Conducting a Recruiting Meeting

Many companies use sales meetings as a means of recruiting sales people. For instance, nearly all of the direct selling companies conduct recruiting meetings, because recruiting is the life blood of direct selling. There must be constant, continual recruiting. Therefore, companies selling through outside sales people usually conduct regular recruiting meetings.

You’ve heard of such companies. Their salespeople have knocked on your door. Here are the products they sell:

Special insurance policies* Albums
Mutual funds* * * Photograph coupons
Vitamins* * * Pre-need cemetery plots
Cosmetics* * * Real Estate promotion
Brushes* * * * Freezer food plans
Housewares* * * Cookware
Water softeners* * * Chinaware
Books* * * * Silverware

Mass recruiting requires a great degree of skill.
In effect, a recruiting meeting is a group selling job. Instead of selling a product or service, you sell a business opportunity. The Gist objective in staging a recruiting meeting is to get prospective salespeople to attend. Unless there s an audience, it’s all to no avail. An officer of the National Association of Direct Selling Companies stated, “A recruiting meeting can be no more successful than the promotion of attendance for it. There’s no reason to kid ourselves. It’s difficult to get prospective salespeople to attend a recruiting meeting.”

Eight Ways to Get Prospective Salespeople to a Recruiting Meeting

1. Newspaper advertising is an old stand-by. It costs money, but it gives such good results that some direct selling companies run a recruiting ad in certain newspapers every day of the year! Most of this type of advertising is in the classified section. Display ads are so expensive they’re usually reserved for special recruiting campaigns. Your classified ad may invite the reader to write or telephone. Upon receipt of the letter or phone call, reveal as little as possible. Try only to get the individual to your recruiting meeting.

“You can’t sell an opportunity by letter or over the telephone/’ averred a Chicago man. “If they want to smell the fragrance of a rose, they should go to the smelling place! Get ‘em to the meeting. Then you can tell the whole story.” A Los Angeles lady who’s an outstanding sales executive said, “When they call, I tell them nothing except the time and place of the meeting. When they ask questions, I reply with a laugh, ‘You don’t expect to get married over the telephone, and you don’t expect to find a business career over the telephone. You’ll be given full details tomorrow night at the meeting. It’s an opportunity of a lifetime! I’ll see you there.’”

Of course, other ads instruct the reader to reply by attending the meeting. In such cases, the time, date, and place of the meeting are specified. If you’re looking for anybody and everybody, your ad should simply ask the reader to show up at the meeting. If you want to qualify him, on the other hand, the ad should ask him to write or call. “Blind” ads work best, ads that do not name the product or company. The fact that you’re selling direct to the consumer should not yet be revealed. It would scare too many people away.

The following ads have worked well for certain direct selling companies:

* * SALESMAN. For the greatest item to hit the American market in 50 years. No competition. Call FRontier 8-2010.

* * Distinguished person to represent distinguished product. Compensation well above average. Apply 10 A.M. on Monday at 212 Jones St.

Why aren’t earnings mentioned in the foregoing ads? Because of legal complications. When a specific figure is named you must be able to prove that your average salesman makes that much. Otherwise, you may have difficulty with the Federal Trade Commission.

2.* The next method of getting prospective salespeople to your recruiting meeting also involves advertising.
Look under the “Situations Wanted” column in the classified section. People seeking jobs often advertise for them. Many are not seeking sales jobs, but some of them are. And some who are not will accept sales jobs if shown a good opportunity. Contact them solely for an interview. Don’t tell all in a letter or in a telephone conversation.
Be sure to hold the psychological upper hand. Don’t beg them. Make them try to qualify for a chance to attend your recruiting meeting. You already have a good opportunity. It’s the other fellow who’s seeking work!
Reason for this attitude on your part-you could make it sound too easy. The fellow who advertised thinks, “It must be one of those fly-by-night deals on a straight commission basis. It’s probably door-to-door! They’ll take anyone they can get, or else they wouldn’t be so eager.”

Keywords: Sales, Marketing, Business, Sales Training

Tags: sales meeting

Kindly consider linking to this article by just copying and pasting the code below on your website/blog ( press Ctrl+C to copy the entire code). The text link will look on your website like this: Conducting a Recruiting Meeting

<a href="http://www.sales-meeting-ideas.com/conducting-a-recruiting-meeting.html">Conducting a Recruiting Meeting</a>