by Mike Brunel | Aug 8, 2018 | Sales, Strategy
How to hire a Superstar Salesperson each and every time
Today, I released my free report on How to Hire a Superstar Salesperson each and every time.
To coincide with releasing this free report, I wanted to share some of my thoughts around how I have hired salespeople and some key takeaways I have learned, through good and bad hires.
Who is this for?
It’s for any business owner, Sales Manager, or a startup who needs to hire a salesperson who is rewarded by a salary and performance-based performance-based
If you’ve ever hired any salespeople, like I have, you’ve usually made or have made one of these mistakes.
Just so you know, I’m fully qualified to be writing about this stuff – I’ve hired, fired, coached, or managed hundreds of salespeople, over too many years to remember, in many different countries and languages.
It’s fair to say that I’ve been through the school of hard knocks.
I hired magnificent salespeople beginning with one wonderful amazing woman, a single mum, who through sheer hard work and effort exceeded her targets in her job as a sales manager in a small media company in New Zealand.
With my main business, I was lucky to find two brothers for my U.S. operation who brought in millions of dollars.
These two superstars have certain traits, talents, and habits, that we knew would leverage our sales systems worldwide, if we could duplicate their process…. which we did.
As a result, I noticed traits in these people, secrets that I always look for. I think I know by now, what they are.
Before I go into that, let’s talk about two of the mistakes that we often make, when we go to hire salespeople.
What not to do
What’s the cost of Hiring Badly?
Think about these stats for a moment. According to a Harvard Business review article, the cost of replacing a salesperson that was hired badly ranges from $75,000 to $90,000, while other sales positions can cost a company as much as $300,000.
These figures don’t reflect the lost sales while a replacement is found and trained.
One of my good friends who owns a telecommunication company has told me a bad hire for him costs a least $1 million over time.
That’s horrendous. This may not change as we enter this new world of communication. As a company or small business, you simply cannot afford to hire on gut alone.
Is Fit Important? Maybe.
A culture fit in any business is important, there’s no doubt about that, but what you need to discover firstly is “Does this person have the ability/talent to do the job?”
That is the underlying question that needs to be asked by you as an employer of salespeople.
In the next blog, I am going to cover off some of the common mistakes that we made when we hired a salesperson for our business.
Download my FREE report to learn more, or email me… mike@mikebrunel.com
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and in 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions which include rugby, travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME!
by Mike Brunel | Apr 26, 2018 | Leadership, Sales
A Valuable Lesson.
Throughout my 30 years of selling advertising to companies of all sizes, I learned many valuable lessons. I began as a door-to-door stationary salesperson in Sydney, selling everything from pencils to exercise books. I then moved on to selling carpet services in London, utilizing promotional brochures to generate leads. It was during this time that I realized the importance of face-to-face sales.
Direct media selling was my next endeavour, where I discovered the challenge of selling something invisible – a service, rather than a physical product.
Selling the Invisible
Advertising is intangible, existing in the form of airtime or a gap in a TV program. Building trust became critical to my success, and I quickly learned the value of meeting clients in person to establish a relationship.
As my career progressed, I discovered the power of selling to many.
When I started NRS Media, my partner Doug Gold introduced me to the concept of a “membership program.” Advertisers could purchase advertising time at a discounted rate, but only if they committed to a 12-month automatic debit payment plan.
This approach generated over $1 million in advertising commitment before the media company even launched.
I developed a sales system around this model, generating over $1 billion in revenue for our media partners worldwide.
Our seminars, using a “one-to-many” presentation model, boasted attendance rates of 70-80%, with closing rates as high as 50%.
The key to success lies in developing a process for your product, which can be easily accomplished through digital means. Many companies are already doing an excellent job of utilizing the one-to-many approach to distributing their information.
In conclusion, while face-to-face sales remain essential, selling to many through a free seminar or digital process has become increasingly crucial.
I encourage you to have fun selling your products this week, utilizing the power of technology and personal relationships to build lasting connections with your clients.
Mike
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, and expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training. He was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions, including rugby and travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME
by Mike Brunel | Apr 6, 2018 | Sales
Have you heard about Speed Selling?
Speed Selling is a great way to launch a company and I have participated in it several times.
Over the years it has become a lot more sophisticated. My old company, NRS Media, has fine-tuned it to pretty much launch a brand new media company into profit from day one. More on that idea later.
Speed Selling
My first experience with Speed Selling was at a part-time radio station in a small town of 15,000 people. As FM radio developed in my country many potential operators were given temporary licenses to run 90-day radio stations, usually in tourist towns.
The potential bidder who was proposing a full-time license used this temporary 90-day station concept to build creditability and see if a format they used would be accepted by the community. If they did, they were granted a full-time FM license.
How Speed Selling worked
Each salesperson was given a certain “show to sell”. For example the “Top Ten at Ten”, the “American Top 40 with Rick Dees”, sponsorships and any generic type music programme that could be sold off for 90 days.
The trick was there was no price on the programme, just a guideline. The sales rep could not go below the number but could go above, the highest price got the sale, and the sales manager was the final judge.
The competition was run over an hour for each show. Each rep had to go out and cold call, sell the product; get the client to sign an agreement with the time and the price they were prepared to pay.
You then came back to the station to see how you got on.
It was great; speed was the key, because if the price was acceptable to the sales manager, then you got the next one, and off you went with a 15-minute bonus.
The other guys had to sit around for 15 minutes before they could go out and sell the next programme.
It proved very successful and loads of fun. Why don’t you try this idea with your team? Not too hard to do, add in some incentives, a few prizes and you will be amazed how much fun it is.
Other tools to Speed Sell.
One to Many.
This idea built my previous company NRS Media from zero sales to $350 million annually.
It was a seminar based model where business owners were invited to a hotel to hear the latest trends and ideas on advertising. Usually in groups of 15-20 advertisers. At the end of the presentation, every attendee was offered an advertising package- usually a 12-month investment.
On average we could generate $600-$1 million in sales using this model. That was over a week!
I have since sold that company, but still today this type of speed selling works. It’s moved on a little, but can be adapted to any company if you have a product launch that requires speed.
Taking action and speed in selling is very important. Often the one ingredient missing is training, you can’t ignore it.
I wrote all the sales and marketing manuals at NRS Media and perfected the execution, but without our famous Bootcamps, our people would never have had the success they achieved.
I take my hat off to the team that drove those in our business. Training is the one neglected tool that gets you the most sales.
Many companies ignore it because it takes time, but as the saying goes “we could not afford not to do it”
There are a few more speed selling idea, love to share.
As always.
Find a way to sell more of your stuff….
Mike
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and in 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions which include rugby, travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME
by Mike Brunel | Mar 20, 2018 | Leadership, Sales, Strategy
Decide your Personal Operating Procedures
In my last post, I talked about the story of Contiki, this excellent travel company born out an idea of John Anderson that provided 18-35-year-olds an avenue to see the world in the company of people their same age.
In his book “Only Two Seats Left” (link) www.onlytwoseatsleft.com John Anderson the founder lists 25 personal and business messages. These are sprinkled through the book.
I have picked out two in this post and a couple in my next post to illustrate the need for something to think about this coming year.
- Do not research an idea to death – often go with your gut feel.
This is one of the common mistakes many startups and people new to business make, they analyse until they are paralysed.
The truth is that they are paralysed with fear, and are afraid to “just do it” as Nike would say.
If there are ideas out there that you have wanted to try then make a promise that you will try.
- Specialise & be the best in the market.
You can’t be all things to everyone. Salespeople in this new economy have to find a new way of doing business you now need a good story; you need a reason to be in your market, with your opposition, that sets you apart from that opposition.
The reality is the economy is getting cleaned out- it was badly needed, and its happening, the worst employees, the worst salespeople and the worst managers are moving on.
Salespeople have to be problems solvers for their client, not their company they represent.
Our clients know and hear a sales pitch, they defend, use tactics to say no.
What they want are ideas, ways to solve their problems, just like John, who had an idea.
Have fun selling your stuff.
Mike
PS Looking for ideas to help your sales improve, contact me for a FREE 45-minute sales session.
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and in 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions which include rugby, travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME
by Mike Brunel | Feb 21, 2018 | Sales
Well managed well throughout incentive programs play an important part in achieving and exceeding sales targets. If you incentives are structured properly they can result in a high level of motivation.
Here are a few basic principles I recommend to my clients.
- Avoid incentives where individual salespeople are competing directly with each other to win a single prize. This often causes animosity. It is much better to ensure that every person has a chance to achieve an incentive by reaching a certain level of sales.
2. Incentives should be introduced with some pizzazz and excitement to help generate an air of urgency. Incentives are designed to get salespeople excited and motivated so the way they are presented needs to reflect this.
3. Incentives should not be long-term – usually a month and, under certain circumstances, incentives could be offered for one week only. Don’t’ make the mistake of running incentive programmes more than three months.
The fact is It is hard to sustain interest in incentive programs if they are run the over too long a period of time. Salespeople tend to focus on incentives only when they are close to achieving them. A year-long incentive, for example, will only really generate real interest among salespeople about three months from the end of the year (by which time it’s too late to impact on the result) – for the rest of the year, the incentive seems too far away.
Have a great week selling your stuff.
Mike
PS.Have you tried out my 7-day challenge yet?
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and in 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions which include rugby, travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME OUT!
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by Mike Brunel | Jan 17, 2018 | Sales
One Hour a day to Accomplish Your Goals.
In our first article on goals for 2018, I talked about overcoming the obstacles that prevent you from accomplishing those goals.
In this article, I am going to talk abo, t spending time each day to help you stay on track and chunk down the activity you devote to achieving your goals.
Do you know that every day you can create an hour to help fulfill your goals and keep you on track?
The answer is “start” each day a little earlier than your fellow workers.
And plan tomorrow today…
One of my early mentors and previous partners at NRS Media, Brian Duffy, taught me this valuable tip.
Plan Tomorrow Today – I first met Brian when he was a consultant to one of the first media companies I worked for.
He would always sit me down on his visits and ask me this simple question:
“Have you set goals for what you are going to achieve tomorrow? More importantly, have you looked at what you have achieved today and congratulated yourself?”
This piece of advice has stayed with me to this day. Most days I plan what I am going to do the next day using this simple method.
At the end of each day, I review what I have achieved for the day, taking about 30 seconds to mentally pat myself on the back.
Even if I only managed to get a couple of tasks done, this simple exercise gives you a sense of achievement. If you don’t do this, you honestly feel as if you have achieved nothing.
Acknowledge your achievements no matter how small they may seem. Every day is a path to appreciation of self.
I then look at what I have not been able to achieve due to timing and other factors and place them on my plan for the following day. No judgments.
I then look at all the meetings and appointments and place them on my plan for the following day as well.
Finally, I take about 10 minutes to study what my priorities are for the month, quarter and year. I select 3-4 goals I want to achieve as soon as I return to my office that is in alignment with these goals.
It works for me; it just might be the tonic for you.
Have fun selling your stuff in 2018.
Mike
Mike Brunel started mikebrunel.com after being a successful entrepreneur and founder of NRS Media. He co-founded NRS Media in Wellington, New Zealand, expanded it into a global powerhouse in media sales and training, and was eventually responsible for opening offices in London, Atlanta, Toronto, Sydney, Capetown, and Bogota. His products and services are now sold in 23 countries and in 11 languages generating $350 million annually in sales for his clients. Mike sold the company in 2015 and now spends his time following his passions which include rugby, travel. His promise: “I can find thousands of dollars in your business within minutes – GUARANTEED” TRY ME OUT!
