20 Recruitment Case Study #2 _____________________________________________________________ This Sales Organization Changed Their Recruitment Plan and Now Business Is Way Up! T he clients I work with who are doing the best job of hiring superstar sellers focus on recruiting 52 weeks a year. You can’t workout once a month and expect to stay fit. That would be delusional. A sales management team can’t spend time recruit- ing once a month and expect to continually uncover superstar talent. You have a choice to make: 1. The pain of discipline (it’s hard work to be continually recruiting). 2. The pain of regret (missing goals because you have an inferior team). If you expect to win in today’s environment, you need a team of superstars. To build that type of team, you need to be continually searching for top talent. 52 weeks a year. I was with a client recently who is having a fabulous quarter in new business, significantly up from the year prior. The primary difference from a year ago is the quality of the sales team. This management team knew they needed a stronger team to win, but they were having a hard time finding star talent. We spent time as a group and came up with a strong re- cruitment plan and they have committed to that plan. They didn’t find stars overnight, but after 4-5 months of consistent effort, they started to find the right people. They made a few key hires and business is way up. No one part of their plan was magical. It was pretty ordinary actually, but four sales managers agreed on the plan and executed it well—week, after week, after week. That was the magic! Another manager we work with was recent- ly recognized by his company for creating such a strong talent bank. We asked what he was doing to create such a strong talent bank and it turns out he’s doing a lot: 1. Running ads on LinkedIn 2. Searching for talent on LinkedIn and con- necting to start a conversation 3. Recruiting at a local college 4. Asking his current team for referrals This manager has also been using our On- line Sales Talent Interview (OSTI) to screen candidates early, looking for signs of strong