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.

LinkedIn Sucks these days — and why you still need it.

We all feel frustrated going to LinkedIn and seeing our inbox filled with offers. 90% of them are off-target.

Most senders don’t know squat about Sales 101 when they contact us.

Some say Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn turned it spammy.

(They did pay $26 billion for it. Kind of gives you a hint they want it to be Facebook for Business.)

Regardless of all the LinkedIn spam, we tell clients to stay in LinkedIn. There is still tremendous value in building a LinkedIn profile.

In fact, if you’re looking to hire salespeople, your managers MUST have good profiles.

Think about it for a second.  You’re written a great ad. It talks directly to the right kind of people — those who’d rather sell than breathe. It excites their interest.

You’re got it running in all the right places.

Tons are applying.

And that one sales animal sees it who will find all the hidden business you know is out there.

How will they find out about you and your business to check you out?

Where do they look? That’s right, LinkedIn.

So if you’re vaguely entertaining the idea of deleting your LinkedIn profile, think again.

Tolerate the spam. Work on building your profile.

Make your profile say one thing: “I know how rare and valuable great sales talent is. Come work with me and we will both make a lot of money.”

DISCLAIMER: LinkedIn is a registered trademark. Advanced Hiring System is not affiliated with LinkedIn, nor should it be implied that we are in any way associated with them

Finding the Most Qualified Sales Applicants With or Without Industry Experience

Can’t get really good sales applicants to apply? Maybe you’re stuck in the great myth that plagues sales managers all over the world:

Applicants need previous industry sales experience.

People Used to Believe the Earth Was Flat

Let’s examine this belief:  Is your top earning rep currently looking to leave?

Ridiculous, right?  If you’re doing a good job as a sales manager, the answer better be a resounding “NO!”  Your top reps should be making way too much to consider leaving.

Top reps have an established base of business and referrals, so they’re happy.  And since life is good for them, they’re not going anywhere.

Any competitor stupid enough to try to recruit them away is going to have to pay a ton.

The myth of successfully hiring a seasoned rep is, well — a myth.

Revolving Door Mediocrity

So what really happens when you recruit for previous industry sales experience?

You’ve seen it firsthand, over and over and over. You get weak salespeople. You get the slugs from your competitor’s team, the people who are not making it.

They’re not bad people. They’re just not cut out for sales. They always think the problem is not them. They figure THE COMPANY is the problem. At THEIR company, all the good accounts have been taken by the top salespeople. They want to work for YOUR company so some of that juiciest fruit will fall to them.

What they don’t realize is, top salespeople go get business. They don’t wait for it to appear on their account list. Mediocre salespeople wait to be told what to do and where to go get it.

And if you hire one of these previous industry sales experience second stringers, you’ll get to be their Daddy or their Mommy.

Full of Piss and Vinegar

Think back to when you were a young first-time salesperson. If you were like me, you were a 23 year old who was looking to make their mark — and you came in early and left late.

My rule was “be in before the boss and leave after he does.”

Being a young, inexperienced rep means you’re coachable. Young people are often two or three years out of school. They’re used to being a student and paying attention to what the instructor says.  They want to make their mark.

Not all young applicants should be considered. We’ve developed a strategy for figuring out which ones to interview and which ones never to call back. Click here and watch the video we’ve prepared that shows you the best way to hire salespeople.

Start Hiring Great Salespeople
Watch Videos To See How You Can Start Now