We see many sales teams that have a handful of under performing salespeople on the team. Often, the sales manager rationalizes something to the effect of a warm body is better than no body. I don’t subscribe to that thinking and neither does Jack Welch as you can see in this CareerBuilder article – Terminate 10% of Your Employees Each Year. I haven’t worked in a company as large as GE, but I think this approach works well in that environment. Obviously, GE has been on a tremendous tear for quite some time. Under performing salespeople drag a team down. I think many sales managers are reluctant to train in… Read More
Continue ReadingAllowing “Pockets of Chaos”
The abcnews.com Working Wounded Blog is always reliable for a different take on things. The post from last night, Chaos 1, Order 0, weaves together airplane boarding procedures, elementary school and 3M in one short post. Impressive. Bob Rosner’s point – sometimes a little bit of chaos can increase productivity and creativity. In regards to Northwest Airlines scrapping its “by row” boarding procedure and opening it up: This announcement reminds us that sometimes a little chaos can get us all where we need to go faster. Significantly faster. He then provides this statement: Ironically, I’m going to accuse you the corporate people reading this blog of doing the very same… Read More
Continue ReadingSalary Value Index
Salary.com provides a list for our reading consumption – the Salary Value Index. The explanation: The compensation experts at Salary.com uncovered the top (and bottom) US metros for building personal net worth, taking into account local salaries, cost of living, and unemployment relative to the national average. The results are in and the number 1 city is…Huntsville, AL. Now I have been to Huntsville many times and it is a great little city. Number 1 is surprising, but still a nice town. You’ll have to read the rest of the article for the overall rankings. FYI – New York City was last.
Continue ReadingHow Not to Write a Sales Ad
I just read an ad for a sales-related position – it is in the sales category but it is so vaguely written that I cannot decipher what the position entails. The ad discusses what the person will be responsible for managing and some of what they will be doing. It then flows into a bulleted list of requirements that include: Bachelor’s degree Minimum of 12-15 years of business experience Minimum of 5-7 years specific experience Previous management experience A specific certification I edited out the specific experience in the bullets above. The next piece of the ad is the closing information in great detail. Nothing in the ad describes the… Read More
Continue Reading