It’s pretty obvious, but few in HR get it. Unless you’re offering a monstrous signing bonus, remove the line “previous sales experience.” It should not appear in your ad.

Yesterday I was talking with a client, Chris, we’ve worked his with Financial Services company for more than 6 years. I called him because his sales applicant volume had doubled. What had he done to cause such an explosion in applicants?

He chucked, “I was finally able to convince the powers that be to try your advice. We finally dropped ‘previous sales experience required.'”

To boot, more stars are applying as a percentage than before the change. (We can see the quality of his applicants in Member Area stats.)

You can find out more here 

Here’s why you should remove “previous sales experience” from your ad:

Ask any experienced sales manager to count his best hires. Most have no previous sales experience. Our stats show less than 10%. Most of the greatest sales hires have a burning desire to make money and are willing to do what it takes. You are 9x more likely to find a star without previous experience.

Top performers in sales are making money and getting all the good leads where they are. Unless their current company is a disaster, good salespeople are on track to make more if they stay put. Good comp plans reward longevity.

Great training exists for newbies if you’re not up for the job of training. If you need a list of the real trainers, contact me and I’ll give you my list. We’ve been working with sales trainers for 16 years. Most are a waste of time. The good ones are worth getting to know.

We’ve got a checklist you can use to improve your sales hiring results here

There’s talk in the sales industry that the “old” type of salesperson — money-motivated and highly persuasive, is no longer needed. Instead according to some self-appointed new thinkers, the new era calls for a kinder and gentler type of  salesperson.

Having enough grey in my hair to have lived through a few “paradigm shifts,” most have turned out to be temporary hiccups.

From the trenches of sales hiring, there have, in fact, been three major changes in the market since the Stock Market Crash of 2007-8:

1.  Today the market, overall, is much slower to make a decision. Prior to the Crash there was a greater sense of confidence. Today seven years later, decisions happen much more slowly. People continue to be cautious in the “recovery.”
2.  In this same period, the amount of information available to the prospect has increased exponentially. Where salespeople used to be the primary sources of information, today prospects do their own research on Google, LinkedIn and specialized websites.
3. The competitive environment due to the Internet has markedly increased. Everything can be sourced cheaper from overseas. Goods and labor are up for bid.

The net effect of this shift means salespeople must allow more time and lower any sense of pressure.

Are Money-motivated Persuader salespeople incapable of this type of selling? Hardly. It would be a huge mistake to think characteristics like strong money and power values, together with Drive, Influencing and willingness to circumvent rules are no longer the most desirable personality characteristics of salespeople.

In fact, these salespeople continue to be the top performers in virtually every one of our client’s teams.

Money-motivated Persuaders continue to excel at this work.

In the sales hiring process, the biggest challenge is managing your time investment. Anybody who has experienced sitting in an interview with a candidate who’s a total dud knows what that feels like.

The challenge is figuring out who you want to speak with and who to ignore from your applicants.

Top performers have similar beliefs and values.

We know this from having profiled nearly 200,000 applicants. When we’ve gone through and asked clients to profile their top performers, we’ve seen a 90% positive correlation. Not a misprint.

According to Abraham Maslow, the Father of American Psychology, salespeople are high practicals.

Great salespeople don’t wake up, open their eyes and say, “How can I serve humanity?”

Top salespeople wake up, open their eyes and ask themselves, “Where’s the Money” or “Where’s the Power?”

Money and power are two things that motivate genuine salespeople. They breathe a unique air from ordinary people. Every encounter with another human being is considered an opportunity to strike a deal or make a sale.

Power – Top performers are looking for a greater sense of control of their environment. Saving the whales is very low on their list. Yet sales hirers consistently choose salespeople who are not high practicals – and then wonder why their new hires can’t sell anything.

Money – People who are great at sales are always looking for the money. If they can’t find it, they create opportunities where they can get it. Money is a great motivation because it compels salespeople to be resourceful and ingenious in their methods. They don’t listen to a NO answer. All they hear is a YES.

Stop talking to applicants who don’t have money and power as their top values — if there ever was a secret in sales that’s worth revealing, it is this. You want to hire brilliant salespeople? Pay attention to what motivates them and show them the money.