The JOY Tests ^TM: World's First in "Total Sales Ability" Assessment ^TM

How to Hire Sales Reps - Hiring Good Sales People
Top Sales Assessment Tests for Recruiting Salespeople

Wondering how to hire the best sales reps? Or, how to hire good sales people or top sales managers? Total Sales Ability Testing is the key. Our unique sales assessment tests can help you hire the best salespeople and sales managers. Please request a 30-day FREE Trial (10 Free Screening Tests).

The potent technology of The JOY Tests ^TM of Total Sales Ability ^TM can help you HIRE THE BEST salespeople (the Top 2% Salespeople and Sales Managers), RETAIN them longer, and GROW your sales! Here are some tips and advice regarding sales team building, sales recruitment and sales assessment testing:

1. Write a Compelling Employment Ad: A well-crafted Employment Ad (i.e., a Help Wanted advertisement or online Job Listing) is critical to the success of a sales recruiting campaign. However, an Employment Ad is not the same as an internal Job Description (each serves a different purpose). Some employers mistakenly post a Job Description (written by their HR department) online, only to be met by a lukewarm response. There is a better way. After you sign up for a 30-day Free Trial (10 Free Screening Tests) on this site, we'll give you some valuable tips and advice on how to write a good Employment Ad and how to hire sales representatives and national or regional sales managers.

2. Cast a Wide Net: A small free classified ad in the employment section of a general listings website (e.g., the websites advertising massage services, furniture, garage sales, etc.) is usually a waste of time (and not good for the image of your company, either). You may generate a trickle of low quality resumes but do you really think that the top sales people would frequent the free classifieds sites to look for a sales job? Advertise boldly on major career sites (ask us which ones) to build critical mass quickly. Sure, placing an ad will cost you some money but not having a good sales team in place may be costing you even more in terms of missed opportunities! Hiring good sales people is both a Science and an Art.

3. Test Enough Applicants: The really good salespeople are very rare, and extremely hard to find. There are just so few of them. They do not stay unemployed for very long, even during a recession. Good sales managers are rarer still, and even harder to find. There is intense competition amongst prospective employers for good sales talent, especially during a slow economy. Some employers test just a handful of job applicants (say, 3 to 10) then get frustrated and give up. Sales recruiting is a numbers game (just like selling is). How would you feel if your salesperson called on just 3 prospective customers, then gave up? You may have to test a large number of job applicants before finding a good fit. Just about everyone wants to hire better salespeople but very few companies are willing to go the distance, pay the price and do it right the first time. Hiring good salespeople takes work, but we can help make it much easier for you. Sign up for a 30-day Free Trial (10 Free Screening Tests) now.

4. Is Industry Experience Really Relevant? A top salesperson may have spent 20+ years learning how to sell, but may be able to learn enough about your industry to start being productive in just 2-14 days. It is often easier to teach them about your industry than to teach them how to sell. Don't limit your search to only those job applicants who possess prior experience in your particular industry, unless there is a compelling enough reason to do so (e.g., licensing requirements, etc). The best sales recruiters who really know how to hire sales reps often look for good sales people in other complementary industries as well.

5. Avoid Human Biases: People sometimes tend to hire a salesperson with whom they feel comfortable, who is like them, who looks good, or who possesses industry knowledge. None of that necessarily means that the person can actually sell. A common trap that inexperienced sales recruiters (and some business owners/executives) fall into is to try to pre-qualify a job applicant based on their own personal feelings of "Would I buy from this person?" (they may not, but thousands of others might). Or, they get unnecessarily impressed by an applicant's personality or likeability. If the applicant has a good value system, a strong work-ethic and a high level of sales ability, does it really matter whether or not you like that person? Let our accurate sales tests help you hire the best sales staff.

6. No Cherry-picking: Visually pre-screening (hand-picking) the resumes to decide whom to test with a Screening Test is often self-defeating. Human bias can creep in. Let our Screening Test help reduce your subjectivity and guesswork so that you can make more objective hiring decisions. Screening ALL job applicants with a Screening Test (instead of "cherry-picking") may improve your chances of finding the right sales person. The goal is to find someone who can really sell, not just someone who knows how to write an impressive resume. Once you have narrowed them down with a Screening Test, give the shortlisted candidates a Final Test for a more thorough assessment, before making a final decision.

7. Sales Hunters or Sales Farmers? It takes a different set of sales abilities for acquiring new customers (i.e., a "sales hunter" role) versus maintaining and growing the existing accounts (i.e., a "sales farmer" role). Some salespeople are better at proactive or aggressive selling (account acquisition), while others may be better at soft selling (account growth). Rarely can a person be very good at both. The key is to try to match the sales person to the role correctly. The AccuDecide ^TM test customization technology of our powerful sales assessment tests can help you achieve just that. Sign up now for a 30-day Free Trial (10 Free Screening Tests). We believe that you will be quite pleased!

8. Different Sales Abilities for Different Responsibilities: A good sales assessment testing system should be able to test job applicants at different career stages, e.g., a frontline Salesperson (non-managerial) or a VP/Sales Manager. Both types of positions require different sets of sales abilities. Our sales ability tests can help you evaluate Manufacturer's Reps, Sales Engineers, Distributors and Franchisees too.

9. Personality or Aptitude is Not Enough: Some old-style pre-hire sales aptitude tests or pre-employment sales personality tests try to disguise themselves as sales assessment tests, which they are really not. A conventional sales personality test or sales aptitude test is often blind to the impact of a job applicant's experience, training, and knowledge of sales techniques. It may be helpful towards hiring inexperienced entry level salespeople or fresh college graduates (with no prior sales experience), but may fall short towards hiring experienced salespeople or sales managers. When trying to hire experienced sales personnel, testing for Total Sales Ability ^TM is crucial.

10. A Sales Ability Test is Better: There is much more to success in selling than just personality or aptitude alone. The JOY Tests ^TM of Total Sales Ability ^TM go above and beyond the aptitude / personality / call-reluctance tests by testing for all of the following:

a. Sales Prospecting (Leads Generation) Ability.

b. Appointment Setting, Cold Calling, Rapport and Presentation Ability.

c. Objection Handling and Negotiating Ability.

d. Sales CLOSING Ability and Asking for Payment/Deposit.

e. Cementing the Sale (Re-assuring the Client), and Ability to Get Referrals.

f. Computer / Internet / Email / CRM and Sales Tools Ability.

g. Miscellaneous Crucial Sales & Marketing Abilities.
    (Various Secondary Factors: Personality, Psychology, Skills, Aptitude, Ethics, etc.)

h. Sales Team Recruitment Ability.

i. Sales Team Management/Leadership/Motivation Ability.

j. Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations Ability.

11. Core Sales Abilities are Transferable: The core sales abilities are generally transferable across industries. The JOY Tests ^TM of Total Sales Ability ^TM can help manufacturers, distributors, retailers, spas, banks and service companies evaluate sales people (and sales managers) for selling a wide range of products and services, regardless of the industry. Our sales ability tests may be used for evaluating experienced sales reps and sales managers for machinery sales, automobile sales, auto leasing, etc., as well as for selling office equipment, business services, machine parts, advertising, insurance, printing services, pharmaceuticals, hospital equipment, medical devices and more. You may also use them to test your current sales team for promotion, retention or training purposes. However, our sales tests are not suitable for testing inexperienced or entry-level salespeople.

12. Sales Recruiting Mistakes: Some companies expend substantial resources to advertise their sales job-openings, in an effort to hire good sales people. Then they assign an unqualified or inexperienced worker (with little or no sales experience) to play the role of an in-house sales recruiter, and wonder why they can't hire good sales reps. What they don't realize is that their own sales recruiter may be the weakest link in their sales recruitment chain. It can take months to find a good sales person, and less than a minute to lose one if the call or process is not handled correctly. Read more regarding the qualities of a good sales recruiter after you sign up for our 30-day Free Trial (10 Free Screening Tests).

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