The Importance of Recruitment and Selection of Sales People - Essay Example

1. Introduction In today’s marketplace, it’s a given that everyone wants increased sales, although yet virtually, everyone is finding this continually more difficult to achieve. There are many reasons why this is true. May be the sheer number of the competitors has increased. Perhaps the customers’ purchasing decisions are being impacted by growing price pressures, etc. So unless the product or service is the only one of its kind, we’re looking for an edge; an advantage; something to make us stand apart from our major competition. In the current market there are several types of sales that can be subdivided into two types, called direct and indirect sales. And in spite of the considerable expansion of the indirect sale, supported by the fast and phenomenal development of new technologies, the direct sale remains a privileged tool in the global sales process. Nevertheless, it is will be assigned here that even the sale is done by direct or indirect way; the salesman plays a major role in this process that we will try to highlight along this paper. 2. What is a good salesman In an intuitive way, we can say that “it is somebody who succeeds in convincing a customer to buy his product or his service at his price and his conditions”. We will be able to discourse a long time on the subject, but the real fact is that the salesman is currently engaged in order to achieve this objective and to improve the results continually (Doney and Canon 1997). Thus, the real mission of salesman is to accomplish a work with innovation, motivation and high confidence. Doney and Canon (1997) state that, more and more people beginning their sales career adopt an attitude which is harmful for themselves with respect to their work. They identified a series of reasons that lead to this kind of behaviors. Among those reasons they mentioned the lack of confidence in a product, the difficulty in making a final choice by the absence of priority sense, etc. More emotive reasons like personal rejection or fidelity towards their current supplier are also present and they are often among the most difficult to counter to. The internal conflicts at the various stages of intervention in large organizations are omnipresent and constitute serious problems but not insurmountable obstacles for salespeople (Forsyth 1980). We must remember here that in 67 % of the cases, the first objection of the customer is not "the true objection" and that the sale starts when the customer says "not". We wish to warn against the reflexes of defense which come with the rejection and which tend to reinforce the conviction of the salesman who believes wrongfully that its role is limited to inform its customers (Doney and Canon 1997). On the other hand, Franwick et al. (2001) state that the background needed for sales jobs varies by product line and market. Many employers are looking always for individuals with previous sales experience who do not have specially a college degree, but prefer often those with some college education. Contrary, the majority of employers prefer candidate with some educational level or require exactly a bachelor’s degree as the job conditions become more technical and analytical. Currently, many salespeople are permanently looking to improve their background in participating to seminars and/or in foreign language to provide the extra edge needed to make sales. Generally, we can say that companies are looking for the best individuals who have the personality and desire to sell. In order to achieve this goal, certain criteria must be respected of which we will try to treat in the following (Franwick et al. 2001). However, it is necessary in first to be careful during the recruitment procedure that start by developing a description of the functions detailed and the unit of hopes when we choose to recruit a salesman. And as it is remarkable, there are two types of salesmen: those who open new accounts, and those who develop and consolidate existing accounts. After reception of the offers of the potential candidates, an increased vigilance is still recommended at the time of selection procedure, and in interview phase. Indeed, to confirm the specific results which are requested in the description of the functions, and check their exactitude, a series of questions must be asked in the course of the interview of which the detailed can be found as example in the literature. 3. Problems and ethic Traditional sales methods often fail when selling innovation because the customer sees a "salesperson" rather than a valued resource or business partner. However, selecting a wrong person to job, cannot allow to achieve the long-term sales goal and to develop a profitable relationship with the customer. In the following, we restrict to the most capital criteria that still representative example of a bad seller. First of all, wrong salespeople are not credible, as the communication content is never oriented in terms of customer needs. We will remember here that people don’t care as much about our product/service as we do. The single biggest obstacle to selling innovation is failure to present successfully the benefits in concrete, concise, credible terms. Customers perceive innovation as difficult or risky because they don’t understand what practical value it will add to its organization and it’s the role of the salesman to clear up that as long as possible. Moreover, the benefits of innovation cannot be made without involving the customers in sensory-rich, memorable experiences. However, this objective is never achieved mostly when the assigned salespeople use bad examples, word pictures, visuals, metaphors and stories to connect with the customer. Another point which we would like to raise here within the framework of the relation seller/customer is the error to proceed to an exhaustive presentation or to put questions before even knowing the problems of the customer. In fact, even when it proves to be convenient to raise a question, a good seller stops at the time when the customer raises a problem which can solve. Otherwise, when the good questions are put, one never needs to proceed to a presentation of sale. Further, a significant point which allow a real supervision and control of the seller, is the introduction of a quota of ethics relating to the product which wind, and which make it possible to ensure best services and to preserve the customers as long as possible. Among the factors which influence the ethical behavior of the salesman, the researchers generally make the distinction between the individual variables and the organizational variables (Low et al. 2000). Among the first, the authors identify various individual variables which have an influence on the ethical behavior of the individual: the kind, moral philosophy, education, the professional experience and seniority, the age and nationality, the cognitive moral development. The results on the individual variables appear however divergent according to researchers. This interest of the researchers for this concept has been developed recently through an abundant works (Jones and Hiltebeidel 1995), in which we see raising the concept of climate ethics that refers to the ways in which the organizations work with the behaviors and the actions which are awaited, supported and rewarded (Schneider and Rentsch 1988). The ethical climate is defined like "stable, psychological and significant perceptions that the members of the organization have ethical procedures and policies which exist in their company or their department" (Schwepker et al. 1997). Moreover, the existence of an ethical climate discourages the salesmen having "Machiavelli" characteristics to integrate a good organization. Thus, during recruitment, the managers can select salesman who have provisions to act in an ethical way whatever the environment. However, the ethical concept can play a major role in the beginning, as critical criteria during the selection procedure, and a tool of control and supervision of the salesman work and performance. 4. Conclusion The objective in this paper was to determine the explanatory factors which determine the selection of the good salesman and the problems which can be generated with the case of a bad choice. This by giving certain answers which not only make it possible to help like criterion of selection in the phase of recruitment, but to be able also to make a control on the salesman behavior within the company. The principal contribution is to install a measuring instrument of the work quality, able to identify the all capital criteria that are inherent in the correct operating system of the company as described above. Moreover, research have been able to show that the association of the ethical mode or criteria to the sales department, allowed to highlight the bond between ethical climate and ethical behavior of the salesman, and to have shown, in particular, it determining role associated with commercial management and benefits. References Doney, P & Canon, J 1997, ‘An Examination of the Nature of Trust in Buyer-Seller Relationships’, Journal of Marketing, vol. 61, pp. 35-51. Franwick, GL, Porter, SS & Crosby, LA 2001, ‘Dynamics of Relationship Selling : A Longitudinal Examination of Changes in Salesperson-customer Relationship Status’, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, vol. 21, no 2, pp. 135-146. Forsyth, DR 1980, ‘A Taxonomy of Ethical Ideologies, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology’, vol. 39, pp. 175-184. Jones, SK & Hiltebeidel, KM 1995, ‘Organizational Influence in a Model of the Moral Decision Process of Accountants’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 14, pp. 417-431. Low, TW, Ferrell, L & Mansfield, P 2000,  ‘A Review of Empirical Studies Assessing Ethical Decision making in Business’, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 25, no 3, pp. 185-204. Schwepker, CH, Ferrell, OC & Ingram, TN 1997, ‘The Influence of Ethical Climate and Ethical Conflict on Role Stress in the Sales Force’, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 25, pp. 99-108. Schneider, B & Rentsch, J 1988, ‘Managing Climates and Cultures: A Future’s Perspective, In Futures of Organization’, (Ed.), J. Hage, Lexington, MA Lexington Books, pp. 181–200. Read More