In the past couple of years, I’ve written several blogs on
the advantages of seeking out and hiring young people. In theory, replacing an aging sales force
with a new generation of young agents makes sense.
But, as many of your have told me, theory and practice can
be miles apart. There is often
frustration (perhaps on both sides of the hiring equation) around turning young
talented individuals into productive agents.
What may surprise you is that you’re not the only one
struggling with the issue—other industries are experiencing this frustration as
well. The case study we’ll discuss
today comes from the mattress industry.
Mark Quinn, a Segment
VP of Marketing with Leggett & Platt, writes a popular blog called Q’s
Views, on the mattress sales profession.
In a recent article, Mark does a great job of putting his finger on the
Millennial Generation issue:
“Technology
has simultaneously been the Millennial generation’s best friend and worst
enemy. While they have grown up with social media and iPhones, they’ve also
lived under the specter of Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Systrom, and Mike Krieger.…Seeing
Facebook and Instagram make these twentysomethings into billionaires has upped
the ante for what young people expect out of life—and their careers.It’s
easy for inexperienced professionals to get caught up in the Zuckerberg
example—he didn’t finish college and didn’t spend 80 hours a week working his
way up in a traditional corporation.With a
lack of context, it’s tempting to believe we’re all destined to be exceptions
on the level of Facebook. That’s just
it—these guys are exceptions and not the rule.”
Because many individuals from the
Millennial generation approach work from this perspective, many real
estate hiring managers have given up on this group of candidates.
Mark takes a
different approach. He believes that
some simple career coaching early in the hiring process can help some young
people focus on the realities of building a true career. In turn, he reaps the benefit of bringing
young employees into his ageing industry
Here is what
he tells his young candidates:
“Your best
bet—if you plan to have a career that spans more than 10 years—is to find your
niche and strategize your vertical move from there. While you can make wildly
zigzagging moves across industries, remember one thing: What you skip over is
often what you need in order to be successful later.”
He goes on to
outline five steps that tend to make people successful in the mattress
industry:
1. Learn the basics. I
learned the basics. I took people I emulated to lunch, and I replicated the
basics of what they did. The basics are overlooked by many starting out, but
they’re called basics for a reason. If you aren’t good at them, don’t plan on
being talented at much else.
2. Develop your own strategy. I tried to swim
upstream whenever possible. While other trainers focused on the products they
were selling, I took speaking classes because I wanted to be the most dynamic
person in the room. My strategy was to give the salespeople a skill and help
them make more money. They were teaching spec; I was educating them on sales,
which is a skill that would benefit them no matter what industry they worked
in.
3. Have
pure intentions. I genuinely wanted to help people – hence, my focus on
developing people’s skills. If you’re trying to provide information, you’ll be
somewhat successful. If your intention is to help people find a new approach to
doing things, you’ll create ripples that last a lot longer.
4. Put in the effort. Many people fail to follow
through and end up disappointing those around them. If you say you’re going to
call, pick up the phone. If you can learn from someone who works on Saturdays,
use your day off to enhance your days on.
5. Be memorable. You can be memorable for being
the guy who never met a 3-hour lunch he didn’t want to take – or you can be
memorable for doing things no one else does. Call a customer on his birthday, remember
the names of his children, and send him a fishing article when it reminds you
of him. He’ll remember you, simply for remembering him.
Of course, all of this advice does not track directly to the
real estate industry—that’s not the point. This case study illustrates the
importance of setting expectations early in the hiring process and painting a
picture of the future.
If you become effective at cutting through the initial layer
of self-centered nonsense, you will find that some of these young people have
the capacity to be your next top performer.
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Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.
