Do You Know How to Find a Real Hunter When Doing Sales Recruiting?
How to Increase sales with the best marketing campaigns that generate leads need proper sales follow-up by hunters and BRSs who are hungry for new business. My new book, Millennial Sales Hiring: Seven Proven Steps to Recruit, Hire, and Fast Track Your Millennial Sales Teams, just released on Amazon has deeper insights into this special breed of salespeople.
What is your sales strategy to attract, hire, and retain hunters that can and will get the sales job done?
In a previous article, we talked about some of the key areas that you will consider when profiling your ideal hunter. Now we take a closer look at the critical areas you need to consider as you are selecting your ideal candidate.
Step 2 – How to increase Sales by Selecting the right Hunters and BDRs for your Business
Hunters and BDRs, according to Objective Management Group (who has done extensive research on high-performance salespeople), in general:
- Prospect without fail
- Sail past gatekeepers
- Sniff out decision makers
- Secure appointments
- Receive plenty of introductions
- Do not seek approval
- Recover quickly from rejection
They have four foundational beliefs for sales success—Passion, Drive, Ownership, Outlook. But, if any of the following misgivings appear—Need for Approval, Imposter Syndrome, Discomfort talking about money, Non-Supportive Decision Making—don’t give up. Many hunters may have one or two misgivings that they may be able to overcome with proper coaching and training.
Check out my vidio Steps to Hire Sales Hunters that Fit Your Winning Sales Strategy here:
Your Sales strategy and How to Recognize a True Hunter
- Before you start investing your time and involving others in the selection process, the most accurate way to determine if candidates are true hunters is to have them take proven assessments that analyze their characteristics and behavior. Here are a few examples:
Behavior—Most hunters have a driving style, a tendency to be task-oriented. They are typically ambitious, pioneering, strong-willed, determined and competitive. They need these behaviors to support increased rejection levels that can accompany new business development.
Motivators—Most hunters are motivated by a clear return-on-investment. If they invest time, money or resources in a meeting or with a prospect, they expect an outcome. They are motivated to take risks to be viewed as a leader. And, they are compelled to keep learning about how to improve the “hunting game.”
- Start with a phone call to screen In the first two to three minutes, you’ll determine if the candidate merits further consideration based on their ability to engage you with their rapport skills and if they zero in on the next step. How you end this call and how the prospective candidate responds is critical. Intentionally close with a put-off. Unless candidates thank you and begin to ask questions, as you would expect them to do with prospects, they don’t belong on your list of in-person interviewees. They must demonstrate that they don’t accept put-offs to earn your consideration.
- After the initial telephone screen comes the interview process. I encourage clients to meet with qualified candidates on 3 different occasions; in 3 different environments; scrutinizing 3 different aspects of their natural wiring that the assessments have uncovered. The idea is to get a variety of perspectives since salespeople call on a variety of people in a variety of situations.
- Although some of the latest technology has changed our tactics, i.e. we can do video interviews, etc. many of the best practices have only been strengthened in the last decade.
Once there is consensus that a candidate merits strong consideration, you’ll already know from the assessments if they fit the hunter profile.
In the next article in this series, I’ll share interesting details about the successful hiring and retaining of a strong hunter.
Leadership Lesson:
The most accurate way to determine if candidates are true hunters is to have them take proven assessments.
Leadership Question:
What process do you use to ensure that you have high-performance salespeople on your team that includes hunters?
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