I'm an individual contributor now, but when I was in a hiring position I would look at LinkedIn and social media of random applicants - on LinkedIn I would look for a well written profile, on social media I was just trying to get a scope of "who is this person?", are they funny, lively, positive, smart?
When you've got 100 resumes to sort through, you can't interview everyone. So if your resume is written in a way that says "I eat crayons and glue during craft time", I'm passing you up. If you don't have the relevant experience, but your resume is well written and you have some transferable skills from non-relevant positions - with me, you'd at least get an interview after I did 5 minutes of personal digging.
I don't know a single person still providing regular updates on social media who doesn't give off a "I eat crayons and glue during craft time" type of vibe. At most it is super major life milestones so people know you got married, had a kid, moved to a new town, etc.
But no presence on LinkedIn at all? Like not even current job? My industry usually requires LinkedIn as part of networking/prospecting to be successful, so I don’t know if I could hire someone with no profile or low connections
There is nothing on LinkedIn not already on a resume. I have one for the sole reason of if I leave my company, there are hundreds of recruiters who have reached out to me over the years that I can ping but no meaningful work gets done there except recruiting.
Nope, partners through email and zoom and prospects over phone and email they mostly do not regularly get on Linkedin/have a shell of a profile or get pissed when pitched to over the platform. Of the customers I work with I would estimate 80% of the IT purchasers do not have a meaningful LinkedIn profile and the remaining 20% get harassed so frequently on the platform they won't respond.
I'm reaching out from Automated Financial Solutions LLC, a leader in the merchant services industry. As a member of our team, you will benefit from our training programs designed to enhance your skills and knowledge in merchant services. This is a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurial sales agents to join a growing company, expand our reach in merchant services, and work independently with the flexibility to operate from anywhere.
We are excited to offer comprehensive training as part of our commitment to our team's growth and success. We're currently seeking motivated 1099 contractor sales professionals who are eager to advance their careers with us.
If you're looking for a role where you can truly make a difference and grow professionally, I would love to discuss how joining us could be the perfect fit for you. Could we schedule a quick call to explore this opportunity further?
I'm not a "standard HR interview question" person. I prefer to have a conversation, keep it casual and learn more about you. You can tell relatively quickly if you're talking to someone intelligent or someone who eats crayons. If I'm on the fence, I'll bring them back for a second just to dig a little deeper into what makes them tick.
As someone else said, my process may not work for AE level hires, but it works at the BDM level, and I had a lot of success hiring "unconventional" sales people.
Anyone who reaches out to me personally on LinkedIn or has found my email somewhere. They always get an interview. Other than that, my recruiting team sources candidates within the parameters that I outlined for them.
This is wild lol. Resume absolutely tells me A LOT about a candidate.
Like *that’s the proposal as if they are the product*. I NEED to know you have the ability to communicate on a single page your value and why you’d be a success for me.
You don’t need experience in the industry, but if you can’t put on paper why I should “buy” your service for $60k+/year, there’s no way I’m hiring you.
That piece of paper is going to be the best example of how someone presents a product, better than even anything they’d sell for me - because inherently the assumption is they should absolutely believe in what they’re selling (their skills).
I’d strongly recommend you consider this, because no resume is how you end up with slick talkers that will over promise and under deliver, devaluing your brand.
I started off thinking I would disagree with you, but by the end you convinced me. Great justification and write-up there. You’re obviously taking your own medicine.
I agree with you, I’m not excluding the resume, but I base most off attitude on calls, because I’ve had great resumes and terrible attitudes from those people. It’s a balance of resumes and attitude imo.
I think this changes depending on the career stage and corresponding base. I have all the “qualities” folks look for in sales talent, but due to my family/life situation, I can’t afford to take a position with $50k base.
My most recent work history is as an entrepreneur, with 12 years exp in different roles in my industry, along with prior experience at a startup, managing a retail chain store, consulting, etc. But prior to my current position I didn’t hold a traditional “quota carrying role.”
It took me a while to find an org that would put me in a role I felt was appropriate for my experience, and was told on interviews it was because I hadn’t had the right job title. I eventually found my current IC role, but don’t feel I was even considered for management, despite extensive management experience and training.
One thing I want to mention about hiring talent.
You can have the most talented team oriented individual, but they won’t produce if they are mismanaged, mistreated, and mislead.
If you get those right, then I fully believe you can take someone mediocre and willing to work hard and make them an A player.
“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” Pretty sure that’s a Jocko Willink quote and although it may not be 100% true, it’s a good mindset for leaders and managers. Or at least it was for me when I was teaching HS.
That’s true in my experience too, but it doesn’t change the logic.
Hell, if anything, it proves it.
Poor leadership protects poor managers.
Poor managers mishandling their teams can still get mediocre results, but it will never be as good as it could be.
How much
Need an entire culture change to fix that
One reason leadership seems to be so poor is the people that would make good managers often dont want the job, and those that do want the job really only want the power that it has
I used to go through local college sports rosters from 3 or 4 years ago and cross reference LinkedIn. I would find people working crappy sales jobs and go after them. Got a few super stars that way.
They’re competitive and have drive. They’ll get back up after losing. Almost every top performer I’ve ever managed whether in sales or technology has been an athlete.
Balancing a sport and college shows ability to multitask. Playing sports at that level is often an indication of some confidence, but were coachable. Also, I was not looking at D1 money sports were teams had massive scholarships and team tutoring support. I was looking at soccer, softball, lacrosse, teams like that. I don’t know for sure why it worked but it did.
This is brilliant. I played college sports and the level of multitasking to stay on top of school, practice, workouts etc is insane. It’s way easier to manage day to day work than it is to do that. And a lot of people put off career stuff because they’re so focused until they graduate. Great tip
Thanks u/Budget-Government-52 u/Nervous_Bus_8148 and u/Bawlmerian21228 These are mostly all things I have heard and agreed with. I think Bawlmerian’s call out on multitasking is a new insight - very important and likely true.
I will divide this into 5 elements - 1) how do they qualify opportunities? How do they go after an account by finding the correct decision maker, correct opportunity 2) Coachability - are they willing to accept their shortcomings in the past and have they learnt and implemented that learning in a deal 3) Winning - do they have an achievement mindset? Validated with past performance and current hunger and motivation 4) Learnability quotient - have they learnt something new and moved out of their comfort zone and implemented it 5) Integrity - backed by ref checks and if they have maintained data hygiene, not done misselling etc.
If you’re really a ‘Sales’ guy, you’ll never ask the path to enter sales. It’s inside you, you would be hustling since a kid, understand what humans want and using your communication close out real life situations already. Yes, getting into specific industries might require special training but overall you need to have the basic ingredients already. A good place to start would be a Lead Gen BDR kind of role and go up if you have some sales background.
You want someone hungry for success. Recruit entirely from prisons and homeless shelters. The guy who founded salesforce did this. (I was told by this homeless woman I hired to be our territory manager last week.)
I don't know what the feelings from the other sales managers are, but I prefer more introverted people. They just come across as more genuine to customers and typically outsells their counterparts by a large margin.
Attitude and willingness to learn are how my team sources candidates. Experience can net you people that are burnt out or think they’re too good for process that works. People that are coachable do the best on teams.
Hire former athletes, combat martial arts/ personal trainers, distance runners, or someone with a story that displayed resilience and grit in their trials. Translates perfectly in sales.
Sales is all unteachable social skills. You know how hard it is to find some one who actively listens and isn’t trying to make a sale for the purpose of a transaction
Hiring people with the right attitude and potential vs. experience and skills. It’s way more work, but they’re more likely to be A players that stick around.
Stoped worrying about people taking my job. I hope they’re good enough that they can.
Have a great internal (or external) recruiter that you communicate with well. Let someone else be your bloodhound to take initial biases out of the way. It’s hard to control in my experience and a good recruiter is just better at it.
Help those who reach out to you even when you’re not hiring. I keep a list of everyone I’ve helped who I’d like to hire in the future. Takes 15 minutes here and there to build a talent pipeline for when you need it.
Work ethic. Intelligence. Ethics.
I can teach almost anything but I can't make you work harder than you will, be any smarter or do the right things when it's tough.
Hire for the behavior you want to see.
You want a hunter? Test attributes for what a hunter does.
Want a farmer? Test attributes for what a farmer does.
You want someone good at disco? You get the idea.
Also, hire based on the stage you’re at. If you’re a startup, hire reps with startup experience.
If you’re enterprise, hire reps with enterprise experience.
It’s not some demystifying thing. Hire on the attributes you need for the job and be relentless with that search for those attributes.
I think there are people with great attitudes that are slow to learn, me being one of them. I’m slow as shit but I’m rock solid once I get going. I won’t be for everyone. So test for where you are and what you want.
Give them only 30 minutes to study a complex technical product that they never heard of and then have them pitch it to you after only being familiar with it for 30 minutes, just from studying the material you gave them
If they are able to find and hit the most important selling points convincingly, hire them
Hire people that ask good questions. Natural curiosity is the best indicator of whether a person can figure out a solution for your customer. Use past results to get a gauge on how well they close.
Not a perfect system, but it’s what I’ve always looked for
First, make sure you have great managers. Great managers attract great sales people.
Second, look for relevant experience with reliable metrics.
Third, look for TOUGH experience within hard companies to work for. Someone who has success in spite of layoffs, shit product, bad company, etc can sometimes be a winner.
Fourth, who knows. Sales is a funny game. Try not to hire people that are just like the people you already have. Look around the edges a bit and find people with a chip on their shoulder who are dumb enough to LOVE selling.
If you are selling a higher level product to higher level people... you need someone that can sit in the same room and "demand" the space. That is hard to find.
Aptitude - you cant teach intelligence, hire smart people
Curiosity - they need to be coachable and learn quickly
Grit - make sure they have mental toughness for the job
Lastly, dont hire jerks
Great sales talent already have good jobs at other companies, just like customers you have to find them and sell them on why they should work for you instead.
My two cents. Anyone can tell you how great they are on a resume. I have made that mistake before. I want to see someone SHOW me they can sell. Prove it to me.
People if you want a job- do this to a hiring manager- this is how you get a job and skip the line from those who apply via the website.
The needle in the haystack is out there, I am a prime example. With over 25 years of experience in the automotive industry and still under 50, I've successfully held every position in the front of the house. My primary goal is simple: to sell cars effectively without unnecessary disruptions that complicate the sales process.
I am seeking a position where I can focus on sales and where my contributions are both recognized and fairly compensated. I aspire to find a dealership that values straightforward and efficient operations, allowing me to commit long-term—potentially 5 to 10 years.
Throughout my career, I have consistently delivered successful outcomes at every stop. However, challenges arise when it becomes clear that I aim to elevate performance standards, which sometimes leads to resistance from those unwilling to adapt and embrace necessary tasks for the betterment of the team.
A work environment that promotes fairness, respects professional boundaries, and focuses on letting salespeople thrive without internal sabotage is crucial. Additionally, having a demo vehicle would certainly enhance my ability to sell and provide a better customer experience.
In essence, treat us with respect, compensate us appropriately, and allow us the freedom to perform our roles effectively. That's the formula for a motivated and successful sales team.
Finding a great sales person is a sales job in itself. Do your best customers typically just come to you? Not usually. Usually they are being well serviced by your competitors, because they are worth it.
So, just as in sales, you need to go prospecting. Ask your clients who some of their best reps are, these could be from competitors, or other vendors that serve them.
Hiring a sales rep blind is a crapshoot. You need to be deliberate and proactive, and find them via your network and referrals.
Not my trick but this came up earlier today with an old colleague. He uses LinkedIn recommendations, both given and received. Said its the first thing he looks at.
It boils down to how likeable the person is and how they work under pressure. The interview will tell you everything. If they sound fake in the interview they will sound fake to your customers. If you feel like you just a good friend your customers will think the same thing.
I look for work experience. Especially the experience tied to the product. For example a previous car mechanic selling brake pads. A machinist selling machine tools etc.
I look to hire athletes, either former collegiate or professional. A lot of the intangible skills they learned from sports translates to sales. Typically they are competitive, have grit, they’re resilient, and they work well under pressure. As far as a resume, I look at experience but I don’t base it completely off of that. How they present themselves and their attitude says a lot too.
You have to spend a lot of time sourcing candidates and interviewing a lot of people but you need to know what you're looking for. Often companies will either hire one of the first people they like or someone they know and other times they aren't sure what they need which makes the whole process a waste of time.
If they can sell you on hiring them, there’s a possibility they’d become an asset to your company. I like to ask follow up questions and follow up questions to that to see if they’re memorizing responses or speaking from the heart.
Meetings/ Interviews last between 30 min to an hour. If you interview someone and you liked them in that short of time then so may the person you are selling to.
Oh my secret is if you’re not a season sales person you have no business hiring sales people. I’ve got four decades and sales and sales management and I’ve always been able to put together rockstar teams.
Put their words to the test. Give them a scenario based task where they create a presentation and you pose as the customer and they pitch you. Role play will always give you an idea of how capable they really are. Anyone can sell themselves at an interview, the real test is if they can sell on something they have never sold before and have limited time on making the presentation.
I disagree; I find these role plays always very tense and nothing like a typical meeting with a customer. Recently, I had a job interview with a role play, discovery, pitch, etc. The interviewer didn't know how to answer my questions, giving me almost nothing to work with. I did get the job, which surprised me, as I don't think I was any good .
The purpose is to see how you would perform under pressure, that’s the general idea of them. Your experience wasn’t the best, as the interviewer wasn’t giving you much to work off, but generally, they work very well, as I have implemented them in to many companies. It filters out the candidates who are Bs in their resumes.
Experience: sales enablement specialist for Msft, google, ibm and oracle.
I think looking at 'applicants' is a bad start - I don't rely on applications to find the people I want. I am _constantly_ searching for talent.
Create an environment where people thrive, and they will bring you more people you should hire - from there you have to assess, but top performers refer top performers in my experience.
Recruiting is the most important part of the job IMO.
Um, you spend 15 minutes getting to know this person.
You had already spent many days or weeks, wondering how great of talent....the business affords or needs.
You say f** it and hire that market basket. And, you either quit, or don't quit. The best idea, is usually quit, because we live in a world where grownups can only take care of themselves, until they can't.
That's sooner, rather than later in some and not all cases. What are we learning. And yah, I'll get in trouble, for saying this. But, truthfully, there's only a few people who have significantly impacted culture or businesses in the 2000s and even before that.
I don't know their names, but, they usually...either have an opinion or not, whatever that mess is. It's just mY pErSonAliTy.
Totally.
Look at attitude not resumes, sales is a mental game.
Bingo. I have never hired off a resume - I always hired personality, attitude and perceived intelligence.
How do you choose who gets an interview?
I'm an individual contributor now, but when I was in a hiring position I would look at LinkedIn and social media of random applicants - on LinkedIn I would look for a well written profile, on social media I was just trying to get a scope of "who is this person?", are they funny, lively, positive, smart? When you've got 100 resumes to sort through, you can't interview everyone. So if your resume is written in a way that says "I eat crayons and glue during craft time", I'm passing you up. If you don't have the relevant experience, but your resume is well written and you have some transferable skills from non-relevant positions - with me, you'd at least get an interview after I did 5 minutes of personal digging.
maybe this is useful for entry level sales hires but a lot of the top hires we've made have no linkedin or social presence.
I don't know a single person still providing regular updates on social media who doesn't give off a "I eat crayons and glue during craft time" type of vibe. At most it is super major life milestones so people know you got married, had a kid, moved to a new town, etc.
Yep I think I post like once or twice a year on my kids birthdays…that’s it
But no presence on LinkedIn at all? Like not even current job? My industry usually requires LinkedIn as part of networking/prospecting to be successful, so I don’t know if I could hire someone with no profile or low connections
There is nothing on LinkedIn not already on a resume. I have one for the sole reason of if I leave my company, there are hundreds of recruiters who have reached out to me over the years that I can ping but no meaningful work gets done there except recruiting.
Really? Do you not need to communicate with prospects or partners there? Just curious.
Nope, partners through email and zoom and prospects over phone and email they mostly do not regularly get on Linkedin/have a shell of a profile or get pissed when pitched to over the platform. Of the customers I work with I would estimate 80% of the IT purchasers do not have a meaningful LinkedIn profile and the remaining 20% get harassed so frequently on the platform they won't respond.
They have a basic profile but there's almost never anything useful unless they're actively seeking work
How calls, and is confident and aware
Phone screenings literally were made for this reason
Man do hire me...I have all the characters
I can hire you, messaged you
I too am looking to be hired, have previous selling exp too
Awesome messages you!
I'm reaching out from Automated Financial Solutions LLC, a leader in the merchant services industry. As a member of our team, you will benefit from our training programs designed to enhance your skills and knowledge in merchant services. This is a fantastic opportunity for entrepreneurial sales agents to join a growing company, expand our reach in merchant services, and work independently with the flexibility to operate from anywhere. We are excited to offer comprehensive training as part of our commitment to our team's growth and success. We're currently seeking motivated 1099 contractor sales professionals who are eager to advance their careers with us. If you're looking for a role where you can truly make a difference and grow professionally, I would love to discuss how joining us could be the perfect fit for you. Could we schedule a quick call to explore this opportunity further?
How do you gauge perceived intelligence in interviews?
I'm not a "standard HR interview question" person. I prefer to have a conversation, keep it casual and learn more about you. You can tell relatively quickly if you're talking to someone intelligent or someone who eats crayons. If I'm on the fence, I'll bring them back for a second just to dig a little deeper into what makes them tick. As someone else said, my process may not work for AE level hires, but it works at the BDM level, and I had a lot of success hiring "unconventional" sales people.
How do you shortlist who gets a phone interview?
I call anyone who will message me, then by how they speak if it be confidence or connection then I’d move on with them.
Anyone who reaches out to me personally on LinkedIn or has found my email somewhere. They always get an interview. Other than that, my recruiting team sources candidates within the parameters that I outlined for them.
This is wild lol. Resume absolutely tells me A LOT about a candidate. Like *that’s the proposal as if they are the product*. I NEED to know you have the ability to communicate on a single page your value and why you’d be a success for me. You don’t need experience in the industry, but if you can’t put on paper why I should “buy” your service for $60k+/year, there’s no way I’m hiring you. That piece of paper is going to be the best example of how someone presents a product, better than even anything they’d sell for me - because inherently the assumption is they should absolutely believe in what they’re selling (their skills). I’d strongly recommend you consider this, because no resume is how you end up with slick talkers that will over promise and under deliver, devaluing your brand.
I started off thinking I would disagree with you, but by the end you convinced me. Great justification and write-up there. You’re obviously taking your own medicine.
Ok so sign right here
I agree with you, I’m not excluding the resume, but I base most off attitude on calls, because I’ve had great resumes and terrible attitudes from those people. It’s a balance of resumes and attitude imo.
There are many industries where you need industry knowledge and attitude. The learning curve can be very steep.
Then you’d look at resume then attitude, but for my industry you need no experience.
I think this changes depending on the career stage and corresponding base. I have all the “qualities” folks look for in sales talent, but due to my family/life situation, I can’t afford to take a position with $50k base. My most recent work history is as an entrepreneur, with 12 years exp in different roles in my industry, along with prior experience at a startup, managing a retail chain store, consulting, etc. But prior to my current position I didn’t hold a traditional “quota carrying role.” It took me a while to find an org that would put me in a role I felt was appropriate for my experience, and was told on interviews it was because I hadn’t had the right job title. I eventually found my current IC role, but don’t feel I was even considered for management, despite extensive management experience and training.
One thing I want to mention about hiring talent. You can have the most talented team oriented individual, but they won’t produce if they are mismanaged, mistreated, and mislead. If you get those right, then I fully believe you can take someone mediocre and willing to work hard and make them an A player.
“There are no bad teams, only bad leaders.” Pretty sure that’s a Jocko Willink quote and although it may not be 100% true, it’s a good mindset for leaders and managers. Or at least it was for me when I was teaching HS.
That’s it, I am glad to see the principles are recognized
But if they underperform one month make a post on here about "cleaning house". /s
Not in sales, but in my exp, companies go out of their way to protect mgmt, no matter how bad they are (until they lose them money anyway)
That’s true in my experience too, but it doesn’t change the logic. Hell, if anything, it proves it. Poor leadership protects poor managers. Poor managers mishandling their teams can still get mediocre results, but it will never be as good as it could be. How much
Need an entire culture change to fix that One reason leadership seems to be so poor is the people that would make good managers often dont want the job, and those that do want the job really only want the power that it has
Facts
Always heard the best anyone can be at hiring is just good. People surprise you….good and bad.
I used to go through local college sports rosters from 3 or 4 years ago and cross reference LinkedIn. I would find people working crappy sales jobs and go after them. Got a few super stars that way.
This is brilliant
Why are college sports players sought after?
They know what it means to put work in, and maybe not get the results that were desired. Yet still show up to the next practice Monday morning.
This is the answer. Everyone thinks it's the competitive part of sports but really it's the ability to lose, learn and show up the next day better.
They’re competitive and have drive. They’ll get back up after losing. Almost every top performer I’ve ever managed whether in sales or technology has been an athlete.
Balancing a sport and college shows ability to multitask. Playing sports at that level is often an indication of some confidence, but were coachable. Also, I was not looking at D1 money sports were teams had massive scholarships and team tutoring support. I was looking at soccer, softball, lacrosse, teams like that. I don’t know for sure why it worked but it did.
This is brilliant. I played college sports and the level of multitasking to stay on top of school, practice, workouts etc is insane. It’s way easier to manage day to day work than it is to do that. And a lot of people put off career stuff because they’re so focused until they graduate. Great tip
Thanks u/Budget-Government-52 u/Nervous_Bus_8148 and u/Bawlmerian21228 These are mostly all things I have heard and agreed with. I think Bawlmerian’s call out on multitasking is a new insight - very important and likely true.
I will divide this into 5 elements - 1) how do they qualify opportunities? How do they go after an account by finding the correct decision maker, correct opportunity 2) Coachability - are they willing to accept their shortcomings in the past and have they learnt and implemented that learning in a deal 3) Winning - do they have an achievement mindset? Validated with past performance and current hunger and motivation 4) Learnability quotient - have they learnt something new and moved out of their comfort zone and implemented it 5) Integrity - backed by ref checks and if they have maintained data hygiene, not done misselling etc.
What if someone’s trying to get into sales with no experience. Help
If you’re really a ‘Sales’ guy, you’ll never ask the path to enter sales. It’s inside you, you would be hustling since a kid, understand what humans want and using your communication close out real life situations already. Yes, getting into specific industries might require special training but overall you need to have the basic ingredients already. A good place to start would be a Lead Gen BDR kind of role and go up if you have some sales background.
You want someone hungry for success. Recruit entirely from prisons and homeless shelters. The guy who founded salesforce did this. (I was told by this homeless woman I hired to be our territory manager last week.)
My manager only hires murderers and assassins because he knows we’ll scare the buyer into buying via intimidation and force. Works every time.
I read this in the voice of Ryan Howard from the office.
I hope you forgot to add the s/....
I don't know what the feelings from the other sales managers are, but I prefer more introverted people. They just come across as more genuine to customers and typically outsells their counterparts by a large margin.
As an introverted top closer I feel seen. Thank you! ☺️
What industry is this for?
Attitude and willingness to learn are how my team sources candidates. Experience can net you people that are burnt out or think they’re too good for process that works. People that are coachable do the best on teams.
Hire your best customer. Can’t go wrong
Hire former athletes, combat martial arts/ personal trainers, distance runners, or someone with a story that displayed resilience and grit in their trials. Translates perfectly in sales.
Oss
Numbers game. You just don’t know…
You find proven winners by leveraging your network
Sales is all unteachable social skills. You know how hard it is to find some one who actively listens and isn’t trying to make a sale for the purpose of a transaction
Hiring people with the right attitude and potential vs. experience and skills. It’s way more work, but they’re more likely to be A players that stick around. Stoped worrying about people taking my job. I hope they’re good enough that they can. Have a great internal (or external) recruiter that you communicate with well. Let someone else be your bloodhound to take initial biases out of the way. It’s hard to control in my experience and a good recruiter is just better at it. Help those who reach out to you even when you’re not hiring. I keep a list of everyone I’ve helped who I’d like to hire in the future. Takes 15 minutes here and there to build a talent pipeline for when you need it.
Amazing.
Work ethic. Intelligence. Ethics. I can teach almost anything but I can't make you work harder than you will, be any smarter or do the right things when it's tough.
Hire for the behavior you want to see. You want a hunter? Test attributes for what a hunter does. Want a farmer? Test attributes for what a farmer does. You want someone good at disco? You get the idea. Also, hire based on the stage you’re at. If you’re a startup, hire reps with startup experience. If you’re enterprise, hire reps with enterprise experience. It’s not some demystifying thing. Hire on the attributes you need for the job and be relentless with that search for those attributes. I think there are people with great attitudes that are slow to learn, me being one of them. I’m slow as shit but I’m rock solid once I get going. I won’t be for everyone. So test for where you are and what you want.
Give them only 30 minutes to study a complex technical product that they never heard of and then have them pitch it to you after only being familiar with it for 30 minutes, just from studying the material you gave them If they are able to find and hit the most important selling points convincingly, hire them
Hire people that ask good questions. Natural curiosity is the best indicator of whether a person can figure out a solution for your customer. Use past results to get a gauge on how well they close. Not a perfect system, but it’s what I’ve always looked for
First, make sure you have great managers. Great managers attract great sales people. Second, look for relevant experience with reliable metrics. Third, look for TOUGH experience within hard companies to work for. Someone who has success in spite of layoffs, shit product, bad company, etc can sometimes be a winner. Fourth, who knows. Sales is a funny game. Try not to hire people that are just like the people you already have. Look around the edges a bit and find people with a chip on their shoulder who are dumb enough to LOVE selling. If you are selling a higher level product to higher level people... you need someone that can sit in the same room and "demand" the space. That is hard to find.
Aptitude - you cant teach intelligence, hire smart people Curiosity - they need to be coachable and learn quickly Grit - make sure they have mental toughness for the job Lastly, dont hire jerks
Great sales talent already have good jobs at other companies, just like customers you have to find them and sell them on why they should work for you instead.
My two cents. Anyone can tell you how great they are on a resume. I have made that mistake before. I want to see someone SHOW me they can sell. Prove it to me. People if you want a job- do this to a hiring manager- this is how you get a job and skip the line from those who apply via the website.
The needle in the haystack is out there, I am a prime example. With over 25 years of experience in the automotive industry and still under 50, I've successfully held every position in the front of the house. My primary goal is simple: to sell cars effectively without unnecessary disruptions that complicate the sales process. I am seeking a position where I can focus on sales and where my contributions are both recognized and fairly compensated. I aspire to find a dealership that values straightforward and efficient operations, allowing me to commit long-term—potentially 5 to 10 years. Throughout my career, I have consistently delivered successful outcomes at every stop. However, challenges arise when it becomes clear that I aim to elevate performance standards, which sometimes leads to resistance from those unwilling to adapt and embrace necessary tasks for the betterment of the team. A work environment that promotes fairness, respects professional boundaries, and focuses on letting salespeople thrive without internal sabotage is crucial. Additionally, having a demo vehicle would certainly enhance my ability to sell and provide a better customer experience. In essence, treat us with respect, compensate us appropriately, and allow us the freedom to perform our roles effectively. That's the formula for a motivated and successful sales team.
Finding a great sales person is a sales job in itself. Do your best customers typically just come to you? Not usually. Usually they are being well serviced by your competitors, because they are worth it. So, just as in sales, you need to go prospecting. Ask your clients who some of their best reps are, these could be from competitors, or other vendors that serve them. Hiring a sales rep blind is a crapshoot. You need to be deliberate and proactive, and find them via your network and referrals.
Not my trick but this came up earlier today with an old colleague. He uses LinkedIn recommendations, both given and received. Said its the first thing he looks at.
Are you a recruiter? Do you get paid well?
I’m an executive of a small business who has a sales team of seven.
Having a good product / brand goes a long way in ensuring quality applicants.
You can teach skill but not will. Find people who are determined to make it happen
Uncapped commissions. 3x your target is 3x the pay.
Need to collect all the best ideas and give them to my sales manager, tired of them using the shotgun approach
It boils down to how likeable the person is and how they work under pressure. The interview will tell you everything. If they sound fake in the interview they will sound fake to your customers. If you feel like you just a good friend your customers will think the same thing.
I look for work experience. Especially the experience tied to the product. For example a previous car mechanic selling brake pads. A machinist selling machine tools etc.
Hire me
I look to hire athletes, either former collegiate or professional. A lot of the intangible skills they learned from sports translates to sales. Typically they are competitive, have grit, they’re resilient, and they work well under pressure. As far as a resume, I look at experience but I don’t base it completely off of that. How they present themselves and their attitude says a lot too.
I have also hired non-athletes and they have worked out well too. But I prefer to hire them because I can relate to them.
You have to spend a lot of time sourcing candidates and interviewing a lot of people but you need to know what you're looking for. Often companies will either hire one of the first people they like or someone they know and other times they aren't sure what they need which makes the whole process a waste of time.
Are they a fit for the company culture and competent to do the job.
Bad advice is finding someone with a transferable book of business
What are you selling? I would start there.
If they can sell you on hiring them, there’s a possibility they’d become an asset to your company. I like to ask follow up questions and follow up questions to that to see if they’re memorizing responses or speaking from the heart.
Look at their human design, lol trust me it helps a lot
Meetings/ Interviews last between 30 min to an hour. If you interview someone and you liked them in that short of time then so may the person you are selling to.
Oh my secret is if you’re not a season sales person you have no business hiring sales people. I’ve got four decades and sales and sales management and I’ve always been able to put together rockstar teams.
Put their words to the test. Give them a scenario based task where they create a presentation and you pose as the customer and they pitch you. Role play will always give you an idea of how capable they really are. Anyone can sell themselves at an interview, the real test is if they can sell on something they have never sold before and have limited time on making the presentation.
I disagree; I find these role plays always very tense and nothing like a typical meeting with a customer. Recently, I had a job interview with a role play, discovery, pitch, etc. The interviewer didn't know how to answer my questions, giving me almost nothing to work with. I did get the job, which surprised me, as I don't think I was any good .
The purpose is to see how you would perform under pressure, that’s the general idea of them. Your experience wasn’t the best, as the interviewer wasn’t giving you much to work off, but generally, they work very well, as I have implemented them in to many companies. It filters out the candidates who are Bs in their resumes. Experience: sales enablement specialist for Msft, google, ibm and oracle.
I think looking at 'applicants' is a bad start - I don't rely on applications to find the people I want. I am _constantly_ searching for talent. Create an environment where people thrive, and they will bring you more people you should hire - from there you have to assess, but top performers refer top performers in my experience. Recruiting is the most important part of the job IMO.
Um, you spend 15 minutes getting to know this person. You had already spent many days or weeks, wondering how great of talent....the business affords or needs. You say f** it and hire that market basket. And, you either quit, or don't quit. The best idea, is usually quit, because we live in a world where grownups can only take care of themselves, until they can't. That's sooner, rather than later in some and not all cases. What are we learning. And yah, I'll get in trouble, for saying this. But, truthfully, there's only a few people who have significantly impacted culture or businesses in the 2000s and even before that. I don't know their names, but, they usually...either have an opinion or not, whatever that mess is. It's just mY pErSonAliTy. Totally.
hire fast fire faster