Not the abbreviation I would have chosen in the title:

Legal Ass. needs work cheap.

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There is a security blanket in hiring salespeople and it is this - experience. Experience is the balm to bad sales hiring. Companies start with a desire to hire primarily from their industry. If someone has multiple years selling in the industry, skill and talent are assumed to be sufficient and transferrable.

But this approach works far less often than you think. We see it play out almost on a weekly basis.

There is no truer example than one of our customers who sells in a distribution market. They sell electronic parts that are integrated into larger machines. These parts can be purchased at numerous other companies in the Twin Cities, let alone the rest of the US. Their value proposition is far different than their competitor’s even though the product is the same.

This company has hired salespeople from their industry in the past and have not found one who has lasted more than 12 months. Now they are ready to forego the experience security blanket at look at skills and talent first. The critical shift here is to understand that skills and talent are far more transferrable than experience in terms of selling.

This approach is a complete paradigm shift for many companies. Most managers believe that hiring someone from the industry is the safest move. If the salesperson fails, the hiring manager can be surprised by the failure since “on their resume they had a ton of experience.”

Safe doesn’t always equal success. Reward always comes at a risk.

Our process lowers the risk.

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Maybe it is me, but there seems to be many different groupings and names for the different generations in our society today. I was reading an article about a recent Harris Poll that used this generation grouping:

Matures (those ages 62 and over)
Baby Boomers (those ages 43 to 61)
Gen Xers (ages 31 to 42)
Echo Boomers (ages 18 to 30)

I am not familiar with “Echo Boomers” terminology - I always thought that generation was referred to as Generation Y. “Matures” is a new one for me too. Wouldn’t it be nice if somehow we could get some ANSI-like standard on what the generational names are?

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We’ve discussed the candidate faux pas of spelling errors in their resume. The resume is typically the most formal document the candidate will write themselves. Proof-reading and spell-checking should be standard practice. If you have read any bulk of resumes you know this is not the case.

I have a real problem with employment ads which contain spelling errors. This morning I read an ad for a sales manager (reads more like a salesperson with a big title) that contained this error:

“Develope”

Honestly, how hard is it to run a spell-check before posting? Most of the boards have built in spell-checkers and if they don’t, write the ad in Word (with spell-checking enabled) and copy/paste it into the online form.

The next paragraph in the ad starts with this sentence:

Be a quality closer and business negociate that can win corporate business clients…

I assume the intended word was “negotiator” but they weren’t close on that one either.

The irony in all these errors is that the hiring company is a printer. If you are going to spend $300-$400 on an ad, take the time to triple-check your work.

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This story from Yahoo seems like a stretch - Super Bowl slowdown costs U.S. employers $800 million. Here is the logic behind the number:

Assuming employees, for example, spend 10 minutes a day talking about the game, making bets, surfing the Internet or shopping for a new television, their bosses will lose some $162 million per day. In a five-day workweek, that adds up to $810 million, based on average earnings and expected viewership.

The Super Bowl talk definitely dominates the water cooler topics for a couple weeks so maybe they are accurate in their estimate. The game comes around every year so “lost productivity” seems a bit nonsensical - like saying we lose productivity each year on Independence Day.

I am curious as to what the dollar amount would be for NCAA basketball tourney. That tournament takes 3 weeks to complete and everyone who gambles on the brackets has to check scores online during the first 2 weeks since the games occur on Thursday and Friday. Many employees take those days off all together. My gut feeling is that more productivity is lost during that event than the Super Bowl.

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From the JustSell.com daily email:

sales lesson:
Harvard Business School Professor emeritus Theodore Levitt once said, “people don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.”

sales point:
Your prospect doesn’t want a product, she wants a solution. You need to listen to uncover your prospect’s hidden needs, and then sell your product as a solution. It’s not about what you’re selling - it’s about how what you’re selling can help the customer. Be valuable.

And remember - a good salesperson walks away if he cannot truly help his prospect.

Utterly profound. The professor’s quote is brilliant. And the last line of the sales point is one we preach - if you don’t have a good solution, go find a new prospect.

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“Let me think it over.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
“We’ll take a look at it.”

If you have been in sales more than a day, you are familiar with these sayings. They are the prospect’s attempts to “stall” a buying decision. These comments are trouble for any salesperson who does not get these fuzzy phrases qualified. And yet often the salesperson accepts these stalls and presumes a close date for the deal.

This approach is almost always the explanation for a prospect making it through the sales funnel but never closing. These are the deals that hurt because they have been forecasted with a high probability to close. And then they vaporize.

I know there are always exceptions, but these stalls occur in great frequency among salespeople who do not pursue further clarification on these blatantly obtuse statements. Prospects use these statements since they seem to imply an impending, favorable conclusion in the sale. Yet these statements are artfully crafted in that they commit to nothing. Prospects have also learned that these stalls work with unskilled salespeople.

Stop hiring salespeople who struggle in this area. Start screening them out during the hiring process. We use variations of these statements in our screening stage. After concluding our questions, we offer some stall framed in a manner that states we’ll get back to him or her. Our focus is upon their response - do they ask for clarification? Do they ask how they did? Do they try to clarify when we will get back to them?

The question is not as important as the action of asking it. This is the first indication of whether the salesperson accepts stalls or attempts to continue qualifying until they have a clear understanding of the next step.

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I am simply awful at remembering names which is a real drawback when working in sales. JustSell.com offers some quick tips to help improve your memory when meeting new people:

1 - Give full attention
2 - Repeat the name
3 - Make an association

Follow the link and you will find bullets under each of the 3 steps with specific suggestions. If you struggle with names, this 1 page article is well worth your time.

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Derek from our comments section pointed me towards www.salesopedia.com. It is a completely sales-focused site with a great glossary too. Check it out when you have the time.

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All sales managers must coach their salespeople. Many do so in a cursory manner, but that is typically not the most effective solution. I’m catching up on Selling Power articles today and kicked up this one - Coach Early and O.F.T.E.N. I’m typically not a fan of acrostics, but anything to remind sales managers of effective coaching has some value.

The author provides solid advice for effectively coaching salespeople:

F is for Focus
Coaching interactions should be focused, specifically on one or two tasks or activities. Too often, however, coaches allow themselves to be distracted and get off track. Give too much feedback that’s all over the board and employees may not know what you want from them. Typically they will only be able to take positive action on one or two suggestions, so avoid tangents while getting your key point or points across.

I couldn’t agree more with that approach. Unfortunately, the author does not explain how a sales manager is supposed to know what “one or two tasks” should be targeted. Understand, some salespeople are poor at rapport-building, but they will never be good at it. A sales manager could waste many hours trying to coach this ability into their salesperson who just doesn’t have the ability.

Apply a force multiplier - use our sales development plan to identify the top coaching areas for the sales manager to target.

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