During a recent salesperson search involving a long, complex, technical sale, we posted a clearly written ad that asked candidates to either email their resumes or to call. I received a voicemail from a candidate who actually picked up the phone to call (something we always like to see in salespeople). However, here was his messagel:

“I seen your ad and am currently in route sales. I need to get out of this position and make a change now. Please call me today so I can find out how soon I would be able to start.”

He then left me his first name and his pager number. Desperation is rarely pesuasive when looking for a new opportunity.

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All honesty here, we are not well informed on the entire social networking side of the web. We’re just starting to use Digg and del.icio.us so our knowledge is limited. But this CareerJournal story is loaded with foreshadowing.

Getting the Scoop On a Future Boss discusses the changes occurring in the social networking field by allowing job seekers to connect with existing employees at a company.

From the author:

Until recently, social networking on the Web was confined to hubs for young people seeking to meet and chat. Now, there is growing interest in adapting social networking to the business world — both among networking sites looking to expand their reach and among job sites seeking to offer new services. One result: People who are searching for work have more one-stop shops for making connections, getting referrals from employees, and finding out the inside scoop.

Companies will have to monitor what is being discussed in the public forum which is quite doable today. I don’t have a feel for how many smaller companies are alerted to this new phenomenon, but they will need to devise some plan for monitoring it.

The downside:

For job seekers, reading online posts can lead to misimpressions. People tend to complain more than compliment. And what they post may not necessarily be true. On one online job board, a user complains that “there is no work-life balance” at a particular accounting firm. Another user criticizes the interview process for a marketing job, protesting that the company is “very, very inconsiderate to your time.” Elsewhere, one worker writes, as part of a job description: “Collect owed tax money from the poor american souls in the Self-Employed/Small Business Area.”

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Quick-hitting article from Inc.com called Employers Fear Shortage of Workers. The takeaway paragraph:

Employee productivity isn’t the only concern for employers, according to the survey — 41% of small-business owners cite hiring the right people with the right job skills as the number one employment issue they face, with retaining and motivating employees at a close second.

There is a way to improve your hiring success.

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Office Tormentors Appear Normal, But Pack a Wallop from CareerJournal really needs no analysis. I don’t know if it is worth the read so I will point out the 3 things that entertained me plus one of our customer’s interactions with a flamethrower.

First (emphasis mine):

Mr. Namie is the director of the Workplace Bullying & Trauma Institute, which is pushing various states to enact laws against “abusive conduct,” including “verbal or physical conduct that a reasonable person would find threatening, intimidating, or humiliating.” Thus far, the bills either died in committee or weren’t scheduled for hearings, he says.

The institute’s name sounds like the basis of a Saturday Night Live skit.

Second:

…a staffer at another company presented information that didn’t sit well with his supervisor. He chewed him out afterward in front of all his colleagues. “That idea is so wrong it’s not even stupid,” the boss yelled. “Genius has limits; you’re proof that stupid doesn’t.”

If I had to guess, I would say that this manager had a low, and I mean low, empathetic aptitude.

Third:

Jackie Fox once had a boss at a medical office who, whenever Ms. Fox forgot to do something, would call her a “colander head.” She quit that job, in part because the same humiliator pressured her for her sandwich.

I know, I know, it sounds like an elementary school playground. Amazing what companies will allow to occur within their culture.

We have a customer whose top salesperson basically went feral after he earned a master’s degree from a correspondence college. He wanted raises, authority and all the trappings he thought he now deserved. After insulting coworkers in meetings, ignoring paperwork and accosting the sales manager, he finally dropped the F-bomb on the President of the company. He was summarily terminated.

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Lists . . . we love ‘em. Here is a good one from justsell.com. 17 things a salesperson should continually be doing during the selling process. I’ll repost them all here with my emphasis:

Obviously these are all important selling activities. When you get down to the brass tacks of selling, it comes down to asking the right questions and then shutting your mouth and actively listening. The stereotypical image of a salesperson is someone who can tell a real stemwinder of a features/benefits story. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

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I read this Marketing Profs’ article yesterday - Left Brain, Right Brain: Creating a New Business Model - and then deleted it. But I have been thinking about it during this busy day with customers. It is an thought-provoking article that takes me back to my days as a psych major in college. I chalked it up to my own interests, but the thesis is quite applicable to today’s hiring model.

Here’s what piqued my interest:

Stephen J. Adler, Editor-in-Chief of Business Week, has dubbed today’s business environment “the Creativity Economy.”

Interesting catch phrase. Then came this:

After all, if business executives are expected to become creative thinkers, problem solvers, and innovators to keep their companies ahead of ever-intensifying global competition, won’t the basic premises of design serve them well? We might call this a move to integrate right-brain (creative, innovative and design) and left-brain (analytical, management) thinking in the highest circles of business.

Now the author is on to something. The final hook:

In the abstract for his presentation, Pink boldly states: “The era of ‘left-brain’ dominance, and the Information Age that it engendered, are now giving way to a new world in which ‘right brain’ qualities - inventiveness, empathy, meaning - predominate. Indeed, we are moving from an era when the MBA was the most treasured recruit to the (MFA) Master of Fine Arts graduate who can provide a broadened approach.”

This is truly a radical new way of thought. Perhaps the answer to meeting today’s business challenges is not to “throw the baby out with the bath water” by opting to hone one side of the brain and its unique skill sets over the other, but to take an integrative approach.

Again, maybe it is just me, but I was captivated by the article. When we are screening sales candidates, the creative minds are always the ones that stand out. Now, I’m not talking about joke-telling schmoozers, I’m referencing salespeople who have a unique, integrated approach that drives the qualifying process.

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CareerJournal.com has this attention-grabbing article - Getting a Raise From the Boss. I opened that one immediately. Then, I read this:

Complicating matters for working stiffs: Employers increasingly are doling out money based on performance, instead of giving out across-the-board raises that were more common back in the 1990s. This year, for instance, bonuses will account for 11% of payroll, Hewitt estimates, up from only 4% in 1990.

I emphasized that one part since this is a pet peeve of mine. Performance-based incentive should be the norm for all positions within a company. Almost all sales plans contain a form of variable compensation based on success. In “working stiff” terms, you eat what you kill.

Compensation is a tricky topic that seems to swing (to some degree) based on the unemployment numbers. Unemployment is low, good workers are in demand and employees know it. Fair enough. I believe this trend is going to continue as the boomers exit which will decrease the supply side of the hiring equation. Naturally, demand will increase and so will compensation.

However, the best piece of advice is found in the last sentence of the article:

“The best way to get a great raise is to do a great job,” Ms. Watson says.

All compensation discussions pivot on that most crucial point. No spreadsheet, calculator or forecast can match the power of remarkable success in the position.

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CareerBuilder has a new article - Top 4 Strategic Interview Styles - that provides some thoughtful approaches to interview strategies. However, I take umbrage with the opening sentence:

Interviews are the most important piece of the hiring process.

Wrong. Of far greater importance is knowing what traits lead to success in the position. This truth is even more evident when hiring salespeople.

If we were to pick one of these 4 interview styles, we would go with the “panel interview.” From the article (emphasis mine):

Panel interviewing method forces the candidate to react to a variety of questions and personalities, and will show if the candidate can handle a situation in which diversity is a factor. Be sure to pre-define a leader when doing panel interviews. If the candidate is obviously not the right fit, the leader should cut the interview short to save the team’s time. After the interview, team members will have differing opinions about the candidate. Engage in open debate about the pros and cons of each candidate shortly after the interview. Consensus may not be reached, but the open dialogue will help identify the best candidates.

Sales requires selling to many different personalities, handling stress and staying focused. The panel interview provides a real-world sales scenario in which you can see the candidate in action.

Of course, all of this interview strategizing is well placed as long as a process has been followed to get to this point. Over-reliance upon the interview leads to gut-level hiring decisions which are the catalysts to hiring mistakes.

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Why Should Customers Do Business with You? provides some guidance in determining your value proposition. A jaw-dropping stat from the opening paragraph (emphasis mine):

…business consultant Jaynie Smith could find only two out of 1,000 CEOs who could name their competitive advantages. That’s a stunning figure because competitive advantage, and a company’s ability to trumpet that advantage to the marketplace, is the most surefire way to close deals, retain clients, and stay miles ahead of the competition, says Smith.

I realize that CEO’s are occupied with all facets of the business beyond sales, but every company I have worked for has integrated the CEO into large customer interactions. At one company, the CEO preferred to discuss theories on a chalkboard with prospects instead of qualifying the deal. To make matters worse, the CEO was a veritable genius in this field and would often provide free solutions to the prospect that other customers were already paying to receive!

Further into the article, this simple truth emerges:

“Customers want to know in concrete terms what it is about your product or service that is better than the rest,” says Smith.
…your product or service doesn’t have to be special by itself for you to have a compelling advantage over your competition. Instead, “the way you make it, test it, package it, deliver it, as well as other extras you provide, can make the critical difference,” says Smith.

Again, this point sounds simple in theory but is difficult in practice. When developing your value proposition, test all of your ideas with “so what?” What this means is test your idea. After stating it, ask yourself “so what?” This question will help focus your value proposition and translate it into the prospect’s world.

A good example to parse out from the article:

“We just invested $2 million in the latest manufacturing technology”

So what?

“which allows us to double production output”

So what?

“(the technology) shortens your delivery time by 50 percent”

Bingo. That is a real world value proposition that has some legs. Now this company needs to translate this improvement to the marketplace. I’m not sure how the 50% shows up, but I would hope it would be something like:

Our modern manufacturing technology means we deliver your widgets to you in half the time of our competitors.

Even mediocre salespeople could put that value proposition in play successfully . . . well, at least they would have something strong to put in play.

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Interesting article - The Top Seven Signs That Someone is Lying to You - that provides clues to look for when talking to others face-to-face.

The article is a quick read and well worth your time. An excerpt:

No eye contact.
Generally, if someone is lying they will not look you in the eye, at least during a certain part of the conversation. Normally, people make eye contact for at least half of a conversation, so anything less than this could be suspicious. One caveat: there are some people who will take great pains to make eye contact with you even if they’re lying, simply to make you think they’re not.

Part of what we do at Select Metrix is sort out truth from embellishment in the sales hiring process. We typically direct the first in-person interview along with our customer in a committee-style interview format. There are two reasons behind this approach; first, to place pressure on the candidate that imitates a sales presentation and second, to drill down on candidate responses to get to clarity. The 7 tips from this article will be most helpful going forward in that activity. (h/t Landing the Deal)

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