What is your first thought when someone mentions sales or salesperson?
Chances are particularly good that it brings up a negative reaction.
I remember one door-to-door salesman asking our entire family to sit around the table as he shared gruesome pictures of house fires as part of his pitch to my parents for his fire alarms.
Those pictures terrified me as a young boy. That’s a memory I’ll never forget.
Why did he insist on all of us being around the table?
The door-to-door salesperson is largely a thing of the past today.
Face-to-face sales are still here and will be for the rest of our lives. In fact, we are selling all the time when we are in a small business, especially when it comes to hiring people.
You read that right. In today’s world we need to sell the opportunity when we are hiring a team. We have always had to do this, to some degree, but now it is critical to think of recruiting and hiring as largely sales.
Today’s employees are motivated by, and want to be part of businesses with purpose, values and culture that resonates with their beliefs. They make decisions collectively more than ever. There is usually more than one person who has impact of the final decision.
This reality is often overlooked, because it has not been that much of a deal until very recently. Or has it?
The door-to-door salesman, the window salesman, and the vacuum cleaner salesman all knew that having all the decision makers at the table was critical to the sale. They were trained to accept nothing less.
The challenge we all have is to make sure all the decision makers hear our “pitch” which means being at the table. Without this strategy, you’ll most likely do a great presentation, quite likely have a verbal yes, and only later learn that someone back home nixed the deal.
To avoid wasting time, and increasing the odds that you’re making good hire, ask upfront who else will be involved in this decision. Once you have identified that person, now your real job is to sell an appointment with you and all the decision makers sitting down and going over the details together.
When I hear someone say they will get the information and share it later with the other decision maker, my heart sinks. I have seen this go bad so many times. No one can share your vision and values like you can.
And for that matter, the most important part of the interview for any potential employee, and the decision makers, is the corporate vision, mission, and purpose. The rest of the details are simply details.
This might feel like extra work, but I assure you it will increase the odds of making a good hire, one that buys into your mission and stays with you for the long haul.
It is time to revisit the time-tested and proven strategy used by the door-to-door salesman of getting all the decision makes around the table at the same time.
