Studies say, 78% of people’s biggest challenge in an organization is to hire individuals. Here is a guide that will give you 5 crazy, out of the box, insane traits that must be looked into to hire your next inside sales ninja!
Ask a recruiters as to what they look for in an inside sales rep while hiring. They are sure to give you plenty of mediocre insights, but they may not tell you what I am about to.
Before I go on to introduce my methodology, I must give you a statutory warning:
The below process may not suit the weak hearted and has complete resemblance to people living, none of the characters mentioned below are fictitious.
5 Crazy Traits to Look In Inside Sales Hire:
1. Is He Always Hungry?…..For Food!
Now you must wonder why and how would you know if the candidate is always hungry right? Here is an explanation to it:
A person who is always hungry is a person who loves food, meaning he is a foodie and one of his hobbies mentioned in the resume will indefinitely be it! A study by PLOS|ONE was conducted on people who perpetually complained of being hungry. The study was proceeded in the three different situations and the researchers came to a conclusion that hunger is associated with advantageous decision making. What the study meant is;
Hunger improves strategic decision making, arguing that people in a hot state are better able to make favorable decisions
These people who are hungry to eat have the potential to be hungry to achieve success. Success in our context is generating more leads! An inside sales rep who is hungry will do whatever it takes to reach the decision makers or make a zillion outbound calls to crack deals.
2. Does He Have Girlfriend(s)?
Are you curious to know why I say that an inside sales rep must have a girlfriend? (Of course he can have more than just one which could actually be better.) The logic is simple; if the candidate has a girlfriend he clearly knows how to impress! Not only that, he is sure to be street smart as well. Although I would add, being overly into his girlfriend is also a risk to his job. Imagine him texting her in between client calls!
The aura of this person will be of an alpha male who has certain unmistakable characteristics, he is a natural leader, a pack-builder. An important part of an inside sales rep’s job is to woo his customers, he must be able to convince to the prospect that he has the best solution to the prospects problem. He will do anything to get to the limelight. That initial call he will make will be filled with gusto to charm the one on the other end of the phone.
3. Is He Into Sports?
You may be surprised to know, an interesting study conducted on salespeople outnumbering targets found that, over 85% of top salespeople played an individual or team sport in high school. These people are high on principals, as a result they are well-resourced to operate in competitive environments where self-discipline is necessary.
In an interesting article by John Cousineau, he speaks about “7 Ways Top Performing Sales Reps Resemble Those Who Play Team Sports”. He gives us details on how the top sales performers are mostly athletes. A few point he bought out were:
• Top performers are coachable + coached. They want, demand, and get feedback.
• They perfect. They’re never satisfied with ‘good enough’.
• They don’t see themselves as failures when something fails. As learners, they ‘fail forward’.
What wealth a sports person will bring to your sales team? He will find it effortless to work as a team, he will be able to take full advantage of your company’s CRM Technology and internal sales processes when compared to a non-sportive person
4. Has “Certain Habits”?
This by far is the quirkiest trait I’d ask you to look for in an inside sales rep. It could seem absurd to you but I say this from experience. When I interview candidates and I happen to see a tattoo on his arm or a few piercing on his face or body then my interest in him as a potential inside sales person surges.
I have noticed that people who have tattoos sketched, smoke and drink are quite capable of withstanding stress. Not that people who don’t have these “certain habits” are incapable, mind you; I am in no way meaning to promote smoking and drinking!
These are the people who are usually found to be aggressive; aggressive does not have to always stand out as a bad trait. These guys will be aggressive in their approach, they will follow-up time after time to make sure that they are not being turned down easily.
Allow me to take you to the scenes of the movie Wolf Of Wall Street or The Boiler Room (few must watch movies for every person in sales) where being aggressive and loud helped the protagonists to shine in their organization.
A research revealed that 93% of converted leads are contacted by 6th call attempt, you can estimate the amount of patience required by him. It goes unnoticed but an inside sales rep’s job can be very demotivating when they are not able to generate quality leads, in times like these he has to keep himself going without breaking down.
5. What Does His Social Media Account Reveal?
This, I am sure most recruiters do these days, we go and scrutinize the social media pages of the candidates. Basically, what I am hinting at is his online identity.
Lots of organizations make their employees take personality testssaid Jennifer Golbeck, an assistant professor of computer science and information studies at the University of Maryland.
If you can guess someone’s personality pretty well on the Web, you don’t need them to take the testThese days Social Media literally is the face of a person isn’t it?
A few things the social media pages can reveal are:
- If he is outgoing and open ended and up to date.
- If he is social. The number of communities he is part of will determine his networking skills.
- If he is popular. His persona amongst his peer can popularise your brand too and make him a popular inside sales reps.
An inside sales rep’s entire work happens over calls and conversations, if he can make good conversations he is capable of building good rapport with prospects.
Looking at social media like Twitter and LinkedIn could also reveal a great deal. A study by Jacob Davidson gives some insight into how recruiters use different social networks.
• LinkedIn is clearly the king of the hill—79% of respondents say they have hired through the network.
• 26% through Facebook.
• 14% through Twitter
Nearly all hiring managers will use LinkedIn for every step of the recruitment process, including searching for candidates, getting in contact, and scrutinizing them pre-interviewGo with the trend and take a sneak peek at the candidates’ social media accounts, just make sure you don’t come across as a stalker to them!
Instead of box-checking skills, I would recommend to look for these clues to exceptional performance during an interview. Of course, the above pointers will come secondary to what your company and hiring process demands since each company’s process and work environment will vary.
In the words of Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer, GE
Take time to get to know peopleI have seen that work to my benefits. In the end, the dire benchmarks to hire an inside sales rep is that he must be both motivated and competent to do the real work that needs to be done, and that he will do it well. That is extraordinary performance in a nutshell.
