Wednesday, April 17, 2013

PROFILING IS GOOD

I want to talk a bit today about the importance of profiling management and sales people in our industry. I am not talking about profiling cultures or nationalities but rather the importance of having prospective new staff members that you are considering bringing on board complete a profile questionaire that is then graded to determine their strengths and/or weaknesses. It can and will save you thousands of dollars in the long run not to mention the countless hours agonizing over a poor hiring decision. While a profile questionaire of the leading candidates won't totally tell you which one to hire, it sure helps determine where the candidate you do hire will need the most training etc. If you are already doing this, congratulations, you know the value, if not please read on and take note.

Let me tell you of a couple of personal examples we had in my own company. One cost me a bundle, the other one avoided what could have been an expensive hiring mistake.

Example number 1--I was trying to hire a branch manger for one of our offices in the Southwest USA and interviewed this man who had years of experience in the cleaning industry with a couple of large companies. At the time, I was in desperate need in that city as we were growing and I was having to fill the slot myself and I wanted to get on with my other duties which I enjoyed much more.

In this case he did the profile questionaire, I sent it on to my home office for grading with a "hurry up" request. The profile came back as a terrible candidate for the position. " This can't be" I said, "this guy interviewed great and understands the position. Maybe I rushed him in answering the questions, so I will administer the questionaire again".

This time the results came back even worse with a note from my person that did the grading that he was the worst candidate we had ever considered for a branch manager postion. What! He's questioning my professional interviewing skills? Yes he was.

Well, I know better. Something must be wrong with the scoring tables. I hired him and within two weeks I fired him. The areas I was told he would not do well in he did horrible in. But he interviewed so well!!! That was the last time I overrode the test results. I should have known better. Lesson here? Sometimes we are so eager to fill a position that we overlook all the red flags that appear. We feel we can overcome the weaknesses and depending on what they are, it may just not be possible. Besides, we have been in the business for years and surely know more than a piece of paper, right? This mistake cost me a bundle, mostly in company reputation as I was much longer without a permanent manager and the customers were getting restless.

Example number 2--My staff was needing to hire a sales representative in one of our Midwestern cities. They interviewed several candidates and called me to inform me that they had decided on an exciting candidate with all the right qualifications. My immediate response was, "That's great, send me the profile so I can review it". I was then told that a profile had not been done and there was no need to do so because they guy was the "real deal".

I reminded them of our policy and with much discussion they reluctantly proceeded with the questionaire. I waited a couple of days and then called to check on the progress and was told that the person was no longer a candidate. He was all interview charisma but his actual personality and ability would not at all match what we were looking for in a person to represent our company. It took a while but we eventually found a very capable individual. A major hiring mistake avoided.

I recently read a great example of getting caught up in the charisma of an individual and ignoring all the warning signs. The book is  SALES AUTOPSY by Dan Seidman.

He tells the story of a business owner who became friends with a person he met at a convention and they spent countless hours together for an entire week and at the end of that week, the owner offered his new found friend the position of national sales manager for his company. He was excited, provided him a company car, a credit card, expense account, and all the other benefits of a national sales manager.

He goes on to tell the story of them getting ready to present a huge proposal to a major prospect. As they were sitting in the prospect's board room waiting for all of people to arrive, in walked a couple of gentlemen asking his sales manager for identification. After he identified himself, his head was slammed on the table, he was handcuffed and escorted to jail. He was wanted on outstanding drug warrants, physical abuse of a wife and girlfriend and thousands of dollars in missing child support.

They did not make the sale and the sad truth is the man was out of business within a year. Trouble like that gets around and nobody was interested in buying from a company that would hire "those" type of employees.

So, what about you? Are you taking the right steps in hiring your management and sales staff? They are your culture, image, and reputation to the public. Do you do a profile questionaire before making a major hire? Let me suggest it is worth spending a few hundred dollars up front before comitting to the hire rather than spending thousands later, not counting the damage to your company (and your) reputation.

There are several outstanding companies that produce excellent profiling questionaires. A google search will locate them for you. It is well worth taking the time to research and commit. I know it saved me enormous amounts of time and money.

Don't forget our weekly FREE pod casts at www.tripodcast.com. We have some great guests coming up that you will want to learn from.

Till next time.



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