Employ for Attitude. Train for Skills.

Arguably, the biggest challenge we face as employers is finding good people to work for us.

I was talking with a client recently, and they mentioned they were in the process of employing an installer to join their sales team. I can recall we employed ex-installers on our retail sales team. Some were very successful and went on to have a long career as flooring salespeople, some going on to very senior positions in the industry (I’m thinking of you Mal). On other occasions, the exercise was less successful; they were unable to make the transition from installer to salesperson.

The point of this article is not to debate the merits of employing installers as salespeople but to briefly discuss what we are looking for in a new salesperson.

If we are looking for people with flooring experience, we are fishing in a very small pool. Of course, the reason we are inclined to look first for flooring experience is we want to avoid or minimise the time it takes new salespeople to start hitting their numbers.

By the time I had finished my career as a flooring retailer, I had become convinced the prime quality to look for in a new salesperson was not flooring experience but attitude. We can’t teach attitude; if our hiring decision is based primarily on attitude, we can train the rest, relatively quickly.

Except for measuring and quantifying.

Even with the best attitude, some people lack the skills to draw a plan and quantify product from that plan (and now I’m thinking of me). This is a major impediment to becoming a successful salesperson.

Electronic quantifying was a thing when I was in retail, but it was not as advanced as it is now, it was eye-wateringly expensive, not easy to use, and it certainly wasn’t mobile. EQ solutions such as Measure by RFMS have developed to the point today where there is nothing done on paper that can’t be done in the software. EQ is easy to use, and the cost of the software is now a fraction of what it was; over a 48 week year, Measure Mobile works out at less than $2.00 a day. And it’s mobile; your salespeople can work with customers on the sales floor and in the home, providing them with quick and accurate quotes.

There is no reason to employ people solely for their flooring experience. If our new employee has the right attitude, we have tools now to make them flooring experts.

If you would like to see how Measure Mobile can help your salespeople be more effective, contact me at cogden@rfms.com. I will be happy to arrange a demo.