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Where to Find Salespeople | Top Sales Leader’s Thoughts
Regardless of the economy, quality talent is scarce. And it continues to decline as less qualified individuals enter or stay in the job market.
Technically, you can find sales professionals everywhere. They’re at the mall. They’re at car dealerships. They’re on the phone and in your inbox.
You can find salespeople anywhere.
But that doesn’t stop my clients from coming to me, saying they can’t find salespeople. So, I ask my clients this:
Where are you looking for your sales reps?
And what I learn is they look in all the wrong places.
Regardless of the economy, quality talent is scarce. And it continues to decline as less qualified individuals enter or stay in the job market.
In this article, I have recommended avenues based on the industries and the types of salespeople we look for ourselves and for my clients –top performers. I have also included my thoughts on avenues commonly used, but that will yield high-performing organizations limited success.
INSIGHTS
I usually always start with a cold outreach on LinkedIn.
Hiring is no different than sales. The first part of any sale is prospecting. When we prospect, we determine the type of individual we want to hire and create our filters.
To create that list of passive candidates, we use LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
We enjoy the LinkedIn Sales Navigator for the following features:
- Advanced lead & company search
- Lead and account alerts
- Create Custom Lists
- Integrate with our CRM contacts
Once we create that list, we craft and tailor specific, unique messaging to each one of those ideal candidates.
We contact these individuals on LinkedIn or start cold emailing them, and we start reaching out.
That leads to an initial conversation that allows us to extract their career goals and aspirations and consider if there is a mutual fit.
We position it as helping them achieve their career goals in return for their services.
LinkedIn is the fastest and easiest way to find and hire salespeople.
I usually always start with a cold outreach on LinkedIn...LinkedIn is the fastest and easiest way to find and hire salespeople.
Sharing on Social Media platforms
Many sales organizations tell me they advertize across all the other social media sites, yet they still have difficulty hiring good salespeople.
That is where they are going wrong.
I am not saying Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok are unsuitable for recruitment. But I know we won’t find top performers for our high-performing clients. Plus, it is a lengthy process.Â
Here’s why:Â
Your business’s social media audience comprises existing customers, potential customers, brand advocates, and fans. It is not a finely tuned list of potential candidates that will make good salespeople.Â
Even if you set very narrow parameters, the job description will not get the right candidates for your sales organization.Â
It means you will wade through a lot of rubbish because you have skipped the prospecting step. It is a long process that will not help you find sales reps.Â
Now let’s say you did the prospecting steps via LinkedIn and used Instagram or Facebook messenger to reach out. Does that seem professional to you? Does that say we want to help you reach your career goals? No.Â
This might seem obvious to you, but I have seen it. It wasn’t good.
Ultimately, social media platforms – Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook – reach a wider audience, opening you up to unqualified candidates who will inevitably make poor hires.
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We use a combination of Kolbe and PRINT® assessments to identify team-member strengths and motivators and even illuminate bad-fit placements.Â
Furniture Stores
Let me explain.Â
Furniture store sales reps and sales managers are wildly underrated. Trust me: you’ll find good sales candidates because of the margins.Â
Let’s compare sales reps in a car dealership – used or new. They get a 3 to 5% margin on a car, so they don’t have the money to invest in training and development. For car dealerships, throwing enough stuff against the wall that something’s bound to stick.Â
So, if your subsequent sales hire comes from a car dealership, they are probably not trained.Â
A furniture sales department is different. There is up to a 500% markup on furniture. They’ve got money to invest in their sales team and training, and the sales department is incentivized to sell more.Â
In my experience, furniture stores are an excellent place to find junior or entry-level sales professionals.Â
Call Centers
People from call centers also make quality candidates because of the sheer volume and tempo of activity they engage in the day-to-day.Â
I call it the fast food of sales.Â
These make good salespeople because they’re constantly cold-calling, goal-oriented, and operating at a very high tempo.Â
Suppose you give these people more structure – sales process, systems, tools, and constructive feedback for closing deals. In that case, you reduce their transactional tendencies and have decent sales productivity.Â
So, find and hire call center operators- they make great salespeople.Â
Sales recruiting agencies
I have used recruiters or staffing agencies to help screen and vet potential sales reps. It can help you narrow down a vast pool of applicants.
It can save you time, and they can provide top sales talent. I tend to use these agencies for more crucial sales hires, like your VP of Sales, which are much harder to find.
However, remember always be suspicious.Â
Don’t take advice at face value for hiring sales reps. While paying recruiters can be helpful, I’m always skeptical of anyone claiming to have the ideal candidate.
There are charlatans everywhere, including reputable sales recruiting companies and other recruiters. Just know what you’re signing up for.
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We evaluate your compensation structure, tech stack, sales playbooks, sales strategy, sales process, hiring and onboarding to ignite revenue growth.
Social and professional network
I am active in networking groups with other business leaders. I regularly receive referrals and often give them too. A professional or personal network will gain your professional connections, establish trust and increase your knowledge of the sales field.Â
You may also attend local networking events, which can act as a resource for finding salespeople. These events relevant must be relevant to your niche and business area.Â
For example, you may attend a day-long conference led by a company using shared business software, trade shows, or a guest speaker meeting to make for good professional networking events.Â
The problem with relying on these networks and events to recruit salespeople is timing and luck. If you need to hire quickly and soon, these events won’t yield fast results.Â
These professional networks will work if you are constantly looking for potential sales talent.Â
Traditional job boards
Traditional job boards like Indeed, Glassdoor, Simply Hired, and Monster will show you as many candidates as possible- but will they be qualified? Unlikely.Â
The problem is the best salespeople already have a job. They work for your competition, another sales organization, or another industry. If they leave, it’s because they want a better opportunity, and they won’t find it here.Â
I might use a traditional jobs board if I am hiring salespeople at an entry-level, but you want to find and hire the right salesperson for a senior role here.Â
So many clients have this same problem. They add their job description and as much detail to the job posting as possible and wait. They either get nothing or are inundated with terrible sales team prospects.Â
The truth is these job sites won’t find or attract top talent and just increases your time spent finding salespeople.Â
Niche job boards
In recent years, niche job boards, designed specifically to recruit salespeople, connect more tailored and quality candidates to respective sales organizations.Â
Unlike the traditional jobs board that allows the sales rep to apply to a job description, these sites allow for more prospecting. Some sites have automated features, while others give you access to prospecting tools.
In my experience, these sales-specific job boards can locate decent sales representatives fishing for more significant opportunities or entry-level candidates for your sales team – but you may also not.Â
- Rainmakers: Match employers with high-performing salespeople, interfacing with applicant profiles that showcase their relevant sales skills and effectiveness.
- SalesJobs: Sales-specific jobs board flexible packages for a sales manager, employer, and recruiter.
- Sales Heads: Popular for entry-level sales roles powered by Nexxt.Â
Again, the problem with these job boards is a significant lack of talent. Like the traditional job boards, I will use these to look for junior or entry-level candidates.Â
And just like you should be suspicious of recruiters selling you good salespeople and sales managers at face value, you need to remain skeptical of any software service claiming to have the ideal candidate for you too.
Do you need help with your sales hiring process?
You have to play to win when you want to grow your sales organization. Playing to win means thinking up creative solutions to your hiring needs.Â
Let me ask you this:Â
- Do you know how to find creative solutions to these issues preventing progress?
- Do you have a hiring and interview process?Â
- Can you find top talent for your sales team?
Let me be clear, if the solution were in front of you, you would have solved it already.
It’s likely something that you cannot solve without support and help.
Rose Garden is solutions-focused, so if you want me and my team to ignite your revenue growth, we will do so with our Sales Accelerator Process and Team Assessment.
About the author:
Ali Mirza is the Founder & CEO of Rose Garden, a national sales consulting organization, and featured in Forbes, Inc, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, Business Rockstars, and The Wall Street Journal.
Ali is a highly sought-after public speaker presenting at multiple national conferences on innovative ways to accomplish transformational growth on your sales team.
Rose Garden provides unparalleled support and guidance to growth-minded founders via sales strategy differentiation, world-class sales culture creation, and exclusive playbooks, processes, and scripts to position them for limitless growth.
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