When it’s your job to hire salespeople, your primary concern is attracting the right types of applicants: the top producers, the A players. If you’ve been depending on someone else, someone in HR, for instance, to write your ads, you may find that the candidates that answer your ad may be something short of the answer to your wildest dreams. After all, HR people don’t really understand salespeople. Their ad is probably some kind of generic summons that top producers will ignore, if they even give it more than a glance.

According to some sources, only one person in thirty has all the necessary elements to make a good salesman. When you hire salespeople, these few are the types you want to attract, and a generic ad is not going to do the trick. While you want to attract applicants who will be suited for the job, you also want to discourage any applicants who don’t in any way fit a salesperson profile. After all, if they can’t do the job, you’ll be unhappy, they’ll be unhappy, and eventually they’ll be gone. Then you have to start again at square one.

If you find that you’ve been experiencing an excessive degree of turnover because of bad hires, consider the starting place—the ad you use to hire salespeople.  It has to be personal; there’s someone out there who will feel it’s calling to him. Look at this example: “Wanted. Men for hazardous journey. Low wages. Bitter cold. Long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in the event of success.”

Admittedly, there is some question as to whether the explorer Ernest Shackleton actually placed this ad in the London Times. But authentic or not, whatever he did to recruit the crew that would accompany him on his South Pole expedition, he got the right team, as they all made it back alive. In any case, it’s an excellent illustration of a targeted ad.

Of course, if you want to hire salespeople, you don’t want to make your ad completely unappealing to everyone. And you don’t want to alienate anyone, either; for example, including the statement, “Losers need not apply” would be considered bad form, and it might actually attract some belligerent losers.

Instead, focus on the tried and true methods of ad writing as demonstrated in the AHS sales hiring system: Create a compelling headline—one that says (in effect), “Hey you! Want to get in on something great?” Once your headline has attracted their attention, you’ve enticed them to read the rest of your ad, where you have included targeted keywords that continue to speak directly to the prospect. Words such as Energetic, Creative, Determined, etc. will let the prospect know that he’s the perfect fit for your company.  The AHS ad writing module provides you with the kinds of keywords that get you the results you need.

Once you’ve created the perfect ad for your sales hiring purposes, follow the recommendations in the AHS ad placement module to ensure that your perfect ad will be seen by the perfect eyes. Once you’ve attracted the right prospects, the rest of the process to hire salespeople should be smooth sailing.

If you have followed this blog to any degree at all, you’re probably aware of the importance of putting your sales hiring candidates through the Advanced Hiring System screening process to determine values and styles. This is an essential step because the sales personality test allows you to save hours of time by narrowing down the field of prospects to a manageable three or four before you even begin the first interviews.

When you’re looking for salesmen who can dramatically outperform the average, mediocre salespeople you may have hired in the past, you want prospects who have scored high on the “Power” and “Money” areas of the Values Matrix of the sales personality test.

Now, don’t think of these scores as an indication that the prospect is power-crazed or money hungry; just know that he is a person who feels that financial security is important, and he achieves fulfillment by influencing others (in a perfectly civilized manner).

While we may associate power with aggressiveness, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a prospect that scores high in Power on the Values matrix is going to be someone who will exert pressure on customers; we’re not talking about that kind of power. He will, however, display a level of confidence and assertiveness so that he can remain in control of the sale, standing toe-to-toe with difficult customers—even hagglers—without backing down.

Once he’s successfully completed the selling process, he feels he has controlled the emotional state of the customer and guided her to close the deal. He has achieved his goal, and he savors the rewards of power. You may not be able to detect that kind of confidence in a resume or an interview, but a sales personality test will spot it.

As the world of commerce continues to get more complex with an economic environment that refuses to be predictable, as well as new terminology, techniques, and tools, it’s the salesman who scores high on the Money profile that manages to stay focused on the essential outcome: the sale. Since he is motivated by his internal drives and values, the external distractions are merely annoyances that he can push aside.

On the job, these core values serve to focus the salesman’s concentration on the most effective strategies for selling. In meeting his personal goals, a stellar salesman understands that the way in which he deals with customers is vital. His first priority is to understand the customers—their needs, their problems, and the way they think. He takes this knowledge to present a unique perspective on how his product or solution can help the customers in ways that they had never even considered.

Because an applicant whose core values are based on Power and Money will be driven to produce results, you can be confident of your decision to trust the results of the sales persoanality test and add this candidate to the sales team. Chances are, it won’t be long before you have another top producer.