WORLD CLASS SALES ROUNDTABLE:

Hiring & Training

"I believe that there are two types of salespeople, those who give you results and those who give you reasons." -- Duane Miller, ACDelco

By Gerhard Gschwandtner
Publisher, Selling Power
Photos by Debra Celecia

Selling Power: What is ACDelco’s philosophy of recruiting and training?

DUANE MILLER: Get the best you can get. We put our candidates through an aptitude testing process. After they pass the test, we create a focus group where about nine different managers interview the candidates. I believe that there are two types of salespeople, those who give you results and those who give you reasons. Results-oriented salespeople create a climate that encourages the customer to buy. During the last 12 months we have recruited about 30 people. We now have a sales force of about 500.

How soon after you’ve hired someone do you know that you don’t have a fit?

DUANE MILLER: Generally after about six months. The new interviewing process has worked out very well and we make very few hiring mistakes.

How does Exxon Chemical approach training and development?

CINDY SHULMAN: We look for individuals who have a broad and deep background within our organization. Typically new salespeople at Exxon have experience in the industry or have technical sales backgrounds. The initial sales training during the first three years on the job provides solid sales fundamentals. These cover basic selling skills, negotiation skills, how to write an account plan, how to analyze a customer’s business and how to value our product. After the first three years, salespeople go to such advanced training as understanding new markets and helping clients reach their goals.

Salespeople must be able to understand their customers’ needs in terms of where they want to go. They must figure out how to match up our capabilities with the customer’s needs and how to bring organization to the customer’s goals. There is also a soft side to doing business that requires very intuitive skills. Salespeople must understand what the customer really wants and be able to develop win/win solutions.

How do you train a world-class sales team?

ISABEL KERSEN [Professional Society of Sales & Marketing Trainers]: The challenge is how to train salespeople to be good listeners, so they can help customers who do not know exactly what they need. Companies send people with a lot of skills and knowledge into the field with the goal to find that magical match between supply and demand. Salespeople need to understand the customer’s real needs and make the right connection with the company’s solutions. If they are not good at learning, they won’t be able to connect the two. The most important thing we can teach salespeople is how to learn all the time.

Can you teach people how to learn?

ISABEL KERSEN: Learning is a skill. There are certain thought processes that people may not use, but we can help them learn and practice them. Once you get beyond the age of what we call "monkey see, monkey do," we begin to learn how to learn.

RICK BUYENS [AT&T]: I agree. I sometimes look at salespeople with 10 years of experience who are not succeeding. Their problem is that the sum total of their experience never amounts to more than what they knew at the end of their first year. They fail to grow every year; they did not increase their knowledge and they did not sharpen their skills.

"The old days of visiting a client and going to a ball game together and getting a sale based on the relationship are no longer a reality." -- Jim Bareuther, Brown-Forman

Is continued learning a major factor at Brown-Forman?

JIM BAREUTHER: Yes. We have aggressively pursued the goal of providing an ongoing learning environment. I don’t think any of us in the room today can convey to an employee as they join the company that they will be in a specific job for the next 20, 30 or 40 years. As the market evolves, our people need to learn more to stay competitive. The old days of visiting a client and going to a ballgame together and getting a sale based on the relationship are no longer a reality.

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Excerpted from Selling Power magazine,
January 1998

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