Chuck Terry’s Blog

In Part One of this blog series, I shared five key attributes typically found in top performing sales people. To recap, the 5 P’s of Successful Selling are:

Passion
Purpose
Position
Persuasion
Persistence

I also provided a few hints on how to spot the first attribute, Passion, in sales applicants as well as the importance of this characteristic.  This week I will be tackling two more of the 5P’s — Purpose and Position.

Let’s get going again with Purpose. What I define as “purpose” may also be viewed as a form of personal drive. It is a combination of an inner compass and alarm clock that all top sales performers possess. It is the reason that top performers don’t need to fill out activity reports to insure they are making the prescribed number of calls each week. Their purpose is to be successful sales people and they push themselves to do the things required to achieve top results without much direction from managers. The possessors of this trait don’t need to be told when to start and stop their days, as they prefer to be judged on what they achieve versus how they achieve it. Purpose is also a common trait found in successful entrepreneurs. It keeps them focused on what needs to be done to consistently win.

Sounds great, but how do you know if someone you are considering hiring has this characteristic?

To assess a candidate’s sense of purpose, ask questions in the interview process regarding how they set daily and weekly goals. Do they answer with activity based goals or outcome based goals? Did they set them or were the goals completely defined by their previous employers? Ask them about their three year, five year, and ten year objectives and how they see this job as an avenue to obtain them. If they have purpose, they should answer that question concisely without much hesitation. Another good question would inquire about creative selling approaches they’ve employed in previous sales positions. I have found the best performers usually answer this question with some pretty humorous examples of methods they’ve used to get to decision makers, get appointments, etc.

Another good way to determine purpose is to ask previous employers about the work habits of the applicant. Someone with this trait needs only to be provided the parameters within which to work and the financial expectations of the job. The manager’s time is spent in more of a collaborative role or removing obstacles from their path.

The next” P” we will explore this week is Position. Position is the ability of a sales professional to leverage strong interpersonal skills with strong consultative skills to serve their clients as a preferred advisor. The ability to consistently cultivate professional relationships in which they are viewed by customers as trusted advisors to their businesses separates these reps from the pack. Sales professionals with this trait are very comfortable developing relationships higher in the client organization, with people holding more senior “positions.”

To determine if an applicant possesses the position trait, ask questions about previous clients and who they know within those accounts. What kind of value do they think they personally added with customers? You are obviously looking for consultative activities with higher level people. Ask for additional professional references to see how many senior level customers are on the list. I would also advise actually calling them to further ascertain the positional attributes of the applicant.

We have covered three of the 5 P’s of Successful Selling. In the next edition of the series, we will cover the final two: Persuasion and Persistence. We are well on our way to hiring “Robo-Rep” to help take your company to the next level!

Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights

Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.