Page 35 - The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million - PDFDrive.com

3
Finding Top-Performing Salespeople

Hopefully, you now have some ideas about how to best evaluate candidates for
your sales team. I wish I could tell you that is the hardest part of building a high-
performing sales team. Unfortunately, it is not.

The hardest part of the hiring process is finding great salespeople to add to your
recruiting pipeline. Sourcing great candidates requires tremendous time and
effort, but it is a critical element.

Allow me to take you back to September 2007. It was time to scale the team.
What did I do? I posted ads across every job board I could find. I received
hundreds of applications from a variety of applicants. I probably completed
about 50 phone screens and dozens of in-person interviews. I hired zero
candidates. Zero!

At that point, I had an important revelation about hiring salespeople. Great
salespeople never have to apply for a job. Great salespeople never need to pull
together a resume. Truly great salespeople have multiple job offers at all times,
even if they are not in the job market. Their old bosses are calling them,
probably quarterly. “Can I take you to a ball game?” “How is the new gig?” “Are
you still happy?” “Are you making money?” “Did they change the compensation
plan on you?” “You'll never believe how good things are going over here.” “You
have an open invitation to be on my team.”

“Great salespeople never need to apply for a job. Finding great salespeople
requires a passive recruiting strategy.”

Reflecting back on hundreds of sales hires, I can't think of a single person who
came to us from a job board or who was actively seeking a new role. Great
salespeople are passive candidates, meaning they are not being proactive about
changing positions. Shaping a passive recruiting strategy that caters to this
demographic is a necessity.

Build a Recruiting Agency within Your Company