Hello, the topic of our lecture is recruitment, training and leadership. One debate in sales is about the impact of training versus selection in developing an effective salesforce. Some observers maintain that the best salespeople are born that way, and are effective due to their personalities and interpersonal skills developed over a lifetime, which is called selection direction. Others contend that application of leading edge sales techniques can make virtually anyone a sale star, which is called train direction. The truth usually lies somewhere in between. You cannot bring up a good salesman if a person does not have this ability. And at the same time, a talented salesmen must constantly master new skills to increase the efficiency of his work. Why is selection so important? Training and motivation are heavily dependent on the intrinsic qualities of the record. You can effectively train only eligible candidates. Salespeople are very costly. The cost will be much higher than just basic salary and commission. The special skills necessary to make a sale imply that training will be required, and learning is expensive. In addition, companies spend money on business trip, transport, and other expenses of salespeople. Inefficient selection increases the cost of selection, not just training. If you select unsuitable candidates, you will not have to recruit new ones. A study by Galbraith, Kiely & Watkins examined the features that attracted salespeople into selling and what they valued most about the work. The table shows that working methods and independence are most important than earnings, and their traction for entering selling. This changes the assumption made by many companies that money is the main reason for embarking on a sales career. Independence is also highly valued when doing the selling job. The implication of this findings is that sales management should understand the reasons why people are attracted to selling in the industry to develop effective recruitment strategies. They certainly should not blindly assume that earnings are always paramount. They are four stages of the recruitment and selection process. Preparation on job description and personal specification, identification of source of recruitments, and methods of communication. Designing an effective application form, and preparing a short list, interviewing, use of supplementary selection aids,like psychological test or role playing. Generally, a job description will look at the following factors, the title of the job, duties and responsibilities, the tasks, which will be expected for new records, like selling, after-sales service, information feedback. The range of products, markets, type of customer with which they will be associated. To whom they will report technical requirements, for example, the degree to which the technical aspects of the products they are selling need to be understood. Location, geographical area to be covered, degree of autonomy, degree to which salespeople will be able to control the own work programs. The construction of the personal specification is more difficult than the job description for the sales manager. Must the recruit have selling experience? Should such experience be within their markets this company serves? Is it essential that the salesperson holds certain technical qualifications? If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then the number of positive applicants is quite reduced. The danger is that applicants of fine potential in selling may be excluded. According to Jobber and Millar's study, the most important personal characteristic for salespeople are communication skills, personality, determination, intelligence, and motivation. Extensive research by Mayer and Greenberg among over 1000 companies in the United States revealed only two qualities essential to selling, empathy and ego drive. Empathy is defined at the ability to feel as the buyer does, to be able to understand the customer problems and needs. The other basic determinant of sales success ego drive or ambition, is defined as the need to make for sale in a personal way, not just for money. Mayer and Greenberg claim that when an applicant has a large measure of both of these qualities, they will be successful at selling anything. The research led them to believe that sales abilities is fundamental. The following sources are commonly used for recruiting. From inside, the company's own staff, recruitment agencies, education establishments, competitors, other industries, unemployed, or social networks like LinkedIn. Personal search is now usually done via the Internet. The application form is quick and inexpensive method of screening out applicants, in order to produce a short list of candidates for interview. The questions on the form should enable the sales manager to check the applicants are qualified with the personal specification. Questions relating to education, previous work experience, and leisure interests are often included. Besides giving such factual information, the application form also reveals the facts such as an ability to spell, poor grammar, or in following instructions. Most companies employ two-stage interviews. In only one-fifth of cases, the sales manager alone hold the initial interview. In the most of cases, it is the human resource manager, or both of them together who conduct the initial interview. This also tends to be the case for the final interview. Generally, in 40% of cases, the HR manager and sales manager together make the final choice. In 30% of cases, the sales manager only makes the final decision. In other cases, marketing directors and other senior management may also be involved. The second question of our lecture is training. The potential benefit of sales training are vast, from an enhanced skills levels, improve motivation, and greater self-confidence in one ability to perform well at selling. There are four classical stages to learning a skill. The first stage defined the situation before entering in a decision to enter a career and selling. They are enabled to carry out the skills, and have not even thought about them. By reading, or being told about the skills involved, the trainee reaches the second stage, or being consciously unable. They know what to do, but cannot successfully perform any of the skills. On the third stage, consciously able, the trainee not only knows what to do, but is reasonably proficient at putting the skills into practice individually. The trainee may be able to make a successful presentation, handle objections, and close a sale, but be hopelessly adrift when they need to handle objections, continue making the presentation, and all the while looks for signs to close the sale. A successful training program takes the trainee through this difficult barrier to the fourth stage, unconsciously able. When they can perform all the skills at once, and have the ability to think at stage in advance, so that they have the control of the situation. The salesperson can open the interview, move through the stages of neat identification, presentation, and handling objections in a natural manner. And can alter the approach, a situation, demand, before choosing the right moments, and most appropriate technique to close the sale.
