My agency's internal hiring process after hiring over 30 sales reps

What's up, you guys? Long time no see. I think it's been like 2 to 3 weeks since my last video, but have a couple of down hours on this Sunday. Wanted to get in my creative bag a little bit. Just been super bogged down with the agency, or not bogged down, but just working in it and it's growing and that's awesome. But currently in the process of hiring people in, building systems, processes. We just hired an operations team so that way I can get back to some of the highest leverage stuff, which is posting on YouTube, And growing the brand and letting people know what we do and how good we are at it. But anyways, I wanna make a video based on something that I'm doing like every single day that could potentially be valuable to those who aren't, or those who follow me, whether you're a sales rep or you're an agency owner, you're looking for your next job or your next sales hire. This is the process that I've used to consider, I don't know, like hundreds of sales reps. And to hire, we have like 30 sales reps as contractors under us in the agency, to hire those people to the point where we've had like 2 leave us in the last 6 months, which is pretty much unheard of. Our agency is doing pretty well. We'll probably do north of $2 million this year. We have like 2 to 3 accounts that we're looking to sign on here shortly. And so we're like always, always, always looking for more salespeople, better salespeople, all that. Like we have our database, which I'll plug at the end if you wanna join it. But yeah, this is the process that I've gone through that has led to a churn rate that is like literally sub-10%, like 2 out of 30, I guess. So yeah, let's get into it. So Let's see here. I might have to move my head around and stuff. Okay. So first things first, if I post a job out and it says, we're looking for a closer, you need at least $1 million closed in real estate, high-ticket real estate coaching. If you've never been a closer before, you're not going to be considered. The way that our agency works, because my partner and I are so tapped into the remote sales space, We're not the ones who are going to take a bet on you. We have access to the best people in the coaching space, the best people in the agency space. It's just the reality. Appointment setters, maybe. Closers, pretty much never. And so if you don't have real estate experience and we request that, you're probably not going to be considered unless you just seem really, really sharp. And if you don't have $1 million closed and we request that, you're probably not going to be considered unless you're really sharp. That leads into following instructions. If you apply to that stuff and you don't have what we ask, it's not following instructions. However, more common case of not following instructions is like not following closely what we tell you to submit with an application. Something like when you email your application, attach a resume. 30% of people don't attach a resume. When you film your Loom video, make it between 45 and 60 seconds. You— and then I open one up and it's like 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Like, no offense, unless you are like the candidate that I was specifically looking for and waiting for, and you're a needle in a haystack, if I'm going through 40 applications, 40 Loom videos, like, I am not— even on 2x speed, man, I am not gonna watch a 4-minute Loom video. I'm just being honest with you. So like, follow instructions. Don't try to get too clever. If they ask for a resume, submit it. If they ask for 2 to 3 reasons why you'd be the best fit, give them 2 to 3 reasons. Don't go too far. Don't, don't go too crazy with it. And don't like, definitely don't be lazy. It's better to do too much than to be lazy, unless it's a Loom video, because that's annoying. That shows that you don't know how to talk in concise Ease of communication. So this is another thing where it's like, if I'm okay, I get your application and I'm interested in you as a prospect or as a candidate. How easy is it for me to go back and forth with you? When I message you, when I email you, how long does it take for you to reply? Do we have— basically at this point, this is my train of thought. Once I realize that I want to look into someone further, it's like, how do I make that happen in the shortest amount of time? I don't want a 20-chain-long email thread. I don't want somebody— actually, this is getting into the next point. I'll save that. I had one guy, for example, I think it was like 3 months ago, I was looking for a closer with certain experience and we had multiple offers at the time, like 3 that we were hiring for. And he messages me sending all these voice notes, literally 10 minutes of voice notes and literally yapping. And he was trying to sniff out if I was bullshitting him, which I've been there. I understand that part. But at the same time, I hadn't even told him anything about the offer. I hadn't done anything. I was just like, hey, you have closing experience. We're looking. We have offers that are doing this. Are you interested in... talking some more. And he just kept sending voice notes to the point where I just stopped responding because I had a bunch of other people. So be easy to communicate with and be effective, be intentional, drive conversations forward. Don't be too assumptive. Just general rules of thumb there. Now, are you available? This is another reason we have not moved forward with people before. Is if I'm interested in talking with you and you say, hey man, I'm actually in Montana with my family right now, I can talk in 2 weeks. All right, dude, no offense, but like, what the hell are you doing in Montana for 2 weeks? Like, where you can't find time for a 10-minute phone call? If you say something like, hey, I can't talk tomorrow because it's Saturday and I'm at my kid's soccer tournament in the middle of nowhere with no service, That's believable. I can't talk tomorrow because it's my daughter's birthday. I'll be out. That's believable. 2 weeks in Montana, bro? No way. Or it's like, let's see, I work Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. Like, it'll have to be on the weekend. It's like, bro, like, step out for lunch, step out to the bathroom, like, make it happen. When I got my first job that led into my sales job, it was a project management job, but I was in The middle of the Texas Hill Country at a lake, walking up and down a gravel road with shitty service. And I remember it was like a 30, 45-minute phone call. And that's when I secured my first job that got me into sales, that got me here. So just make it happen. And that, I mean, honestly, man, it's a display of like, how important is this to you? Because if I said, hey Joe, I wanted to give you $1 million, but all it takes is for you to talk on the phone. Or actually, let's make it realistic. I wanna give you $120,000 a year, but I just need to talk to you on the phone for 10 minutes before to see if it's a good fit. Oh, sorry, bro. I'm gonna be in Montana for 2 weeks. I can't talk. Okay. Like probably not a good fit. So anyways, let's say you are a good fit. Let's say you're not in Montana for 2 weeks. Are you presentable? Before you interview well, or before I like consider the interview and if it went well. Like, as soon as we get on a Zoom call, or even if it's a phone call, and you look bad, you speak poorly, uh, your background looks like you're in like your mom's basement— no offense, but if I'm hiring a closer, like, I'm, I'm not going to be hiring that person. Uh, in sales, so much of So much of success is perception. And if you're, you know, if you're on— if you're doing phone sales, like, you can get away with a lot more. But if you're on video, like any other, any other industry where you come in contact with a salesperson, let's say you're going to go buy a new home and you walk into their model home. What do the salespeople look like? What does the home look like? I mean, it's nice because it's new, but it's clean. They put nice stuff all around for people and all that. Like they, they look the part. So you need to be presentable. You need to look, look good, speak well, all that kind of stuff. You're not— setters like can kind of get away from it. But honestly, like if you don't show up to an interview well, you're not sharp. Even if you're not gonna be on video, like you're gonna be a lot of times routed out of the applicant pool. Then we get to the interview. So like, how do you interview? Are you super eager to jump into something that you don't understand? That shows you're naive. Maybe you haven't done what we're looking for or to the level that we're looking for. If you're super needy, if you're super, super skeptical, and that, I mean, I understand that because there's a lot of people that do shitty things in this space, but If you're too skeptical and like, I can tell you're gonna be like one foot in, one foot out, probably go with someone who's not. Depending on the questions that you ask, it is a good sign of, do you know what you're talking about? Have you been there? Have you done that? But overall, like, can we hold a good conversation? Can we have a productive conversation? Can you speak concisely? I just wanna see that you're You're capable of being that person, you know, with the right training, with the right support. Now here's another situation that I've run into is like, sure, on paper it looks good, it feels good. And you know, the Loom video was on point. The guy shows up to the interview with a fricking suit on, like dressed like, I don't know, he's going to a wedding. I don't know. Like, dressed well, right? But if they show up and there's no interest in the position or they're not genuinely wanting the role, they're like, oh, I might consider the role, it's usually a no. Because I would rather get someone that's potentially less experienced, that's more excited for the opportunity than someone who could potentially see this as a downgrade from where they're at. They just need something. 'Cause they're just not gonna have a good mindset going into things. They're not gonna try as hard. Not gonna be as eager to perform. So let's say the person is very interested in the role, then we're gonna look at availability. And honestly, sometimes this one comes up before we even get on an interview. A lot of times it does, 'cause if you don't have the availability, there's no point in us talking, just keeping it real. But if you do have the availability, awesome. If we talk and you're like, I could have the availability, in 1 month after I quit my job, that is definitely going to affect your status for consideration. Because if we have 3 other people that are just as qualified and they can start tomorrow, it's gonna be tough for you. Now, here's where you can get some like bonus points. A lot of the people that we are working with, we have known because my partner and I have been in this space for a couple of years now. And been on some teams and worked with high-level people. Like, we know people, we know good closers, we know good appointment setters. I run a community where salespeople from all different industries are coming in already with impressive resumes. So if you do come off a referral or a known connection, one of our teams, like, or a few of our teams, we have people that my partner's already worked with before. He's like, dude, these guys were on the same team. They were killers. Let's just see if they want this role. And then they came on and they're killing it. So if you're a referral or we know each other from somewhere and you have a record of doing good work and I know that without you having to tell me, that's a plus. Also familiar with industry. Let's say we're selling real estate coaching. We'll go back to that example and you were a realtor or you've already sold real estate coaching at a high level for somebody else. That obviously helps. Now, sometimes when we're looking for closers, I keep going back to closers because that's where we're really looking for specific experience. But when we're looking for closers, we are gonna be a little bit more niched down. But honestly, I would rather find someone who has the soft skills and the ability to move from one industry to another As long as they have a track record of performance, right? So if you are applying for a real estate position, you have that background, it's going to look good for you. If you've done $1 million in construction sales and then we're talking about like, I don't know, new home construction coach, like how to build your new home construction and save, I don't know, save 5%. I'm making an offer up here. If there's some cross crossover there, like it can be good. But anyways, then we get down to the real stuff, man. This is just like, I'm not, I'm not some corporate recruiter that's recruiting for these huge companies that has HR teams and all this stuff. Like I can tell it how it is. I'm a, I'm a contracted sales agency that does recruiting. For ourselves and for clients. But do you seem enjoyable to work with? Because if you don't, like, I don't want you on our team. I don't wanna, I don't wanna have to see you multiple times a week with some bad nasty attitude. 'Cause chances are like the top performers always have the best attitudes usually. And so, you know, a good attitude can, can get you far. If you're not, if you don't seem enjoyable to work with, like, probably won't be working with you. Do they have conflicted interests? Do they work for the biggest competitor? Are they like the right-hand man of the owner of the biggest competing company in this space? That would be a conflicted interest. Like, are they coming here— like, is it, is it almost like too good to be true? Uh, is it kind of weird that they're applying for this role? If so, like, we don't want any snakes in the grass, you know? So if you're looking for an honest move, then great. If you're looking, if you're being sketchy and you're looking for intel, like it's just not worth it for us or for clients. And then are you gonna cause issues in an organization? There's some people in this space, given maybe the contracted nature or personality traits, there's some people in this space that just like Cause trouble everywhere they go. And they get fired, they get let go, and it's never their fault and all this stuff. Like, some— I mean, man, there's people out there that are like straight up cancerous to organizations. Like, they'll destroy them from the inside out. So if you're one of those people, transparently, like, I don't really want that in my business. And I don't think our clients want that in their businesses. So If that's you, you're gonna be out. If that's not you, we kind of went through a lot of this, right? There's some stuff that happens up before we even get to looking at resumes, and that's very case by case. But if you make it all the way through here, you're either probably gonna be hired into this role, at least saved for future roles. You'll be highlighted in our database. As a sales rep. But anyways, guys, like I said, we're a growing sales agency. We've got about 30 sales reps. This is the framework that I've used to get us to about $2 million per year. Hopefully we continue to keep growing. Quick plugs here. If you are a business owner and you want to hire an outsourced sales team or you want to hire a recruited sales rep or stuff like that, Go to serialagency.co right here. Also, if you are a sales rep, and this will be linked below, if you're a sales rep, you want to get into our recruitment pipeline, go to serialagency.co, scroll to the bottom, there's a form that you can fill out. It's probably going to take you like 20 minutes, but you'll be considered for everything that we have. Now, if you're one of those 2 people that I just mentioned and you want to get more exposure to the other party, you're a sales rep that wants exposure to business owners, business owners to sales reps. We're hosting a meetup here in beautiful Austin, Texas. It's a little cloudy today, but actually it's not too bad. But beautiful Austin, Texas, September 27th, 28th. It's the High Ticket Sales Meetup. We had one last year. It was awesome. A lot of people got hired, found sales reps. We're having one this year. It's gonna be better. If you go here, you can see the itinerary. We're gonna be doing a lot of fun stuff. And you probably could use the tax write-off. So you don't quite wanna, you know, jump into this industry as a sales rep yet. You wanna see more, or as a business owner, you're like, you kind of wanna warm up to the idea of hiring a salesperson to take over stuff for you. Come to this event. You will not regret it. Tickets are actually almost sold out too. So like by the time you're seeing this, like go now, link in description. And then if you are a sales rep, And you want some help getting into a role even outside of my agency, like out of all the people that I help get hired in our community, I would say less than 5% end up in our agency because I mean, there's hundreds of roles posted in there. Like we've probably crossed over 1,000 roles posted. If not, we will soon. And I mean, 30 of those were my agency, if even that. So if you— Do want some help landing a quality role in this space with a quality team, you can DM me on Twitter. It's @SerialSales, or on Instagram. It's actually @SerialSales with 2 S's like that, because Serial Sales was taken. Of course it was. And we'll go from there. But yeah, guys, this is the process. If you want, I was gonna say maybe you could screenshot it. I'm not sure if it'll all fit in a picture. Maybe you can screenshot, zoom in. But yeah, let me know in the comments if you've got any questions. Go from there. See ya.