Looking back on your sales success in 2015, if you don’t have the stellar end-of-year results you were hoping for, the tendency is to blame the sales team. But perhaps your sales are the result of how you managed building your sales team. After all, the team is a reflection of your own processes.

Yesterday, Promotional Consultant Today examined how to create a recruiting pipeline, a concept much like a sales prospecting pipeline. Today, we take the recruitment pipeline to the next level by explaining how to identify the ideal salesperson candidate.

What are the skills and strengths most necessary for success in your company, industry and marketplace? It is imperative that you determine a profile for the ideal candidate because otherwise you might hire just to fill an opening, thinking a warm body is better than none. In this process, you must identify the type of salesperson you need and define how your current sales staff measures up to the ideal salesperson.

An objective assessment that screens for sales skills, weaknesses and compatibility is a tool created by Anthony Cole Training called the Objective Management Group’s (OMG) Sales Candidate Screen. The Sales Candidate Screen gives you a succinct and accurate glance at a recruit. Will he take responsibility for his successes and failures? Will he get referrals? Can he handle prospects? Will his desire to be liked get in the way of selling? Is he a hunter who will go out and find business? Or is he a farmer who has the ability to cultivate current business?

If you look at your sales team today, would you have hired these salespeople if you would have had better insight? If you had this type of knowledge before you hired them, would your on-boarding be different?

Know what you are looking for in a candidate and you should know in advance the problems that a candidate is bringing to the table. Clearly, resumes are not the answer because they typically present a stellar candidate. Face-to-face interviews are often misleading and can take you off-track if you particularly like or dislike a candidate.

Use a five-minute prescreen telephone interview to identify top candidates. How does the candidate handle the phone call? The 5-Minute Prescreen Interview sounds like this: “You’ve seen the job post. What makes you a fit?” Ask and then let the candidate talk. The idea is to create an environment on the phone just like the salesperson will face when he is prospecting. Thus, it should be a bit uncomfortable. You must find out how the candidate will act under pressure. Ideally, he will ask you a lot of questions, will press for a follow-up interview and will try to keep you on the phone.

At the end of the prescreen, say the following: “We are going to make a decision by Tuesday. If you do not hear from us by Wednesday, that means you did not make it, ok? Thanks for your time.” But don’t hang up immediately. A good sales candidate will try to engage you by asking questions. This means that he will likely attempt to do the same in a sales situation with a prospect who is rejecting him. Perhaps he will even try to close for an interview. This means that he will likely attempt to try to close with a prospect. If he does one or the other, he passes pre-screen and is a good candidate for the next step in the process.

Creating a sales recruitment and pre-screen process, you are taking control of the types of sales professionals you add to your team and proactively taking steps to improve year-end results.

Source: Tony Cole is president & CEO of Anthony Cole Training Group and author of two free e-books: Hire Bankers Who Will Sell and The Extraordinary Sales Manager.