I was on a new client service call last week talking with Harry. Harry is a General Agent for Ohio National.

He said, “They tell us that Millenials don’t want money so that’s why they’re not applying. For three years I’ve tried to reach Millenials. Since we’ve signed up with you guys at Advanced Hiring more than half our applicants are Millenials. I am loving this.”

I love this kind of call because it reinforces something I’ve said for years. Most people don’t believe me when I say it. Millennials in the US and Europe who can sell are just like everybody else.

There’s a bunch of crapola out there that says Millenials don’t care about money.

Guess what?

Neither do most Baby boomers, Gen Xers, Traditionalists or members of the Silent Generation!

That’s just the way it is. And I say Thank God for that! Can you imagine a world in which everybody was money or power motivated? There’d be no nurses, teachers, or soldiers.

But salespeople MUST be money or power motivated. Because if they’re not then they won’t sell much. (You’ve hired enough of them already to know what that’s like.)

How do we do the kind of magic we did for Harry where he went from zero to 60 so fast? Here’s a link to a new tool we’ve developed to help you figure it out for your company.

Please do it today because my CFO wants me to start charging for this service.

Video Rant #9

A Big Reason Why Your Company Struggles
To Hire Salespeople Who Can REALLY Sell

One of my best friends sold for me 20 years ago at Radio Profits Corporation. AMAZING salesperson. Once he gets the prospect in his crosshairs, they may as well just hand over their wallet. The beauty is, they don’t know they’re being sold. Everything Bruce says is just totally logical. No pressure. No emotion. Just comfortable as hell.

People love him. His prospects become his customers and his friends.

So then we sold Radio Profits. Bruce went to work for a company selling environmental testing and construction testing. It’s a BIG market. Companies need a lot of scientific tests to comply with government regulations. For instance, companies have to satisfy a long list of health regulations, to keep things safe for consumers and avoid problems with the government.

So testing is a monster business. Bruce sold for one of the biggest companies that do this testing. One day he showed me that company’s compensation strategy. It was like a maze. Every paragraph had something you couldn’t figure out. It was so convoluted, the company sales team used to joke about it.

Bruce sold more of this testing than anybody else on the East Coast, double or triple the #2 guy. And he’d only been with them a year or two. He was stomping it. BUT he wasn’t the top earner. And THAT was extremely de-motivating to him. Company eventually went broke. They just weren’t very profitable, because the sales team wasn’t being paid very well for the deals they brought in.

It’s not that unusual. A LOT of compensation strategies are not well-engineered. Too complicated. BIG mistake.

A star salesperson who’s considering joining your sales team sees it as a very bad indicator if your compensation plan is hard to understand. A good salesperson looks at that and thinks, “These are smart guys. They could make it easy to understand. But they didn’t. If they make it tough for me to figure out how I’m being paid, then THAT makes it easier for them to screw me.”

That type of compensation plan will NOT result in a strong bottom line for your company.

This is Alan Fendrich. I’d be happy to give you my thoughts on your company sales compensation plan. Give me a call.

We’ve been working with clients to hire top performing salespeople for 16 years.  In truth, from time to time, I feel like I’ve said it all.

And then, I read an article on LinkedIn and realize, once again, why more than 3 out of 4 sales hires fails.

First of all, focus on what you are looking for in an interview. In our System, we profile sales applicants before we meet them.

Because we do this, we know  the values and personality style ahead of time. We know the applicant matches the values and style of most top salespeople.

In the interview you’re looking for the applicant to give examples in their lives  of:
•    Stick-to-ive-ness
•    Follow through
•    Ability to overcome adversity
•    Entrepreneurialism

Second, structured interviews get you high quality answers. Never “wing it” in an interview. Have all your questions planned and prewritten.

Third, ask the same questions, in the same order, of each applicant. By nature we tend to like people we “bond” with. But we’re not looking for a friend here.  We are trying to determine if they applicant is tough enough to do the hard work of selling.

By asking the same questions in the same order,  you are able to compare the applicant’s answers.  This is a key point.

Finally, never ask the following questions that Afa Front in the LinkedIn article suggests. They are too open-ended. You won’t get any information that will help you pick the best applicant.

1. Tell Me About Yourself
This is a horrible question. It gives the applicant to take control of the interview. If you believe that is what selling is about, you’re bound to hire duds.

2. What’s Your Greatest Strength?
Another bad question because you won’t be able to compare the answers you get. One applicant will tell one lie, another applicant will tell another lie.

3. Why Should We Hire You?
What would be a right answer? Exactly there is no way to score this answer. Skip it.

4. Do You Have Any Questions for Us?
Can you imagine a lawyer asking that of a witness in a court room? Bad  question. Only gives up control of the interview.

Delivering a structured, scripted interview for every sales applicant puts you ahead of 3 out of 4 sales hirers – and is one of the keys to successful sales hiring.