Importance of Selection of Sales People Essay

Sales people are the front line of many businesses in the sales division. If a business has a shop front where customers come and have to inquire about potential purchases, current purchases or prior purchases then more often than not a salesperson is their first port of call. While it may appear that technology and self service are up and coming replacements for salespeople there is still definitely reason to employ qualified staff. It is for this reason that the recruitment and selection process is an important part of any business when hiring sales people. Selecting the wrong people for the job can result in problems such as staff turnover issues, customer complaints, costs associated with rehiring and even longer term issues such as a company suffering from disrepute. Recruitment can be defined as the process of finding potential job applicants, telling them about the company and getting them to apply (Hair et al. 2009). Essentially this process should not just narrow applicants down to potential employees, but be narrowing the applicants down to potentially good employees. Hair et al. 2009) also notes that the entire sales division ultimately depends on a successful recruiting approach. In essence there are five steps in the recruitment process: 1. Conduct a job analysis * A process identifying the duties, requirements, responsibilities, and conditions a job. 2. Prepare a job description * Explains to job applicants and current sales personnel what the duties and responsibilities of the sales position are. 3. Identify sales job qualifications * Characteristics recruits should have to perform a sales job satisfactorily. . Attract a pool of sales recruits 5. (Hair et al. 2009) (Hair et al. 2009) Select the best recruits A particular field where recruitment and selection of salespeople is of exacting importance is that of minority consumers. The article Advertising and recruiting: Marketing to minorities (Perkins, Thomas, and Taylor 2000) did research in America with specific reference to college males of mixed race and their perceptions of specific recruitment techniques when entering into a sales role. The article makes particular reference to the fact that as a response to growing diversity, increasing multiculturalism, and a need to understand minority consumers means that minority professionals in the recruitment sections of workplace is of exceeding importance (Perkins, Thomas, and Taylor 2000). By the introduction of minority professionals, it means that there can be a focus particularly on directing sales at minority consumers as the professionals are specifically selected for their experience. As a result this mitigates further problems for a business as they have gone through particular selection criteria ensuring that they aren’t the wrong person for the job. In particular for marketing to minorities by making the mistake of picking the wrong sales person could mean that a business potentially loses a whole minority market segment. With the rise in companies turning to the internet to make sales and it means that the customers they do have in store they want to also have an easy and worthwhile experience. In this regard it makes sense that recruiting more experienced or â€Å"the right† people for the job is of great concern to a business. Burke (2002) talks about how there has come to be certain expectations from consumers as to what they want to experience in store as well as online when shopping. The article goes on to say while consumers have become quite content to use online services, it is quite often the quality of service in store and lack of information that drives them towards other technology based alternatives, most often the internet (Burke 2002). Therefore it makes sense that during the recruitment process that employers seek to employ the best sales people they can. If a business wishes to retain in-store customers they would want to have employees that they are confident that customers can turn to and seek advice without having the employee themselves having to go and ask someone else. Another major reason for having recruitment processes based on employing the best sales people is in regard to the older generations. As much as companies are insistent on ensuring consumers that their technological advancements are making it easier, it is often the older generations which are less willing to adapt these innovations (Berry 2011). This means that these generations are more reliant on in store sales methods and dealing with sales people face to face. In an article by Peter Schulman also talks about how employing the â€Å"best† people is not always the result of how talented an individual may be, but often a result of how optimistic an employee chooses to be (Schulman 1999). The article goes on to specify how when recruiters go through the selection process the applicants being chosen for a sales position are applicants that have the desire to succeed. The reason being that while 20 percent of the sales force were garnering 80 percent of sales in 1999 (Schulman 1999) is because a sales persons belief that being persistent is the best way to overcome obstacles and setbacks. The side of this that can be more detrimental to a company is by selecting the wrong person in regard to their own personal morale and self motivation. A sales person who, for example, is unsuccessful in making a sale and instead of taking it in their stride and moving forward can almost result in a snowball type effect. Schulman’s (1999) explanation of this is that as a sales person becomes ever so slightly self-depreciating it can adversely affect their subsequent sales as they start to lose motivation almost in an exponential fashion. In the recruitment process then it is imperative that recruiters are able to distinguish between optimistic and pessimistic applicants. It is vital that a company has solid selection criteria. While it has been established that the best employees can often be selected based on how talented they are, the recruitment process is ultimately designed to establish what constitutes an employee as being a desirable candidate. By managing to select the sales people that recruiters feel are most suited for a job can result in a more productive sales division. As mentioned minority groups being marketed to require very specific selection to be successful as this is a field where incorrect recruitment can mean the loss of an entire segment. The elderly generation again is a segment that can require a specific skill set of the sales person. By making sure employees are actively engaging with customers and willing to help it can be a much more effective sales technique which can result in increased sales and recurring customers. Finally these two factors held in conjunction with selecting applicants that can be regarded to be optimistic rather than pessimistic can effectively result in a powerful work force in the regard to sales people. Going against such factors and resultantly hiring an applicant that can be considered the wrong person for the job would undoubtedly result in not only short term effects for the sales of a business but also has the potential to have long term effects further down the line which may be harder to resolve.