(By Loyd Ford) Lucky you. It’s time to recruit millennial sellers. Past time for radio. So, buckle up. You might already be asking, “How do I effectively and successfully recruit millennials?” After all, it’s selling (hard) and it is radio (considered old school).
Time To Encourage
If you’ve been around me, you know one of my favorite things is encouragement. Everyone needs it and it is mostly absent in modern life. In radio, we haven’t had any management classes in encouragement in a long time. We certainly need to change our words from “I can’t” to “How can we….?” Let others fall in love with saying you can’t hire millennials in sales or we can’t attract millennials to radio. You prove them wrong and grow your revenue.
So we are going to take a positive look at recruitment of these important talents.
- Before you start, make certain your website and socials have visuals focused on your sellers having impact on community. In other words, show that this is happening. Zero-in on the value of working for your company culture and provide pictures and video showing how this work is influential, connected and focuses on solving real world problems in marketing. If you don’t represent these things on your website and in your socials before they see you in person, you are unlikely to see them or have a serious candidate today who is a millennial.
- Start with purpose before anything else. You will need to show forward-thinking millennials why connecting with you and your company will make for meaningful work and will align with them having a strong purpose. Millennials prefer a job with influence and purpose, especially when it comes to social impact.
- Millennials have a high radar for authenticity and transparency. In all of your communication, exhibit this and you will do well in their environments recruiting them. Being direct, positive and open can go a long way during the hiring process. It will get you in a serious conversation with productive younger sellers where others fail.
- Open your mind and look for existing sellers in much worse sales jobs. Focus on the experience sellers are having in those jobs. These do not have to be media sellers. People are trading jobs. You can find the sellers that really hate their job, their company culture or have a bad boss. If you find a seller who is hungry, wants to perform well and dislikes the culture they are currently performing in, do anything reasonable to encourage education about digital and events opportunities radio provides regularly so our millennial friends can see the limitlessness of radio now.
- You’re looking for the hungry ones. Just like anything else in life, the cream rises to the top. If you get demoralized because every millennial you see isn’t exactly what you want, recruiting is going to be slow and difficult for you (and probably unproductive). This is a new day, but the best salespeople are hungry, ready to engage, learn and perform. It’s important to meet millennials where they are. Sift through the masses to find the winners. It will be worth the trip.
- Get social right away before the interview if you can. The old days are over. Today everyone you know is attached to their smartphone. It’s worse for millennials. They are attached to their socials. Tap in and welcome them to look into your work culture and socials.
- Show Millennials a path to achievement and promotion. You don’t want to be in a dead-end job. Guess what? Millennials don’t either. So, start at the beginning with these talents showing them there is opportunity to grow. This shouldn’t be lip service. There should be training, learning and you should be able to show them in the interview that they will have opportunity to advance in this role.
- Don’t skip the fundamentals. Many of the selling fundamentals are timeless. They don’t change because of a newer generation. This also isn’t about manipulating millennials to do something by telling them it is something else. We are not looking to onboard people who don’t want to work. Sales is work. So, while you are being transparent and authentic (number 3 above), include the fundamental expectations required to gain access to the meaningful work and to excel and be promoted. Good things come to achievers.
Things change all the time. There are high performing millennials. Finding them, connecting with them, encouraging them, giving them a culture they can believe in and purpose in their work can fire up your revenue in ways you can’t yet imagine.
As smart people say all the time, the future is rarely (or never) as easy as the past. It’s time for radio to step into hiring younger sellers and giving them the encouragement necessary to achieve their dreams in a business that starts and ends every single day influencing our local communities.
Anyone want higher sales? Life moves on, gets younger and this is business you don’t want to miss in your market. Time to get busy recruiting millennials.
Loyd Ford is president and chief strategic officer at Rainmaker Pathway Consulting Works (RPC). Reach Loyd at 864.448.4169 or
