FEATURE
PAPER
Selection
of Sales Personnel: Love at First Sight
The
following paper was presented at the 2007 Allied Academies
International Conference - Jacksonville. It was written
by Charles R. Emery and Kevin S. Handell of Erskine College.
Abstract
Today’s sales businesses are facing a new
type of hiring crisis – a crisis of hiring the right
person for the job and the organization. Hiring the right salesperson,
however, might be as simple
and economical as trusting our adaptive unconscious or thin-slicing.
Previous research has
indicated that strangers can often predict personality characteristics
from mere glimpses of targets.
If one can accurately predict personality characteristics from
thin-slices, then perhaps one can
accurately predict the success or failure of job performance
(e.g., sales). This study examines that
proposition using car sales personnel. The findings indicate
that judges are better at selecting the“
worst” salesperson and that the ability to correctly
determine the “best” and “worst” salesperson
is positively correlated with age (older) and gender (female).
Lastly, there was no significant
evidence that training improved a person’s ability to
correctly identify the “best” and “worst” salesperson.
Introduction
Today’s businesses are facing a new type
of hiring crisis – a crisis of hiring the right person
for the job and the organization. The first year cost of a
bad hire typically runs 2.5 times the
person’s salary, not counting the intangible costs and
damage to organizational productivity and
morale (Kruger, 2004). In Collin’s (2001) best selling
book, Good to Great, he suggests that the
single most important thing that makes a company great is to “get
the right people on the bus.” Similarly, Thomas Wolfe’s
book The Right Stuff (1979) suggested that the selection process
is
crucial to job performance and as such, should be a sophisticated
evaluation of many factors. As
such, organizations have been developing long, detailed, and
often expensive, selection techniques.
This thought process fits well with our culture that is innately
suspicious of rapid cognition or quick
judgments. Malcolm Gladwell (2005) notes in his best selling
book Blink, that: “Our culture
suggests haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and
think, and don’t judge a book by its
cover. In short, we believe that we are always better off gathering
as much information as possible
and spending as much time as possible in deliberation.”
Hiring
the right salesperson, however, might be as simple and economical
as trusting our
adaptive unconscious—using a paradigm of love at first
sight. For example, Timothy D. Wilson
(2002) writes in his book Strangers to Ourselves: “The
mind operates most efficiently by relegating
a good deal of high-level, sophisticated thinking to the
unconscious. Similarly, Ambady and
Rosenthal (1992) indicate that people are unexpectedly accurate
in forming impressions of others
from mere glimpses or thin slices of expressive behavior.
Their study of teacher effectiveness demonstrated that students,
unfamiliar with the teacher, had no trouble in accurately predicting
teaching performance based on three, silent, five second
videos (1993). These provocative findings
suggest several applications in the area of personnel selection;
particularly in the hiring of sales
personnel.
The
purpose of this study is four-fold: (1) determine whether
strangers can accurately predict
the performance of sales personnel from thin slices of selling
behaviors, (2) determine whether some
people are consistently better predictors than others, (3)
determine those non-verbal cues used for
accurately predicting sales performance, and (4) determine
whether people can be trained to
accurately predict sales performance.
Read
the Entire Paper...
TIP
OF THE WEEK
Learn
from Venture Capitalists
Venture
capitalists have made their entire livelihoods on picking
good managers and leaders. That, in fact, is really
their entire job, and they will tell you that. If they get
it right, they make money. If they fail, they will likely lose
money. In real estate, it's location, location, location. In
creating successful businesses, it's management, management,
management. Some of these venture capitalists develop quirky
habits and superstitions, to be sure. There is a successful
Silicon Valley investor who simply will not back a CEO whose
last name is a name of a vegetable. He probably has backed
too many losing ventures run by guys named "Carrot," "Broccoli," or "Bean." Others
won't back managers who wear pinky rings or whose suit shines
like an Elvis outfit (presumably having learned the hard way
that the are "nothing but hound dogs").
But the quirks aside, there is much we can learn from the rules used
by VCs. Some of these may appear to be common sense, but it is surprising
how often such good sense goes out the window. They may seem so obvious
that we over-looked their Zen-like simplicity. But read them carefully
and apply them in your thinking about your own hires. They have been tested
over many years by the real pros.
• Back a Winner.
Most venture capitalists will not back a manager unless they have had
a proven, identifiable success in the industry being
proposed. This means reviewing the manager's track record
carefully. Did revenue and profit grow on the manager's last watch?
Did shareholders
make money? Many investors require two past successes,
which helps rule out dumb luck. A fancy resume showing Ivy League schools
is never enough.
Venture capitalists want executives to "show them the money." What
have they ever done? Where are the results? Just the facts,
ma'am. If they are not there, it's a pass. No further questions needed.
• Proven P&L
Experience. No venture capitalists will back managers
unless they have proven profit and loss experience. The manager must have
controlled revenue and costs, and the buck must have stopped on his desk.
Professional VCs do not hire marketing managers, regardless of their success
as marketers, to run their companies. Being a CEO is hard, and it's not
worth the risk. We need no test drives.
• Relevant Industry Experience. It sounds quite obvious, but it
has been a consistent surprise to me that companies are wiling to hire
a CEO without relevant industry experience. The strong success of Lou
Gerstner as CEO of IBM, arriving with no computer industry experience,
is a rarity. (Remember that John Sculley tried to make a similar leap
when moving from Pepsi to Apple, with somewhat less spectacular results.)
Each industry has special characteristics that take years to understand
and internalize. The retail world is so very different from manufacturing,
which is so very different from media.
Rick
Rickertsen and Robert Gunther. Sell Your Business
Your Way.
2006. AMACOM. pg. 61-62.
|
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Request for
Papers & Reviewer Volunteers
The
Small Business Institue is now requesting papers and paper
review volunteers for the Small Business Institute Journal.
If you are interested in submitting a paper or becoming a
volunteer, please let us know. The first issue
is to be printed April 2008. For more information please click
here or email us at sbij@uca.edu.
Visiting
Assistant/Associate/Full Professor
Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute (SEI)
E.J. Ourso College of Business
The Louisiana State University Stephenson Entrepreneurship
Institute (SEI) seeks applications for a Visiting Assistant,
Associate, or Full Professor in disciplines related to entrepreneurship
research and
executive education beginning in Fall, 2008. This is
a non-tenure track position for a one year appointment renewable
for up to four years.
Required
Qualifications: Ph.D. or equivalent degree.
Additional
Qualifications Desired: Highly productive scholar;
grant writer/recipient or proven revenue generating
ability in executive/professional education programs
in chosen areas of expertise.
Responsibilities: Teaches
an entrepreneurship course; finds funding for conducting
research; provides instruction
in executive education programs. The SEI mission is to inspire, innovate, integrate and implement new ways
of thinking, education, research and outreach to positively impact students,
the regional economy, the state of Louisiana and the nation. The Stephenson
Entrepreneurship Institute is a multi-disciplinary, university-wide Institute
to promote innovative approaches to solving problems through an entrepreneurial
view of opportunity recognition and realization.
The Stephenson Entrepreneurship
Institute and the College of Business Administration at LSU
provide an outstanding collegial atmosphere with
high flexibility in assignments based on the applicant’s ability
to obtain external funding sources and assist the SEI in its
mission to generate external revenue to make it a self funded,
self sustaining Institute.
The College of Business offers a concentration in Entrepreneurship
in the Management department, a minor in Entrepreneurship open
to anyone, an M.B.A.
specialization, and the SEI is supporting Ph.D. programs of
study relating to Entrepreneurship in any of the College of
Business academic departments.
The SEI maintains strong ties with the business and public
sectors of the region. In addition, Baton Rouge and nearby
New Orleans provide numerous
cultural and recreational amenities that enhance the quality
of life.
An offer of employment is contingent upon a satisfactory pre-employment
background check. Applications received prior to October 15, 2007 are assured
of full consideration. Applications will be accepted until the position
is filled. Send curriculum vitae (including e-mail address), names , phone
numbers, and email addresses of three references, copies of articles, and
other relevant materials to:
Dr. K. Mark Weaver
Thomas H. Daigre Professor of Business Administration
Director of the Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute
3307 CEBA Building
Louisiana State University
Ref: Log# 0974
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-6312
E-mail: mweaver@lsu.edu
LSU Is An Equal Opportunity/Equal Access Employer
|
CONFERENCES
SBDC
|
| Who: |
Center for Urban
Business/SBDC
|
| What: |
Profit
Mastery Workshop
|
| Where: |
Levine Hillel Center at
Chicago, IL |
| When: |
June 7, 2007
|
|
|
|
USM
|
| Who: |
University
of Southern Maine Institute for Family-Owned
Business
|
| What: |
Governance for Families in Business
|
| Where: |
Freeport, Maine, USA |
| When: |
June 19-22, 2007 |
|
|
|
ICSB
|
| Who: |
International
Council for Small Business
|
| What: |
World
Conference
|
| Where: |
Turku,
Finland |
| When: |
June
13-15, 2007 |
|
|
|
ASBE
|
| Who: |
Association
for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
|
| What: |
2007 Conference
|
| Where: |
Austin, Texas, USA |
| When: |
October
10-12, 2007 |
|
|
|
AGB
|
| Who: |
Association for Global Business
|
| What: |
Nineteenth
International Conference
|
| Where: |
Marriott Key Bridge, Washington D.C.,
USA |
| When: |
November 15 - 18, 2007 |
|
|
|
CALLS FOR PAPERS
ISBE
|
| Who: |
Institute
for Small Business and Entrepreneurship |
| What: |
30th
Annual ISBE Conference
|
| Where: |
Heriot-Watt University, Glasgow, Scotland |
| When: |
November
7-9, 2007 |
Submission
Deadline:
June 30, 2007
|
|
|
|
AEBAI
|
| Who: |
Applied
Business and Entrepreneurship Association International
|
| What: |
4th
Annual Meeting
|
| Where: |
Marriott Wailea Beach Resort, Maui,
Hawaii |
| When: |
November 16-20, 2007 |
Submission
Deadline:
August 15, 2007
|
|
|
|
USASBE
|
| Who: |
United
States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship
|
| What: |
USASBE
2008 Annual Conference
|
| Where: |
The
Westin La Cantera Resort - San Antonio, Texas |
| When: |
January
10-13, 2008 |
Submission
Deadline:
August 15, 2007
|
|
|
|
SBI
|
| Who: |
Small
Business Institute
|
| What: |
2008 SBI Conference
|
| Where: |
Handlery
Hotel – San Diego, CA |
| When: |
Feb.
14-16, 2008 |
Submission
Deadline:
October 1, 2007
|
|
|
|
|
