Most sales training books are same old crap, different day. Sad but true.

But every so often there is something that puts a whole new spin on what works and what doesn’t.

Just recently the book Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff was recommended to me by my business coach who I meet with weekly. (Yes even I need a coach.) I thought this was going to be a waste of time. (And made a mental note to check our contract to make sure I could cancel the coaching with no penalty.)

But I’ve learned in the years I’ve been in business that it doesn’t hurt to look. So I downloaded the book, stuck it on my phone and went about my business.

That afternoon as I was sitting in the waiting room to see the Orthopedist (and hoping he’d agree to take off this damned cast so that I could go for a run) I started reading Pitch Anything.

Holy crap, this guy is the real thing. Totally new perspective on what happens in a sale – and how in today’s Twitter environment you’d better get to the point quickly and make that point dramatically.

If you read no other business book this month, pick up a copy of Pitch Anything.

In today’s Twitter brained world, people need a good kick in the head. If not, they don’t pay you the slightest bit of attention.

If you’re hiring for salespeople you’ve got a triple challenge:

1. Great salespeople are rare. Mediocrity abounds in sales departments — you need to attract the best talent.
2. Help Wanted for Sales is the most popular job posting out there.
3. Salespeople are likely to have ADHD. (It might have come from being in sales or from birth, but in my experience it’s a fact.)

“The Headline is the Ad for the Ad.”

The great Jay Abraham taught me “The Headline is the Ad for the Ad.” Great copywriters spend 75% of their time writing the headline. After writing a great headline the ad writes itself.

Worry not, though. The greatest headlines have already been written. Here are some great resources for great headlines you can rewrite to suit your Help Wanted Ad:

• 106 All Time Great Advertising Headlines
• 100 Headlines From Victor Schwab

And after you’re done “adapting” your version, go here:Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer. Plug in your ad to see if it’s powerful and emotional.

Business is tougher than ever. More competition is coming every day.

It requires a special type to succeed in sales in today’s environment.

If your sales team isn’t made up of smart, innovative, outside-the-box types, you’re living on borrowed time.

So how do you start to pick these smart people?

Picking your best applicants from resumes or LinkedIn profiles has never worked in the past and for sure it doesn’t work now.

Matching experience to your job is an illusion that has caused more dud sales hires than any other fantasy.

A smart sales manager knows that more than half of top performers have zero industry experience…

So why do most sales managers continue to search for applicants with “previous industry sales experience?” Beats the hell out of me – most likely it’s because they’ve never bothered to track their sales hiring results.

If you want to stop hiring sales duds and get some real insight into how you should be hiring or if you’re even ready to hire salespeople, take our 60 Sec Survey to get your sales hiring scorecard. Take the Survey and get your scorecard.