What’s an A-Player and Where do they live?

At American Workforce we have a number of partners who look to our processes to help their clients with talent assessment and acquisition.  Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, the companies they introduce us to have been trying to utilize basic recruiting aspects of what an advisor of mine calls, “smoke and hope-ium”.  

An example: just last week I was talking with a company that shared with me that while they weren’t urgently needing to acquire sales talent, they’d happily hire an A-Player if they fell in their lap.  

Landing A-Players doesn’t just happen.  Even in an economy where as much as 20% of the labor force is unemployed, 4 out of 5 people are still working.  What’s more, the people that you likely want to help grow your organization are kicking butt for their current employer.  They aren’t going to show up on your doorstep, unannounced, and ask where their cubicle is for when they start working the next morning.  

Adam Robinson is a colleague and friend of mine in Chicago.  He’s got a tremendous blog called Better Hiring Today and we agree on a lot of things.  He recently completed a 4 part series on the challenges associated with hiring salespeople.  While we don’t use the same nomenclature or verbiage, we’re saying nearly the same thing.  Here are some highlights on some common sales recruiting difficulties:

• Great salespeople are always in demand and unless you’re recruiting, you’re probably fishing in an overstocked pond of mediocre talent that is looking to jump ship before their resume takes a hit for lack of productivity.
• Mediocre Salespeople are A-Players at “selling themselves”.  I couldn’t agree more.  What complicates this is the fact that many Entrepreneurs are salespeople at their core and there’s no one easier to sell than a fellow salesperson.
• Great salespeople are the product of an environment.  Adam touches on a good point but I think that he skims the surface and doesn’t dig deep enough on this particular topic given its significance.  Many of you have seen me write about Dave Kurlan and his methodologies before.  Dave has gone deeper, a lot deeper, into understanding both the environment where success was achieved by a salesperson as well as the dynamics of what they had to sell.  Here are some examples of those dynamics:

-What was the average value of the product or sale?

-Who inside of an organization were they selling to: Purchasing? Finance? CEO?

-How many calls did it take, on average, to win new business?

-How did the price of the product they were selling compare to its competition? Were they the lowest priced? Highest?

-What was the quality of the product or service they were selling? Was it a Kia or a Lexus? What’s your company sell?

Getting back to the title: Where does top talent live?  They live everywhere but they’re not hiding.  They’re friends with the teller at the bank person who went the extra mile during your last visit, they have the season tickets next to you at the Opera or Stadium, they’re married to the guy you play softball with.  If you don’t have your eyes open and act as your company’s biggest billboard for WANTING to talk to the best talent you’ll probably miss all of the subtle clues around you.

Tags: 20% unemployment, A-Players, adam robinson, always recruiting, Better Hiring Today, challenges of hiring salespeople, company billboard, Dave Kurlan, hire, hiring, mediocre salespeople, Objective Management Assessment Test, OMG, recruit don't absorb, Sales Talent, smoke and hope-ium, talent assessment, top talent