, it is important to measure the personality trait, Social Drive.

In a recent sales meeting with high-activity/outside salespeople and their sales engineers, I was conducting training on finding new customers. The proposed method of finding prospects was networking in the community. One of the sales engineers abruptly spoke up and said he was glad this was not part of his job description.  Some of the salespeople in the room did not speak up. However, their lack of new prospects on the sales board was evidence of their low desire to be socially connected.

There are two reasons why high social drive is important for high-activity/proactive/hunter/outside salespeople who are required to build new accounts.

1. Finding prospects through referrals, networking in the community, and building long-term relationships with many people is more productive than cold calling and is necessary for long-term success.

2. Most sales team cultures are tied to contests, awards, and public recognition.

Salespeople with high social drive prefer to be around people and find it easy to accumulate a large number of casual relationships for the purpose of doing business.  They readily join the chamber, attend business networking groups, and get heavily involved in service organizations.  These activities lead to long-term business relationships.

Monthly and annual contests motivate them to choose prospecting over paper work.  They visualize themselves walking on stage to receive sales awards. They work effectively making each day count in order to lead the sales board.  Team recognition may fuel their work ethic and discipline to stay focused.

Highly social driven people get energized by business networking events. 

Social Drive is best measured using the Craft Personality Questionnaire. I also ask these questions during the interview to measure Social Drive. 

Put yourself in this picture.  We go to a chamber of commerce networking event where 100 people have gathered to network with each other. You see one of your best friends across the room. You do not know anyone else in the room. Your mission is to spend the next two hours in the room getting to know as many people as possible. At the end of the two hours, you and I meet to discuss your success.

 (It is important that you simply read this paragraph. Additional details are not necessary. The candidate’s facial expressions will tell you a lot about their social drive. Do they wince at the thought of having to do this task, or do they get excited about it?)

1. How many people are going to remember meeting you?
2. How did you go about meeting the most people?
3. What are some examples in your life where you have been put into a new situation where you had to develop a lot of new relationships?
4. After a week in this new environment, what percent of the new people knew who you were?  

In my upcoming blogs, we will look at the personality trait, Social Confidence, and the impact this trait has on executing the sales process. 

Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.

If you are not subscribed to this blog, enter your email address in the upper right area of the blog page.

Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.

Personality Traits – The Forth Dimension to Measure While Recruiting Salespeople

In this series of blog posts on recruiting salespeople, we have been exploring the five dimensions of the “Best Salesperson Profile”. The first three were – Attitudes, Motivations, and Character Traits. Over the next several weeks, we will explore the forth dimension – Personality Traits.

Personality is genetic. It takes less energy to do a task if we have the natural personality tendencies that are in line with particular job duties. It drains our energy if tasks are outside our natural personality tendencies. Our Personality traits also determine how we react to our environment. Some of us have personality traits that are at a level which help us bounce back more quickly from challenging circumstances. Others may have levels of personality traits that make it more difficult to bounce back quickly from our circumstances.

Over the past eleven years, I have been helping sales leaders recruit salespeople using the Craft Personality Questionnaire (CPQ).  (For more information on this tool, please visit CraftProfiles.com.)

Dr. Craft completed a significant study where 10,000 salespeople were given the CPQ. Their results on the CPQ were compared to their sales performance. A profile for high activity salespeople in the financial services industry was created.  This is the baseline profile I use to help many organizations that wish to recruit salespeople in a high-activity, high-rejection environment.

This personality profile has eight personality traits. Each trait is scored on a scale of 1-100. The ideal high-activity salesperson has scores in specific ranges for each trait. The ideal ranges are as follows:

• Social Drive            90-100%
• Social Confidence      45-75%
• Goal-orientation      90-100%
• Need for Control      50-75%
• Detail-orientation      10-35%
• Skepticism            50-80%
• Good Impression      60-90%
• Need to Nurture      15-40%

These CPQ scores are indicative of salespeople who have the drive and confidence to perform at a high level in a high-activity, high-rejection and competitive environment where it is necessary to find prospects and turn them into customers. These high-energy salespeople have an independent, entrepreneurial spirit who can work with low amounts of supervision.

Keep in mind, Personality Traits are only one of the five dimensions of the “Best Salesperson Profile”. It is important to measure all five dimensions, not just personality.

In my upcoming blogs, I will further explain the personality traits in greater detail and how to measure these while recruiting salespeople.

Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.

If you are not subscribed to this blog, enter your email address in the upper right area of the blog page.

Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.

Recruiting Salespeople: The Character Trait of Personal Responsibility

The fourth character trait we measure while recruiting salespeople is personal responsibility. In addition to the definition of the trait, I have included some interview questions. 

We accept Personal Responsibility for the outcomes of our choices when we believe that the struggles as well as the accomplishments in our lives are impacted by our choices. 

We set our selfish interests aside and realize there is a cause and effect associated with every decision we make.

If we have a high maturity level in this character trait, we believe that all of our decisions have either a positive or negative impact on ourselves and others. On the positive side, if we want to make something better, it is up to us to take action. On the negative side, if our decision caused a problem, we either choose to admit that we caused the problem and take action to fix it, or we take our punishment and move on. We do not blame others or make excuses for our mistakes. 

Taking responsibility involves being introspective enough to ask, “What did I do wrong and what could I have done differently to have caused a better outcome?”

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, refers to this concept as looking in the mirror and changing ourselves vs. looking out the window for someone else to blame.  

When looking for evidence that candidates have a well-developed sense of responsibility for their actions, listen as they talk of former companies. If they tell you about leaving several jobs due to the way they were treated by others, due to companies going out of business, or due to broken promises, stop them and ask, “As you hear yourself telling me about your previous jobs, what do you think I am thinking?” It takes a few tries, but the candidate usually acknowledges that they were not very good at choosing the places they picked to work. The reality is that they failed to perform the due diligence prior to taking their last several jobs.  This scenario shows a lack of Personal Responsibility for not acknowledging why they left each job and a lack of Work Ethic for not better researching the company.

These additional interview questions also help you measure the presence of Personal Responsibility.      

• Tell me about a time in your life when someone gave you a task that did not work out well.
• What happened, and what could you have done differently? (Mature candidates spend more time admitting their mistakes and talking about the wrong choices they made vs. blaming others for their mistakes.)
•  What are you doing to improve your sales skills? What are you doing personally and professionally to grow? (Mature candidates realize they must take responsibility for their own moral and professional growth. They are regularly growing by reading, studying, and attending training.)

In the next blog, I will begin to talk about another dimension in the “Best Sales Person Profile”, Personality Traits.

Blessings upon your recruiting efforts.

If you are not subscribed to this blog, enter your email address in the upper right area of the blog page.

Steve Suggs is a partner at Sales Manage Solutions, a sales consulting firm focused on training sales managers to recruit salespeople and coach them to greatness. You can also read Steve’s sales productivity blog.