HOW TO HIRE A GOOD CHINESE SALES REP, LEONARDO GON REPORTING FROM ASIA

26/07/2013

Here are some tips if you want to hire a sales rep in China or you would like to become more effective at managing an existing one:

1) Health: travelling in china is not that easy, you can easily spend 5 hours with different transports means such as plane, train and taxi, then few hours of meeting and move to an hotel for the night. Next day is another trip! Your salesperson needs to be used to this kind of life or needs to be strong enough to survive it. 

2) Reliability: most of the sales rep are easy to recruit, means also that they are easy to go. Check up on their reliability and their tendency to stick with a company. 

3) Past experience: the fact of really checking and verifying past work experience will provide you with a good view on what you can expect working with him/her. 

4) Salary package: be really clear about the bonuses and how they will be managed, try to get a long term commitment from the person you are hiring. 

5) Follow up: at the beginning of the collaboration do a daily personal follow up, and then adjust the timing accordingly. 

6) Pleaser or fighter?: you have to choose which one you need, “pleaser” is the one who is good at developing new relationships and maintaining them but usually doesn't "ask for the order". A “fighter” is better at negotiating and closing but would generally need to have leads from the company and be guided on some details of the sale. 

7) Reporting: ask from your sales rep a weekly report describing the customers he visited, what he/she did, next steps, and program for next week. 

8) KPI: keep an open statistic to understand where he/she is going and how to help. 

9) Women: never underestimate the capabilities of chinese women. Often they are really top choice for a sales position. 

China is full of really good salespeople. By following the above tips and using some effective testing tools to understand personality, you can avoid some of the costly mistakes I did in the past. 

Greets from Jakarta 

Leonardo Gon