4 Ways to Find Strong Sales People

Strong Salespeople Hide Themselves Well

In spite of the economy and unemployment level organizations are looking for strong salespeople but few are actually available. It is getting harder and harder to find sales individuals that can consistently hit sales quotas while also keeping themselves up to spend on product sets, changing markets, and industries. As a result, it is common to see a top sales candidate considering multiple job offers when they decide to search.

The days of posting a job online to source sales individuals and waiting for top notch sales individuals to appear is a thing of the past. Organizations need to now employ new tactics to acquire the hidden top notch talent and once they find them they need to act quickly so they aren't lost to the competition.

Here are recommendations to find the hidden gems and to land the top candidates.

1. Look beyond the resume itself – though we rely on resumes, they can be very misleading. A resume can make a mediocre performer look like a rock star and on the flipside a mediocre resume can hide the skills of a top performer. Always remember that you are hiring a human being and not just a piece of paper. By leveraging resources that can weed through the resume and highlight the hidden pieces of an individual's sales career you will be saving your company from lost time and energy while uncovering the top talent.

2. Set up preliminary telephone interviews- In lieu of trying to coordinate internal calendars that can take days/weeks to schedule set up that first phone call. In the first call you can expand on the detail you have received up front on their sales habits and results. A first step phone call gets a qualified candidate in your process quickly, demonstrates your interest level and enables you to gather more information so that a intelligent decision can be made on if the candidate is worthy of moving to the next step.

3. Have a hiring process in place that flows in a timely manner – Don't miss out. After you have engaged with the candidate by phone invite the individual in for a face to face interview or remove them from the process. Don't leave candidates guessing and NEVER lose a great hire due to inertia. Solid candidates will generate interest from multiple clients and clients that demonstrate interest in a timely manner will win out almost every time.

4. Demonstrate leadership qualities throughout the process. Just as a hiring organization is looking for the qualities of a Top performer, a Top performer wants to see those same qualities in the mgmt team of the organization they are interviewing with. The people skills of the individuals you choose to have in your interviewing process will impact the candidate's decision as much as your company and technology will.

If you don't prepare to win, you're actually preparing to fail