Recruiting Secret
Treat others the way they want to be treated.
By Larry Kendall, chairman of The Group, Inc. and author of Ninja Selling
Top sales people come in all shapes, sizes, and personalities. A one size fits all recruiting strategy is doomed. For many managers, their strategy is to recruit the way they want to be recruited. In essence, they are practicing the Golden Rule: treat others they way you want to be treated. We find the most successful recruiting managers practice the Platinum Rule: treat others the way they want want to be treated.
You can discover a recruit’s personality, motivation, and decision strategy by asking questions and observing his or her behavior and body language. Notice whether he seems to be outgoing or more reserved. Is she more people (relationship) oriented or task (bottom line) oriented? These two dynamics form the four basic personality types as show below.
Power People are task (goal) driven. They want to know if you have a system to help them achieve their goals. They like staff support and systems. They are bottom-line, result-oriented sales people. They are focused on their future and impatient to get there. They do not like a long, drawn-out, multi-interview process. When they are ready to go, you better be ready to hire them.
Party People are all about the relationship. Do they like you? Do they have friends in your company? Their key driver is fun. Will your company be a fun place to work? They often comment that their old company is no fun anymore. Meet with them at a bar, restaurant, or golf course. Have fun with them. Perhaps bring along their friends who work in the office. Focus on your culture, people, parties and activities. Party people are not detail oriented and will appreciate your staff systems, so focus on your support for them. The love attention. They are impulsive. If it feels right, they do it.
Peace People are risk avoiders who don’t like change. As a result, they are the most difficult to recruit. In your office, they are also your most loyal team members. They want everyone to get along and are a stabilizing influence as they work to keep the peace. They want stability and a manager/owner they can trust. They are very slow decision makers and move away from their existing company rather than moving toward a new company. They leave their current company because of instability or their loss of trust. Be their choice (stability and trust) when they are ready to move.
Perfection People are seeking the perfect company. The space where you interview them needs to be neat and perfect. Any printed material needs to be perfect. Your emails with them need to be perfect. They will ask a lot of questions about your numbers and systems. They are slow decision makers and may build a spreadsheet comparing various companies. They love data and want to be the source of real estate knowledge for their clients. If you can help them do this, they will want to join you.
As you can see, one strategy does not fit all the personality types. Practice the Platinum Rule, and you will experience greater success in your recruiting and managing of your team members. ^
This article originally appeared in the May 2016 issue of the REAL Trends Newsletter and is reprinted with permission of REAL Trends Inc. Copyright 2016.
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