A Proven System to Source, Screen, Select, and Secure Your Next Top Producer

The “Best Available” Candidate Trap

Many sales leaders treat hiring like filling a vacancy on the factory floor — post a job, collect résumés, run a few interviews, and pick the best available candidate.

It feels efficient, but it’s a trap. That “best available” candidate might not be able — or willing — to do what it takes to deliver the growth your business needs. Every underperformer you hire steals the opportunity for a top producer to be in that seat, while they quietly drag down your revenue and your culture.

Why Settling for What’s Available Slows Your Growth

An underperformer isn’t just a bad hire; they’re a slow leak in your sales engine. The longer they stay, the more fuel you burn without moving forward.

And here’s the harsh reality:

If you haven’t defined and measured the specific evidence that predicts top performance in your organization, you’re making decisions based on emotion, not data.
That’s why average sales turnover rates hover around 25–30% a year, and why so many hiring managers find themselves rehiring for the same role every couple of years.
If your sales turnover rate is lower than average, make sure you have not been lowering the bar to accommodate an increasingly unmotivated, uninspired, and inflexible team of sellers.

Without a systematic approach to hiring, evaluating, developing, and replacing top sales performers, you don’t just lose money, you lose momentum. And momentum is everything when your goal is building and sustaining a pipeline that can overdeliver essential revenue goals (and operating budgets) every month and quarter of the year.

Ten Non-Negotiables for Recruiting Top Performers

The hiring process for top producers is nothing like hiring for other roles in your organization. It has to be:

Led by the hiring manager, not delegated away.
Backed by science and data, not just gut instinct, charm, and force of will.
Disciplined and repeatable so that you can execute quickly with consistent results.
Always-on, so you never feel forced to keep a poor producer to avoid an open role.

Start with the WINS Selling Style Profile™ to ensure you’re only interviewing candidates who meet the highest requirements of a future top performer. Then, integrate it into a recruiting system built around ten non-negotiable priorities:

Ten Non-Negotiables for Recruiting Growth Multipliers

Specify evidence-based hiring criteria based on patterns of success that can be discovered (talent) or developed (training), so every decision is grounded in data, not emotion.
Simplify the details of a leveraged compensation plan that matches the pace and ambition of your revenue goals and those of your ideal new hire.
Signal “A-players only” with a job description and advertising campaign that stops the right candidates in their tracks, and repels the wrong ones.
Source a high volume of candidates to keep your pipeline full without lowering the bar — on average, you’ll need 100 candidates to meet 12 high-potentials.
Supplement manual processes with technology to save time, enable prompt communication, remove bottlenecks, and accelerate decisions.
Screen all candidates before you engage them with the WINS Selling Style Profile™, a validated, guaranteed, and EEOC-compliant assessment of true sales potential.
Score qualified candidates via two or more behavioral interviews and tests to confirm cultural fit, buying-center alignment, and role-based capabilities.
Select top candidates quickly and decisively. Top sales producers will have multiple competing opportunities—they don’t chase, beg, or wait.
Supercharge your new team members. Don’t pass them off to a generic onboarding process. Own their development and validate your decision within 6-8 weeks.
Shed bad hiring decisions quickly. Develop and honor metrics that predict who will and won’t succeed on your team. When a new hire shows you who they are, believe them.

When Your Hiring Process Attracts Talent Instead of Chasing It

When you put this system in place, you stop chasing talent and start attracting it.

You build a hiring process that runs faster and makes better decisions.
You expand your candidate pool without lowering standards or expectations.
You make emotion and “gut feel” a confirming data point, not the deciding factor.
You set your sales team apart as the gold standard that attracts your industry’s best.

You not only fill the role but also add a team member who elevates you and the rest of your team to a higher level of performance. Everyone gets better, makes more money, and stretches their goals.

“We worked with James to help hire our first key sales person and were impressed with the quality of candidates we had to choose from… all of whom were aligned with the right skills and culture fit.” — Sheri Chaney Jones, CEO & Founder, SureImpact

That’s the outcome of a recruiting system built on the right data: you attract high-caliber candidates who are already aligned with your skills, culture, and growth goals.

Put the WINS Selling Style Profile™ to the Test

Experience the WINS Selling Style Profile™ for yourself with a free trial and a 30-minute results review. You’ll see exactly how to integrate it into your recruiting process so every step moves you closer to your next top performer.

Schedule a strategy session to receive your FREE trial today.

If Part One revealed the blind spots and Part Two gave you the system, Part Three will show you how to protect your momentum by accelerating top producers to quota and exposing pretenders before they cost you a single quarter

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Continued Success,