How many times has a “not so sharp” job applicant slipped through the ever-popular, air-tight, “I go by my gut” decision-making process? They wreak havoc on your salon business while poisoning the morale of your other more-dedicated employees and, even more damaging, treat your guests with non-caring indifference as you helplessly stand by and watch the “profit and sales” part of the pie chart get smaller and smaller?
Even worse, how many times has a young, gifted employee who can sell anything to anyone while making her customers feel great ended up the reigning TOP SELLER on your competitor’s team because you disqualified her?
[callout]How many times has a young, gifted employee who can sell anything to anyone while making her customers feel great ended up the reigning TOP SELLER on your competitor’s team because you disqualified her?[/callout]Why does this happen to you? Because they didn’t answer one of those dated, useless, vanilla interview questions like “Do you have retail sales experience?” correctly. I remember one applicant answered “No,” to this question,which was not entirely true, because she didn’t think the five years she had spent working alongside her single mom at a deli/gift shop serving food and ringing up guests qualified as retail. The question your competitor asked was, “What where your favorite things to do growing up?” and her reply was, “Working with my mom and the other girls at the deli. We would have contests for selling the most daily specials, and I would usually win! The boss, my mom, the customers and the other servers would make the biggest deal about it and it always made me feel really good about myself.” Wow! Talk about a recipe for success! Sales and team experience, work skills and confidence all gift wrapped for you! Except that you passed her right along … to your competitor down the street.
Do you think the traditional model of finding great team members might be broken? Here are three new hiring concepts to help you hire the super stars, not the burn-outs.
- 100% of people who end up as great employees are not lazy. They have a good work ethic built-in, so one of the best places to find them … is at work! That’s right; they probably already have a job. So you must think outside the box and not just rely on the passive, “run an ad and let them come to you” approach. Here’s a pro tip: always make good relationships with the peeps who take good care of you at the places you frequent. Why? Because they might be much happier working for you. Enticing a hot shot to jump ship and work for you is not illegal.
- Standard interview questions like, “What are you strengths?” “What are weaknesses?” “Do you have retail experience?” “Why do you want to work here?” etc. will get you scripted, practiced responses that tell you nothing about the candidate except they are good at telling you what you want to hear.
- Find a Super Connector: someone who is friends with everyone, not shy, and loves interaction with people. To unmask these Super Connectors, put potential candidates in a higher pressure situation. Hand them a bottle of lotion, explain three features and three benefits and give them two minutes to practice. Then have them pitch it to the next customer who walks in the salon. They may or may not make the sale, but that exercise will tell you far more than the answer to any interview question you may ask. ■
