The 2 Skills You Need to Recruit A-Players for Your Sales Team
The heart of any company is not its products or systems, it’s the people.
If the products are bad, people can make them better. If systems are lacking, people can build them. Recruiting remains one of the most challenging and rewarding positions in any organization.
Companies grow and die based on the people they hire. It’s the people who develop innovative ideas. They create new solutions to solve problems. The PEOPLE build partnerships, develop relationships, and help each other learn new skills.
But today, I want to share my number one skill for recruiting high-level salespeople. The kind of people you must have on board to grow any SaaS company.
And it’s this -matching.
Matching Beyond Hard Skills
And I’m not just talking about matching hard skills. Of course, hard skills and experience matter. But we can’t ignore other high-impact variables, primarily the intangibles.
Including the candidate’s unique situation and timing. These elements help determine if a potential recruit is worth pursuing.
For example, chasing recruits after a certain point in the process has a low probability of success. At some point, you must stop chasing candidates and recognize your offer isn’t likely to be a match.
What about when your recruit is almost a match?
Let’s say your recruit is making 200K, and you’re offering 225K. And after further investigation, there are zero compelling reasons for them to make a change outside of the extra 25K.
In fact, you discover they love their boss, and their company is a major player in the space. Seems like it’s almost a match, but it isn’t. You’ll need to stop dwelling and find someone else. (Assuming most of you here need to work within your current restraints.)
When the match just isn’t there, you need to RELY on your fundamental ability to SOURCE someone else.
Source a better fit and find someone who IS a complete MATCH.
Both from a skill set and situational perspective. Successful salespeople don’t possess the wherewithal to quit, resist the counter-offer, and walk away from commissions if they are NOT a complete 360° match.
Save yourself time and stress now.
Recognize hope when it creeps into your sourcing pipeline. The sooner, the better!
Learn to let go and move on.
Forcing things to come together by over-promising candidates may benefit you in the short term, but it only leads to short-lived and unhappy new hires.
Using your time to focus on building pipeline saves a lot of time and broken hearts.
The top 25% of any sales force; the high-level salespeople we’re always recruiting, they WILL get countered. They WILL leave money, bonuses, deals, and commissions behind. And they will have competing options!
But they won’t make a change for just any old sales job. And they won’t leave if the timing isn’t right. So here are the two mandatory skills needed for successful sales recruiting:
- Matching
- Sourcing
Without a STRONG MATCH—you’ll waste a lot of time and energy. The time you could use to source someone else who’s a better fit.
Without continuous SOURCING—you’ll be starting over again with an opening that’s already a few months old.
Now I don’t have to tell you how to match because you’ve seen droves of “would-be” recruiters fail at this one solitary skill. In fact, just mastering this one skill alone has kept some mediocre recruiters in the business for years.
That’s how important matching is and perhaps even how rare.
You either get how to match or you don’t.
Recruiters who GET matching have a shot at a successful recruiting career. But those who don’t find other professions to master.
But the best recruiters skill-stack two fundamentals together—they know how to MATCH and SOURCE. They avoid the career-killer called HOPE. They recognize when the match isn’t there.
If you’re working on a sales search that’s driving you crazy or a difficult search is locking up all your time, perhaps we should set up a time to chat. Email me at [email protected].
