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Best Buy for Business

Company: Best Buy For Business, Minneapolis, MN
Entry Submitted By: Employee Continuum
Company Description: Best Buy For Business provides end-to-end business and technology solutions to small and mid-sized businesses. It operates under Best Buy Company Inc., the leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics, home-office products, entertainment software, appliances and related services.
Nomination Category: Best Organization Achievements
Nomination Sub Category: Hiring and Recruiting Program of the Year

Nomination Title: Attracting and Qualifying Top Sales Talent at Best Buy For Business

  • How many people are in your organization's entire sales department?

    300

  • What is your organization's annual sales volume? If this information is confidential, simply enter "Confidential" in this space:

    Confidential

  • Provide a brief biography of the leader(s) of your sales organization (up to 100 words):

    Jay R. Devers is the Director of Outside Sales for Best Buy For Business. He is
    responsible for the development of Best Buy For Business’s outside sales
    channel, the SMB solution offering management teams, and corporate development
    work in the areas of strategic investments and acquisitions. An accomplished
    business development executive with an entrepreneurial background, Devers was
    also co-founder of Lighthouse Communications, Inc., known now as LightEdge
    Solutions, a national provider of high performance broadband voice, data, and IT
    services to over 3,000 small- to mid-sized enterprises. He served as board
    member and programming director for learning events for the Des Moines, Iowa,
    chapter of Young Entrepreneurs Organization, a global non-profit educational
    organization for business owners under age 40.

  • Describe for the judges your achievement in this category (up to 100 words):

    Best Buy for Business (BBFB) grew its national sales team by implementing an
    innovative and interactive method to attract and assess new sales talent outside
    of its current retail operation. Their approach included developing and
    delivering a compelling job brand video delivered via the Web that described and
    highlighted the career opportunities at BBFB. After attracting sales candidates
    through this method, BBFB used an online interactive tool to evaluate
    and assess its sales candidates, including the use of video simulations
    putting candidates in real-life sales scenarios. The result was a comprehensive
    approach that delivered a clearly defined employment value proposition at the
    position level and an effective, scientific and measurable way to evaluate the
    top qualities and abilities of potential sales candidates. With this solution
    BBFB can clearly identify top sales candidates based on its new evaluation
    system and clearly differentiate B-2-B sales opportunities from its retail
    operations.

  • Briefly describe the 3 keys to the success of your initiative (up to 100 words):

    Keys to success 

    1. A clearly defined sales opportunity that is distinctly different from
    retail positions in the enterprise and one that will attract top-level sales reps.

    2. An innovative method to utilize job branding and marketing while candidates
    are being assessed. This built a strong positive relationship between candidates
    and BBFB during the recruitment and pre-hire process.

    3. A scientifically valid and measurable method for increasing both candidate
    flow and quality of its sales candidates to achieve sale growth and objectives
    that is scaleable across the BBFB enterprise.

  • List the 3 most important lessons your organization learned during this process (up to 100 word):

    1. Selection can be used to land the brand and the identity of the role, in a
    very positive way.

    2. It's OK to chart new courses when seeking specialized skills in a diverse
    organization.

    3.We can't work hard enough at improving our selection process.