I have been working for McHenry Consulting as a Recruiter for the PEO Industry (internal employees) for 5 ½ years now.  From literally day one, first call with my first client…The first outcome was – “I don’t need any new people, but anytime you find a good salesperson, in any area of the country, can you send them my way?”  And that continued and still continues with every PEO client that I have.

In an article in the March PEO Insider, written by Vic Tannon from Emplicity in California, they posed a question, “What makes a great Salesperson?”.  Here are the adjectives that were listed:

Goal-Oriented, Inquisitive, Tenacious, Self-Aware, Assertive, Empathetic, Upbeat, Passionate, Creative, Accountable, Well-Prepared, Tech-Savvy, Highly Engaged, and Relationship-Driven, Resilient, Conscientious, Adaptable, Driven, Confident, Good Listeners, Approachable, and Hardworking.

I agree with every single one of these adjectives!!  But – WOW!!!  If you could find one person that fits into all those categories, you have found the needle in the haystack.  Let’s boil it down to 3 categories, that will basically encompass all of the adjectives above.

I know that hiring employees is pretty low on everyone’s priority list these days, but very soon it will be time to gear up.  And, you may have lost some of your employees or they may have taken advantage of the downtime to clean out the closets or re-organize their spice rack.  In those cases, there will be another ramp-up time. So, with that in mind, I wanted to give you some food for thought on the best Sales hires or re-hires:

• DESIRE – It can’t be taught! If it could, I would make a fortune!  Everyone uses a different word – Hungry, Aggressive, Motivated, Ambitious, etc.  But what it all comes down to is that the potential sales candidate has a stellar work ethic and DESIRE to succeed.  The trick is to sift through all the right words that come out during the interview process to make sure that the DESIRE is there for the right reason. (shameless plug: that is a huge part of what I do before I send a candidate to my client for their vetting process)
• ENERGY – Every field sales professional is going to work from home – at least some of the time. Are they set up to do that?  If they don’t have a home office, there is a good chance that they work a little haphazardly and a little unorganized.  High Energy is great, but it also needs to be reeled in when necessary to complete all of your processes to get that prospect over the finish line.
• PERSONALITY – This is a given right? They need to be able to have a meaningful conversation with Manufacturers and CEOs alike.  Dress the part for each venue.  Use the right communication style with each.  And most important – does their winning personality translate as well over the phone as it does in person, and over text.  Let’s face it – as important as that First Meeting is, the majority of the sales/prospect relationship will grow over phone calls and text. Side note – depending on the age of your sales team, there may need to be a lesson on texting grammatically correct.  I get that texting has its own language, but you should still expect professionalism and all lower-case, run-on sentences does not say “Professional”.

Obviously, each PEO has a different culture that the Sales team also needs to fit within.  With that in mind, the qualities listed will take a different priority level, depending on your existing team.  The trick is to determine which one takes priority (shameless plug #2: I can help with that).

My hope for all of you is that you make it through this crisis unscathed and we all come out on the other side, healthy and wise and ready to finish 2020 out STRONG.

Best of Luck to you all!!!