The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Today we have a guest post from Allison Delagrange. Allison is is a General Sales Manager for Federated Media in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She’s a 2005 Taylor University graduate, coach to a team of top-notch sellers on 97.3 WMEE, mom to a little princess and twin boys, and wife to one handsome dude. Allison loves to help others succeed and share insights she’s learned over the course of her 10-year career in sales.

Sometimes great insights come from the most unlikely places. Just in time for Halloween, I’d like to share with you what a little green monster taught me about sales talent.

In working with companies large and small and in cities large and small, the number one thing I hear most often from managers is how hard it is to recruit. There is no doubt that it can be challenging, especially if there isn’t a clear strategy in place to tackle it. Most managers don’t make recruiting a priority until when? Yep, you guessed it: when there is an open position. That is exactly the wrong time to do it (or to start doing it).

Our research shows that the very best salespeople out there are highly competitive, focused, passionate, and good at solving problems. So it would make sense that these same people would be excited about the opportunity to experience a virtual version of what it’s like to work for a company while scoring badges, earning points, and competing to win. It also stands to reason that highly competitive organizations would want to set themselves apart from the competition by turning to unique forms of recruitment to attract the most high-potential hires.

“We need to hire more salespeople!”

“We need to hire better salespeople!”

These are the cries that I hear day every day from the managers and executives that I coach.

While the strategy to hire more and better salespeople might be a good one, you and I know it’s just not that easy. If you are the one responsible for the hiring process and the on-boarding of these new salespeople, you are probably left wondering how you are going to get that accomplished. You are not alone!

Here are 3 things you can do today to jump-start your hiring process and begin hiring more—and better—salespeople right now:

We have all fallen victim to the impulse buy. That gadget in the checkout line or “gotta have” in the window. Thankfully, most of those spontaneous decisions didn’t have a pronounced impact on our long-term success or happiness.

I’m sure you would agree that hiring a new manager doesn't fall into the same spontaneous purchase category as buying a Wonder Wallet or a Snuggie, but I have seen even the best managers out there succumb to the quick and easy option that is right at their fingertips. When a key management position comes open, the stopwatch starts. It takes massive willpower to not make a quick move, but instead apply the critical thought that is necessary to make a good decision.

For most sales organizations, your sales team most likely represents a wide range of personalities, experience levels as well as performance levels. Organizations typically have top performers or “all stars” as well as those that struggle each month to meet their sales quota or budget for the month. If your organization has determined there are some areas where your sales team can perform better and resources of time and money are available, where do you invest these limited resources? Do you focus on coaching up your bottom performers, do you bring in new talent, or do you focus on maximizing the performance of your top performers?