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Choosing A Pre Employment Sales Personality Test Or Sales Aptitude Test To Hire Top Sales Executives
Hiring managers have long known that it takes more than just personality or psychology alone to close the sale. An old style pre employment test, sales aptitude test or sales personality test may be inadequate in helping you hire Top Sales Executives or great Regional Sales Managers. Testing for Total Sales Ability ™ is the best solution, and businesses interested in hiring great sales people or regional sales managers can now receive 10 FREE Sales Assessment Tests from Dan Joy, Inc.
As a business executive or business owner, how can you tell which of your job applicants can really sell? Use Sales Assessment Testing to find out. Here’s what you need to know about Pre-Employment Tests or Sales Assessment Tests if you are interested in hiring a Top Sales Executive or a great Regional Sales Manager:
A. Sales Personality Testing is not enough:
Testing for sales personality alone is not enough. Would you select a doctor just because they had a good personality but no skills, ability or experience? Similarly, using a sales personality test to predict sales potential often results in disappointment. Many sales personality tests look at a person’s outwardly style of doing things, but there may be no real link to actual sales performance. A personality based sales assessment test may help determine a personality type, but may not help determine whether someone can actually sell. Testing for Total Sales Ability ™ is the key, and presently there is only one pre-employment sales test which provides that, as explained later in this article. You can also use The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ to test your current salespeople for promotion, retention or sales training purposes.
B. Sales Aptitude Testing is not enough:
Similarly, pre employment sales assessment testing based on a person’s sales aptitude alone is not sufficient. Many pre employment sales aptitude tests look at a person’s psyche or internal motivations for doing things, but there may be no absolute link to actual sales performance. One may have the right sales aptitude or Sales Psychology but if the actual Sales Ability is missing, they probably won’t make much headway in selling. Moreover, a pre-employment sales aptitude test may not take actual selling techniques (learnt by real world sales experience) into account. The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ can help where many others cannot.
C. Sales Skills Testing is not enough:
The mental component of selling is critically important. So, Sales Skills Assessment alone is not enough. Having the sales skills but no drive or motivation wouldn’t suffice. One must test for more than just a job applicant’s selling skills. Moreover, business methods and sales tools are constantly evolving. The sales approach which used to work a few years ago may not work today. You need a well-rounded pre-employment test of sales ability which keeps up with the changes in the ways that contemporary business is conducted. In other words, you need a pre-employment sales test which is thorough, up to date and well rounded, like the one recommended later in this article.
D. Lack of Sales Call Reluctance is not enough:
Just Sales Call Reluctance testing by itself is not enough. There are people who can call relentlessly but never close. Closing the sale requires proper sales techniques and sales abilities too, not just a lack of sales call reluctance. Total Sales Ability ™ testing like that offered by Dan Joy, Inc., can be a huge asset for you when trying to hire a great Sales Executive — Salesman or Saleswoman, or a good Regional Sales Manager.
E. Our Recommendation — Assessment of Total Sales Ability ™ is the Best:
The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ can help reduce subjectivity and guesswork, and help employers make more objective hiring, promotion or retention decisions. They go above and beyond the old style Pre Employment Sales Personality Tests and Pre Employment Sales Aptitude Tests, by testing for Total Sales Ability ™ instead: http://www.danjoy.com/
A hiring mistake can be costly. The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ can help employers and recruiters immensely by testing for sales prospecting ability, objection handling ability, sales closing ability, personality, psychology and more — a total of up to 50+ sub competencies, traits and advanced selling techniques critical to sales success.
They can be used as pre employment sales tests to test Business Development professionals at different career levels, e.g., a Sales Person (Salesman or Saleswoman), Sales Manager, Sales Director or VP of Sales & Marketing. The JOY Sales Tests ™ may also be used to identify and quantify Sales Training needs to help you bridge certain sales training gaps or correct certain sales skills deficiencies in your current sales team. Thus, you may also use The JOY Tests ™ of Total Sales Ability ™ to test your current salespeople for promotion, retention or sales training purposes.
The 10 major areas of ability tested by the potent JOY Sales Tests ™ are:
1. Sales Prospecting (Leads Generation) Ability.
2. Appointment Setting, Cold Calling, Rapport and Presentation Ability.
3. Objection Handling and Negotiating Ability.
4. Sales CLOSING Ability and Asking for Payment/Deposit.
5. Cementing the Sale (Re-assuring the Client), and Ability to Get Referrals.
6. Computer / Internet / Email / CRM and Sales Tools Ability.
7. Miscellaneous Crucial Sales & Marketing Abilities
(Various Secondary Factors — Personality, Psychology, Skills, Aptitude, Ethics, etc.)
8. Sales Team Recruitment Ability.
9. Sales Team Management / Leadership / Motivation Ability.
10. Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations Ability.
So, how can employers tell which job applicants can sell? They can start with 10 FREE Sales Assessment Test units (Screening Tests) at http://www.danjoy.com/
Steps to Successful Selling on amazon.
So you want to be a successful seller with your own amazon business, do you? Here’s a simple, ten-step path to amazon enlightenment.
1: Identify your market. Take a while to sit and watch for what sells and what doesn’t out of the items you’re interested in. Any market research data you can collect will be very useful to you later on. You’ll probably see the ‘sweet spots’ quite quickly – those one or two items that always seem to sell for a good price.
2: Watch the competition. Before you invest any money, see what the other sellers in your category are up to, and what their strategies are. Pay special attention to any flaws their auctions might have, because this is where you can move in and beat them at their own game.
3: Find a product: Get hold of a supplier for whatever it is you want to sell, and see what the best rates you can get are – don’t be afraid to ring round quite a few to get the best deal. If the amazon prices you’ve seen are higher than the supplier’s, then you’re set.
4: Start small: Don’t throw thousands at your idea straight away – get started slowly, see what works and what doesn’t, and learn as you go. Remember that it’s very cheap to try out even the craziest ideas on amazon, and who knows, they might just work!
5: Test and repeat. Keep trying different strategies until you find something that works, and then don’t be ashamed to keep doing it, again and again. The chances are that you’ve just found a good niche.
6: Work out a business plan: A business plan doesn’t need to be anything formal, just a few pages that outline the market opportunity you’ve spotted, your strategy, strengths and weaknesses of the plan and a brief budget. This is more for you than it is for anyone else.
7: Invest and expand: This is the time to throw money at the problem. Buy inventory, and start spending more time on your business. Set a goal number of sales each week, increasing it each time.
8: Make it official: Once you’ve made a few thousand dollars worth of sales, you should really register yourself as a business. Don’t worry, it’s not expensive or hard to do – a lawyer is the best person to help you through the process.
9: Automate: You’ll probably find that you’re writing the same things again and again in emails or item descriptions. This is the time to give up on the manual method and turn to automated software that can create listings for you, and respond to completed auctions and payments with whatever message you provide.
10: Never give up: Even when it looks like it’s all going wrong, don’t stop trying until you succeed. If you keep working at it then you’ll almost always find that you make a real breakthrough just when things are starting to look desperate.
Once you get into the swing of things, you might start thinking that you should quit your job and take up amazon selling part time. But it’s not always as easy as that – there are all sorts of factors that you need to consider. The next email will weigh up the case for and against taking up amazon full-time.
If you currently have a copywriting piece that’s not performing up to par, then maybe this article will be of some use to you. Writing winning sales copy does not have to be hard. All it takes is some minor tweaking and you will find that your changes can be the difference in mediocre response and world-class results. Here’s the first tip for making all of your copywriting pieces effective. 1) Redo your headline Writing a winning headline does not have to be complicated or hard. Your entire sales piece depends on the effectiveness of your headline, so you will want to make it good. If your headline doesn’t do the job of captivating a reader, your whole sales piece is in trouble. Your headline will comprise of up to 80% of the success of your sales letter – so it’s that important. One of the best things that you can do for yourself if you want to start writing winning headlines is to create something that is called a swipe file. A swipe file is simply a collection of winning ads and sales letters. They are there to make your copywriting job a lot easier. Whenever you need to write a sales letter from scratch, use a sales letter from your swipe file as a template. It’s the easiest way to get started writing a winning headline. 2) Talk one-to-one In your copywriting piece, you will want to speak in first person to your reader. Use the word “you” a lot in your sales letter. This makes everything more personal and actively engages the reader into your sales piece. When you speak one-to-one to your prospects, you’re talking to them as if they were sitting across the table from you – and this is how you want to address your prospects. 3) Use bullet points Bullet points basically tell your reader what they will receive from your product. When writing the bullet points for your sales letter, you want to make each one like a mini-headline. Each bullet should be the equivalent to the headline of your entire sales letter. Don’t skimp when writing your bullets or make them weak. They play a pivotal part in the success of your sales letter. 4) Use the postscript A lot of readers skim to the bottom of the page when reading sales letters, and you can use this opportunity to sell them on your product once more. When a reader skims to the end of the page to see what’s at the bottom, summarize your entire offer via your postscript or PS. The PS should briefly summarize everything you just said and should entice your reader to want to read more. All effective postscripts still lets the reader know what’s in it for them, so you will want to detail what your prospects will receive at this part of your letter. All of these tips for writing more effective copy can be very helpful if you put them to use. Be sure to start using them today if you want to increase your sales and profits.
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Books Sales Professionals might like to Read
While developing out new website for Sales Training Consultants, we thought it would be a good idea to provide a reading list for sales people wanting to develop their sales skills and knowledge. So, here it is, divided into various sub-categories for ease of use:
Selling Skills
* Getting Into Your Customer’s Head: 8 Secret Roles of Selling Your Competitors Don’t Know, Kevin Davis. New York: Random House, 1996. (ISBN 0-8129-2628-5)
* Stop Selling and Start Partnering, Larry Wilson
* Changing the Game, Larry Wilson. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
* SPIN Selling, Rackham, Neil. New York: McGraw Hill, 1988.
* Solution Selling by Michael T. Bosworth (Irwin Publishing, 1995).
* Samurai Selling: The Ancient Art of Service in Sales by Chuck Laughlin, Karen Sage and Marc Bockmon (St. Martin’s, 1993).
* The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople , by Stephan Schiffman (Adams Publishing, 1994).
* The AMA Handbook of Successful Selling, by Bob Kimball (NTC Publishing Group, 1993).
* The Selling Bible: For People in the Business of Selling, by John L. Lawton (Council Oaks Distribution, 1995)
* Closing Tactics, Andoni Lizardi
* Negotiate to Close, Gary Karass
* Ziglar on Selling, Zig Ziglar. Nashville, TN: Ziglar Corporation, 1991.
* The Sales Strategist: 6 Breakthrough Strategies to Win New Business, Warren Kurzrock. New York: Irwin Publishing, 1996. ISBN: 0-7863-0738-2.
* Selling to VITO: the Very Important Top Officer, Anthony Parinello, Massachusetts, Bob Adams, 1994.
* Selling to the Top, David A. Peoples. New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1994.
* Sales Reengineering From the Outside In, Mark Blessington and Bill O’Connell (McGraw Hill, 1995).
* Strategic Selling, Stephen Heiman and Robert Miller.
* Conceptual Selling, Stephan Heiman and Robert Miller. Berkeley, CA: Miller Heiman, 1987.
* Selling the invisible, Harry Beckworth
* Cracking New Accounts: Tips and Techniques for Opening and Closing the Sales in Half the Time, Terry L. Booton (Probus, 1994).
* Guerilla Selling: Unconventional Weapons and Tactics for Increasing Your Sales, Jay Conrad Levinson, Orvel Ray Wilson and Bill Gallagher (Houghton Mifflin, 1992).
Business Acumen
* The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers (Doubleday, 1993).
* The Monster Under the Bed by Stan Davis & Jim Bodkin. (Simon and Schuster, 1994).
* Corporate Life Cycles: How and Why Corporations Grow and Die and What to Do about It by Izak Adiches. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990).
* The Little Black Book of Business Math, by Michael C. Thomsett. (New York: Anacom, 1988).
* The Art of War, by Sun-Tzu (Delacorte, 1989).
* The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (North River Press, 1992).
* The E Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber (Harper-Business, 1990).
* The Popcorn Report: The Future of Your Company, Your World, Your Life by Faith Popcorn (Harper-Business, 1992).
* Finance and Accounting for Non-Financial Managers by William G. Droms, (Reading MA: Addison Wesley, 1990).
* The Vital Difference: Unleashing the Powers of Sustained Corporate Success, by Frederick G. Harmon and Garry Jacobs, (AMACOM, 1985).
* What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, Mark H. McCormack, (Bantam Books, 1984).
* Zap, the Power of Empowerment by Jeff Cox.
* Marketing, by Robert D. Hisrich (Barron’s Educational Series, 1990).
* Multi-Level Marketing: The Definitive Guide to America’s Top MLM Companies (Summit Group, 1993).
* Relationship Marketing: Successful Strategies for the Age of the Customer, by Regis McKenna (Addison Wesley, 1993).
* How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Guy Kawasaki.
* The Ten-Day MBA : A Step-By-Step Guide to Mastering the Skills Taught in America’s Top Business Schools @amazon.com
* The Complete MBA For Dummies @amazon.com
* Financial Statements : A Step-By-Step Guide to Understanding and Creating Financial Reports @amazon.com
* Business Planning : 25 Keys to a Sound Business Plan (The New York Times Pocket MBA Series) @amazon.com
* Tracking & Controlling Costs : 25 Keys to Cost Management (The New York Times Pocket MBA Series) @amazon.com
* Forecasting Budgets @amazon.com
Strategic Sales Planning
* The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals, Keith Ellis, Three Rivers Pr., 1998, ISBN: 060980166X.
* Achieving Individual and Team Goals, Terry R. Bacon, Thomas Doggett, International Learningwork, 1996, ISBN: 1577400135.
* The Agile Manager’s Guide to Goal-Setting and Achievement (The Agile Manager Series), Walter Wadsworth, Velocity Pub., 1998, ISBN: 0965919323.
* All About Goals and How to Achieve Them, Jack Ensign Addington, Devorss and Co (Txp), 1977, ISBN: 0875162371.
* 10 Minute Guide To Planning (10 Minute Guides), Edwin E. Bobrow, IDG Books Worldwide, 1997, ISBN: 0028618181.
* The Sales Strategist: 6 Breakthrough Strategies to Win New Business, Warren Kurzrock. New York: Irwin Publishing, 1996. (ISBN 0-7863-0738-2)
* Sales Reengineering From the Outside In, by Mark Blessington and Bill O’Connell (McGraw Hill, 1995).
* First Things First, Steven Covey, Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill (Simon & Schuster, 1994)
* Winning the Fight between You and Your Desk by Jeffrey J. Mayer (Harper Business, 1994)
* Strategic Selling, Heiman, Stephen and Miller, Robert.
* Conceptual Selling, Heiman, Stephen and Miller, Robert. Berkeley, CA: Miller Heiman, 1987.
* Successful Large Account Management, by Robert Miller
* Major Account Sales Strategies, by Neil Rackham. New York: McGraw Hill, 1989.
* Managing Major Accounts, Neil Rackham
* Stop Selling and Start Partnering, Larry Wilson
* Power of Consultative Selling, Bryce Webster
* Organizational Capability: Competing from the Inside Out, by Dave Ulrich and Dale Lake, (John Wiley and Sons, 1990).
* Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, Fisher and Uri.
* Cracking New Accounts: Tips and Techniques for Opening and Closing the Sales in Half the Time, by Terry L. Booton (Probus, 1994).
* Guerilla Selling: Unconventional Weapons and Tactics for Increasing Your Sales, by Jay Conrad Levinson, Orvel Ray Wilson, and Bill Gallagher (Houghton Mifflin, 1992).
Customer Focus
* Discipline of Market Leaders, Treachy, Michael and Wiersema, (Addison Wesley, 1995)
* Brain Power: Learn to Improve Your Thinking Skills , Karl Albrecht. Prentice Hall, 1987.
* Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen R. Covey. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990.
* Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service , Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. New York, William Morrow & Co., 1993. ISBN 0-688-12316-3.
* Stop Selling and Start Partnering, Larry Wilson & Hersch Wilson.
* One-to-One Marketing, Martha Rodgers and Don Peppers.
* The Customer Driven Company: Moving from Talk to Action , Richard C. Whiteley. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, 1991. ISBN 0-201-57090-4.
* Customer Centered Growth: 5 Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage, Dianne Hessen and Richard Whitely. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, 1996. ISBN: 0-201-47967-2.
* Getting Into Your Customer’s Head: 8 Secret Roles of Selling Your Competitors Don’t Know , Kevin Davis. New York, Random House, 1996. ISBN 0-8129-2628-5.
* Changing the Game, Larry Wilson, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1987.
* Solution Selling, Michael T. Bosworth. Irwin Publishing, 1995.
* Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus , Edward F. McQuarrie, Sage Pubns., 1998, ISBN: 0761908838.
* Customer Focus: A Strategy for Success, Roger Langevin, Bill Christopher, Crisp Pubns., 1998, ISBN: 1560524855.
* The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market , Michael Treacy, Frederik D. Wiersema, Perseus Pr., 1997, ISBN: 0201407191.
* Implementing Quality With a Customer Focus , David N. Griffiths, Quality Resources, 1991, ISBN: 0873891104.
End User Effectiveness
* All Consumers Are Not Created Equal, Garth Hallberg. John Wiley & Sons, 1996. 320 pages.
* Real Time, Regis McKenna. Harvard Business School Press, 1998.
* Enterprise One to One, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. Currency Doubleday, 1997.
* Keeping the Edge, Dick Schaaf. Dutton, 1995.
* Customer-Centered Growth, Richard Whiteley and Diane Hessan. Addison-Wesley, 1996.
* Strategic Customer Alliances : How to Win, Manage, and Develop Key Accounts @amazon.com
* Key Accounts Are Different : Sales Solutions for Key Account Managers @amazon.com
* Account Management (Building Service Management Program) @amazon.com
* Successful Large Account Management by Tad Tuleja(Contributor), et al @amazon.com
* Key Account Management: The Route to Key Supplier Status by Peter Cheverton @amazon.com
* Key Account Management: Maximizing Profitability from Major Customers by John Rock @amazon.com
Negotiation Skills
* Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and Bill Ury (Viking Penguin, 1991).
* Getting Past No, Bill Ury (Viking Penguin, 1993)
* The Tao of Negotiation by Joel Edelman and Mary Beth Crain (Harper Business, 1993).
* How to Out-Negotiate Anyone (Even a Car Dealer) by Leo Reilly (Adams Publishing, 1993).
* Major Account Sales Strategies, by Neil Rackham (McGraw Hill, 1989).
* The Complete Negotiator, Gerard Nierenberger, (Berley Books, 1986).
* The Negotiation Toolkit: How to Get Exactly What You Want in Any Business or Personal Situation @amazon.com
* Deal Power: 6 Foolproof Steps to Making Deals of Any Size by Marc Diener @amazon.com
* The Power of Negotiating: Strategies for Success by Mike R. Stark @amazon.com
* The Shadow Negotiation: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas That Determine Bargaining Success by Deborah M. Kolb, Judith Williams @amazon.com
Channel Partner Effectiveness
* The channel advantage, Lawrence Friedman and Timothy Furey
* Market-Based Management: Strategies for Growing Customer Value and Profitability, 2nd edition, (Prentice Hall, 2000) – Roger Best – Part III Tactical Marketing Strategies Chapter 9
* Make Your Dealers Your Partners Harvard Business Review, March-April 1996, pp. 89-96.
* Rethinking Distribution: Adaptive Channels Harvard Business Review, July-August 1996, pp. 112-120. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990).
* The Sales Rep Navigator: How to Find the Perfect Sales Rep or Distributor for Your Business, @amazon.com
* How to Market Your Product Through Distributor sales Networks, @amazon.com
* Planning Telephone Sales: Handbook for Distributor Management, @amazon.com
* The Channel Advantage : Going to Market With Multiple Sales Channels to Reach More Customers, Sell More Products, Make More Profit @amazon.com
* Channel Champions: How leading companies build new strategies to serve customers @amazon.com
Computer Skills
* Lotus Notes for Dummies, @amazon.com
* PowerPoint for Dummies, @amazon.com
* Excel for Dummies, @amazon.com
* Word for Dummies @amazon.com
For a lot of sales people,CRM systems is a waste of time but who can really blame them?
To the top performers who spend their time dialing, smiling and closing deals, it is a valid complaint. Sitting idle and waiting for a screen to load is definitely not where they want to be but where the money is at.
Excel Versus CRM Software. The pain of having to wait for a screen to load to access a telephone number so a phone call can be made, so a deal can be closed shouldn’t be underestimated. Productivity can be crippled when the typical wait for a screen to load is 4 plus seconds. Add to that the frustration of trying to find key data and the difficulty in entering new information and you can understand why many sales people choose to rely on Excel.
Now Excel is fast – but that is really all there is to it. It’s hard to organize data, hard to share and unreliable.
Here are some of the usual complaints and limitations most notable of Excel as a customer relationship management tool:
-No File Storage. In Excel, what you see is what you get. It does not allow you to attach important files such as invoices, emails, letters, quotes, etc relevant to a client’s record. You need to store these documents elsewhere, where they can be forgotten, corrupted or lost completely.
-No Sharing. Excel does not allow reading and writing of multiple people at the same time. For businesses with one sales person, this isn’t a problem. A nightmare indeed, if you are in a team.
-Limited Field Control. Creation and organisation of the fields in an Excel spreadsheet can be done only manually. The number of fields you can use comfortably has some limitations due to the layout of Excel. For example; first name, last name, phone number, email, last call date, call related notes address, notes, invoices, quotes, lead categorization etc etc all in one row, it’s not easy.
If speed is the reason why you use Excel, what if a CRM system can provide all the speed of Excel plus all the benefits of a genuine CRM system?
With a proper CRM you have:
– The ability to schedule tasks
– Set reminders
– Chart call outcomes
– Track Campaigns
– All important files can be attached to the client’s record i.e., invoices, quotes, emails, letters, etc
– Manage your email
– Instantly assess your sales pipeline
– Much, much more.
Bulky, slow and holds up work flow-these are what traditional CRM systems were way back then. Speed has been built as well for the newer CRM systems. Pi in particular uses a new framework our team spent 5 years perfecting in order to give the fastest user experience possible.