A Discussion on hiring Field Sales Reps with Don Jasensky

January 17, 2019 by Don Jasensky

A common search for us is helping clients find experienced Field Sales Representatives. Here are 5 of the factors we consider and I want to encourage you to consider these too.

The Position : A Subprime automotive finance company hiring a Field Sales Representative to represent their financing products to automotive dealerships, with F&I Managers their main point of contact.

5 Factors to consider : Experience Work content match Contacts Ability Drive

In our 30 years of experience we have learned to incorporate a blend of these 5 factors .

Experience can be selling the same product to the same customers or general sales experience that is transferable such as a copier sales person selling to local businesses. The more direct experience the less time in training. With experience there also will be a trail of their performance – good or bad. It is very important that you take the time to verify their past performance. The best indicator of future performance is past performance. Check references and ask for sales performance validation.

Another very important aspect is making sure that the day to day work content is a match for the candidate’s abilities and desires. Do not discount the importance of their liking the daily work content. Some Sales Reps love the freedom of being in the field and thrive. Others flounder with the task of “initiating” sales. As an example, we have seen companies hire F&I Managers from automotive dealerships to be Field Sales Reps selling to F&I Managers. Makes great sense, however when we study the results we have found that most F&I Managers are terrific with closing but terrible with prospecting. Results are usually not good.

Ask yourself, is your position a “hunting” or “farming” position or some of both? In this example of converting F&I Managers to Field Sales Reps, it is noteworthy that most F&I Manager have no experience initiating sales and cold calling. Because of this, they may do better taking over an existing territory and managing it than building one from scratch. Do you think this way while interviewing ? I want to encourage you to !

A great fit for an automotive finance company is a Sales Rep with already established contacts in a geographic area. These contacts can save 12 to 18 months “ramp up time”. This is more important for smaller companies that can’t afford to pay a Sales Rep’s salary, expenses and benefits for months while deals are only trickling in. If you do not have a recognized name brand, such as CapOne, it can also be very beneficial to hire a Sales Rep with an existing portfolio of clients. The reason is that the Sales Rep will have the established credibility with the auto dealers and F&I Managers that a new company does not have . This makes it easier to introduce a newer company lacking branding clout.

And 5) Ability and Drive.

Ability means they are capable of doing the job successfully .

Drive means they have that internal push to be successful.

A lot of ability with no drive is wasted talent. The most common mistake made hiring Sales Reps is hiring someone with sales ability but little drive. These candidates may “blow you away” in the interview but fizzle in the field. Their sales ability shows during the interview, they communicate well, are glib, make great eye contact, ask closing question and get you all excited. But if they lack drive, they will be mediocre at best and need to be pushed to get them past their low comfort level.

The most common hiring mistake we see companies make is hiring people who have the ability to do the job but lack the motivation to thrive.

Remember: The best indicator of future performance is past performance. Check references and ask for sales performance validation. Don’t get “sold” during the interview, you need to verify performance.

Summary

To help our clients make successful Sales Rep hires we look for a combination of :

Experience

Work content match

Existing contacts

Ability

Drive

I want to encourage you to consider these 5 factors when making hiring decisions.

Don Jasensky is the Founder and President of Automotive Personnel, LLC and has been placing personnel for over 30 years with automotive finance companies, buy here – pay here and new car automotive dealerships. You can reach Don at 216-226-8190 Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers

Download my FREE Booklet to learn more about ending these common hiring mistakes : Intelligent Interviewing and Candidate Assessment by clicking here https://www.automotivepersonnel.careers/EBOOK/

Save thousands of dollars and much aggravation by presenting a pay plan the way we do!

August 28, 2018 by Don Jasensky

Candidates will turn down a terrific pay plan offered to them or ask for a lot more base salary if they don’t understand, or worse they misunderstood, the variable portion.

Present a pay plan like we do and you will end this problem !

Address variable compensation with:

Show candidate what the pay plan will yield based on the trailing 12 months .
Then let them know that you are looking for an improvement, (let’s go with 10%). With a 10% improvement your variable will be $X +
Over perform at 15% and variable will be $X ++

Now your candidate will understand the base and variable and can do accurate mental calculations. If they are a high performer they will see themselves performing at the higher level.

Donald Jasensky is Founder and CEO of Automotive Personnel, LLC 216-216-8190 Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers TWITTER@DonJasensky

Presenting A Pay Plan That Will Get Accepted

July 19, 2018 by Don Jasensky

Presenting a pay plan that will get accepted

By the time you get to offering the position to a candidate you should know what it will take to get the candidate onboard.

Trial Closes: During the interview process we ask trial closes to gauge a candidate’s needs such as: “We are interviewing several good Sales Manager candidates and the pay range they are looking for around $150K all in with a base salary of $85k.” “ How does that align with your needs?”

If we are way off let’s find out now. Perhaps you cannot afford this candidate or maybe you need to find a way to stretch your budget to bring her aboard.

Perhaps the candidate communicates: “$150k is what I am looking for but I have a $95K base salary now and I don’t want to go backwards in salary”. There should be no surprises when you offer a pay plan to a candidate.

Understanding the variable : For most candidates, there is a direct relation to their comfort level with the variable proportion of the pay plan to the amount of base salary they need. If a candidate isn’t certain how much they are likely to make with the variable portion they will want more in salary. Over the years we have seen companies get irritated with a candidate, thinking that they are offering a terrific pay plan where the candidate can make a significant jump in total income because of the generous bonus or commission plan. However (and this in very important) if the candidate does not understand the bonus plan they may be mentally plugging in the wrong numbers and seeing the pay plan much differently!

Simple Solution : When making the offer explain the pay plan. Then show what this pay plan would yield based on the previous 12 months. This will be an exact number. Then explain that “We are not bringing you on to keep things at status quo.” “ We want to see a 15% increase in sales.”

Then show them what the pay plan will yield with:

modest increase of 10%,
hitting target of 15%
and if candidate outperforms target and hits 20% increase what will they earn.

Take Away: The better the candidate understands the variable portion the more likely he will accept your offer. So, take the time to explain it !

One Sure Sign That You Are Interviewing A Future High Performer Is …..

February 15, 2018 by Don Jasensky

Over the past quarter century of interviewing candidates and following up on their careers, we have noted one factor that all top performers share. It is also easy to find out if your candidate possesses it – if you know what to look for. If they do possess it, they are very likely to be high performers for you!

So what is this single magic ingredient that can predict future success? It’s been proven to us through thousands of interviews that employees who work hard to develop their professional skills and increase their industry knowledge away from work, at their own expense and time nearly always develop into high performers in their careers!

Examples include:

Sales personnel who practice their presentation at home and record it on the smart phone to review and look for ways to improve
Managers who practice meeting at home and record it and look for ways to improve it
Reading books on management practices, leadership, customer service, sales , etc., to excel in their job
Enrollment in online or weekend classes related to work
Join LinkedIn Groups to stay current on their industry
Joining clubs like Toast Masters to hone their speaking skills

So what do we ask candidates ? Our wording will vary depending on the level of candidate, generally here is what we ask:

“What are your career aspirations in the next 5 years?” Listen to their answer then ask:

“What are you doing – away from your work place – to get to that level?”

After listening to their answer I may be prompted to ask “Do you think that is enough to get there ?”

I may be impressed with their answer and confident that I have a high performer. If their answer is lacking I may wonder why they are not putting more effort into developing their skills / knowledge the way high performers generally do.

In summary: Employees who put effort into their career improvement – on their own time and dime – are very likely to be successful with you – so make sure you ask !

Donald Jasensky is the Founder and CEO of Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190 Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers TWITTER@DonJasensky

29 Years Ago I started Automotive Personnel, LLC !

February 7, 2018 by Don Jasensky

I remember that first morning like it was this morning.

I remember sitting down at the dining room table – my new headquarters. I had a phone, phone book (remember yellow pages?), a tablet of paper and a dream. No clients, no files, no leads, no computers, no employees. My dream was to bring a higher level of professionalism to the hiring practices of the automotive industry.

So much has changed in the industry since that morning. Hiring practices have improved. Technology has affected every area of the automotive industry. One aspect that remains the same and always will , and it is my lesson from the past 29 years: people are the greatest asset of every organization. Never lose sight of this !

I want to thank all the people who have been such a tremendous honor to work with including candidates, companies and most of all the terrific employees that make coming to work each morning so worthwhile.

Thank you all

Donald Jasensky

Characteristics Of A Good Personnel Recruitment System

December 6, 2017 by Don Jasensky

The most important ingredient to your career/ business success is the people whom you hire. They sell you products, find your customers, provide your revenue stream, solve your problems, and fend off your competition.

Problem is , you can have an MBA from an Ivy League school and still be ill-equipped to find great candidates, interview, assess and evaluate.

For 2018 I recommend reviewing your recruitment system and look for these characteristics.

Highly effective
Easy to use
Repeatable across all positions
Teachable – becomes “Tribal Knowledge”
Easily adopted by new managers

Highly effective means that if you follow the system you will consistently hire good employees who fit your open positions
Easy to use means it is not overly complicated whereby the system itself gets into the way of hiring .
The system must be useable for all positions, from junior through senior level positions. Of course more complex and higher level positions require more time and effort but the system remains the same.
The ability to teach the system to other employees is essential for a system to be adopted and become “tribal knowledge” by the employees.
A good system must be easily adopted by new managers who join the company. A system so complex that new managers need to go off few a few days of training to learn how to use the system is way overly complicated and often become untenable in small through medium size organizations.

Good recruitment becomes a part of your organizational culture not a just a Human Resources function.

Donald Jasensky

Founder and CEO Automotive Personnel, LLC

216-226-8190

www.AutomotivePersonnel.Careers Don@AutomotivePersonnel.Careers

TWITTER: @DonJasensky