In this election year, there are, as usual, a large number of voters who are dissatisfied with their options at the polls. Most elections are like that—we want at least one candidate who is clearly perfect, but what we are given rarely lives up to our expectations. Most of us sigh and punch the ticket for what we consider to be the lesser of two  evils, and some of us just stay away from the polls, feeling completely ineffective.

Sales hiring is a lot like an election: some sales managers are forced to sigh and choose the lesser of two (or three, or four) evils, and they find themselves with more dead wood on their sales team.

The reason is usually a flawed sales hiring process, and it begins with step one—attracting the right candidates. If you don’t have A players in your hiring pool, you’re not going to end up with the A team that will take your company to the top.

The best place to start sales hiring top performers also offers the best price: free. You undoubtedly have networks of associates, friends, even employees who can direct you to some viable candidates. All you need to do is have them put out some feelers to find the quality applicants you’re looking for. Your network is also a good place to get candidates because your connections can talk up your company as a great place to work.

If your network happens to be a little short of ideas, you’ll need to do some recruiting for your sales hiring. Some companies actually hire recruiters to find candidates for them, but that can be a little risky if you’re not sure of the recruiter’s track record. You’ll save some money and possibly get better results by doing your own targeted recruiting.

Most top talent is not going begging for a good sales job. To attract A players, you need to have an ad that far outstrips the competition. Fortunately, much of your competition is still relying on the same old “help wanted” ad with a laundry list of desired skills, but those types of ads aren’t going to attract the superstar salesmen. In fact, your ad should specify that you’re looking for a superstar, instead of mere “help.” That will be sure to appeal to the top salesmen egos out there. And instead of listing skills needed, inspire them by boasting about results, challenges, and opportunities. If you highlight the ways your company makes a difference, you’ll be able to attract the very best and find good salesmen for your team.

In order to seduce the types of applicants that will round out your A team, remember that, in sales hiring, the devil is in the details. Since the best salesmen are extremely Money and Power driven, make them salivate with your descriptions of great compensation, benefit packages, perks, rewards, recognition, and status. Create a powerful headline that will virtually pull their eyes to the rest of the ad, then tantalize them with targeted keywords, as recommended in the AHS ad writing module. They’ll be knocking at your door well before their scheduled appointment (after all, they are superstars!).

Once you’ve attracted the best applicants, you can use the rest of the AHS sales hiring tools to narrow the field. With a hand-picked set of candidates, you can rest assured that you’ve elected—I mean hired—the very best salesmen.

Scott Wolf at Arcamax pointed me to a link for “Harnessing the Science of Persuasion” by Professor Robert Caldini.  Its a Harvard Business Review publication from 2001.

Nothing new from Dr. Caldini, by any stretch,  but nonetheless, it’s worth reading.

The article is a rehash of NLP 101, which Richard Bandler and John Grinder created in the late 80’s. Scott Wolf and I had a stint in a former life, promoting NLP Master Trainer Kenrick Cleveland in 1988. It was an eye-opener for both us us — in many ways.

Caldini lists six tools master persuaders use to convince others:

1. Liking. People like those like them, who like them.
2. Reciprocity: People repay in kind
3. Social Proof: People follow the lead of similar others.
4. Consistency: People fulfill written, public and voluntary commitments.
5. Authority: People defer to experts who provide shortcuts to decisions requiring specialized information.
6. Scarcity: People value what’s scarce.

Any sales professional is going to agree with the list. You get a couple of those going for you — or even one well executed, and you’ve got a buyer.

Of course, the question is, can you teach this list to salespeople and get better results. If you could script it and coach it, you’d just collect the orders.

But, any sales manager who’s been around sees most sales training produce a “temporary bump,” at best. Only a small percentage of salespeople (1 out of 5)  “get it” and end up with any long term improvement.

The reason is because only natural salespeople can really sell. I’d go as far as to say that non-natural salespeople, in their heart of hearts, find persuasion distasteful.

There’s no question persuasion can be “engineered” to a more predictable result as Caldini suggests. However the salesperson’s Personality Style and Personal Values ultimately predict sales success over the long term.

In sales hiring, you’re not likely to find the term “disgruntled former employee” listed among an applicant’s attributes. If you did, your first reaction would probably be to throw the application away. I blame the media for this perception. They’re the ones who have created the negative bias regarding the term “disgruntled.”

The literal meaning of disgruntled is “dissatisfied and irritated.” Unfortunately, the media have adopted the term disgruntled employee in their portrayals of formerly upstanding citizens who suddenly snap and show up to their former job with an Uzi. Even in the best cases, the media represent disgruntled former employees as troublemakers or whistle-blowers.

It’s not a fair portrayal, and it can lead  employers to be reluctant to consider these workers when they hire salespeople. That can be a mistake because, in most cases, disgruntled workers are actually just ordinary people who, for whatever reason, were unhappy in their former jobs. There’s really no logical reason why many of these people wouldn’t turn out to be good salesmen.

Some professions are promoted as “the hardest job you’ll ever love,” but what if you don’t love it? Then all that’s left is the hard part, which isn’t very fulfilling.  Think of the teacher, for instance. Day after day, she looks at her students and is met with a variety of expressions: a few are respectfully attentive, most are glassy-eyed and detached, and some are downright hostile. After hours spent preparing lessons, grading papers, and calling unsupportive parents—with minimum ROI—why wouldn’t some teachers feel unfulfilled?  Instead of plugging away every day, trying to sell an education to students who just don’t want to buy, some  might be thinking to themselves, “Oh man, I’d so rather be selling widgets right about now.”

Similar scenarios can play out in just about any profession. Most of the time, disgruntled workers didn’t start out that way. Just like your good salesmen, they launched themselves into their new job filled with energy and enthusiasm. Then something happened; their motivation evaporated, and their productivity faded away. Sure, it could have been something within themselves that caused this breakdown, but quite often these are people who have justifiable grievances against circumstances connected to their employment or their employer.

One of the concerns, in fact the most common one according to a Gallup poll of over a million employees, is some kind of problem with managers. After all, many managers don’t have the right temperament for managing, yet they end up in a position where they may engage in tyrannical behavior, bullying employees and making their lives miserable.

Some managers also harass employees, either professionally or personally (isn’t there a law now?), or discriminate against them in favor of a favorite–or worse, a relative. Some make promises they don’t intend to keep, and others take advantage of workers who are willing to take up the slack of the less efficient. There are really all kinds of miserable managers out there, so is it any wonder an employee might get fed up with these less-than-desirable conditions?

Maybe you don’t usually consider unhappy former employees when you hire salespeople. You probably think of them as high risk, and some of them probably are. That’s why you employ all the safeguards of a proven-successful hiring process such as Advanced Hiring System. With the targeted recruiting method to assure attracting the right prospects; the DISC assessment, style matrix, and values matrix to identify the salesperson profile; and the series of scripted interviews to spot inconsistencies, you are alerted to any red flags that would indicate the person is not right for your sales team.

Should you hire a disgruntled worker? Not necessarily. But it could be worth your while to include her in your sales hiring process.