The Hidden Pools of Sales Talent with Chris Beall of ConnectAndSell

While everyone is chasing the same people, ie: those who work for competitors or the 3-7 year up-and-comers, there is a huge pool of talent that are on the sidelines waiting for a well positioned opportunity to present itself. 

I’d like to challenge you to think about the concept that outstanding talent comes from the most unlikely places. 

Last week we heard the story of a top sales performer at Swag.com who had no sales experience at all. But the Desire alignment was through the roof and now this person is absolutely thriving in their organization. The creativity & outside the box thinking is what sets the stage for success! 

Today is all about hiring outstanding sales people in an environment that is ridiculously competitive. 

Our guest today:  Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell

For 30 years Chris Beall has led software start-ups as a founder or early-stage developer. He believes the most powerful part of a software system is the human being, and that the value key is to let the computer do what it does well — go fast without getting bored — in order to free up human potential. 

Chris and his team provide a SaaS solution for sales teams to talk to more prospects, and hosts a podcast, Market Dominance Guys.

Today we discuss:

• Why you are looking in the WRONG places for sales talent
• How to adapt your hiring model to uncover high performing sales people

Challenge today in hiring sales people?

• Can't find people
  • Everyone is chasing the same (wrong) people
• Get bid up (too expensive) 
• Takes forever to train 
• They bounce
• Not interested in the job
• Huge untapped pool of talent (over 40)

Why is this important to the company?

• Adopting a 2 tier model you 
• Flow rate of meetings is a bottleneck of almost every company
  • Always invest in the bottleneck

Rick’s Nuggets

• Value alignment within the organization is more important than ever before
  • Connecting the dots between values & desire avoids bidding wars
  • Creating value above and beyond the paycheck
• People do not leave when they are in alignment

How do we solve the problem? 

• Change your model 
  • Make SDR as a real professional job
  • Look at different age demographics
• Identify people who come from the industry you sell to 
  • Huge untapped pool of talent (over 40)
• Interview like you mean it
  • Test people. Have them do some work
  • Have 10 conversations
    • Good voice
      • Can you make people laugh
      • Modulating your voice
      • Listen to the conversation
    • Coachable
    • Length of time you keep people on a call

Rick’s Nuggets

• “Walk me through the process how you closed your last deal”
• Scripts are king!
• Align your interview process with your company values
• To properly assess people you need to be able to evaluate them for alignment

Key Takeaways that the Audience can plug into their business today!  - Value:

• Take the SDR role seriously and not just as a stepping stone. (your company’s bottleneck
• Embrace real management for sales- pay attention to process
• The only thing a SDR needs to do is sell a meeting… not the product.

Guest Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-beall-7859a4/#

Company: https://connectandsell.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chris8649

Blog: http://blog.connectandsell.com/

Podcast: https://www.marketdominanceguys.com/

 

This show is proudly sponsored by Criteria Corp: https://www.criteriacorp.com/