Rick Page - Make Winning a Habit стр 14.

Joe Terry is one of our principals and one of the top 10 salespeople I have ever known. I interviewed him for over eight hours, including dinner. About halfway through a bottle of wine, I asked him the when did you become an adult question.

He knew the answer very clearly.

He said, I was orphaned at an early age and was raised by an aunt and uncle. They sent me off to military school when I was a teenager. The first night there, the other kids ganged up on me and beat me with ramrods. I knew then and there that I could only look to myself.

My friend, Rusty Gordon, CEO of Knowlagent, grew up in Sapulpa, Oklahoma. He was so poor that they didnt even have a well for drinking water.

While bailing hay for horses with his father one day, his dad said, You know, son, our plan has always been to pay for your upbringing, pay for your college, and then you would be on your own for a while and eventually we would probably have to count on you when we are older.

Yes Dad.

Well, son, your part of the plan is going to need to kick in a little earlier than we thought.

That meant not only was Rusty to go to college, but he had to support himself while there and prepare to help others.

He got himself into the Naval Academy and has since started and run several successful hightech companies, never forgetting that personal accountability is a requirement for personal success.

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

Benjamin Disraeli

The point is that successful people are driven by something . And its usually not just the money its what the money brings. The point is that they are driven by a purpose and that it aligns with the job.

Principles

In matters of principle, stand like a rock. In matters of taste, swim with the current.

Thomas Jefferson

rules that drive an individuals behavior so that youll have an idea what they will do when you arent watching. Does the person have a moral compass? Circumstances and temptations reveal a persons character. Is the person consistently trustworthy or completely situational? This also helps you to understand how the person wants to be managed.

This is a good place to ask the person an ethical situation question to see how they would respond. Another good question is how the person responds to problem-solving situations. What internal rules guide the persons decisionmaking process?

Plan

Its not the plan that is important; its the planning.

Dr. Graeme Edwards

Do they know where they want to be? Do they know where they are today on that plan? Can they articulate their plans to get to where they want to be?

It has been said that if they are failing to plan, they are planning to fail. Plans change, but how will they manage their territory and their accounts if they have no plan for themselves?

Preparation

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.

Joe Paterno

How well your candidates have researched and prepared for the interview is one of the best indicators of how well they research and prepare for sales calls. Do they know your companys history, culture, financials, and issues? Did they at least read your website?

Passion

If you arent fired with enthusiasm, youll be fired with enthusiasm.

Vince Lombardi

At some point candidates need to pick up the special nature of your company and turn from buyer to seller. If they dont, they are not passionate about working for your company or not passionate at all. If you think this is just another place to work, you should just work at another place.

Performance

The closest a person comes to perfection is when he fills out a job application.

Stanley J. Randall

For salespeople, quota performance is an arbitrary measure. Two questions to help put this in perspective are

1. What percentage of the sales force made quota every year?

2. How do you compare with the rest of the sales force? Top half? Top 10 percent?

Personality

Be yourself is the worst advice you can give some people.

Tom Masson

Will they fit in with your team culture? Ask yourself, Would I like working with them? Also consider their presence, image,

and the way they dress. We make choices when we put on different clothes. It is important that they know how to dress when dealing with clients in different industries especially if they are going to be selling to executives.

Ken Cornelius, president of Siemens One, says that he and his executive team have a simple test that many prospective hires who did well in the initial interviews fail in the end:

After the interview rounds, we ask each other:

1. Would you like to be stuck on a deserted island with this person?

2. Would you leave this person alone with your CEO for an hour?

If the answer to either of these is No, we dont hire them.

Several years ago, we were thinking about adding a new principal to our firm and had zeroed-in on one particular candidate.

Everything checked out. He had a great résumé and a great personality, but one of our principals Liz McCune sensed something phony about him, though she couldnt put her finger on it.

Our president, Brad Childress, and I decided to have a get-together by playing golf with this guy all afternoon. We had a wonderful time.

But afterwards, at dinner, his personality changed dramatically. He was abusive to the wait staff, being very short and rude when he spoke to them.

We realized thatin a social setting this particular candidate had a hard time getting along with people he considered to be lower on the totem pole. The only way we could find this out was to get him in a situation where his guard was down.

He passed all of the one-hour interviews. He was very good at peer-to-peer relationships. But only in a social setting did we see that he was unable to interact with people lower in the organization than he was.

And in a complex selling environment, you have to be able to get along with everyone.