Here is a recent one for your reading pleasure. Over the past couple weeks I have been sourcing for a territory sales position and had the following email exchange with an applicant. Apparently he felt unencumbered by the specific instructions provided in the online employment ad. Simple instructions – all applicants were asked to either email their resume or to call. From the applicant: is new business coming from advertising agencies also clients who use your services in the new york city marketplace important to you? (Unsigned, no number provided.) My response: I apologize, I am unclear as to your inquiry. If you are interested in learning more about the… Read More
Continue ReadingInterview Tips – Part 4
As an employer, how much prep time do you put in before interviewing a candidate? Candidates have thousands of resources available to them through articles, books, coaches and websites (as we have pointed out in numerous posts). Monster.com offers multiple resources to the job searcher, from industry specific advice for job searches/career pathing to basic tips on resume writing to answer strategies for interview questions . In monster’s Self-Assessment Center they have a Random Interview Question Generator that not only generates questions but provides specific advice on how to respond to the questions. The site also provides advice on how to handle illegal questions like, “Do you have children, and… Read More
Continue ReadingA Worthy Cause – Operationheroforhire.com
Kudos to CareerBuilder.com for launching the website Operationheroforhire.com. You can read the press release here. Essentially, they are attempting to connect soldiers returning home to employment opportunities. We plan on supporting this initiative and hope that you will too.
Continue ReadingTop 10 Sales Traits
We assess sales candidates on over 60 different Aptitudes in our assessment stage which provides some fine detail about their natural talents. We adjust our focus on these aptitudes based on what the position requires. However, there are a certain group of aptitudes that are consistently critical in any sales position. Hence, I give you our top 10 list (we love lists): Handling Rejection Results Orientation Influencing Others Goal Achievement Personal Accountability Persistence Objective Listening Empathetic Outlook Initiative Emotional Control If you visit our web page, you will see the definition for each aptitude along with the reasoning behind its inclusion in our list. I realize there are many other… Read More
Continue ReadingCrafting A Value Proposition
Grab Your Prospect’s Attention by Crafting a ‘Compelling Reason’ challenges War and Peace for length. It is a LONG read, but a good one that covers many selling topics. There are 6 pages to the online article so I will simply hit on some of my favorite points. The author’s main treatise is to define a process for defining your company’s “compelling reason.” Consider it your value proposition to use a different euphimism. He states that you will know you have driven deep enough into your compelling reason when it passes the “so what?” test. When I asked her to list the benefits of her service, she responded with the… Read More
Continue ReadingUnderstanding & Using Communication Style
Here is a different link for a post – a good audio segment on SalesRepRadio. The featured segment this week is a broadcast (is that the right word?) named Outcome Focused Selling. The speaker, Anne Warfield, discusses a different approach to selling. Instead of being focused on solving problems, salespeople need to be focused on finding solutions. When I first heard this phrasing I wondered what is the difference? Warfield went on to say that trying to “solve problems” unintentionally focuses the salesperson on features and benefits selling. I’ve seen this type of selling first-hand and it mostly leads to a data dump of marketing information on an disinterested prospect.… Read More
Continue ReadingTruth is Always Stranger Than Fiction
I kid you not, check out this story from ABCnews.com’s Working Wounded Blog – Biggest Job Complaints. The post references a previous online survey the blogger performed and I’ll steal his thunder and reveal the biggest complaint: …people who steal food from the company refrigerator Are you laughing yet? It’s true. It keeps going: She described in painful detail about how her thief opened a box of chicken wings, ate half of them and then carefully put the bones back in the box and resealed the container. I’m laughing, but I have been a “victim” of this corporate crime myself. The blogger references another study of a similar ilk. The… Read More
Continue ReadingVoice Mail Messaging
Allbusiness.com brings us this article – Eight Tips on Crafting Effective Voice Mail Messages. We live in a world of voicemail which has changed telephone prospecting in a profound way. Throw caller ID on top of a robust voicemail system and under-skilled salespeople are dead in the water. The author states that voicemail messages should be approximately 15 to 40 seconds in length because: If your message is longer than one minute, you’ll lose their attention. Putting a time limitation on your voice mail messages prevents rambling. As such, it forces you to laser in on the most compelling language to achieve your secondary objective, which is a return call.… Read More
Continue ReadingNow THIS is a Commute
Work in Omaha, Live in Connecticut from CareerJournal discusses the commuting schedule of the CEO of ConAgra. Two words = corporate jet. The article provides much detail regarding the interaction between CEO’s and the investment community. But in the middle of the article resides this little dandy: But other experts suggest that in the age of the BlackBerry, the CEO’s whereabouts are increasingly irrelevant. Many travel constantly among far-flung divisions anyway. And there are several high-profile chief executives who have lived away from headquarters cities. I don’t know if it is too early or too late to say this may be a trend. Perhaps we are headed towards the age… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat to do with the Decision Maker
All companies want salespeople who can sell to a high-level contact. Many ads claim you must be able to sell to the C-level. For some positions this is true but others it is a lower position in the company. The main point is to get to the right decision maker, but then what should a salesperson do? Selling Power chimes in with Don’t Make These Mistakes with Decision Makers. The author provides 5 strong points that all salespeople should follow when dealing with decision makers. The first point is one I keep encountering in other articles too: 1. Failing to prepare. When a top decision maker carves time out of… Read More
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