Apakah tim Inside Sales Anda sudah orang yang tepat?

Sales is a very important function within every organization. Hiring right salespeople can lead to a steady increase in sales. And an inappropriate selection can lead to eroded profits, damaged customer relationships, and a bad brand image in the market. Keeping these warnings in mind, it's important to not only grow your sales force, but to grow it appropriately.

Evaluating a candidate for inside sales would be different from examining for a face-to-face selling job. The sales hiring procedure would also depend on your company’s stage and the products or services you sell.

An inside sales representative must possess the following 5 traits to get through the selection process and outlast in the corporate world. Check out how you can judge a prospect on these required traits.

 1) Hunger to Achieve

An inside sales rep must have the desire to work tirelessly towards a high and distant goal (which revolves around selling obviously). He/she needs to put intense and repeated efforts to accomplish those goals. They must do what it takes – from making a certain number of outbound calls to boldly networking to reach the decision maker. A recruiter might find it hard to recognize those who are high in the need for achievement and those who are not. But with the help of a few questions, you can detect it. Have a look:

•  What are your standards of success on your job and how do you measure them?
•  When setting a high standard for yourself and/or others to follow; what kind of examples do you try  to set, and what are you trying to demonstrate?
•  What do you consider to be your greatest achievement so far and why?
•  What kinds of sacrifices you made to become successful?
  

2) Competitiveness

A great inside sales rep has to be competitive. This quality is marked by a person’s strong desire to exceed and intense determination to win. While being excessively aggressive is definitely not encouraged, a healthy balance between ambition and determination is required to be successful. The questions to diagnose if the candidate is truly competitive could be:

•  How do you act when you encounter competition?
•  Give me an example of when you competed hard and won.
•  When was the last time you were competitive, and what were you doing?
•  Where do you rank on your sales team?
  

3) Optimism

The best inside sales reps are the ones who have a positive attitude and are optimistic.They should not break down when they get a “no” for an answer. If they lack the optimism to overcome hurdles like these, then they aren’t likely to last very long. Look for evidence by asking questions like:

• Tell me about a time when you experienced a setback at work. How did it impact your confidence and what did you learn from it?
• When was the last time a customer annoyed you and how did you respond? 
• When was the last time you kept going while everyone else was giving up?
  

4) Persuasiveness

Great inside sales reps must know how to convince the prospects and clients and adapt them to their way of looking at things. It’s not about getting others to acknowledge your arguments; it’s about making them engulf your message and believe that it is in their best interests. The questions to check if the prospect is persuasive could be:

•  Describe a situation in which you were able to use persuasion to successfully convince someone to see things your way?
•  By providing examples, convince me that you can adapt to a wide variety of people,situations and environments.
  

5) Integrity

A sales rep should possess great integrity. They should be endowed with strong moral values and should be honest with their superiors, coworkers and clients. Ask these questions to judge the prospect on integrity:

• We are often confronted with the dilemma of having to choose between what is right and what is best for the company. Give at least two examples of situations in which you faced this dilemma and how you handled them.
• Give me an example of an ethical decision you have had to make on the job. What factors did you consider in reaching this decision?
• Have you ever had to bend the rules or exaggerate a little bit when trying to make a sale?

There is no perfect way to predict the outcome of a new hire. However, you can always evaluate the individual based on the above-mentioned personality traits and form an opinion based on the experiences and accomplishments shared by them.