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.

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.