For nearly twenty years, I’ve been involved with hiring sales people. I had an interesting chat the other day with a well know and respected sales trainer. I was a bit surprised when he indicated that most of the sales coaches, sales trainers, and sales consultants typically focused on improving the quality and performance of an organizations existing sales team. Makes sense. What if the existing sales team has very few if any people who will ever be able to be top performers. There are certainly people who just aren’t cut out for sales on many sales teams around the world.

He really didn’t have an answer for my question. In all fairness, sales trainers or sales coaches are usually put in the position of working with the people their clients have on board. But it seems to me that it would benefit not only the sales organization to have better quality sellers but also would enhance a trainers ability to deliver good results to their clients. He’d be working with better “raw materials.” Consequently, our discussion moved to how his clients recruit sellers. And this revealed another issue for sales management.

Most sales managers do not have a systematic process to recruit good sales reps. The typical method of resume review to figure out who to call is usually a huge waste of time and results in poor results from the the new hires.

It is essential for those charged with sales recruitment for their organizations use a process consistently to get better results.

The slow but sure reopening of the economy is not only a relief, but is also an opportunity. You must reposition your business to meet customer’s needs in the business “new normal.” In order to capitalize on the opportunity, you must have a sales organization populated with real sales studs who can adapt to a very new sales reality. The talent pool of great sellers looking for their next opportunity has never been higher. Consequently, it’s a good time to make sure your sales hiring strategy includes some key elements used by the best sales recruiters.

1. First, you must have a solid compensation strategy to attract and keep top sales talent on your team. Real sellers want to know that they will be well paid for performance. They’ll have a goal to be at the top of your sales stack quickly. Any good outside sales recruiter should be ask about and guide you on compensation strategy before any recruitment ads are placed.
2. You need to have a recruitment ad that will attract the right type of person. Real sellers want to know specifically what the position you have will offer in income potential. Use specifics on current top earners’ income.
3. Use profiling to “check under the hood” of your applicants. There are personality profiles which are both scientifically measurable and associated with top sales performers. Resumes and previous sales experience are not going to reveal the truth about a candidate. Therefore, combining profiling with the next essential step become critical.
4. Finally, you must have a good interview strategy. It will put your in a position of being able to make decisions based on a process. Never, ever hire by “gut feel.” It is the most common error made in the sales recruitment process.

Making sure you’ve got these 4 essentials wrapped up before you start sales recruiting will increase your success rate.