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When we're selecting for exceptional sales people,

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if you pay less, you have to talk to more people to find them,

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and then you have to have low tolerance in terms of how quickly they make a sale.

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And I would say for us, if someone has done a full sales cycle,

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and they haven't closed the deal, I already know that they're not a killer.

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Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers,

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how to make more customers, how to keep them longer,

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and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way.

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I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

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I remember I was driving back home, and I got this text, and it said,

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hey, we closed two sales today, and there had been four people who had walked into the business.

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And I had to pull over to the side of the road because I got so emotional,

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I got teary, because it was the first time that someone else had ever sold something besides me.

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And so that was the first moment when I realized that like this could become a business that

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did not require me. And if you don't know why I am, my name is Alex from OZ,

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I own acquisition.com. It's a portfolio of companies that now does about $85 million a year.

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And the reason for this video is I want to walk you through one of the most important steps,

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which is how do you hire excellent salespeople? And how do you recognize great salespeople?

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And so now I've built, I can't tell you the amount of teams, like sales teams that we've now

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now built up, but I can tell you this video is going to be specifically about recognizing talent.

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And so a couple quick frameworks that I want to go through. Number one, when I started in this

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business, I took every single sale, and it was because I was so afraid that somebody would waste

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the opportunity. So if you have that fear, I understand where you're coming from.

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Second, when I had my first sale that was not me, I just had this emotional breakdown,

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because I was like, oh my god, this could actually happen. And I promise you, if you haven't had it

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happen yet, you will when it does, because you realize that this business can actually work without

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you and other people can make it rain too, right? And then I'll tell you a quick story that

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illustrate the next point that I make. So as I hired some salespeople, now that first salesperson

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were they exceptional, no, but they were able to get the job done. Later on, I had my first kind of

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like killer. And his name was Maura Negretti. And he came in, I don't know, a year or two into the

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business, a year into the business, I guess maybe less than that. He so quickly was able to assume

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the sales role and to show you how laughable this is. He started and I was about to start training

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him and some lady walked in the door and I was like, hey man, like, I can take you. He's like, no,

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I'm good. He's like, go to your thing. He's like, finish your session account about it. I'll

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get I'll figure it out. And he ended up closing this first lady who walks in the door for paid and

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full. And I remember walking in like completely dumpster. I was like, he didn't even know what the

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pitch was. But she walked out giggling, happy, so excited to start. And with that moment taught me

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was that it is good to train salespeople, but it's better to take great salespeople and then just

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point them in a direction. And so this has informed a lot of the thinking that I have around talent

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in general. And I'll tell you a couple of frameworks that have informed this. But like if you look at

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Harvard, Harvard doesn't produce the smartest people. They select the smartest people. And then they

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put smart professors in front of them, but like the base level of intelligence of everyone who's

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at Harvard is already exceptionally high. And so like even if the teachers at Harvard were not

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exceptional, the students are and they would be successful independent of that because their

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selection is so ridiculous, right? And so if we can think about our own companies that way,

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especially if you're in their service business, like look at the biggest service companies out

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there. Like look at McKinsey, look at Bane, look at BCG, look at basically a lot of the finance

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world or service-based businesses a lot of times, right? And they're able to do that because they

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create such a pool to select from that they are able to skim for the best talent, right? I heard

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this quote from Esther at Kathy who's the founder of Chick-fil-A is HR head said, you win the championship

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in the draft. And so it was such a belief that they had about picking the right people even more

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so than training. And I would say that I have moved in that direction of a little bit more

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nature than nurture when it comes to roles specifically, sales especially. There are certain

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characteristics about building rapport, about having certain dynamics or energy, whatever you want

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to say, that like, more integrated when he walked in, he had all of these things. And he didn't even

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know the pitch, but he won that sale off of just pure rapport. And so if I'm going to allocate the

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same level of time to training somebody, I might as well start with somebody who is a much higher base

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because I could spend 10 hours to take someone from a two to a four and a half,

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or I could spend the same 10 hours taking someone from a six to a nine, right? And the thing is I'm

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also going to get more bang for my buck in terms of my hours of training with somebody who has

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natched a natural probability for selling compared to somebody who does not.

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Hey, most of the nation quick break just to let you know that we've been starting to post

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on LinkedIn and want to connect with you. All right, so send me a connection request and note,

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letting me know that you listen to the show and I will accept it. There's anyone you think

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that we should be connected with, tag them in one of my or layless posts and I will give you all

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the love of the world. All right, so let's get back to the show. What's interesting about this,

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and this is just like my observation, is that you just have to be willing to talk to more people

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in the recruiting process and I will say like from a recruiting standpoint, there's two kind of

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things to look out for. If you cannot pay super hands-only based on your price points, which you

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need to maybe fix later, but like if you can't pay super well for the sales person, then you need

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to look harder and you'll need to interview more people and you'll need to probably run ads

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and user network. If you can pay well, the best salespeople are already employed and so it comes

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down to recruiting those salespeople from other sales jobs, ideally from companies just like yours,

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so that they already know a lot of the things coming into it, so it decreases the ramp up time for

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them because all we were really doing is swapping products and the actual sales cycle, the type of

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sales that it transactional sales and the long sales and the software sales, the coaching program

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so whatever it is, right? There's so few variables that were changing that they can immediately jump

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and go, which also allows you to make a judgment on their proficiency faster. And so as a quick side note

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to this, because this is something that I've given a lot of thought, if you look at the top sales

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people and sales trainers and this is going to drive home the point that I was making earlier about

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it being much of it being born, is that if you look at the top people who are in the space,

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you look at Jordan Belford, right? You look at Bradley and some people would say me in term from

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a selling perspective, all of the guys that I know, Gray Cardone, right? All the guys that I know

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who have taught sales were exceptional salespeople day one. Bradley started selling cars when he was 18

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years old, was the top salesman at 18 years old when he started and he was like, I just found something

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I was really good at. Jordan Belford talks about how he didn't know how to train anybody in his book

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and then all of a sudden, he for the first time ever wrote out a framework to explain the straight

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line sales system, which became his book and all that kind of stuff. But he up to that point, it was

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just what he naturally did, right? And I can tell you in my instance as well, I already closed thousands

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of deals before I even consumed my first sales training. And so like I do think that if we are selecting

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salespeople, I think it's much more about selection than it is about training. The training is to

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remind them how good they are, not necessarily to make them good. All right, and this is something

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that has shifted over time for me specifically. Now, if you're like, well, I suck at sales,

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you can absolutely put way more time into yourself than a business would recently put into an

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employee. All right, like you have you all the time. So you can train you in all your off hours

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and you're spending your own time to invest in yourself. But from a return on investment perspective,

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the cost of finding a good salesperson compared to the cost of training a bad or mediocre salesperson

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is significantly lower. It's much easier to find the right people than it is to take somebody and

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then make such a crazy extensive training. Unless your entire model is we just take on every single

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person who walks in the door like 24-off fitness has this model. They take on anybody who has a pulse

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and then they put them through a ridiculous calling process and then 10% of people make it in the

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first 90 days, right? That's their process. And then those people know how to sell, right? And so

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they just make ridiculous requirements that almost no one can meet except for exceptional salespeople.

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And they let that they have obviously training systems or whatnot. But for the most part,

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it's teaching them about their process and just having old salespeople explain a new salespeople,

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some of the tips and tricks that have just like made them better rather than teaching the fundamentals

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of selling. And so back to you, if you're somebody who's not good at sales, that's okay,

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you get there through practice and repetition. But in terms of like you have to get good at it

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because it is like it is coordinated through running a business, especially a small business

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is learning how to close, right? And so if you take time to learn it, it's okay. It's a skill

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that you're going to add in your arsenal and then it'll allow you to recognize good salespeople

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in the future. But you can't spend a year trying to train somebody who's not good. You can spend

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a year trying to train you, right? And that's the difference. And so when we're selecting for

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exceptional salespeople, which is what I'm saying, selecting for exceptional salespeople,

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if you pay less, you have to talk to more people to find them. And then you have to have low tolerance

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in terms of how quickly they make a sale. And I would say for us, if somebody doesn't close a

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deal in the first sales cycle, meaning like depending on the length of the transaction,

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like some people, you know, they're all transactional sales, some people might be a two-week sale

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cycle or a one-month sales cycle, depending on what you're selling. If someone has done a full

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sales cycle and they haven't closed the deal, I already know that they're not a killer. Because

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every single killer I've ever had closes deals in the first cycle, just like Mara de Grady,

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like I said earlier, like the killers come in and start killing. And then they just get

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better at killing with the tweaks and the trainings that we have, right? The guys who don't do that

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are the ones that are like, no, give me another shot. I like, I just got to learn, like, you know,

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blah, blah, blah. And the thing is it's like, it just drags on an inevitable consequence. And so

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right now, if you have somebody in your team and you've been in that, dragging it on, and they're

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like just barely good enough to stay on the team in every single quarter, you're like, are we

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going to go with this guy? I don't know. He's not like a winner, but like, I guess we kind of

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need him to keep putting some numbers up. If you get rid of the people who are dragging the team

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down, the culture of the team will improve. And I promise you, whenever you cut the bottom,

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the top moves up, right? And then it also will set the new bar for the person who comes in.

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It's like, this is how a world-class team operates. Are you up for this? And the thing is,

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the tighter and the higher that team is, the faster they'll point the person out if they don't fit,

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or they'll immediately accept and glob in the person they'll become part of the unit.

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So if you're looking for salespeople and you're looking to scale the sales team,

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the best salespeople are born in my opinion, not made. We can select for those people, either through

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recruiting them directly from people who have very similar businesses to us, or we have to interview

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many more people. And the feeling you get in that tingle when you're like, oh, God, I really have to

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have this guy. That's when you hire. Not when you're like, I mean, I guess this guy can do the job.

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He can't do that. It's not going to work, right? And then on the flip side, once that person is in,

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if they haven't closed the deal on that first cycle, like, the longer I've been doing business,

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the shorter my tolerance for somebody not being exceptional is. Because every person that has

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been exceptional, I know immediately. And so I just have less and less time left. I think maybe

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they'll turn it around, maybe some more training. We'll get them there when it's, when a lot of times,

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you win the draft on the pick. And so thank you guys, appreciate it. If you're new to Mosy Nation,

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welcome. Bye.