Star Sales Performers

Key Sales Performance Accountabilities

& Recruiting Guide

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Contents

Purpose.........................................................................................................................................................................................................1
Key Sales Performance Accountabilities........................................................................................................................................................2
Recruiting for Key Sales Performance Accountabilities.................................................................................................................................4
Recruiter or Sales Manager Resume Review and Phone Pre-Screening Interview.........................................................................................4
Sales Manager and Business Leader Face-to-Face Interview.........................................................................................................................6

A40990b-0508 Star Sales Performers: Key Sales Performance Accountabilities & Recruiting Guide
Purpose
Assurant Solutions is doubling its business. Doubling the business means doubling revenue (net written premium, extended service
contracts and fees). Doubling the business also means generating profitable revenue flows.
In order to do this, each part of our organization needs to enhance its capabilities. For sales, that means improving in the actions and
skills needed to drive profitable business. For sales managers and recruiting personnel, it means hiring “star sales performers”.
The following guide provides you with interview questions to probe for the candidate’s current capability around the Key Sales
Performance Accountabilities. It also suggests things to listen for and to observe.
The hiring interview is a sales situation. The behaviors a candidate displays to an interviewer are often those they would display to a
potential client.
Our goal in the interview is to identify “star sales performers” from their behavior and their answers to questions. The sales position is
so key to the company’s success that we want to focus on hiring the best.

Who are the Best?

A 2003 sales research project by the Sales Executive Council of the Corporate Executive Board studied 200 sales personnel in 40 sales
organizations. They found the differences between star sales performers and core sales performers were in a few key areas. Star sales
performers focused on high–value activities that lead to sales results. Specifically, they carefully allocated their time to increase the
amount of time focused on sales preparation and call planning. Then, they focused their customer-facing time on relationship
building and on deal development.

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Key Sales Performance Accountabilities
The Key Sales Performance Accountabilities that Assurant Solutions believes will help us double the business are in three major areas:
• Strategic Account Leadership
• Client/prospect Business Expertise
• Fire in the Belly

Strategic Account Leadership

1. Has professional presence, polish, and demeanor to enter the C-suite
2. Has ability to build relationships and influence at the C-suite level
3. Builds trust, respect, and rapport through information exchange and mutual problem solving
4. Creates a strong network within industry and potential clients in the sphere of influence of the CEO/key decision-maker
5. Uses industry network to make connections to access the C-suite
6. Has ability within 10 minutes or less to connect personally, demonstrate knowledge of prospect’s business and communicate our
value proposition
7. Closes profitable business
8. Stays in touch with principals and market trends before and after the close to continuously enhance the client value proposition
9. Navigates effectively through Assurant’s organization and utilizes tools, technologies and people to effectively deliver the client value
proposition

Client Business Expertise

1. Has done in-depth research and analysis on the client (Client Specific Value Proposition document) and competitors to know what to
offer
2. Knows our company well enough to know how to create a strong revenue-generation stream for both the client and Assurant
Solutions
3. Probes in a consultative way for understanding of the client’s needs and business drivers in order to create the Client Value
Proposition
4. Is an industry-acknowledged subject matter expert

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Fire in the Belly
1. Is self–motivated
2. Has drive and passion
3. Inspires themselves and others
4. Is persistent and resilient
5. Maintains a positive mental attitude
6. Sees no barriers so easily overcomes ‘barriers’
7. Demonstrates comfortable confidence

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Recruiting for Key Sales Performance Accountabilities
Each Key Sales Performance Accountability has behaviors that you can use to recruit, interview and hire “star sales performers”. The
following are key areas to observe during resume-screening, pre-screening, and face-to-face interviews.

Recruiter or Sales Manager Resume Review and Phone Pre-Screening Interview

Strategic Account Leadership and Fire in the Belly Accountabilities
1. Has professional presence, polish, and demeanor to enter the C-suite
• Was the resume clear, easy to read, professional in appearance, no grammatical or typographical errors and conveyed solid
information?
• Did the candidate speak with confidence? Why did you think so?
• Did the candidate ask appropriate questions? Give examples.
• Did the candidate use correct grammar?
• Did the candidate give answers that appeared logical? Give examples.
• Did the candidate have sound answers to difficult questions? Give examples.
• When you asked the candidate to review his/her resume, did the candidate move logically through the resume, highlight the top
points, and convey their successes?

2. Has ability to build relationships and influence at the C-suite level

• For the companies that you called on to sell products or services, what were the titles of the persons you called on? What role did
these individuals play in the organization?
• How did you gain access to these individuals?
• Were the key decision-makers and the person you called on regularly the same person or different people? If different, how did
your regular contact enable you to access the key decision-maker?
• How did you discover who the key decision-maker was?
• Of which industry boards are you a member ?
• Have you ever presented at an industry meeting, been published or been quoted as an industry expert? If so, give details and
approximate dates?

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 • What do you think are the top things to know about the people you call on?
• What environments (ex. golf, fishing, sporting events, dining) do you think are the most helpful for creating rapport with clients?
• What types of things have you found most effective for building and maintain rapport with key contacts at your clients?

3. Has ability within 10 minutes or less to connect personally, demonstrate knowledge of prospect’s business and
communicate our value proposition
• What have you found to be the key pieces of data you needed to know about a client or prospect to get his/her attention to your
proposition?
• Have you worked with Purchasing Departments? If so, what did you find were keys to getting their interest?”
• What were the key points of value that “X company ‘s products” that you sold? How did you determine those were key?
• Have you had to present a financial case for your product? If so, how did you do that?
• How did you know if your sales were profitable?

4. Is persistent and resilient

• What was the most painful sales experience you had and why? What did you do about it? What were the results?
• What was the most satisfying sales experience you had and why? What made it successful? What were the results?

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Sales Manager and Business Leader Face-to-Face Interview
Strategic Account Leadership Accountability
1. Builds trust, respect, and rapport through information exchange and mutual problem solving
• How did you learn to build trust with your clients? What ways were most effective and why?
• How often do your clients call you asking for information or willingly sharing key information? Why do you think they share
information with you?
• How frequently did you call clients? What purpose did you use during those calls? (Look to see if they shared information as well
as asked questions?
• Did you ever have an occasion when your client was surprised or caught off guard by something your company did? If so, what
happened?
• What did you do? What was the outcome?
• How do you prepare for a presentation with a client? What are the various things you do and why do you do them?
• In the companies that you’ve worked for, what kind of things did you do to pre-sell your company or product?
• Have you had meetings with or given presentations to CEO’s or Executive VPs? If so, how did you gain access to these levels in
the organization?

2. Creates a strong network within industry and potential clients in the sphere of influence of the CEO/key decision-
maker
• How do you find out how to approach your client and what to present?
• For “X” client on your resume, what types of client information do you obtain and why? How did you obtain this information?
• What impact did having that information have on the sale?
• Give me an example of a time, when you lost a sale because you missed a key piece of data on the client? What happened?
What did you do? What was the outcome?
• When you were at “X” company, how did you gather information on your competitors? How did you find competitive information
helpful? Did you ever lose a deal because of lack of competitive information? If so, what happened and what did you do about it?
• What experience do you have in working with client business models? How do you use knowledge of their business model? Give
an example in a specific company?

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 • During client presentations, there are often questions that come up from the client that haven’t been addressed in the
presentation. How do you handle these situations? Give an example of an actual client presentation. (Manager: you’re looking
to see if they think through multiple scenarios and potential outcomes for their business proposition before they present to the
client.)

3. Has ability within 10 minutes or less to connect personally, demonstrate knowledge of prospect’s business and
communicate our value proposition
• Take me through a typical client presentation. One you’ve actually done. What do you do first when you walk into the room and
why?
• What do you do next and why, etc.?

4. Closes profitable business

• How do you know when to ask for the business?
• What are some ways you’ve found most successful in asking for the business? Give specific examples. Why do you think those
methods work?
• How often is your sale complete after the first presentation to the business? If not often, why not? What else needs to be done?
If often, why? (Manager: you’re looking to see if the sales rep has good follow-up and re-designs the client value proposition or
gets additional questions answered or continues the contact until and after actual service delivery occurs.)
• Which particular accounts have you sold and what were the profits on those sales?
• How did you know when your sale was profitable or not? Give specific examples.

5. Navigates effectively through one’s own organization and utilizes tools, technologies and people to effectively
deliver the client value proposition
• What departments in your former company(s) did you rely on to deliver the product or service to your client?
• How helpful or unhelpful were they? Give specific examples.
• How well did you know the other staff in the departments that helped deliver the product/service to your client? Give examples.
• What did you find were the best ways to research your accounts? List as many as the candidate can give you. Why were these
methods effective?

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 • After the candidate answers question d, ask: Have you ever used Lexis Nexis, the Internet, Salesforce.com and other technology
to do research? Why or why not?
Client Business Expertise Accountability
6. Knows company well enough to know how to create revenue generation stream for the client and ourselves
• In a former company, what ways did you use to understand your product or service, its revenue generation potential and its
risks?
• How often did you seek out new product knowledge at X company? How did you do it and why?

Fire in the Belly Accountability

7. Is self-motivated
• Cold Calls: In previous positions, did you make cold calls? If so, for what purpose? How many would you make in a day? What
were the results? What did you like about making cold calls? What didn’t you like about making cold calls?
• Schedules time effectively: Take me through a typical work week. What do you do each day and why?

8. Has drive and passion

• Appears to enjoy his/her work; gets excited about new opportunities: Does this candidate appear to enjoy sales and the sales
process? What leads you to think that?
• Deliver results: Tell me about a time when you had several obstacles in completing a sale. What did you do and why? What
were the results?
• Believes in our Company: What attracts you to our company? Why did you want to interview here?

9. Inspires themselves and others

• Clients enjoy being around him/her: What was the most difficult client to get in to see? How long did it take? What kinds of
things did you try? How did you accomplish it
• Motivates both client-facing and non-client-facing team members: Why would other personnel in the company want to help you
make the sale? What’s in it for them? Give me an example of a time you had to convince a co-worker to help you on a sale.

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10. Is persistent and resilient
• Stays focused through our long sales cycle: How long was the sales cycle in your prior positions? How did you stay motivated
during the time?
• Doesn’t get discouraged when encounters resistance or change: When you can’t gain the sale with a particular client, what do
you do? Give an example of a real prospect.
• Creates numerous ways to approach client and achieve results: Tell me about your most difficult client. What were all the steps
you went through to get his/her business? How long did it take and what were the results?

11. Maintains a positive mental attitude

• Is upbeat: Does the candidate appear in his words and actions to be positive?
• Is optimistic in nature: What kinds of things get you down? What do you do when you’re down?

12. Sees no barriers so easily overcomes ‘barriers’

• Knows how to re-frame seemingly negative situations so others see the opportunity embedded in the situation: Tell me about a
time when the sales situation looked bleak. What did you do? What were the results?

13. Demonstrates comfortable confidence

• Displays comfort when talking to others, including new people: Did the candidate appear comfortable when talking to
executives? To recruiters? To clerical personnel? To peers?
• Doesn’t try to impress: Did the candidate speak about his or her accomplishments without bragging?
• Doesn’t talk negatively about others or competitors: Did the candidate talk negatively about his former companies or
competitors?
• Gives others confidence that s/he’ll deliver: Did the candidate give one the sense that you could rely on them to deliver what
they promise?

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