What’s In It For Him? Once you’re clear on what you require, what can you offer that will attract that person?
“If you’re interested in making the company and the position attractive, you have to do some marketing along with your advertising,” Ikeman points out. “The manager needs to spell out the true core components of what makes the work environment attractive.”
That could be, for instance, independence, or growth opportunities. Randy Leeds, owner of Thermo-Tite Windows, in Port Chester, N.Y., told his sales manager that if his performance worked out long-term, he would eventually have the opportunity to open and run a branch. For some potential sales managers, a unique product or a reputation in the community is an attraction.
Money, of course, is the largest draw. You should formulate a compensation package consistent with your philosophy as a manager, with what your company can afford to pay and with the kind of candidate you seek to attract. Don’t promise what you can’t deliver. Tie compensation to performance, with bonuses linked to goals that you’ve established. With his next hire, Duggan says that the sales manager’s entire compensation will depend on hitting certain targets.
“No B. S. Boss” To find the right candidate, you have to reach out with the right kind of advertisement in the right kind of venue. Your ad should state the specific requirements for the job. Done right, the ad should jump off the page or computer screen. “We want them to look at that ad and say: ‘That’s me,’ or ‘That’s not me,’ Mazmanian says. He once wrote an ad for a home improvement company seeking a sales manager with a “Pit Bull Personality.” It drew one response — 50 are typical — from a candidate who explained that while he’d never bitten anyone, “I know how to bark a lot.” The candidate was hired.
Don’t, Mazmanian advises, skimp on the ad. If the typical classified ad is 30 words, yours should be 60 to 90. Use words and phrases that indicate the type of behavior you seek: “assertive,” “goal-oriented,” “multi-tasker.” Certain phrases — “Works without close supervision” or “No B.S. Boss” — are “magic to certain behavioral styles,” he says. They’re designed to attract assertive individuals.
Indicate what your company does and where it’s located. Specify the skills and experience needed for the job, and give a reason why someone would want to work for you. (“Growing company.” “Great sales team.”) Insist on a cover letter and that candidates e-mail their résumés. Give a clear idea of what you intend to pay. The person you’re looking to hire is driven by efficiency, and people like that won’t bother answering an ad that reads: “Salary commensurate with experience.”
Be careful to specify what you don’t want as well. “We are not looking for a desk jockey who can shuffle paper,” Nietzer says. LGH Corp. states that in its ads.
Test and Interview Tests, which are typically based on responses to multiple-choice questions, help determine if candidates meet the hiring criteria established by company owners. Mazmanian calls the tests that his company administers, which report results in graph form, “85% predictive.”
In fact, it’s much easier for mediocre candidates to slip past an owner’s intuition than past the testing. “We’re looking for somebody with a positive attitude about themselves and the world,” says Ikeman, of Walden Personnel Testing and Consulting. “Somebody who takes responsibility for their actions, gets the job done, grows their people.”
Walden’s online test, with built-in self-checking questions, takes one hour to complete. The company then generates questions for employers to ask in the follow-up interview.
Home improvement company owners don’t interview people day in and day out, so their interviewing skills may be OK at best, nonexistent at worst. Your interview should have two aims. First, get the candidate to relax enough to talk honestly about his or her experience. Second, determine whether the candidate actually has the top 5 to 10 qualities and characteristics you need in a sales manager. Your questions should be pointed. You want real information about past experience.
“You never really know if people are telling the truth,” Nietzer observes, “or if they’re simply telling you what you want to hear. So I tell people: don’t just regurgitate what’s on your résumé. I ask them if they’ve been in particular situations and how they handled a particular challenge.”
Say that, for instance, you want your new sales manager to be a problem-solver. Have him describe a situation in which he anticipated a problem and the actions he took to head it off or resolve it. Say that you want her to be an effective planner and organizer. Ask her to describe the most challenging assignment she’s worked on and the steps taken to prepare to undertake it.
The interview should reveal whether the potential hire is a good fit. Will he work well with you and other managers? Can he meet the goals you’ve set? Does she have the skills and competence? What you want is an objective interview process, based as much as possible on the demands of the position.
“We look for the type of person who will fit into our corporate culture,” Nietzer says. “If it’s not a good fit up front, odds are they wouldn’t be able to handle the bigger issues.”
No Warm-Up Period Once you’ve hired a sales manager, “there is no warm-up period,” Mazmanian says. “Either the person is doing this or they’re not.” To ensure that they know what to do, some owners work closely with the new sales manager, while others simply turn them loose. Some require sales managers to run leads, while others forbid it, requiring the sales manager to spend all this time working one-on-one with salespeople.
Sales managers coordinate the workings of sales, administration, and production. They must learn to be ambassadors —Mazmanian’s term — between the different departments. Randy Leeds, of Thermo-Tite Windows, began by teaching his new sales manager to assist the general manager. “I said: ‘You know how to sell. That’s not the problem. It’s what happens afterward.’ So I took him through the order process, and the installation process.”
For Rick Duggan, of America’s Best Home Remodelers, things will be different next time around. He’s splitting his seven divisions between multiple sales managers. Those sales managers will be selling sales managers, with compensation based on productivity. To fill those slots, Duggan is looking, in his words, for a “showoff.” “I want him to lead by example,” Duggan says. “Watch me, and I’ll show you how to sell.”
