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 position, call me at 123-456-7890 or if you are interested in applying for it, please email your resume to me.

Thanks,

Lee

Applicant’s reply:

Hi Lee, Please read my message again regarding new business and call me to discuss

Regards Applicant 123-456-7890 office nyc

(He erased all of the previous email exchanges in his reply which required me to open his previous email to be able to read his message.)

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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 if so, how will you handle daycare?”

Needless to say I was intrigued so I decided to try it. Wow. It is a powerful tool to prep a candidate but it also contained some amusing questions. My favorite one - “Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?” Now maybe this question is important for someone interviewing with Penn or Prince, but I don’t know why anyone would ask a question like that in a typical interview.

My point is simple - if the candidates are taking the time to thoroughly prepare for an interview, so should you. Think about the key success indicators for the position, why the position exists and then structure the majority of your questions around these areas. Please, please, do not attempt to “wing it” through an interview or you won’t see the real candidate sitting across from you.

And no, I do not know the answer to the fuzz on a tennis ball question.

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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.

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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):

1. Handling Rejection
2. Results Orientation
3. Influencing Others
4. Goal Achievement
5. Personal Accountability
6. Persistence
7. Objective Listening
8. Empathetic Outlook
9. Initiative
10. 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 factors that go in to successful selling, but this is a list that can be applied to any sales position. Now imagine an objective, validated measurement on a scale of 0 to 10 with a .1 resolution (0.0 to 10.0) and you have our sales aptitudes assessment.

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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 following statement: “We have an online reporting system that automates your administrative duties.” My response? “So what?”

We used this approach before and it is quite effective. Many salespeople struggle with defining their value proposition in a succint manner when contacting new prospects. We struggle with it ourselves. It is important in any sale to know what are the differentiating points of your product or service. The “so what?” question will get you to that answer quickly.

Now that you have developed your compelling reason, you need to come up with variations of it for other departments.

It’s one thing to tout the intoxicating benefits of your product that the company as a whole would want to realize. However, if you’re speaking to one person in HR, they may not do cartwheels when you tell them that your product or service will save the company money or increase company profitability. As important as this may be, it may fall upon deaf ears. Therefore, you want to have a buffet of benefits that you can use depending upon the scenario and the person you are talking with.

Finally, you have to find the greatest pain for that particular position in regards to your compelling reason.

If, during a conversation, you can pinpoint and then articulate their greatest challenges or concerns, you demonstrate your knowledge about their specific problems, that you really get what their situation looks like through their own eyes. This will foster a deeper connection with each prospect you speak to.

Again, this is a long article but the author does an excellent job walking the reader through the process of defining a strong value proposition. As a tie-in to our previous post, remember to focus your value on an overall solution as opposed to a feature-benefit problem solver. This approach will keep you speaking at a level that relates more closely to their “painful” situation as opposed to your marketing talking points.

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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. Instead, salespeople need to focus on “finding solutions” to prospect problems. This inclusive approach will get the salesperson talking about a overall solution specifically in relationship to the prospect’s problems. It is a fine point that she does a good job positioning.

Warfield goes on to say:

“Most salespeople I find generally are lively, easy-going people. They feel the first way they are going to connect with someone is to have personal communication. So they try to chit-chat about their family or about their house or notice something in their office. Really, what you have to be able to do in 30 to 60 seconds is understand what that person’s communication style is.”

She makes a valid point about the importance of discovering the other person’s communication style. Unfortunately, she does not explain how a salesperson is supposed to go about discovering it in only 30 to 60 seconds.

I would agree with her statement above in that there are 2 styles of communication, or Selling Styles, that would not appreciate personal chit-chat that lasted more than 60 seconds. However, those 2 styles make up only 32% of the general population. The other 2 styles (68% of the population) prefer some form of sincere personal discussion before diving into business speak.

Building rapport early in the selling process begins a bonding relationship with the prospect and helps to expose their preferred communication style. Remember, 68% of the population prefers some small talk before discussing business. If a salesperson does not know the communication style of the prospect, their best move is to start with some small talk (that may take more than 30-60 seconds), observe the prospect’s style and then adjust accordingly. As part of our development plan, we provide a cheat sheet for salespeole to assist them in adapting to their prospects.

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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 number 1 complaint about the office:

too cold

And you can guess what the number 2 complaint was in that survey:

too hot

The blogger follows this information up with a good point about topics I refer to as “petty tortures”:

What is the moral of this story? Management tends to focus on the big stuff in those rare times when it focuses on employee morale. Issues like bullies, food thieves and temperature are not the kind of stuff that most managers think of when they focus on employee satisfaction. Yet these are the very issues that are wearing down your people.

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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.

Amen to that. Here is another suggestion that I have seen broken many times:

3. Don’t Give Away the Farm. If you tell them in the voice mail everything you’d want to tell them when you finally have the chance to speak or meet with them, then what’s their incentive to call you back?

I have to confess I have missed that suggestion on a few occassions. Usually breaking this 3rd rule leads to breaking the first one also (that I mentioned above).

There is one item that caught my attention. The author states there are 12 ways to contact a prospect. They are:

1. e-mail
2. office voice mail
3. cell phone
4. internal company advocates
5. snail mail (letter or direct mail)
6. in person
7. fax
8. networking/social function
9. another vendor/salesperson
10. trade shows/industry functions
11. references
12. concierge

Are you thinking the same thing? Concierge? That screams stalker to me. Maybe I am over-analyzing it, but I’m not sure how a concierge counts as a contact. Nonetheless, a good list for any salesperson to be aware of potential prospecting channels.

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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 of the virtual CEO? This technological advancement in communication will have a profound impact on companies when the Gen X CEO’s take the helm of major corporations. For now, good to see the Baby Boomers embracing the technology.

And how about some kudos for this gentleman putting his family first. Granted, as CEO he receives much support, but I do not doubt that his choice will resonate with his daughter.

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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 his jam-packed schedule for a sales rep, and that rep comes in asking questions that are answered on the company€™s 10-K, Web site or other public documents, it€™s an immediate turnoff.

Oh how true that is. Productivity demands are hitting all parts of the corporation which is putting incredible stress on a decision maker’s time. Information is available in multiple channels which salespeople need to gather.

4. Engaging in one-way communication. Executive-level decision makers are €œreally, really tired of canned PowerPoint presentations,€ says Hodge. They are immediately turned off when a rep walks in, fires up his laptop and proceeds to dump out his marketing department€™s pre-packaged spiel. Instead, they want more engagement, more interaction.

Clear communication is the balm of sales. Whether it be decision makers or sales managers, much of sales success rides on a salesperson’s communication skills. When I read #4, I immediately think of a loquacious salesperson who lacks any ability to listen. I suspect that is the real culprit behind that point.

Read the whole thing.

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