How to Find the Right Sales Person for Your Agency

About this episode

Are you an agency owner looking for a valued salesperson to grow your business? One of the biggest mistakes agency owners make is not utilizing the right tools to find the best talent out there. In this episode of the GEEK FREAKS PODCAST, we put Jeff Ruby from LinkedIn on the Insurance Hot Seat to provide some valuable tips on the most efficient ways to attract the right salesperson for your agency. Jeff has 7 years of experience working for LinkedIn and currently manages the North American small business team for LinkedIn's Talent Solutions division.

THIS WEEK ON THE HOT SEAT

RON HARRIS

Vice President

15 years in the industry.

Enjoys spending time with his family, riding his Harley, and finding time to sleep.

Fun fact: Ron broke both of his arms.

He's a simple person, enjoys work, but also enjoys being alone reading a book or learning something new. Loves candy DOTs!

Jeff Ruby

Sales Leader- North America Small Business

"I have the privilege of leading a team of hyper-motivated, intelligent and hard working professionals on the small business team for LinkedIn's Talent Solutions division. Every day, we are working to help companies attract & recruit the world's top talent by leveraging the vast & growing global network of LinkedIn.com."

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Ron

Welcome to the Geek Freaks Podcast, this is the Insurance Hot Seat. So, before we jump into the episode today I kind of wanted to explain a little more about what we are doing with the Hot Seat. So, the Hot Seat is meant for us, for you as the community to give us ideas of who you want to learn more about, maybe applications, maybe programs, maybe people in the industry you would like us to speak too. Now the idea is that we are going to kind of press them right, so we are going to play devil’s advocate and find out all the answers to your questions that you may not feel comfortable asking or even bringing up a competitor, so on and so forth. But, it’s only going to work if we have participation, we have a couple guests lined up, we just had one drop off for personal reasons, a change in job actually, so this week we are fortunate to get a substitute, we have Jeff Ruby from LinkedIn that’s going to talk to us about finding the right sales person or how we go about finding the right sales person. So, we are super excited to get him on the phone today and super excited for you guys to take a listen, thanks.

(Intro music)

Ron

Welcome to the Hot Seat podcast, Jeff Ruby from LinkedIn, how are ya Jeff?

Jeff

I’m great, thanks for having me.

Ron

Hey, no problem buddy. So, I guess before we get into it tell me what you do over at LinkedIn and give us a little background about you.

Jeff

Sure, uh I’ve been at LinkedIn for 7 years and I’ve had quite a few different roles. Currently I manage our business for the North America, specifically focused on small businesses.

Ron

Nice. Prior to that you were in sales, correct?

Jeff

Yes, yes. So, I’ve sold at LinkedIn for about 3 to 4 years then for the last 3 or 4 I moved into management.

Ron

Oh, awesome. So, I guess the reason that we are speaking today is that I meet with a lot of different agencies and a lot of different companies, ya know during my sales process and they always ask me, it’s always the same thing ya know how do you find sales people, what tools are you using to find sales people, or you know how does that all work, so I thought it would be no better person to have this discussion with than someone who works on one of the largest job platforms in the nation, probably the world at this point. So, I guess how if I’m an agency owner and I’m looking for that valued producer, what’s the first couple of steps I can hopefully take to be successful?

Jeff

Yeah, well I think first and foremost I believe, and I think any business owner should that talent is the number one priority, right. I think if you have good talent it allows you to win, right. So, um the steps I would take right, if you look at the unemployment market right now, right. The unemployment market is 3-3.5%, but on the other side the number of open positions is up over 6 million. So, we are in a strange place where the number of jobs is at an all-time high and the number of employed individuals is at an all-time low. That being said, ya know salespeople, and I can say us because I am one myself, we are a bit of a dime a dozen, right. There’s a lot of salespeople, the barrier to entry is not extremely high, but that said if you are good at your job you should never be employed, so something that I see the biggest mistake that I see is um these agencies going and looking at places where unemployed people are and there is nothing wrong with being unemployed, but where you would be if you were unemployed is the job board, you would be on there looking for jobs because if you are unemployed your full-time job should be looking for a full-time job. So, I always say if you are good at sales, you should never be employed, so try focusing your efforts, um it doesn’t just have to be on LinkedIn, but it could be a different networking, at conferences where people are employed, but really leading with your value proposition of what makes your agency better than maybe where they currently could be.

Ron

Perfect. So, your platform reaches millions and millions of people, but there’s a lot of agencies around here or that we work with that are maybe 4 or 5 people, so they have a tough time seeing the value to using maybe the premium features built into LinkedIn or the navigators that are in LinkedIn.

Jeff

Yup.

Ron

Is there… the value there is to get access to everyone, correct? Where with a job board you would have access to who is making or whoever is making themselves available to you?

Jeff

Yeah yeah yeah, you got it, right. So, LinkedIn has about 650 million network members worldwide…

Ron

That’s a lot of people.

Jeff

For small businesses…yes…for small businesses ya know they are probably not focused on the hundreds of million people outside of their area, but I think regardless is…simply put you want to put fish where the fish are, right. So, if you look at a job board like you said if unemployment rates are 3% theoretically there is only 3% of the population on that job board. Where you want access to is 100% of the pie or at least that other 97% that is still employed. So, ya know I’m not, though I work for LinkedIn I don’t think everyone needs to be spending ya know thousands of thousands of dollars to attract talent. There’s lots of things you can do on LinkedIn ya know for free. So, if you are connecting with the right people in your industry, that’s a great first step, you can get access to a lot of things on LinkedIn before having to give us any money.

Ron

Now is there uh let’s talk about that, so I connect with somebody in the industry, let’s say it’s a good producer for another insurance agency, is there a proper way or maybe a more effective way that you’ve seen people actually reach out because I know that’s gotta be a hard step for anybody to take that kind of poaching, ya know that’s a lack of better terms, but that mentality like hey I’m gonna reach out to this guy because I know he is really good, is there a certain way, like maybe a message that people kinda say or some thing you see regularly, I’m sure you guys get recruited pretty heavily too from other sales organizations because you guys are so successful, is there anything you’ve seen that stuck out like yeah I do want to have that conversation…

Jeff

Yeah, yeah, so I think you would be surprised we actually don’t get recruited that much. I think people think that we have behind the scenes access and that we will know that they are doing that and we will shut them off, so I actually got recruited more before I was at LinkedIn uh then I do now, but that said um ya know I think shorter is better, you don’t need to try to tell everything about your company and what you do all in one, the first email and making it personal, right. So, if you think of LinkedIn as a whole, all we are is a platform with a ton of data. But, because of that people have given you a lot of information on the profile, right. It’s not just where they work Ron, if I went to your profile, I could know a lot about you, right. Where you grew up, where you went to school, your interests, so anything that’s going to catch your eye because you have to think this is a resume, you’re looking at hundreds of those. The ones that stick out have something different, right. So, for instance if I was writing you Ron I would say hey saw that you went to Delta College and then on to Kalamazoo Valley Community College, I also went to school in Kalamazoo, try to find some connection there, and then maybe you don’t have to go for the close right away of saying hey we have an open position Ron we think you’d be great for it. It could be hey I would love to talk to you about your experience uh we’re expecting some growth I think you would be perfect for that. Or I’ve seen the approach of ya know reading between the lines, but I’ve seen the approach of hey I like your background, I’m sure you’re super happy where you are, I was wondering if you knew or had any friends in the industry that were looking for a new job.

Ron

Oo I like that.

Jeff

Right. Reading between the lines they are saying hey I actually like your background, hopefully that attracts you enough to have a conversation with me.

Ron

No, I think that’s an incredibly powerful statement, right. Because you are going to think immediately, well why not me?

Jeff

Yeah, got it.

Ron

Yeah, that’s crazy and a little psychology behind it, but yeah that’s awesome.

Jeff

Absolutely, yup.

Ron

Do you see a lot of people…I mean so you sell the platform, do you see…like what…a lot of people in our position, my position not yours, but in my positions say well ya know Indeed is okay it works okay, Monster is okay, works okay, and it’s very low um ya know barrier to get involved with it. Where you see LinkedIn being a little bit higher, but I guess tell me more about that, like what am I getting if I’m paying that premium price to maybe use InMail or the navigator platform.

Jeff

Sure. Yep, yeah absolutely. So, if you look and I think it’s important to think about the industry. If you look all the way back, right, starting with when you would be walking down the street and there would be a for hire sign and you would walk in and talk to that person, hopefully you get hired. Then, I don’t know when, but came along newspapers and I’m sure that when that happened there were tons of people saying there’s absolutely no way anyone is going to go to a newspaper, call that person to find a job. Well obviously, that worked, the for hire signs were taken down and everyone used the newspaper. Come into the late 90’s 2000’s is when the career builders and the monsters of the world came in and then I was alive and remember this there were naysayers, there was no way anyone was gonna use this internet thing to hire, right. And then 2003 – 2004 came along and that’s kinda when LinkedIn started and Reed Hoffman who is our founder, did not start out to make a platform for people to find jobs, it was simply just for people to connect, to talk about business, to network, etc. But what happened is everyone started devulging so much more about their life on LinkedIn. It’s more up to date than a resume, so kind of be bold in this platform to help people find jobs. So, uh why you would want to uh use LinkedIn potentially over these other individuals is I think it’s a different type of talent, right. Our value proposition is passive talent and what I mean by that is active talent would be I need a job, I want to make a change, I’m actively looking to make a career change, where LinkedIn it’s passive, right. It’s going after people that meet the skills that you want and almost, lack of better words, convincing them why they should take a job with you. So, if you think of them it’s really a big data platform, right. So, if I’m looking for a VP of sales in Kalamazoo with X amount of years’ experience, that has worked for XYZ companies, I can chop that data up very quickly and find yourself Ron and maybe the 3 or 4 other people in Kalamazoo with those skills that I need and begin to start that conversation with you. So, a visual way of thinking about that is on a job board, a career builder, Indeed, those type of job boards you have a funnel, right. At the top there’s a ton of applicants, right. There’s no way we are ever going to give you more applicants than one of those job boards, but what happens is and a small business specifically, ya know usually you don’t have a Talent Acquisition Specialist. Usually it’s someone like you Ron, who is a partner or VP of sales there that’s doing the recruiting, so it’s taking you a lot of time to look through maybe the 300 applicants and out of the bottom of that funnel comes the 7-8 , 10-12 people you want to talk too. So, imagine we could save you the time, and just turn the funnel upside down and just start with the people you want, right. So, you’re not going to have to go through and take all the time and that’s probably the number one thing we hear from small businesses is I am and ya know this is example we were talking about, I run an insurance agency I don’t want to be recruiting, it’s not what I went to school for, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing it and that’s what we are seeing happen is it’s taking hours and hours out of their day when it could be selling, to just try to find someone.

Ron

Got it. No, it makes a lot of sense instead of casting a wider net it’s more of a pinpoint attack on what you want. And you also brought up a good point that a lot of agency owners or even partners in the agencies aren’t HR Specialists or went to school for it and aren’t educated in the background, so I think it helps out a lot in that aspect.

Jeff

Yup.

Ron

I think it’s ya know a lot of us do relationship sales anyways, so I think if these people looking for people they want to hire, I would approach it no differently than a relationship sale, ya know sell them the relationship, build the rapport, and then go after the attack. I think a lot of people are maybe just being like I’m going to message this guy and be like hey come work for me, talk to you later. You know what I mean, you’re not really building a…

Jeff

You got it.

Ron

The why, so that’s…

Jeff

And what we don’t see is Ron, when you do something like that, um ya know, we know that passive candidates stay at companies longer because they have really done their due diligence to make sure it’s the right move, other than the active client who made the move to a company, it might be a quick and easy win for the agency owner to get someone in there, but we also know that the cost of unemployment and the cost of turning over an employee is about 2.5x their salary, right. So, it costs a lot of money to train someone to get them up to speed, just to have them leave, right. So, take the time on the front end to make sure you are doing your due diligence because it’s going to pay off big time for you.

Ron

So, you’re telling me a bad hire, uh keep the math simple because I am not a mathematician, so I’ll probably screw this up, a $30,000/year employee is going to end up costing me by the time they are trained is 60-70 grand?

Jeff

You got it, if they resign, right. The way to look at it is, could I spend a little more money, right and salespeople are very easy to quantify, right. You have salespeople that work for you Ron, do you know how much you pay them? They also know how much they bring in every single month, right. So, to have these people pay a little bit extra but know they are going to be a top performer or stay longer is going to put in tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars back into your business.

Ron

And that’s super important too. Especially in the climate we are in now it doesn’t seem um that people are really sticking around with their current position too long anymore. I don’t think we have lifers in organizations as much as our parents did.

Jeff

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. The average person I think in their lifetime nowadays will have 7 to 10 jobs, but ya know if you look at our parents LinkedIn profiles, I think of my parent’s it’s two jobs, it’s one for my dad, right. So, absolutely there’s not that affinity to stay with your company a long time because it’s very competitive and people really want the highest quality talent at their company.

Ron

Now, I don’t know if you are going to have the answer to this, but maybe.

Jeff

Okay.

Ron

What do you see when you see candidates change positions, do you see like a trend? Is it wage, is it higher salary, better benefits, is it flexibility, remote work, is it like do you have any insight behind that?

Jeff

Yeah, so tough question to answer because it could be a lot for different people right. Some people, ya know I try when I am talking to people on my own team and their looking for external opportunities, I usually have them try to rank company, role, or money, right. And if they rank those in a different order or any order then you can start to have that conversation. If it’s just money well then you know what you go find the most highest paying job and might hate it, might be working 400 hours a week, but that’s what you should do. If it’s role and you are really looking to be a manager or ya know in operations than go find at any company, it doesn’t matter what they do, find that role. And if it’s company, ya know hey I really like working at LinkedIn I love the culture here, but I do want to be a manager, but if company is ranked number 1, well then stay where you are, learn the skills that you want and try to obtain that job there. So, long answer, but I personally what I see when I talk to the clients, people are not leaving jobs anymore they are leaving companies. And what I mean by that is it’s usually about the culture there, right. And that doesn’t mean culture doesn’t always mean they have a ping-pong table, they have free lunch, that is a very small part of it. The culture is ya know it could be everything like do they have a growth mindset, is the culture one of togetherness, is the culture something I want to be a part of for the next 5 to 10 years. So, I always try to stress culture is how you are going to win someone away from their current company to their next when we are in a place like I mentioned people don’t need jobs right now with unemployment rates and also there are a lot of jobs open so you have to really give them that compelling reason and usually it is culture.

Ron

And that’s very interesting that you state that because there is a lot of our smaller customers I don’t truly know if they know what their culture is other than hey it’s a laid-back company and we work hard play hard, right.

Jeff

Right.

Ron

You go back to the old mantra that’s been around forever, so that’s kinda a good takeaway is maybe these companies that are searching for these candidates maybe they should take a look internally before externally to say hey who are we, what do we want, what’s our goal as a company…

Jeff

Right.

Ron

...or organization because as much as a you are going to sell policies, or insurance policies, or whatever the case is to anybody you have to know why you are doing it.

Jeff

You got it. You got it. Looking inside and maybe creating those cultures and values and I think the tough part is it’s not just creating those it’s making sure you are actually living them and doing them because I think you can snip out pretty quickly candidates that are really just, it’s something on the website it’s not something they actually live.

Ron

Uh yeah so, it’s um oh man I’m gonna forget the term it’s almost like a pretender mindset. When we interview people a lot of times they think they can do everything and then we get them in here, oh I can do that I can do that and we put them to the skills test before we hire them and it’s just evident on the skills test that they don’t have everything that it takes to do what we do, so it is very interesting. But, yeah you know I appreciate it I know it’s been uh hard for us to establish those core values and or mission and vision as an organization and it takes time so I but I do think every company should have those in some form or fashion.

Jeff

Yeah, I agree.

Ron

But yeah Jeff I appreciate your time today buddy and you know thank you for your time I know you have a busy schedule there working for a giant company like LinkedIn so…

Jeff

My pleasure and I’m happy to help whenever you need.

Ron

Alright buddy you take it easy we will talk to you soon.

Jeff

Alright Ron, thank you.

Ron

Thanks Jeff.

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