Clayton at Salesopedia has a short, entertaining post that provides 5 excellent excuses to use if you are caught napping in a meeting (I have been).  Read the post, I guarantee you will laugh.

My personal favorite:

€œThey told me at the blood bank that this might happen.€

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From CareerJournal.com comes an important article revealing a new trend – Gourmet Coffee Becomes An Unwelcome Office Perk:

Of people who drink coffee at work, the percentage that drink the in-house brew dropped to 52% last year from 64% in 2003, according to the National Coffee Association, an industry group.

I love that they have surveys for coffee consumption at the office. Is there any topic that isn’t subject to a survey? Nonetheless, I take my coffee seriously and am heartened by this new trend:

Many employers are also investing in single-serve machines that make everything from coffee and specialty espresso drinks to hot chocolate and allow employees to brew one fresh cup at a time…”It’s made coffee a topic of conversation,” says John Montgomery, a group program manager on the company’s Redmond, Wash., campus — especially among the “coffee snobs,” or those who attend coffee tastings. “I learned a huge amount about coffee.”

The Rock Star will tell you I am a coffee snob and proud of it. He, however, is not a coffee snob. I once saw him reheat day-old Folgers in the microwave and enjoy it! I leave you with an excellent quote from an uber-coffee snob (of course he works in the sales dept.):

“I prefer to go to the Starbucks for the bourgeois snobbery,” says Michael Corbett, a sales assistant at New York-based Modern Publishing, a division of Unisystems Inc., who visits the coffee shop down the block from his office regularly.

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Monster provides some great resources for employers including free webinars on timely topics when it comes to hiring. Click here to see a recent presentation or here to see what other scheduled (or completed) webinars on on their docket.

The top sources for finding new opportunites as used by candidates are:

1. Family & Friends
2. Job Boards (large)
3. Past Managers & Colleagues
4. Job Boards (niche/speciality)
5. Recruiting/Placement Firms

As you are probably aware, many people consistently keep an eye open for new opportunities. So why don’t more people apply to ads? Here is what the researchers discovered were the biggest frustrations for candidates is their search:

1. Vague Job Descriptions
2. Inflated Requirements – “Super Candidate Syndrome”
3. Lack of Response from Employers
4. Omission of Key Information in the Job Ad

We run into the second frustration for candidates quite often as we speak with companies looking to hire salespeople. Here is how candidates define the Super Candidate Syndrome:

• Raising candidates’ expectations by advertising for candidates with “God-like abilities” and then offer McDonalds-like wages.
• Turn candidates off by using impossibly long and complex skill demands of potential candidates. It communicates€¦that the company doesn’t respect the learning and preparation it takes to achieve high performance levels in each skill.
• Missing candidates with transferable skills, employers focus on direct experience, even if there are candidates with exceptional transferable skills.

It is far easier to teach some one your product and industry than it is to teach them how to sell, but yet many companies focus on finding salespeople with industry experience.

Why is that?

It could be that they don’t have the time to train, or manage, a new salesperson. Or it could be that it took a long time for them to learn the industry and they assume it will take everyone an equally long time. I don’t have the answer, but the one thing I do know is that it is the extremely rare expert/engineer who can be turned into a strong salesperson.

It really boils down to this Super Candidate Syndrome. You will have more success hiring if you look for candidates who have transferable skills that will make him or her successful in your sale.

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A couple of weeks ago I posted on a friend’s review experience and now it’s time for a follow up. She relayed to me another experience she had with her manager. Once again, this is an example of what not to do as a sales manger.

My friend set the personal goals she wanted to attain so that her territory had a good chance at winning the contest. In fact, she started talking with the rest of the team and they each set their own goals to win (unbeknownst to the manager). On the manager’s weekly conference call, the team found out they had already moved up a place in the standings.

After the call, the manager held a quick impromptu meeting with the team and told them they had 2 specific add-on services they needed to start selling. He told them that he would give them a spiff for every time they sold one of these services. Then he told them if they sold 10 he would give them a half day off work or the spiff, whichever they preferred.

Looks great, right? Unfortunately the service is a commodity and is more work to sell than any of the other services. If someone were to catch on fire and actually sell 10 of them in this time period, they should be running the company. As a sales manager it is important to understand the reality of the obstacles your team faces before promoting incredible contests or spiffs.

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We have written much about the flattened org chart that the younger generations subscribe. The extremely veridical, military-like chain-of-command days are waning in the modern work world. The decision-making distribution of authority is having a tremendous impact on slow-to-react companies.

I encountered this shift years ago working for a company that was headed up by older managers. My group made a presentation to management to streamline the complex business model we were running. Instead of a near-impossible vertical structure, we recommended distributing the decision process to the different business groups. The approach, which we thought made the most sense in terms of efficiency, was to have managers individually guide each unit. There would be one over-arching manager to maintain consistency throughout the distributed units.

The plan was summarily dismissed.

The older managers simply refused to permit low level command-and-control decisions to be made without their micro-management. Their plan, which was followed, was to try to retain control through a single hierarchy that made even the most insignificant decisions laborious. This small company should have been nimble and aggressive in the market place. Instead they moved like an ocean liner and eventually went out of business.

This long setup leads to a CareerJournal.com article titled How Understanding the ‘Why’ Behind Bosses’ Decisions Matters. From the article:

In a study last year, Mr. Clampitt found that employees are more likely to support decisions when they are told about the rationale. The study surveyed roughly 300 managers and employees at more than 100 U.S. employers, asking what they knew of decisions and how supportive they were of them. Mr. Clampitt says employees of companies that explained decisions more fully were more than twice as likely to support those decisions as workers who got less information.

I can personally relate to those findings. There is nothing worse than mushroom management.

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CareerJournal.com offers When Managers Neglect To Coach Their Talent which covers a principle we incorporate into our process.

“The role of people-managers — who develop talent and create sustained profits for companies — isn’t as valued as it should be,” says Mr. Harter, co-author with Rodd Wagner, also of Gallup, of “12: The Elements of Great Managing.” If it were, he adds, companies wouldn’t promote to management those who succeeded at a prior job but don’t have the foggiest idea about how to motivate people.

Blame the top executives who simply grade their managers on their financial results rather than on how well they groom and retain good employees.

The promotion based on financial results runs rampant through most sales departments.  The top salesperson is often promoted out of his or her revenue-generating position and into a manager role where they are asked to coach and motivate others.  As many of you know, this approach is replete with pitfalls.  Yet it continues.

Sales is historically a high-turnover department, but it doesn’t have to be.  The fix is to look for management talent to fill these roles, not necessarily the top revenue-generating salesperson.  The two-fold pitfall of promoting a top producer is that often they do not have the best skill set for effective management and you simultaneously remove your top revenue-generator from their territory.  And let’s not get started on the selling sales manager.

If you wondered why this topic is so important, I close with this:

Companies are filled with alienated employees who feel underutilized and ignored, and are either coasting or searching for new jobs elsewhere. A whopping 70% of U.S. employees say they feel either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at work, according to a recent survey by the Gallup Organization.

Business units with such a large number of dissatisfied employees “have more absenteeism and lower productivity — as well as 51% higher turnover rates than those with engaged employees,” says James Harter, chief scientist for Gallup’s international management practice.

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We’re big fans of Hidden Business Treasures and the great insights they provide. Their latest post provides a tool for searching corporate websites that I was unaware of. Now, I’m no expert when it comes to researching the web, but perhaps you were unaware of this technique:

Here€™s the secret. DON€™T wander around the web site €“ instead, search the web site. Atlantic Trust does not have a search tool on their site €“ but Google (and Yahoo and Live.com) do €“ for every web site in the world.

For this exercise, go to Google and type in the following:

€œhuman resources€ site:www.atlantictrust.com

Read the entire post to understand how this tool can shorten your sales team’s prospect research work. It will be well worth your time and you will learn an effective search technique.

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Over the past week there have been more articles than I care to count on how to write an effective job ad – none of which are written with sales positions in mind. When it comes to sales, you need to think a bit differently.

Let me give you an example – all the articles recommend, in some fashion or another, to collect resumes from candidates via email. Some even suggest that you respond with a thank you even if they are not qualified for the position. Fair enough, but not one mentions to put your phone number in the ad. You’re probably saying, I’m not doing that and having hundreds of people calling me about a position. Let me ask you, why not? If you are hiring a salesperson, aren’t you expecting them to call your prospects and customers as part of your process?

will touch on this subject again, but let me give you some tips in writing an effective sales ad.

1. What are the main requirements of the job? I am not talking about the job description. Instead, think about a wish list, so to speak, of what you need this person to be good at to close business for you. If that is too wide a topic, focus on what it takes to close one deal. Do they need to be good on the phone? Do they need to be solutions-based or product-based in their approach? Is this a business development role or an account management position?
2. Write the ad to attract your ideal salesperson. We want the ideal candidate to see a description of themselves in the ad. This approach is more far more important than a internal job description.
3. Ad Format –
   • Title €“ keep it interesting and use more than just the position title
   • Introduction €“ describe your company€™s history, environment and market position
   • Requirements €“ define the skills & aptitudes that lead to success in the position
   • Responsibilities €“ highlight critical functions of the position
   • Rewards – the benefit you will provide them for success in the role
   • Qualifications €“ desired experience and/or certifications
   • Response €“ channels by which candidates can respond (phone, email, fax)
4. Funnel responses to a phone call. Again, you are going to expect them to have the ability to pick up the phone and call your customers and prospects. Look for that ability as early as possible in the process. If you do offer candidates the ability to submit their resumes via email or fax, give those that choose to call first extra credit.

At some point in your recruiting process you will need to measure their phone skills. Do this before you ever meet them in person. In a previous post – The Phone Screening Essentials – I provided some tips on running a successful phone screen. These approaches provide a glimpse into the candidates’ skills. Please see our recruiting section for more tips and to view the entire process order.

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I enjoy selling and I enjoy buying. Selling more than buying, most days! I find the buyer side of me stopping to observe the seller’s technique and approach when I’m attempting to buy something. In the past week, I have seen the opposite ends of the sales spectrum.

Two recent “buy” decisions involved VERY different sales approaches. As you might expect, both situations involved retail sales.

The first situation involved a sales person performing a knowledge dump of all the COOL, VERY COOL technology I would be getting. The sales person had NO idea what I was looking for, how I would use the technology or why I came through the door. I will say the enthusiasm and product knowledge was impressive, but I didn’t see the value of two-thirds of the technology . . . at least not for me. After hearing everything I was up against (or entitled to), I knew the price would scare me. It did and price became an issue – I failed to see the value of all the “cool stuff” and wondered what my alternatives might be? (I’m still looking into that)

The second situation was quite different. The sales person asked very good questions about my needs, goals, timing, etc. What impressed me most was the “Value” statement I heard to recap our brief conversation. After understanding the value I would receive, the price was underwhelming – I was sold!

It’s pretty basic but worth repeating – people buy to meet a need. Value is more important than price. Uncover the need, convey the value, close the deal.

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From Selling Power’s Daddy, I Want to Be in Sales When I Grow Up:

Imagine a world in which sales was regarded on a professional level with engineering and medicine; a world in which your five-year-old said, €œDaddy, I want to be a salesman when I grow up.€ Sound like a dream? It is.

This topic has long been of interest to me.  Sales is often considered a lesser profession due mainly to the fact that there is a low barrier to entry.  If you have a smart phone and a briefcase you can be in sales.  The gentleman in this article, Howard Stevens, is out to change that fact.

Consider this, says Stevens: more than half of all students graduating from college who aren€™t going on to a graduate-level program will go into sales, regardless of their major. That translates into four to five million new sales people hired every year, of whom only 2,000 or so have a sales degree. That€™s because of the 4,158 institutions of higher learning in the U.S., fewer than 40 have a formal sales program, whether for a major, a minor, or a certificate.

€œCompanies are dying to hire the kids who have already been trained in sales because if they€™ve spent time getting the degree or the training, you know they want to be there,€ says Stevens. As a result, he adds, the turnover rate of sales graduates €œappears to be less than half the national average. And anecdotal evidence suggests their ramp-up time is almost three times faster. Most professional sales organizations won€™t hire someone without at least two years sales experience, but they€™re making exceptions for new graduates with sales degrees.€

I find it surprising that institutions do not aggressively establish a formal sales department.  Again, I think the profession is held in low regard through much of academia.  Hopefully that view is changing.

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