The latest government job report sounds ominous. Just 74,000 new jobs created in December – missing by a mile the projected 196,000. Ouch. Future job growth (other than registered nurses), will be for jobs at Walmart and the like.

With the lousy jobs report, you’d think that it would be easy to hire sales talent.

Unfortunately hiring for sales talent has become more difficult. Advanced Hiring System clients continue to report a tight job market all across the country for real salespeople.

Regular readers of this blog know that real sales talent is rarer than finding an honest man or woman in Congress.

In fact, our data shows only one in every 33 Americans is what we call a “natural” to become a top performing salesperson.

The rarity of those who have the personality to be good salespeople is why most salespeople hired end up failing. Most sales hiring strategies simply fail to look at personality style, instead looking at previous sales experience as primary criteria.

Traditional sales trainers attempt to take the untalented and teach them to sell – like putting lipstick on a pig we think.

One strategy Advanced Hiring System clients use it to constantly be recruiting in their markets. You don’t need to waste time on sales applicants until you’ve found their profile matches the rare personality qualities that make for a great salesperson.

Bottom line is to always have the “Welcome Mat” out for top sellers who are Money-motivated Persuaders. Finding them takes time, but when you find them they are worth their weight in gold.

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The Advanced Hiring System E-course

In the last session I promised to teach you the one secret to successful hiring.

You absolutely can change your success rate for hiring salespeople with one simple secret. However before I tell you what it is I need to prepare you for it.

It’s not that what I am about to tell is all that difficult in fact, I’ll teach you how to do it in a way that will take virtually none of your time.

Some managers who I have worked with try to skip this step.

Because what I am going to say is something most sales managers don’t do.

Earl Nightingale in “The Greatest Secret” said “Most people just go along doing what everyone else is doing.” He said, “Most people try to fit in and be like everyone else.”

In sales the top salespeople contact more people. While average salespeople make as many sales calls as, well, average salespeople.

Successful salespeople make more calls, they prospect more and they invest more of their time and energy, finding people to sell.

Let’s apply this to sales hiring…
Most sales managers wait until they have an opening in their sales team then they try to find a new sales hire.

And that is the secret… More than any one factor that condemns the average sales manager to hire weak salespeople.

Top sales hirers are always recruiting for salespeople.

Let me repeat that: Top sales hirers are always recruiting

We often hear sales and sports are very similar. Both are competitive and both are based on individual performance.

At the time that I am making this video the Seattle Seahawks won the recent Superbowl 43-8. Can you imagine opening your favorite newspaper and seeing they have shut down their recruiting program?

Yet that is essentially what most sales managers do…

So there you have it: Always be recruiting is one of the Six Basic Rules of Sales Hiring. That’s the key to becoming a top sales hirer!

The Challenge? How do you budget your time to make room for constant recruiting?

The Advanced Hiring System provides you a unique formula to always be recruiting for sales talent.

Stay tuned

It goes without saying,  Google effects every aspect of our lives — and sales hiring is no exception. Having recently gone back to college to audit a course given through the  School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Understanding Media by Understanding Google, a recent incident points up just how much sales hiring has been effected by “Googlization.”

As many long-time readers of the blog know, we’re proponents of scientific modeling when it comes to filling sales positions. In its simplest form, modeling says rather than guess at what really makes a great salesperson, figure out what makes current top performers tick. Then only interview applicants who match the model of top performers.

We have based this on our experience with a sales team of 200 salespeople. We had a large team and we were attentive to tracking. As a result, we learned that key personality characteristics are common to top sales performers.

Here’s what we look for:

1. Strong practical Values scores
2. Highly persuasive Styles DISC scores
3. Examples of entrepreneurialism in their history
4. Able to demonstrate repeated examples of stick-to-it-iveness
5. Strong ability to control their internal emotional state (able to get themselves to do things they don’t necessarily want to)

But what happens when you find an applicant who Google says doesn’t pay their bills and has a string of Warrants at Circuit Court yet they seem to match the model?

That, as my friend Scott Wolf used to say “Is why you make the big bucks.” You’ve got to determine whether this applicant hit a bad patch because of the Crash of 2008 or whether you didn’t get the real answers in items 3-5 above.

Through a combination of values, styles and good interviewing skills, you can rocket your sales hiring success to Google-like heights!