Sonja Hastings, Author at Optimal Sales Search

Is Hiring Sales Professionals Really About Selecting People With The Best Skills?

Rethinking Your Hiring Logic

Why do we hire the people we do? Human psychology and science help explain our hiring decisions. Many of today’s hiring managers have had little to no training when it comes to hiring sales talent.

Therefore, sales managers rely heavily on the interview process and collective opinion to build sales teams. Trial and error has also been an employable strategy for the few companies that can afford it. This strategy calls for hiring as many salespeople as possible, assessing performance, and cutting the bottom 50%. -Read More-

August 27, 2015

Want to Improve Sales Recruiting ROI? Eliminate These Five Ineffective Recruiting Methods

Five Sales Recruiting Tactics That Don’t Work

Are you making these five sales recruiting mistakes? Because recruiting eats up large chunks of time, it’s important to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. Review these tips and prioritize methods that work.

August 11, 2015

Seven Sourcing Channels for Sales Recruitment Success

All the Straws In the Broom Work Together: Add Recruiting Channels and Watch Your Talent Pipeline Expand

Are you getting the kind of sales talent you need to grow your team? Know you can do better? When you’re recruiting for your sales team, it’s easy to run into stalls, especially if you have loads of hiring to do. There’s no substitute for developing several sources of sales talent.

In fact, it’s a fundamental skill you must master in order to enjoy predictable recruitment success. Having multiple straws in the broom will give you the power you need to pull in quality candidates with consistency. The key to any sales recruitment program is to develop, build, and nurture contacts from multiple sources even before you need them. Read More

July 31, 2015

Seven Clues the Sales Candidate You Want to Hire Isn’t That Into You

Recognize the Patterns That Signal You’re Wasting Your Time on Candidates Are You Wasting Your Time? There is a saying, “Hope makes a good breakfast,

July 24, 2015

Six Simple Ways to Make Onboarding Sales Professionals a Success

Six Proven Strategies to Ensure Sales Onboarding Success Onboarding Counts John called me in the middle of the day. He’d just started a new role

July 18, 2015

Three Critical Reasons Sales Managers Must Focus on Onboarding

Onboarding Builds Better Teams

Ever spend four months recruiting and hiring a sales rep only to have them quit in four weeks? Sometimes they leave because they received a better offer. But many times it’s because onboarding created doubts about the decision to pick your organization. Learn three facts about why onboarding matters and what you can do to make it more successful so you can engage your team, and achieve your sales goals.

July 12, 2015

More than 8,000 Interviews Boiled Down to 16 Observations about Sales Hunters

From the Front Lines: Observations about Sales Hunters

I’ve interviewed more than 2,600 people in-person at all kinds of places: coffee shops, airport terminals, tiny interview rooms, bars, airport lounges, fancy offices, restaurants, city clubs, Starbucks, and more. I’ve video called and phone interviewed more than 5,500 sales candidates not including the 2,600 in-person interviews.

With rare exception, every candidate I’ve met in this population has had at least five years of experience post college. They are candidates from across the country, from New York to San Francisco. They’ve earned from 120K to 700K a year. Read More

June 27, 2015

Sonja Hastings