How do I find good salespeople?

Where Do I Find Good Salespeople?

If you’re waiting for great salespeople to apply… you’ll be waiting a long time.

In today’s Question of the Day, I flip the question back: you don’t find them—you go get them. The best salespeople aren’t actively job hunting.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why top talent is rarely sitting in your applicant pool 
•  Where to proactively find strong salespeople online, in-person, and through past connections
•  How to identify high performers even outside your industry 
•  Why recruiting doesn’t stop at finding them—you still have to sell them on the role, the company, and you

If you’re struggling to hire or keep recycling the same candidates, this episode will help you take a more intentional, proactive approach to building your sales team.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Pat in Florida, and Pat asks, I have an open sales position, but am not thrilled at any of the candidates I've interviewed. How do I find good candidates? Great question. And you answered your own question there. You said, find good candidates. You gotta go find them. They're not coming to you. You have to go find good candidates. Now, so let's dig into this a little bit. Now, as we dig into it, I want to apologize to anybody who knows anything about recruiting. I am not a professional recruiter, but I think in the past I've done really good at it. I've got some really good hires, some really strong teams, and I made some bad hires that I learned a lot from. But I I remember when I first started recruiting, I was a training director. And I knew about training, I knew about sales. I didn't know anything about recruiting. But I was voluntold that I was taking over recruiting. I was like, oh, I don't know anything about this. And but I started riding along with the recruiters. I started meeting with some recruiting experts, and I started to realize like recruiting, it's sales. Like it's just sales. That's all it is. It's sales. Like you're just you're selling the company, you're selling the job, you're selling you essentially. You're convincing people to give up what they're doing to come join you. It's really sales when you're talking to good people, right? If you're just trying to fill some frontline position and your, you know, your qualifications are you have a pulse. I mean, that's different. But I wasn't doing that. I was trying to find good people, right? And so I it was sales. I had to sell them on this. And so I'm not an expert. I'm gonna walk through what I did. Uh I thought it worked really well. There's probably better ways to do it, but bottom line is you got to go find them. They're not coming to you. In fact, I think it's a bit of a red flag when a salesperson is applying to the job. So if I have a sales role and I have somebody that has years of experience in sales and they're applying to my job, that's a red flag. I'm not saying it's a bad candidate, but in my experience, often it is. And so it's it's a red flag that I dig deeper into. Because think about this. Great salespeople are hard to find. Every company I know is looking for great salespeople. They'd even settle for a good salesperson. So they're hard to find. If they're a great salesperson, wherever they're at, that company is going to hang on to them with both hands. They're not going to let them go. They're going to make sure they're happy. Because great salespeople are very hard to find. Now, sometimes you can identify some great salespeople that are looking for jobs because of a, you know, some kind of major transition in a company, like a company completely changed or got bought out, or something like that. I remember one company that I used to coach, um, they had they they were the big player in town, and they also had another big player that was their competitor, and their competitor got rid of um the the president. And this was somebody that had been there like 30 years and hired everybody underneath, and they were super loyal to this person. But by getting rid of that person, everybody underneath felt like their the rug got pulled out from under them. And so they weren't so sure, like, man, if they're willing to get rid of this guy, because I love that guy, like that's the guy that gave me a chance, that got me into this industry, taught me everything I knew. If they're getting rid of that guy, is this a company I want to work for? Like that was a big shakeup. And the competitor across town took advantage of that and they started poaching all the good candidates, all the great leaders, all the great salespeople, like just started bringing them over until they had like a super team. And it really hurt the company that got poached in this scenario. So, like, that's an example where you might be able to get some great salespeople, but unless there's some kind of major change or shakeup like that, great salespeople aren't looking for a job. And the companies they're at, they're hanging on to them with both hands. So if you have a salesperson that applies to a job, I'm not I'm not saying give up on them, but just do your due diligence, dig in deep with them, identify what is their sales process, what works, what doesn't work, how they handle difficult situations and you know objections that come up and whatnot. I I want to know they know their stuff. I'm probably even gonna ask for some kind of proof. I want to see proof of their sales performance, and that could even be something like a pay stub or something like that. I I want to see that they were a high-performing salesperson because I'm a bit skeptical. Usually the salespeople looking for jobs are the ones that aren't real good at sales, their companies are willing to let them walk and um unleash them on the competition, if you will. But the thing is, like, they're pretty good at selling themselves too. So it's it's tough to disseminate. Like, is this a good salesperson or are they just really good at selling themselves? So dig in deep because odds are a great salesperson is not coming to you. They are not going to be applying to your job. So here's what I used to do. This is an example I used to do. Now, this is an online example. Now, um, I'll preface here this is uh this is when I was a training director, and then I took over recruiting and and I'm looking for good sales candidates, and I had access to LinkedIn, but my company wouldn't spring for like the the paid version, so I just had the free version. But I had a I had a pretty good presence on LinkedIn, and and so the way LinkedIn works is you can see your connections and second connections and third connections, and and so if if you got a lot of connections, a good presence, you can you can see a lot of people on there. And this would be true of other platforms like Indeed and whatnot too. But the thing I liked about LinkedIn is like it, it was like a resume, it was like an online resume. I could see their experience, I could see their skills. I could even do a Boolean search and and look for skills in industries. So a Boolean search is when you put a bunch of keywords like um sales plus auto plus Virginia, something like that, right? And it's gonna it's gonna bring up everybody that matches all of those things, right? So that's a Boolean search. And uh so I would do Boolean search based on the things that I was looking for, and I could see their experience, their skills. And I can see a lot of people are you know on paper or on online look like they would fit the role that I was looking for. And then I would reach out to them. But I wanted to stand out because I know, like, you know, on like LinkedIn and stuff, like you get all kinds of spammy, like, hey, you'd be great for this job kind of thing. Click here. Um, so I wanted to stand out. I I wanted them to know I wasn't spammed. So what I did was I just shot like a quick 30-second video introducing who I am, the company, the the high level of the role, and and I would attach that video right in there. And and I would, as I would explain that, all I was asking was 15 minutes of their time. Either I'd buy them a coffee somewhere and meet up, or just 15 minutes on like a Zoom call. Might even been Skype back then. I don't know. But but 15 minutes of their time. That's all I wanted, either online or buying them a coffee. And I don't know, like 90% of people would respond and give me that 15 minutes. I had very good results at the people I reached out to at least giving me that 15 minutes. And that 15 minutes, that's your foot in the door. I have my foot in the door right now. They're not applying to my job yet, but I'm up. I'm up to bat. This is this is my chance to sell the job, the company, me as a person, me as a leader. This this is the chance right here. You can explain in that 15 minutes where you are, where you've been, where you're going. You can answer any questions that they have. And it gives you a good feeling up front whether they would be a good fit for that job. But what you're doing is you're pitching this to the high performers, the people who aren't looking for a job. And if they're interested, and they weren't always, sometimes they weren't interested. And that's okay. Great. I took my shot, right? And sometimes I wasn't interested. Sometimes once I saw him, like, I was like, yeah, no, not gonna be like one guy, I mean, he had a greasy t-shirt on for the it was on Zoom and he had a greasy t-shirt on, pizza boxes stacked in the back, and like just the the awareness of I don't know, your background. Like you could even pick a blank wall would have been better. And so, like that guy was like, I'm I'm out. Like, if that's your presentation to have this conversation, I you're not gonna look good for customers, right? And so the whole goal is just get them interested and get them to apply. And I got a lot of good candidates, candidates that weren't looking for jobs that now I'd piqued their interest and they wanted to apply. And they did apply, right? And then we move them forward with interviews, and and some worked out to be very good hires because I was going after high performers, people that weren't looking for a job. So that was that was an online example. You can do this in person as well. So think about think about the skills you want, define the skills you want. And I'm betting those skills are true in other industries. You're not specifically looking in your industry, you can find those skills in other industries as well. Maybe like a server, maybe sales in another industry. But you can start looking in those industries, hire for that attitude, hire for those skills, and train on the the aptitude, train on the skills they need. If this is like a uh plumbing sales or so, you can train the basics of plumbing, right? Like I'm not talking for a plumber here. I'm talking if you're selling like water heaters. Like you can train the basics of water heaters to sell water heaters. Same for HVAC, right? Like you can sell, uh you can teach them the basics of HVAC. Same for electrical. A great company in Washington. They got a salesperson that sells electrical, he sells the panels, he sells the rewires. He's not an electrician, but he knows enough to sell those big ticket items. He's very good at it. And so you can find these skills in other industries, and so then go look for them. And when you meet them in person and you're impressed by their ability, their process, their people skills, give them your card. And this is your chance to sell them on the job, on the company, on you. And in that moment, they may be busy, they may be working. You know, you don't have 15 minutes to stop and talk about that. But but again, just get them interested in hey, I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee, right? Hey, I'd love to jump on a call with you. And then that's your your time to shine and sell them, get them to apply. Because these are high performers that aren't looking for a job. I know a company, the uh president of the company had somebody out for gutters. He was so impressed by the sales process of the gutter salesman. He asked them, he said, Hey, I would we need people like you. I'd love for you to just come by one day on your day off and see what we're all about. And that person came along and and just shadowed for a day at the company, and it was a great company, and they hired him, and he's been there for years. Secretly, I do this with door-to-door sales too, right? So nobody likes door-to-door sales coming up to the door. Even me, a sales coach, I don't like door-to-door sales coming to my door, but uh uh, you know, somebody will knock on my door, and I'm I am impressed by their ability to do that, because they know nobody likes this, and they're going through that anyways. To me, that says this this is a very moldable individual that whatever processes I want them to do, they'll do it. Because if they're doing door-to-door sales, my processes are way simpler than that. They'll do it. And and so they have that attitude of uh I'm gonna I'm gonna dive in and and apply this. And so a lot of times with door-to-door sales, I'll try to sell them on coming to work for me. And and so I'll say things like, Man, are you really walking to all these houses? Like, man, that's a lot of walking. It's cold out here. This is up in the north here. It's it's cold. You're walking on a cold day like this. Man, I bet it'd be nice to have some leads provided to you, you know, that you don't have to like go walk and search for all your leads. Like, I get them interested. And then I pass them my card and get them to apply. Some of those have worked out, some haven't. But these are all great individuals, high-performing individuals that aren't looking for a job. The other place you can look, look into your past connections. You have experience, you have a great group of performers in your past. And yeah, they might not be looking for a job, but stay connected to them. Even if you don't have a need now, stay connected to them because you will have a need someday. And you never know when that high performer in the past will be the perfect person for whatever role you're looking for here. And reach out to them. That's your opportunity again. Sell them on the job, sell them on the company, sell them on you, where you've been, where you're going. There's a sales leader in Arizona that I work with, and and he's bringing all his former top players along with him. Now, a little more backstory, there was some shakeup there where a private equity bought the company, and this private equity didn't treat the company very good. And so a lot of the employees are shook up and upset about where the company's going since they switched. And so it's not too terribly hard for him to reach out and cherry pick those high performers, tell them about the great company he's at now, and he just keeps bringing one after another over. And sales are sales are soaring at this company. It's a good time at this company right now. So you answered your own question. You gotta go find them, you gotta go get them. This reminds me of my son, my son right now. Uh he's six and he loves Pokemon, and you guys probably know Pokemon, gotta catch them all, right? Like, they don't come to you, you gotta go get them. Same thing here. Go get those high performers. They're not looking for a job. So go look there. That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, give a rating. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me via email. It'll be listed in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're an XR member, schedule a call with me. Let's get this addressed one on one. Let's get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.