Hi Dan!

Yes!!! She is already doing more than a lot of people claim to be doing! I think her running into you (so to speak) was probably one of the luckiest things that could have happened to her!!

She's already shown that she isn't afraid of meeting people, going out on her own, and taking chances at rejection!

Keep her!!!!

~ Theresa

I'm going to ask this before Claude gets in here and beats me to it.

Did she sell you a vacuum, Dan?

I've always believed that a inexperienced "natural" is the best person you can hire for a sales job. As long as you know how to sell and train that is. I'd much rather have a blank canvas with the right attitude and the right aptitude over an experienced "Sales Professional" who has learned how to justify average.

Of course if you recruite properly you can actually steal away experienced true Sales Professionals who are simply unaware of how much more they should be making. "Great" is relative. A "Great" Furniture Salesman will likely make 1/2 to 1/4 of what a "Great" Car Salesman will. And he might make 1/10th of what a "Great" insurance or B2B Sales Professional makes. And those guys don't come close to what the true greats make who learn to sell their own brand.

So the key to recruiting is to find the super stars in industries where their "Greats" don't even make what your average guy makes. Used to love recruiting shoe salesmen and hourly sales people. Especially the part time ones in college. Once they see they can make more full time selling vs. what they wanted to do after college they are sold. Plus if you can offer them part time to test the waters it's a no risk move for them.

And wow I went off on a tangent there.

Good stuff here. It's always better to find someone you might have to hold back by their belt at times, than it is having someone you need to continually kick in the ass to get going.

Find cold callers with gumption, along with character, and you have a superstar. So true on various industries just not paying well as others, good trick to recruit those hard working stars in dead end career tracks.

I owned a food company and hired a broke chef who turned out having natural sales ability, I ended up paying him up to $400k a year in commissions and bonuses.

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Did you buy a vacuum cleaner from her Dan!

On the recruiting things. When I used to do it I targeted busier retail stores or small stores where sales was everything. I never got kicked out but I tried to respect the store and the sales person.

I see it as there are three questions to consider when planning this.

Single Visit or Multi-Visit? Will you be trying to find someone in one visit or try to observe them over several days or weeks. Single is more time effective but Multi-Visit will give you a better feel for who they are.

Observation or Secret Shop? Myself I liked a bit of both. Start with observation from a distance. The same as you would do if you were a manager in the store. Stay out of the way and unnoticed and just listen and observe.

The Secret Shop would be you taking them through the sales process personally. I liked using this after I found a target worth testing. The problem with this is you are maybe taking them away from real sales so it is best used when they are slow or when you truly believe you want to recruit them. Multi-Visit may be needed in this case. Observe when the store is busy. Secret Shop when dead.

Random or Targeted? How much research will you do? Will you target certain sales people who sound like they are the best? Or will you just take random shots in the dark that you will find some golden nuggets.

If you want to target you need to have everyone around you looking for great sales people. They need to want to tell you about their experiences. Then when you have a good target you find out more about them via observation or asking/paying others (such as co-workers) for info.

A great way to do this if they sell something high end (example: insurance) is to call them. Tell them a friend recommended them and ask for references from other clients. Just like normal references remember to ask them for the negative. "Everyone tells me how great John is. What I would like to know is what do you think he could do better. No one is perfect, we all understand that. So what do you wish John would do differently that you think would make your experience with him even better?"

Once you have your target you need to observe or secret shop to get a personal feel for them. Just like above.

How you plan will depend on how many people you need, what they will be paid, the skills they need to start, your training plan, and how much turnover you want.

Also never be afraid to pay everyone in the "huddle" $5 or $10 to find out who the best sales person is. If they have any traffic at all the best guy will not be in their "huddle" so "buying them lunch" to "settle a bet" you had with your friend works as a way to get a truthful answer.

And if you know someone who works for a company that is known for great sales people don't be afraid to ask/pay them to tell you who the top salespeople are. At American, where I worked, the list for the whole company was posted in a common area in the back room. It ranked them by commission but only showed their revenue. Fun way to see who sold the higher gross items.
"How come #3 sold half of what #5 sold?"
"Cause he sells a lot of high end Kitchen Remodels with Wolf and Subzero that have more profit and thus more commission."

Oh she knows how to sell all right.

She got you believing she doesn't know how to sell, doesn't know what she's doing and doesn't know if selling nine units is a good thing or not.

I knew a woman who closed 22 transactions her first month in Real Estate.

She was attractive, intelligent, enthusiastic, and seemed like a genuinely nice and good person. (And I don't usually like Real Estate Agents. lol)

She was in her early thirties when she got her RE license. She was probably doing something behind the scenes in Real Estate, perhaps was a broker's assistant, and knew a lot of people to start with that many transactions her first month. Even if she did do a lot of business building as she got her license, that's damn good.

SO, give your young lady a shot. Can't hurt. Let us know how it goes.

Dan