There was a question posted on LinkedIn regarding how would you qualify a potential sales candidate if there was no work history or resume available. This question got me thinking about how businesses go through the qualifying process, including having a resume and the like. It seems that more and more the first qualifier is a personality assessment of some sort. Here are my thoughts, starting with my feelings about the various personality or profile assessments.
I would have to admit that I am not an assessment freak. I would probably use those tools after I allowed my own well-developed instincts make the initial review. As a society, our communication skills are eroding by the minute as we rely on tools to do most of our communication work for us. Our children text instead of talk, people use emails in place of business conversations, we let our phone calls go to voice mail, and we let personality assessments dictate what we know about people before we even speak with them. None of these tools facilitates the use of interactive communication as a relationship building or learning resource. It may be a productive tool, it need not be the first step in the qualifying process.
My first step would be to engage a person in a conversation and listen to how they communicate with me. Sales behaviors are people centric. Great sales behaviors are demonstrated by a logical and concise methodology of communication. When I listen to people who communicate strategically, show a genuine interest in understanding and learning about those they are talking with, and ask insightful and thought provoking questions, I know I have a person who has the aptitude and skills to sell. After I have learned and observed their communication and relationship style I would move on to other exploratory measures. However, I would not eliminate someone simply because my profile assessment test failed them first.
Imagine if our customers started giving us assessment tests before they would allow us to meet with them–what would that do to the sales profession? Work on a great communication methodology first. It is where all great sales and business relationships start.