Here’s a real life story that illustrates how essential it is to have run ValuesMatrix™ on all of your applicants before wasting time considering High Knowledge applicants for a job:

Years before I started specializing in sales hiring, I watched sales poetry in motion. It was 1978 and I was being taken out on sales training calls with a salesperson named J.D. (It was the South, people had names like that.)

I had no idea what he was doing, but I tagged along with him. He, the experienced salesperson soon to be owner of his own radio station, and me, the young pup straight out of college. What I noticed was he often acted kind of dumb when he was with a prospect.

I had spent a lot of private training time with J.D. I knew he was a really smart and clever guy. He understood sales from a structural standpoint and was able to convey the steps to me. He understood marketing and how to position our station.

Yet, from time to time, when he was with a prospect, he’d behave like he just was a bit dumber than the prospect. He let them feel smart. And he’d let them think they knew something he didn’t.

After I saw him do it a couple of times, I called him on it. “What are you doing J.D? I don’t get it.”

“Oh that, something I learned on Columbo,” he said. “You don’t want to appear to be the smartest person in the room in sales.”

The AHS ValuesMatrix™ profiles sales applicants for values. Salespeople who are High Knowledge are often a bad choice for salespeople. They spend too much time defending their sense of being smart.

Salespeople don’t get paid for being smart. They get paid for making sales.

I got here on Sunday and I sense a remarkably changed optimism here from when I left for warmer weather six months ago. I’ll blog more later on it, for now, here’s the route:

I arrived at my first radio sales job at WCHV-WWWV in Charlottesville, Virginia on January 2, 1976.  I was handed a copy of the Yellow Pages and told “this is your account list.”

I banged my chin up against a lot of doors, until I got my big break. That break came when I figured out I had to record the announcements before I had a sale.

After that, I’d go to the prospect, tell them I had something I wanted their opinion on  and play them their custom announcement.

Things were cruising along for a 22 years old radio salesman, however my next big break came when my boss gave me a copy of  “How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success In Selling” by Frank Bettger.

Aside from the classic sales advice in the book, one idea in particular, made total sense to me and changed my life in sales.

Bettger wrote, “…a professional salesperson needs to track his stats. He needs to know how many calls he has to make, on average, to make a sale.”

In the pre-computer age this took some work. But Betgger had been a professional baseball player. He understood that if a salesperson will keep track of his stats he turns himself into a professional.

I’m reprinting a copy of Gavin Ingram’s latest newsletter because I think he drives this point home in a way that is charming and powerful. Gavin is a smart guy and has a lot of great ideas on how to become better motivated in sales. I like his stuff.

Get Out Of Here & Get Prospecting. How to be better at prospecting, better at generating new business and more successful in sales, in business and in life!

by Gavin Ingam
www.gaviningham.com

I remember my first sales manager vividly. He was in his early 30’s, well over 6 feet tall, built with the body of an Olympic athlete, wore Saville Row suits and was the owner of a smile that could coax the birds out of the trees. He was also charismatic, charming, eloquent, intelligent, hard working, focused, success oriented and good with the ladies. He was the kind of person you would love to hate but you just could not help but love him.

He was also one of the best salespeople I have ever met and, not surprisingly, very successful in business and in life. He had a way of putting people at their ease, a way of seeing the opportunity in every situation and a way of turning on the light of new business no matter how many clouds of objection thundered in his direction.

People thought that things came easily to him. People thought that everything had just fallen into place for him. People thought that he was just one of those lucky people who was born at the end of a rainbow and who walked a charmed path in life where nothing could go wrong. But they couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Many of his friends and peers were criminals. Many of his family were unemployed. Much of his upbringing would have sent many spinning off the rails. But he had decided that he wanted something more for himself, something more for his family and something more for his life. Jake had worked hard for what he had achieved, he had learnt both his attitudes and his skills from the school of hard knocks and he had a lot of sales lessons to teach.

One rainy afternoon when I had been in sales for about 6 months, he called me into his office and the following conversation took place…

Jake: “Gavin. Would you like to earn 100k per year?”
Gavin: “Yes.”
Jake: “ Okay. So how much do you need to sell to make that amount of commission?”
Gavin: “I don’t know.”
Jake: “Get out!” (pointing his finger towards the door).

A bit harsh I thought and retreated to lick my wounds. But I was always a tenacious little tyke so about half an hour later I picked myself up and approached his door again…

Gavin: “Jake. To make 100k commission, I have to sell 1 million.”
Jake: “Good. (Pause). How many deals do you need to do to sell 1 million?”
Gavin: “I don’t know.”
Jake: “Get out!” (pointing his finger towards the door).

Feeling a bit stupid I went in search of a strong coffee and a donut but half an hour or so later I was excitedly back…

Gavin: “Jake. To sell 1 million, I’d have to make X number of deals.”
Jake: “Okay. (Pause). How many opportunities do you need to secure from clients to close that many deals?”Gavin: “I don’t know.”
Jake: “ Get out!” (pointing his finger towards the door).

This was getting silly. But as you can gather, I was not a quitter so I was quickly back…

Gavin: “Y Jake. I’d need to have Y opportunities.”
Jake nodded: “And how many prospects do you need to make sure that you get Y opportunities Gavin?”
Gavin: “I don’t know.”
Jake: “Get out!” (pointing his finger towards the door)

After a quick bit of calculation I decided to have one last try…

Gavin: “I need Q prospects Jake.”
Jake: “Okay Gavin. (Pause). And exactly what prospecting do you need to do this year to ensure that you have that many opportunities?”
Gavin: “Yes, yes… I know. Get out?!”
Jake nodded sagely.

As usual, Jake had hit the nail on the head.

On my travels as a speaker, I meet a lot of salespeople who would like to be successful, I meet a lot of salespeople who would like to be top salesperson and I meet a lot of salespeople who would like to earn big bucks. When I ask them, “What would you like to earn?” they happily tell me 50k or 100k or 250k or 1 million… but when I ask them, “What prospecting do you have to do this year to achieve those results?” few have little or any idea.

They might guess. They might tell me what their manager told them. They might try and work it out… but that’s not good enough.

If you want to be successful, if you want to be a sales superstar, if you want to make a difference… then you need to know what you want and, most importantly, you need to know what you are going to do on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis to achieve it. And then you make it happen.

What most salespeople do is prospect until they have enough opportunities and then they get busy with other things and “forget” to prospect anymore. They tell themselves that they’re busy and that they don’t have the time but the moment you stop prospecting you guarantee one thing and one thing only… you will at some point in the future run out of opportunities.

Most salespeople only return to prospecting when they are short on opportunities and under pressure to find new ones… this isn’t good because it means that you’re desperate and needy. And no-one likes that!

The key to prospecting success is to work out what you need to do over a longer period of time and then schedule it into your diary and do it consistently, irrespective of whether sales are up or down. That way you know that you always have enough opportunities in the pipeline to hit your sales quotas and targets.

It’s okay wanting to be a success but it is your sales activities that will define you in the eyes of your peers, your managers, your clients and the world. What prospecting do you need to do consistently to ensure that you get the results that you want and deserve?

(Footnote: Many people when they read articles on prospecting only hear cold calling. Whilst cold calling may well be a part of your prospecting approach I call prospecting any activity which brings new prospects, clients and opportunities onto your radar. Everybody needs their own perfect prospecting balance of activities… but that’s for another day!)

 I have a question on a survey. If someone is in the 14 and 56 quadrants (with 14 being a natural promoter and 56 being an implementer) does this indicate an imbalance. I seem to remember that I want the natural and adapted styles to be pretty much the same. Also, I seem to remember that being in opposite quadrants is not good.

 Am I right on this? 

 Sincerely,

M

Hi M,

 There have been studies that support concluding that plot points that are far apart result in shorter job tenure.

Too,  if the candidate has no sales experience,  weight heavier the Natural score.

 In terms of this particular candidate, for sales I’d rather see the Implementer score a bit more to the outside to be willing to arrange an interview.

 Alan

Being the first of family born in the U.S. to graduate college, he instilled in his children a love of learning — and particularly learning history. Nightly, he’d sit in the living room reading the history classics.

Most of American Politics is “for the camera” and its gotten worse, not better. Statesmanship is a thing of the past. However despite that men are men and we all, deep down inside want to be truly great. I think the moment that becomes clearest is the Farewell address of the President. That is the moment where they tell the truth.

Eisenhower, the great General, warned of the effects of the military industrial complex during his final address to the nation. It is no accident that the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II would speak of the danger of this industry.

There’s been a lot of saber rattling these days about the North Korean threat — and I’m sure we’re spending all sorts of money on that “threat”. I came across this picture the other day of North Korean military and post if for your consideration.  In my view having allowed the North Koreans to acquire an nuclear weapon was not a great idea. However, too, we might want to ask ourselves how much of a threat these knuckleheads really are.

I’ve been suggesting to clients since this whole mess started that you’d better not be cutting back on hiring salespeople. If anyone is going to help your company maintain its revenue, that would be your sales department. (I’ve also been suggesting that those liars in Washington are doing every darn thing wrong in terms of fixing the economy.)

WASHINGTON—U.S. employers added jobs at the slowest pace in nine months in March, suggesting weakening economic growth as higher taxes and government spending cuts start to have an impact.[image]Employers added 88,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate, obtained by a separate survey of U.S. households, fell one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.6%, largely because of people dropping out of the work force.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected nonfarm payrolls to rise by 200,000.

via Economy Adds 88,000 Jobs – WSJ.com.

Hi Alan:

 What do I do if the profile falls outside of the sweet spot?

 Can you send me something to help me understand what I am looking at in the charts below?

 Does it give me any information regarding if they would be good at inside vs outside sales

 The Natural style is who the applicant is deep down inside
The Adapted style is who they see themselves needing to behave like in order to do the job effectively

Ideally both the Natural and Adapted are close together and match the model (three outside rings right hand side of the wheel)
Data supports the view that a wide disparity between the two styles will predict short job tenure.

There is also a view that if the applicant has never done the job before the weighting should be heavier on the Natural because the Adapted will shift. I am not necessarily of that camp unless the applicant is young where they have minimal life experience.

Client Brad at a highly marketing driven company has been sending me regular messages as he winds through the process.

Hi Alan:

 Can the qualities of a successful candidate be buried in a resume?  Should we exclude people who “we think” might not be a fit based on a resume and or our bias? 

 The process that we are using is blindness to the resume, test 1 test 2 and then a phone interview…..

Although I don’t disagree that a resume might contain valuable information, I wonder how you figure out which part is true and which is a lie? Better in my experience to ignore the resume and use it as a quick glance tool before the interview if they pass both profiles.

 Do you have somewhere on your site that explains how to read a graph of the DISC and what it means?

In the AHS Member Area client members have total access to tutorials, essays, rants and raves on which styles behave which way and which ones have for nearly20 years that AHS has been tracking made more top performers than any other style.

The Best Teams Are Always Recruiting

I am mystified when I talk to managers who say they have a good team and are, therefore, not looking for new talent.

How can they predict what kind of turnover is going to come their way? And why do they deliberately set themselves up to recruit under pressure?

The easiest and most effective way to build a great team is to “always be recruiting.” Let the world know that your sales department can always make room for a salesperson with great potential!

Then, as applicants come in, run the profiles and only take to the great ones.