Once you have identified qualified applicants, the next step is to select the best person. This is becoming more difficult as products become more complex, customers become more sophisticated, and competitors become more aggressive. Selecting the best-qualified applicant is never easy, but there are some qualifications and characteristics that all sales managers should look for. Along with general mental ability, one of the most important qualities is a high level of interest and enthusiasm for the job and high degree of self-motivation.20 Salespeople have to be self-starters.

Another very important quality is integrity. Dana Telford and Adrian Gostick, authors of Integrity Works, say that managers spend about 90 percent of their time on capability-related questions and almost no time on character-based questions. They suggest checking backgrounds and interviewing for character by asking ethics-based questions. Here are a few examples:21

• “What are your three core values?”

• “What does integrity mean to you?”

• “Who are your role models and why?”

• “What would your past manager say about you?”

• “Tell me about a time when you were asked to compromise your integrity.”

Bruce Diamond, vice president of sales for a large office equipment company, says, “Our salespeople now need to be much more professional, much more educated about the market, customers, products, and business in general.”22 His strategy for finding good salespeople includes discussions of business trends and developments. During the interview, he poses business situations and asks the candidate to come up with solutions. Diamond says he is impressed when a candidate displays an understanding of profitable revenues and finding the right customers to do business with.