Planning and Recruiting Successful Salespeople

2. PART III STAFFING THE SALES TEAM

3. CHAPTER 8 PLANNING FOR AND RECRUITING SUCCESSFUL SALESPEOPLE

4. LEARNING OBJECTIVES A successful sales force is determined by who is hired; this is the end result of sales human resource management. This chapter should help you understand: • What sales human resource management is and what its key relationships are. • The importance of planning for sales personnel needs. • What people planning and employment planning are. • What recruitment means and why it is so important. • The recruiting process: what it is, who does it, and where recruits are sought.

5. WHAT IS SALES HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT? Sales human resource management (SHRM) refers to activities undertaken to attract, develop, and maintain effective sales force personnel within an organization.

6. FIGURE 8.1 ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN MANAGING A SALES FORCE’S HUMAN RESOURCES

7. FIGURE 8.2 FROM INTERVIEW TO TERRITORY: A LONG TIME

8. What’s a salesperson worth? A salesperson’s worth depends on what the salesperson costs to the company and on the profits from the products he or she sells.

9. Goal: Hire above-average performers. Selecting someone who will become an above-average performer improves the overall performance of the sales group. A successful hire is someone who performs above average.

10. WHO DOES THE PLANNING? • National sales manager. • Field sales managers. • Top management.

11. FIGURE 8.3 SALES FORCE PEOPLE-FORECAST MODEL: FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN DETERMINING HOW MANY TO HIRE

12. DETERMINING THE TYPE OF PERSON FOR THE JOB A job analysis refers to the formal study of jobs to define specific roles or activities to be performed in sales promotions. The three steps in the job analysis are to: • 1. Examine the total sales force and each job, and determine how each job relates to other jobs. • 2. Select the jobs to be analyzed. • 3. Collect the necessary information through observation of what people actually do in the jobs, interviews of people in the jobs, and questionnaires completed by job holders.

13. JOB DESCRIPTIONS AND SPECIFICATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE Job specifications convert job descriptions into the qualifications.

14. TABLE 8.1 FORMAL JOB DESCRIPTION, TRANSTEX AUTOMOTIVE SUPPLY CORPORATION

15. WHAT ARE JOB SPECIFICATIONS FOR SUCCESFUL SALESPEOPLE? • Intelligence • Education • Personality • Experience • Appearance

16. TABLE 8.2 SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL SALESPEOPLE

17. PROFILING THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE Success in a company may include the following: • Intelligence • Prospecting ability • Ability to create a follow-up system • Ability to influence people’s decisions and opinions • Ability to cultivate long-term client relationships • Ability to negotiate contracts and prices

18. PROFILING THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE continued • Ability to determine prospects’/customers’ needs (hot buttons). • Computer skills. • Selling ability. • Conceptual ability.

19. RECRUITMENT’S PURPOSE Recruitment is the set of activities and processes used to legally obtain a sufficient number of individuals in such a manner that the recruits’ and the sales force’s best interests are taken into consideration.

20. FIGURE 8.4 MAJOR INFLUENCES AND COMPONENTS OF SALES RECRUITMENT

21. LEGAL INFLUENCES Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)is the principal governmental agency responsible for monitoring discriminatory practices.

22. TABLE 8.4 ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAWS AND ORDERS, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

23. TABLE 8.4 ANTIDISCRIMINATION LAWS AND ORDERS, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA continued

24. TABLE 8.5 INTERVIEWING CAN AND CANNOT DO’S

25. RECRUITMENT OF SALESPEOPLE • To be an effective recruiter, a sales manager must have the answer to several questions, including: • How many people do I need to recruit? • Who does the recruiting? • Where do I find recruits? • How can I develop a qualified pool of applicants? • How can recruiting programs be evaluated?

26. FIGURE 8.5 RATIO AND DAYS FROM SALES JOB ANNOUNCEMENT TO REPORTING TO WORK

27. SOURCES OF RECRUITS – WHERE ARE THEY FOUND? INTERNAL SOURCES Internal recruitment sources come from inside the company: • Current Employees. • Promotions. • Transfers.

28. EXTERNAL SOURCES

29. REALISTIC JOB PREVIEWS HELP BOTH COMPANY AND RECRUITS A “realistic job preview” means that a person is given pertinent information about the job without distortion or exaggeration.

30. Companies can expect these results from realistic previews: • Newly hired salespeople have a higher rate of job survival than those hired using traditional previews. • Salespeople hired indicate higher satisfaction. • Managers can set the job expectations of new salespeople at realistic levels. • Realistic previews do not reduce the flow of highly capable applicants.

31. THE QUALIFIED APPLICANT POOL • The organization should find out: • How candidates obtain information regarding job availability. • What attracts people to the job. • What the likes and dislikes are about the job. • Why the person took the job.

32. THE BOTTOM LINE Sales human resource management (SHRM) is comprised of two elements: people planning and employment planning. Developing a successful sales team requires the planning of personnel needs and analyzing the sales jobs to achieve more efficient use of human resources. Job analysis is the definition of specific roles or activities to be performed. The goal of managing sales human resources is to hire above-average performers. In order to hire the right person for the job, there must be a recruitment strategy.