How To Attract and Retain Sales and Customer Service People Using In-depth Work Style & Personality Testing – Part 1

How do you build up your sales and customer service force in a down economy? The quick answer is don’t be a dodo bird.

While researching our book, Cracking the Personality Code, we examined the essentials of what managers and business owners need to know about hiring and managing sales/customer service people with the help of in-depth work style & personality testing.

An interesting sales management guru we discovered along the way is Lee B. Salz. In June 2007, his widely acclaimed book “Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager” was published. In it, he deals with one of the biggest problems companies face, the chasm between managers and sales and customer service people.

He uses the metaphor of the dodo to show what happens when one fails to adapt. Those who adapt, thrive. Those who don’t, become extinct like the dodo bird of ages ago. Some laugh at the use of the word ‘dodo’, but there is nothing funny about a business losing its competitive edge due to unmanaged change.

To hire the best sales and customer service people, and keep them on the team, your sales or customer service manager needs to know what makes them tick. We believe the sales and customer service personality code can be cracked. If that sounds like a bold declaration, consider this:  Studies show that personality tests are a far more reliable predictor of performance than interviews and resumes.

A proper test should reach beyond simple profiles and decipher a sales or customer service person’s underlying needs. This is key for employee development, team building, conflict resolution and succession planning.  If you want to retain the best, you need to treat them the way they want to be treated.

Below are some ways to use personality testing in the workplace to help attract and retain sales and customer service people:

1. Get the real picture.  Of course, every sales and customer service candidate wants to put their best foot forward during an interview.  However, through a personality test, you uncover a great deal about their ability to work well with other personalities, their problem solving abilities, their thought processes, and their ability to tolerate stress. Personality testing gives you objective information that can help you make an informed decision about if this person is a good fit for the job and for the team. If you decided to hire the person, the questions you ask during the hiring process will reduce your learning curve as a manager on how best to manage this person from day one.

2. Help them be all that they can be. Every sales and customer service person has strengths and weaknesses. Find out the real truth with an objective measure. Once you pinpoint the good and the bad, then you place them in the right position and coach them on where to improve.

3. Take me to your leaders. Personality testing gives the manager and sales or customer service team a common language about how they like to interact.  The assessments can help you train future managers on how to get the best out of the team.

4. Know how to manage difficult people. Face it, there will always be difficult people and flare ups on the job. Use objective personality assessments to diagnose potential sources of workplace conflict. The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it in the first place.

We will have additional ways to attract and retain your sales and customer service people next week. While in-depth work style & personality testing can be a valuable resource before you hire sales and customer service people, perhaps the true value of any assessment comes in using the insights it provides along the entire spectrum of employment. Personality assessments lend objectivity to decisions that may otherwise be largely subjective.

Remember, it is not how many great people you hire. The true measure is how many great people you keep! For more information, please visit our Web site, www.lighthouseconsulting.com to sign up for our Open Line webinars and monthly articles.

Join our Linkedin Hiring and Retaining Top Talent group for more discussions and articles on this topic. CLICK HERE to join.

Our best selling book with over 10,000 in circulation, You’re NOT The Person I Hired, A CEOs Guide to Hiring Top Talent, is available as a resource to help your company improve its hiring of top talent. CLICK HERE for more information.

Author’s Bio

Dana Borowka, MA, CEO of Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC has over 25 years of experience in the area of business consulting and helping organizations both nationally and internationally in raising the hiring bar through using in-depth work style assessments. Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC provides a variety of services, including in-depth work style assessments for new hires & staff development, team building, interpersonal & communication training, career guidance & transition, conflict management, workshops, and executive & employee coaching.  To order the book, “Cracking the Personality Code” please go to www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com

Related posts:

1. How To Attract and Retain Sales and Customer Service People Using In-depth Work Style Personality Testing Part 2
2. Optimize Your Staffing Decisions by Using In-depth Work Style and Personality Assessment Tools; Part 2
3. Optimize Your Staffing Decisions by Using In-depth Work Style and Personality Assessment Tools