The Second Step in Hiring Is to Verify Candidates’ Stories About Closing IT Sales Leads!
In the world of sales, the ultimate success is closing the IT sales lead. Though there are plenty of salespeople out there who are adept at building trust, making people like them, and increasing your company’s image, true closers are what every business needs to succeed. Do you know why you need closers on your team? Do you know how to find the best closers out there and verify they actually have experience closing the sale? Here are some tips to help you out!
Why You Need to Hire Closers
Every sale your company experiences is the result of someone closing an IT sales lead. While some may do this almost as an afterthought that results from a strong relationship, the best salespeople always have closing on their mind. Closers are the ones who can turn a prospect into a client quickly and efficiently. They’re the ones who can find those who need your services, ask them open-ended questions to identify their pain points, and quickly resolve their issues by selling your services. Closers are bold and confident, yet they’re also smart about human nature and how to strengthen client relations while still making the deal. While the closing method will differ depending on the salesperson, a true closer will have a tried and true process that they’ve honed through years of experience and hundreds of meetings. If you want sales to come rolling in, hiring a closer is the way to go.
How to Find Potential Closers
It’s important to find a way to identify potential closers early in the hiring process. While asking for resumes can at least give you an overview of the candidates, it may not give you any insight into their closing history. Try pairing a call for resumes with an open-ended question about their method for closing a sale. See how much detail they go into and whether it appears they have enough experience to make it to the next level of consideration. This will help you gather the right group of candidates to bring in for the personal interview.
How to Verify Their Closing History
Any salesperson can tell you they’re a good closer. They can embellish on their applications and even tell you to your face that they have an excellent closing history. However, when you ask them to tell some stories about recent sales they’ve closed, the truth will come out. The best salespeople will have a tough time choosing which story to tell and may bore you to death with story after story of successful meetings. These are the closers you want on your team.
The best technology salespeople will always be the ones who can quickly and efficiently close an IT sales lead. No matter how much you may like a potential salesperson or how good they are at building relationships, you need closers to really take your business to the next level. Verify the closers by asking for specific stories of their past closed sales. The right candidate will have plenty of anecdotes to share!
About our Contributor
Jennifer Holmes is President of MIS Solutions and a Georgia native who, after graduating from Georgia Tech, became an accomplished research virologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. In 2000, Jennifer hung up her lab coat to join husband Lliam at MIS Solutions as President.
In the past 16 years, she has led the MIS Solutions team to become the leaders in Metro Atlanta IT Support. MIS Solutions, Inc. is on a mission to provide managed IT services to Atlanta businesses to help them grow and support their businesses. MIS Solutions provides a wide range of IT services to Atlanta-based businesses and, combined with Jennifer’s passion for sharing effective business strategies with her clients, they are able to deliver the best IT support solutions for each client’s unique environment in Atlanta.
In 2013, Jennifer’s leadership and marketing skills won her the title of Spokesperson for the nationally acclaimed Technology Marketing Toolkit, an industry group of over 550 top U.S. She is a graduate of the Leadership Gwinnett program and has acted on the boards of the National Association of Women Business Owners’ Atlanta chapter, Gwinnett Great Days of Service, the Buford/North Gwinnett Rotary Club and the Gwinnett Chamber’s Technology Board.
