Psychological Recruiting And Hiring: How To Identify ‘Top Gun’ Producers

by Michael Lovas

Although many tools promise results, the consensus is that none of them deliver. So, how can you recognize someone who will follow effective sales procedures? Just as important, how can you find producers who will take the initiative to make calls?

Using 'mental filters' can do the job. Although each person’s brain contains about 60 of these filters, two of them correlate closely with sales success.

WHAT MAKES TOP GUNS TICK

During a presentation I asked the audience which type of personality tends to make the more successful producer: people who follow procedures or those who take the initiative. The answer: research proves that 'top gun' salespeople do both.

1. The Procedural Personality

People who follow sales procedures make significantly more money than those who veer from the program and improvise. Give a procedures-oriented salesperson a good sales program and they’ll start to produce more sales in less time. They’ll also be less stressed at the end of the day.

On the other hand, give the same program to an alternatives-oriented person, and they’ll start changing it from the get-go. You’ll hear them say, 'I can make it better,' or 'it feels more comfortable with these changes.' Then, as more and more prospects say, 'No thanks,' this freewheeling producer will become increasingly stressed. Before long, you’ll have a non-producing employee who’s on stress-related disability.

How do you recognize someone who follows procedures? The type of psychology I practice determines the configuration of a person’s mind by analyzing and measuring up to 60 mental filters. To focus on individual filters, we use questions designed to elicit answers containing specific language patterns. Once you can recognize these patterns in conversation, you no longer need to ask the questions.

The specific question that shows you if someone will faithfully follow your sales program is, 'Why did you choose the sales program you use?' There are two basic answers to this question. One will be a story, the other a list.

The applicant who follows procedures will say something like, 'Actually, I didn’t choose it — it chose me. When I was in college, I took a course in the psychology of sales. First, we learned about creating rapport. You know, find something you have in common with your listener, and then smile and nod your head a lot. Next, we learned to mention various values or product benefits. Finally, we learned to watch for the words that cause people to smile and nod their heads in agreement …'

This language pattern tells a story that follows a procedure to tell you how something happened. The person who likes procedures hears you ask 'Why' and changes it to 'How.' Stories tell you the order in which things happened. When you hear a story, smile and nod — you’ve found something good.

The person who doesn’t follow procedures will answer the question like this: 'It’s easy. I like to relax and start talking to people.' The items in this list lure this person like sugar tempts a horse. Our hypothetical applicant is attracted by ease, relaxation, and interacting with people. The language pattern focuses on what happened.

2. Initiators

Successful producers take the initiative to make calls. How do you find them? After all, you can’t just ask, 'Say, one more thing. Will you take the initiative or not?'

Ask your applicant open-ended questions and note two things. First, listen for the verbs they use. Initiators talk as though they’re masters of the world. Their conversation is filled with doing, acting, going, accomplishing, and getting things done. Second, listen for complete sentences with a subject who takes action, an action verb, and a tangible object of this action. For example, 'I can sell product.'

The opposite of initiation is passivity, which you can recognize by the verbs and sentence structure. They use soft, flabby verbs – often in the passive voice. Listen for the word 'have,' as in 'I have been wanting to do sales.' Their sentences also tend to ramble, rather than getting to the point. Isn’t that a verbal representation of their lives?

SEEKING SUPERSTARS

To find Top Gun salespeople who follow procedures and initiate calls, create a psychological profile of your best producers. Match your new producers as closely as possible to this model, and you’ll find that they:

• integrate more rapidly
• develop and maintain higher morale
• become productive faster and reach higher productivity
• take fewer sick days, and
• have a lower turnover rate.

Not a bad payoff for targeting the right psychological characteristics.

WORDS TO THE WISE

Sales success also involves two assumptions: (1) Your sales procedures are effective. It’s conceivable that you could hire a real Top Gun and give them a loser of a sales program. (2) Your agency culture supports the type of person who will be a top producer. You could hire sales superstars, but if the culture doesn’t nurture them, they’ll have a hard time fitting in. Both assumptions — the sales program and the agency culture — are up to you.

Go for it!