There’s a total piece of nonsense floating around that somehow, we no longer want money-motivated salespeople. Nothing is more ridiculous than this statement, but we have heard it batted around like it is gospel.

Here’s the truth: Yes, it’s true that millennials are very cause-oriented and they need to feel as if they are a part of the bigger picture. If you’re looking to hire designers, programmers or customer service representatives from millennials, you better help them see the job from the bigger perspective of how it serves society.

Nonetheless, salespeople who are primarily focused on bettering society will be mediocre performers. Everyone who buys from them (and there won’t be many who do) will love them. But it will take two of them (and double the draw, the expenses, the taxes) to get the production of one money-motivated seller.

You see, sales is tough work. There’s a ton of drudgery in sales and you’ve got to keep on even when things aren’t closing the way you expect them to. That’s just sales. You need to toughen up to get results.

If your salespeople are money-motivated, they have set an earning goal to make them feel fulfilled. Until they hit that goal, they’re going to keep dialing or knocking on doors – or however your sales process works.

They don’t give up easily unlike someone who could no longer find meaning in what he/she is doing. Saving the world is not in a salesperson’s agenda. Salespeople belong to the highly practical group – they mean business, always.

Salespeople who are not money-motivated sell less. We’ve been proving it to our more than 2000 clients for nearly 16 years. And on the surface, it may look like things have changed especially with the culture of millenials in the picture but fortunately; we can sleep easy thinking that some things remain the same. Money-motivated salespeople are, and will always be, wanted.

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.

Ignoring the decision to replace that mediocre sales rep is costing more than you think. With so many below target salespeople hanging on, maybe its time to analyze what the cost is.

Let us assume an intermediate salesperson with a quota of $1,000,000 and a draw of $60,000.  Let’s further assume that they’re at 50% of target — which might be optimistic.

A lot of managers put wasted leads or lost customers at the bottom of the list. That’s a mistake. With competition growing from every corner, good leads are expensive. Assume losing two customers or deals at $120,000 to the company.

And the rep missed out on $500,000 in quota that the right hire would have made. Assume a 66% gross margin or $300,000 missing from your bottom line.

Training — $10,000.

Overhead — supplies, infrastructure, admin — $18,000.

Benefits — $12,000

Severence — one month + HR/Legal — $10.000

Base comp — 12 months $60,000

Hiring — in-house or outside help time, costs — $20,000

Lost: $550,000

And then of course, managers always spend more time trying to train a failing rep.

The AAPS Profiler Sequence avoids all these costs — and saves you time. All for less than half a month’s draw. And we guarantee it or it doesn’t cost you a nickel.