From a sales cover email:

I can sell direct to consumers, or to “C-Level” executives.

That pretty much covers everyone. I don’t know about you, but I instantly think jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.

If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Comments(0)

Successfully hiring strong salespeople involves many facets, but I want to focus on a particularly important item. Sales requires a fine-tuned blend of self-esteem and empathetic outlook to be effective.

First, let’s define these terms for the context in which we are using them:

Self-Esteem - The ability of a person to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones.Empathetic Outlook - This is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings and attitudes of others - to place oneself in-the-shoes of another and to be able to view a situation from their perspective.

Each of these two aptitudes impacts the other and therefore the delta between them must be measured. For almost all sales positions, it is imperative to have a stronger empathetic outlook than self-esteem.

These salespeople are able to read the nonverbal cues of others to understand communication at a deeper level. They also do not overvalue their personal needs in comparison to the prospect’s needs. They have the ability to focus on the prospect’s strategy, needs and “hot buttons” when qualifying an opportunity. These salespeople are also able to suppress their egos to accomplish their goal of closing the deal.

There are articles available that discuss strong egos, strong drives, strong empathy, strong everything when it comes to spotting successful salespeople. Be careful following the broad brushstrokes defining these traits as needed in great quantity. The relationship between the aptitudes is the key determinant for selecting the strongest salesperson.

Comments(0)

Here is an interesting development - Newspapers will partner with Yahoo. I find it surprising that we are quickly approaching 2007 and the antique newspapers are finally making a serious adjustment towards an online focus. The dinosaurs of the newspaper industry may have made the move too late - it is hard to say. The younger generations are not newspaper readers. Instead, they consume their news in an electronic format. Suffice to say, it is a move in the right direction.

One piece of information stands out for our business:

The consortium said its first move would be to bolster Yahoo’s HotJobs online classified service, allowing advertisers to post job listings in newspapers, on newspaper Web sites and on the Yahoo network.

We have dabbled with HotJobs in the past, but we have not had much success with their online job board. Their impending tie-in with the newspaper postings will cause us to give them a second look. The newspapers tend to have strong local brands for employment ads and can be effective for city-focused sourcing. I would say this aspect of the agreement will surely bolster both the local newspapers employment ad revenue and HotJobs’ overall effectiveness in competing with Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com.

Comments(0)

We are sourcing many different positions right now so my antennae are up regarding resumes, phone calls and emails. At times, the responses can be overwhelming. Or underwhelming. Just yesterday I received a stammering voicemail about a position in which the candidate said they were going to send an email with their resume. I’m still waiting.

I received another call a couple weeks ago in which the candidate wanted to fax a resume to me for a technical position. I told him he could email it to me instead. He said he doesn’t have email.

It seems apparent to me that their is no more odd time in a hiring process than sourcing. On that topic, CareerJournal.com offers up a short Q & A article titled Do’s and Don’ts for Emailing Cover Letters and Resumes.

The multiple questions are topical and one stands out to me:

Will employers frown on replying to job ads from my work email?

That is an excellent question and I agree with the author’s answer:

Using your business address may not be wise for another reason: It shows potential employers that you don’t hesitate to use your company’s resources for personal gain.

I realize many employees use laptops and capture their work emails from their home network too (myself included). However, the use of work email for personal job hunting has the appearance of lacking respect for corporate property. Whether accurate or not, I often view these candidates as lacking discretion too.

On to a different topic with a solid answer:

As for cover letters, don’t attach one unless an employer specifically requests it, because employers don’t have time to open and read them, says Christine Goodson, director of talent sourcing for SPX Corp., an industrial manufacturer in Charlotte, N.C., employing about 15,000.

Use your email text as a very brief cover letter, Ms. Goodson says. Just say in about three sentences why you are the best person for the opening and offer your phone number.

If you have read The Hire Sense for any period of time, you know I have a weakness for poorly worded cover emails. Yet, Ms. Goodson is right - keep it concise, direct, well-written and you will stand out.

Lastly, a topic that is of great importance in our world:

She’s also impressed by applicants who follow up their emails to job postings with a phone call, even when an ad says not to call. Ms. Goodson says only about one person in 25 calls to ask if she has reviewed their resume. “It makes a difference,” she says. “I can think of several hires we made because someone took the initiative to call and point me to their resume.”

Remarkably, the phone call has almost become “old school” in the hiring process. In sales sourcing, the phone call is crucial to size up the candidate’s abilities. I’ve written this before, but if you are currently filtering candidates by their resume and then bringing them in for a face-to-face interview, there is a better way.

Comments(0)

He’s back! Back in August I first posted on this employment ad respondent and then just a month later he emailed me again. I hadn’t heard a peep out of him for 2 months when out of the blue I received another email. This time he wasn’t inquiring about a position, but it seems I have made it onto his distribution list for garbage emails.

I have received several emails (more than I care to count) about the latest sick child that AOL will donate 32¢ for every email forwarded to Microsoft will pay you $245 for every email you forward.

You know, this is the glamorous side of sourcing that you just don’t read about.

Comments(0)

Minnesota is not only a beautiful state to live in, we apparently have a popular federal prisons up here too. Jeffrey Skilling of Enron “fame” is going to do his time up here. According to the Pioneer Press, we have had some other infamous prisoners in the state:

• Former television evangelist Jim Bakker (convicted of bilking followers)
• Richard Miller, the first FBI agent convicted of spying
• Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, terrorist linked to Osama bin Laden
• Presidential fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche (fraud, tax evasion)
• Comedian Tim Allen (cocaine trafficking in his early 20s)

I don’t think that list is going to make it to the Chamber of Commerce literature.

Comments(0)

All right, we posted on Candidates with Personal Websites yesterday and now today we come across this Selling Power article - Blogs: Are You There Yet?

This phenomenon is more than a fad, it appears to be a growing trend:
“Blogs are, generally speaking, genuine,” says Krane. “A blog is one person’s voice. How someone blogs is probably an indication of how that person speaks and conducts him or herself in general.”Many prospective employees also keep blogs as a portfolio - especially in this town [San Francisco],” says Krane. “Having a blog shows that you are on the cutting edge of Web 2.0. It’s commonplace for a job candidate to refer a prospective employer to his or her blog.”

Common in San Francisco. Not so common in the Twin Cities…yet.

Comments(0)

A quote from my post on Tuesday:

And don’t assume its about money. When someone quits her job, 89 percent of managers assume it was over money, whereas 91 percent of the workers who quit say it was anything but, Murphy said.

From a CareerJournal article titled Opportunity Knocks, And It Pays a Lot Better:

Managers like to say employees leave companies because of bad bosses or lack of career growth. A new report suggests a more straightforward reason: money.In a survey of about 1,100 U.S. employees, 71% of top performers listed pay among the top three reasons they would consider leaving their employer. Yet in a sister survey of 262 large employers, 45% of employers cited pay as a top-three reason workers leave.

Dueling surveys. So which survey is accurate? I’m not sure. One thing is certain, turnover is an issue in today’s market:

Nationally, the annual rate at which workers quit their jobs was the highest last year since 2001, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Here is the stat that I think drives the pay discussion:

The average employee is forecast to pay $3,305 next year in premiums and out-of-pocket costs for health care, a 7.8% increase over this year and more than double the $1,640 paid in 2002, according to human-resources consultant Hewitt Associates Inc.

Benefits are becoming a much larger piece of the compensation puzzle and if not properly managed (see General Motors), they can become an anchor around a company’s neck. Some where in the past, employees forgot that businesses to not have to offer insurance and retirement - it is simply a “benefit.”

I think this person has the best grip on the rationale behind the responses:

Some career experts question whether pay is pre-eminent. They assert that pay often isn’t the root of employee dissatisfaction, even when employees say it is. Meg Montford, an executive-career coach in Kansas City, Mo., says clients who blame pay often have a deeper problem such as career stagnation, boredom, or feeling unappreciated. “They may come to me with the idea that it’s pay, but usually that’s a camouflage for something else,” she says.

My experience is heavily slanted towards sales positions where compensation is king. Salespeople will leave if they are battling against an unreachable commission goal. Yet, that situation is rarely the reason. Most of the candidates we talk to are actually looking for a different challenge to their skills. Often this challenge involves more responsibility within the company, especially the opportunity to substantially contribute to the overall direction of the company.

I believe “feeling unappreciated” is probably the top reason for an employee to leave their current employee.

Comments(0)

You could argue that this week’s aptitude - Handling Stress - is a key component in almost every job. In sales, it is critical because the typical sales position involves multiple levels of stress. Whether it be presentations in front of many Directors and VP’s or dealing with an irate customer, sales presents a wide variety of stresses.

Handling Stress
This is a person’s ability to balance and defuse inner tensions and stresses which, if allowed to build up, could interfere with a person’s ability to perform up to their potential. It is not the person’s ability to handle stressful situations, but rather their ability to appropriately separate themselves from such stressful situations while maintaining their own separate inner sense of peace.

A salesperson with strength in this capacity will be able to encounter a stressful situation, deal with it as need be, and then step away from the situation (resolved or not). They step away in a manner which releases their own emotional involvement and allows them to move on to other matters. These stresses can also be cumulative in nature. Having this ability serves to prevent excess buildup of stress which, in sufficient enough levels, could begin to interfere with performance and physical well-being.

A salesperson with weakness in this area may encounter difficulty accomplishing emotional separation. They continue to exist in the same stressful environment even when not at work (i.e. they bring it home with them). Allowing this cumulative buildup of various stresses may serve to distract them from other tasks, or reduce their effectiveness in them, due to the preoccupation caused by the underlying stress. Being prone to such buildup may also effectively reduce the amount of external stress with which one is comfortable. That, in turn, can lead to a decrease in performance more rapidly than someone who is not as full of stress.

Comments(0)

I must fall in the masochistic side of PowerPoint - I actually enjoy PowerPoint presentations. CareerJournal offers this article - Tips for PowerPoint — Please Spare Us - which comments on many pet peeves regarding Microsoft’s presentation software.

Despite the barbs:

…there are an estimated 30 million PowerPoint presentations given each day around the world…

Some times I think people prefer to simply be contrarians to the status quo. 30 million presentations can’t be wrong, can they?

PowerPoint proponents say slideware doesn’t bore people, people bore people.

Oh do I agree with that statement. I wouldn’t castigate the program just because some people use it poorly. I have sat through many excellent presentations that I found most beneficial. My take in those presentations is that the software enhanced the learning experience.

Of course, there is this side too:

…says John Falck, a partner at a proprietary trading firm who has seen his share of “soul-sapping PowerPoint muggings.”

Or as the Rock Star commented in an earlier post, it can become a terrible crutch for a candidate.

Comments(0)