Several readers have asked me to do a condensed version of how I build a sales team. No problem, it would be my pleasure! First and foremost you must have a lot of patience and be very persistent.

Isn’t it amazing these are the same qualities you need to be a successful sales professional? The reason you need these qualities is that there are three ways to find GOOD people. You can steal them from another company…which means they can be stolen from YOU! Secondly, you can buy them, which ultimately means someone can buy them from you, or you can develop them YOURSELF! When you use this method you receive intense loyalty which cannot be bought! I prefer to hire and develop my own.

Now that we have decided the method we have to pull it off. Here’s where the patience and persistence pays off.

I initially hire a group of people, more than necessary for the task at hand, then I, THAT’S RIGHT, I show them how to sell the product! Remember what I have said before, never ask someone to do something you can’t do, won’t do, or haven’t done! Once I have shown them how to do the job I then work with all of them and give them assignments to take home and work on themselves. This separates the ones that have commitment from the ones that just want a paycheck. As a few days go on I begin watching the cream rise to the top and and I begin weeding the garden. I always end up with at least one person out of the group that has a burning desire to succeed. That is where the first building block of a sales team is cautiously put into place. With a tremendous amount of positive reinforcement and enthusiasm you can actually see the contagiousness of the excitement spread through to others.

Now before you get all excited and think you have built a sales team there are many hurdles to overcome and many minefields to avoid that will wipe out all of your efforts before you ever get off the ground. Tomorrow we will continue the building of your sales team. The nice thing about building a sales crew is it is like priming a pump. At the beginning you keep pumping and pumping until the water starts coming out of the well. Everyone knows that if you stop pumping too soon the water stops and you must start all over again. On the other hand, once you have the water flowing all you have to do is once in a while go over and prime the pump. In other words just monitor and tweak your sales team. That is the ultimate goal and by part three you to will know how to do this.

“The Specialist”