Salespeople: getting the best for less; step-up hiring can be a great way to grow your own sales stars

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, March, 1990 by Josh Gordon

Salespeople: Getting the best for less Ad director's fantasy: You are the ad director at Fortune, where you have talented sales reps inundating you with unsolicited resumes, and you have a budget that allows you to pick and choose among the best and the brightest.

Ad director's reality: You can't afford the best and the brightest because they get paid a mint to work at Fortune. But you did get an unsolicited resume six months ago from a rence college graduate who got your name from SRDS.

If you are trying to hire a sales rep to work for your small publication, you may discover that the experienced applicants you can afford are not worth hiring--and the few gifted candidates you meet will command larger salaries or greater opportunity elsewhere.

But you don't have to settle for mediocrity if you pursue a hiring strategy of stepping someone up. This means spending extra time in the hiring process to find raw talent to grow your own sales stars.

At small publications, it's easy to forget that the job of "sales rep"--and the talent, skill and experience needed to execute the job--can be many different things at different publications. To discover the kind of person you

need at your mazagine, take a step back and ask yourself some questions:

1. What kind of "sell" works best for my industry or demongraphic? In some industries, relationship selling works fine; in others, it is considered one step above prostitution. For some industries where the products are complex or technical, product knowledge can be very useful. Is the area you cover a high profile industry where image and style count for more than they should? Hire accordingly.

2. How does my magazine get sold? What percentage of your reps' selling time is spent in face-to-face calls, over the phone, at trade shows, through letters or where? Don't hire a brilliant presenter and then stick him on the phone all day.

3. What is my market position? If you are in a number-one or number-two slot, it's probable that a consultative selling style is appropriate to expand the ad page market overall. If your book is number six in a six-book market, you may need to hire a good closer.

4. What kind of salesperson am I? Assume that you are going to drift toward hiring in your own image. This can be bad if you eliminate talented candidates who simply would get the job done differently then you would have. But also consider that the synergy between yourself and your salespeople is important--especially if you'll spend a lot of time on the road with them.

5. What are my clients like? Research tells us that the closer the seller and buyer are in age, personality and lifestyle, the more likely it is that the sale will be made. If your typical client is a balding 60-year-old man who smokes cigars, that summa cum laude you just hired fresh out of Radcliffe could have a tough job of it.

6. Does my company have a value system as it relates to selling style? Some companies focus on immediate sales, some on long-term selling. What are your expectations?

Accompanying this article is a list of skills and personal characteristics that you need to prioritize for yourself and your company, in descending order, before you take another step. I've already given you one priority under "Personal characteristics." Now you do the rest.

When you really get serious about looking for raw talent, you will find there is precious little of it around. Anywhere you can get good applicants--go after them. References, head hunters, space reps you compete with, classified ads. Talent follows no rules. Talent is where you find it. And don't forget, the best time to be scouting for talent is when you don't need it. This gives you the opportunity to really look around and evaluate carefully.

Most often, you will be running a classified ad to attract applicants. Writing a classified is not like writing an ad to sell products. Here you get no benefit from attracting a large volume of resumes. The most perfect help wanted ad you can write will attract only one response--from the perfect candidate who accepts the job when you offer it.

If you aren't paying top dollar for the position, state the compensation in the ad: You'll save everyone a lot of time. And describe your expectations in as specific terms as you can. Shown here is an ad I ran the last time I hired a sales rep. Do you think the applicants knew what I was looking for?

Reading resumes right

Robert Half, president of Robert Half International, one of the largest executive recruiting firms, writes, "Resumes are a necessary evil. They're tedious to plow through, and rarely yield an accurate picture of a candidate ... some of the most talented candidates I've ever come across simply refused to spend time on their resumes, and some of the weakest candidates I've interviewed prepared resumes worthy in their own right of a Pulitzer Price."

The challenge for step-up hiring is to read between the lines of the resume, to look more at the person and less at the experience, to look for patterns, not positions.