Protip: Treat Hiring Like Dating
Almost every printer or graphic arts company I have talked to in the last few years has said that finding employees—especially SALES employees, is damn near impossible. I myself have been retained to help a couple of printers find salespeople, and I can tell you firsthand it is not as simple as it once seemed to be. Back in the old days (read—90’s and 2000’s), I used to put an ad in the Chicago Reader and I would be inundated with young fresh grads that were looking to get their feet wet in sales. Today, with social media, jobsite aggregators like Indeed and all of the for-pay ad sites like Monster and CareerBuilder, finding people costs MONEY—to say nothing of hiring a headhunter that you HOPE will understand your company and your needs well enough to find you someone great. (And we all know they cost a bloody fortune too!)
- Categories:
- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Blogger, author, consultant, coach and all around evangelist for the graphic arts industry, Kelly sold digital printing for 15 years so she understands the challenges, frustrations and pitfalls of building a successful sales practice. Her mission is to help printers of all sizes sell more stuff. Kelly's areas of focus include sales and marketing coaching, enabling clients to find engagement strategies that work for them and mentoring the next generation of sales superstars.
Kelly graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in Political Science and, among other notable accomplishments, co-founded the Windy City Rollers, a professional women's roller derby league. She is also the mother of two sets of twins under the age of ten, so she fears nothing.
