As I stated in my previous post I would keep you updated as to the effectiveness usefulness of Selling Power’s daily video clip. I have been watching them off and on the past couple of weeks and each time I find a usable tidbit in them.

For instance, today Gerhard Gschwandtner is interviewing John Roberts – CEO Sugar CRM. As you would expect, the interview is on the effectiveness of CRMs. The one point that I pulled out of today’s clip is on what John Roberts sees as the biggest reason for CRM failure is user adoption. His clear point – quality of CRM training drives user adoption up. A point that I will share with our clients as they hire new people and train them on the use of their current CRM software.

As I stated earlier viewing the clips are free for the month of October and I am still waiting to learn what Selling Power is planning to charge for viewing them come November 1st. At that point I will be able to share with you if I see a value in them or not.

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Last week we covered Self-Starting Ability. This week we look at a complementary aptitude – Personal Drive. Most salespeople work within the framework of a company but their actual performance takes place on a one-to-one level…salesperson to prospect. To be successful, salespeople have to have the internal drive to succeed without excessive, external, surrogate motivation from their manager.

Personal Drive
A gauge of personal motivation to achieve, accomplish or complete tasks, goals or missions. This drive can take many forms (e.g., tasks, knowledge, career, physical, etc.), but it involves the level of personal motivation a person is capable of bringing to bear on any given task which they feel is important.

A salesperson with strength in this capacity tends to focus considerable intent on the completion of a task or objective once they are convinced of the benefits involved in its completion.

A salesperson with with little strength in this area may have difficulty committing substantial internal resources towards the completion of a task, even once convinced of its importance.

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I found this story amusing – One in Three Workers Writes Down Computer Passwords, Study Says. For all the security measures taken by companies, a third of the works still undermine it.

Staff still had a tendency to jot down passwords either on a piece of paper or in a text file on a PC or mobile device.

Great analogy here:

“This is really a lot like mom and dad buying a great new system for the house and junior leaving the combination under the door mat,” David O’Connell, senior analyst at Nucleus Research, told Reuters.

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This article – The Hottest Industries For Sales Jobs – comes from the daily SM&M Magazine enewsletter. The market demand for salespeople is strong right now (we can attest to that fact) and is going to remain high:

The trend for hiring shows no signs of stopping, according to Cindy Hazen, the founder of Sales Executives, a recruiting firm based in Nashville, Tenn. “We have been booming for the last two years in sales and project to be booming for the next five,” she says.

And now for the hottest topic in hiring:

The aging U.S. workforce is also changing the sales profession. Companies soon will need to replace a generation of baby boomer salespeople. For the pharmaceutical and medical industries, this also means a growing market for their services.

The medical market is not lost on the younger generations. A good majority of the younger sales candidates we encounter mention an interest in the medical market. The boomer generation will definitely push that market to a new level within the next 10 years.

“Companies are in a very strong recruiting mode for every level of salesperson,” he says. “We’re seeing a talent war at every level.”

We are seeing that war also. I think this war is always taking place since talented salespeople are always difficult to find and hire. That issue is probably accentuated by the currently booming economy’s demands for more salespeople.

One note about the present situation – sales candidates typically do have more than one opportunity they are considering. The Rock Star mentioned this yesterday and it is crucial in this market. If you identify a strong sales candidate, it is imperative that you keep your hiring process moving at a decent clip. Any stalls, oversights or delays provides your hiring competition a window to close the deal with your candidate.

One final note from the article regarding a predicted decline in manufacturing employment:

The sales industry has shifted to the service side, Hazen says. “It’s about solution selling, not catalogue selling.”

We can confirm this from some of our manufacturing clients. Hiring doesn’t have to stop when a sector has declining employment. Instead, it is important to make sure the current team consists of strong, solution-selling sales reps. An upgrade of the salesforce may be in order if the revenue numbers are simply not there. You do not want to be selling in an increasingly difficult market with an inferior team – sounds harsh but it is the truth.

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