This week we look at a trait that is important when assessing sales candidates for complex, long sales cycle positions.  Proactive or reactive is the difference in this highly valued sales trait.

Proactive Thinking
The ability of a salesperson to evaluate future implications of current decisions and actions. This would include examining the long-range effects of a decision. The ability to mentally create the scenarios and outcomes of situations that could develop from decisions or plans of action.

A salesperson with strength in this capacity will tend to evaluate current situations, needs and actions based on how they will change in the future.

A salesperson with weakness in this area will tend to react to events as they present themselves.  The focus is solely on the present.

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

Comments(0)

There is an interesting article in the recent Career Concepts USA newsletter (sorry, no newsletter link). Career Concepts USA offers recruiting solutions through Career Fairs, Sourcing, and Partnership Services. They have an article on research done by Salesnet.com which found that 87% of all leads are not pursued by salespeople. Boy is that a frightening statistic, think about all the money that is spent to develop leads and then they are never pursued. We often hear from salespeople that their company doesn’t do enough lead production.

Here are the main reasons why leads are not pursued as stated in the article:

-Lag time between prospect interest and sales contact.
-Lack of a sales process to track the status of the sales interaction with each lead.
-Cumbersome reporting mechanisms, usually spreadsheets with leads that must be updated, sent to headquarters, combined for all reps and then digested by management.
-Difficulty for management to measure and hold reps accountable for leads assigned.

Salesnet.com is a web based CRM solution provider which would compete with the likes of Salesforce.com and Zoho.com. Some questions you may want to explore to see how your company does with leads are: How are leads collected and then distributed to the sales team? What form of tracking do you have to ensure the leads are being qualified? Is the tracking process easy for the sales team and managers? What is your average time to contact from lead generation until the assigned salesperson’s initial contact?

Comments(0)

I came across an article on Monster this morning that identifies fives mistakes you want to avoid for reference checks. The article is a quick read, but here are the five mistakes to avoid:

1. Not Checking at All
2. Lack of Consistency
3. Making the Job Offer Contingent on a Reference Check
4. Not Requiring References Who Have Worked Directly with the Candidate
5. Asking Leading questions and Failing to Ask Follow-Up Questions

In point 3 the author has this to say:

References should be checked much earlier in the process than many employers actually perform them. Once the top two or three candidates have been identified through resume screenings and initial interviews, references should be checked before any consideration is given to making a job offer. If the references confirm a candidate’s skills, experience and ability, then conduct a follow-up interview armed with that knowledge. More importantly, making an offer contingent on a positive reference check creates a legal relationship between the employer and candidate. Why would you want to do that?

I would like to add - use the follow-up interview to drill down into those skills, experiences and abilities to help you determine if they can apply them into this position and strengthen your company. Give them sample scenarios to react to, handle and resolve so you can see how they think in the heat of the battle.

Finally, I would like to add that the last step in your hiring process should be to run your top candidate through a background verification process. I hate to keep speaking to this, but you would be surprised how many companies still fail to use this step in their process.

Comments(0)

The decision has been made. The offer has been extended. The offer has been accepted, and the start date is just around the corner.

The “newbie” is joining the sales team. Now what? That can be a bit of a scary question for the sales manager responsible for the success of a new hire. Hiring a candidate that has been and properly assessed, profiled, interviewed and evaluated is an excellent foundation for success. But hold on. It’s just the start to the process.

As you might guess, an industry term to address these situations has already been crafted . “Onboarding” is the most commonly used term to reference the plan for success of your new hire. I prefer Onramping - using a freeway analogy to describe the plan to bring a new sales person up to speed. With a specific development plan in place, the onramping of the newest member of the sales team will be a smooth merge at highway speed. Without a plan, well, recall the last time you witnessed a bad onramp merge (this morning?) - and the ripple effect it had for multiple lanes of traffic. Perhaps affecting traffic for miles behind you.

And the new hire. You are confident you’ve made the correct hire. How does the new hire know they made the correct career choice? Retention is at stake. A well defined onramping plan will increase the confidence and success of all the parties involved - and we will back that statement up with a guarantee!

The development plan available for every candidate assessed by Select Metrix is an excellent place to start. These plans are specific, customized and supported by our sales management track. The “Dev Plan” along with the unique, specific and customized facets of your organization will increase the likelihood of success. In fact, why not have this valuable tool in place and agreed to before that looming start date?

Comments(0)

Interesting statistics from Selling Power’s The Fast Trend: Online Recruiting Services which references a Monster.com survey regarding online ads. Obviously Monster.com has a horse in the race on this topic, but their stats are somewhat surprising.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2003, 62 percent of households had at least one computer, up from 56 percent two years before, and that number is growing every day. The workforce is online. More than 80 percent of those aged 18 to 49 and 67 percent of those aged 50 to 64 are online. Online employment sites captured 22 percent of the employment recruiting market in 2004, up from just 1 percent in 1996. The newspaper share of the market declined by 3 percent in the same period. Nearly two-thirds of the 13,000-plus small business owners responding to a recent poll said they use online hiring sites when looking for qualified employees.”

The stats are from 2004 which are a bit dated, but even then I would have thought the online boards would have had more employment recruiting market share. I suspect today’s share is well north of 22 percent.

Comments(0)

Here is an article from Selling Power that is spot on - Fishing for Recruits?

The first step, says Silverman, is to get creative with your titles. “You can write a great job description, but if it’s buried under a boring title such as ‘Account Manager,’ no one is going to click on it. A good title [like a good headline] is going to create a call to action.

He’s right. The days of counting words, employment ad shorthand and simple position titles are gone. I still see companies using this approach as I stated in a previous post. Stop now and make the adjustments. The only part of an ad the candidate will see is the title so it best be strong and distinctive.

Finally, some excellent questions from the article to help focus your ad towards the right candidate. Remember, the strongest candidates should see themselves in the ad.

“What is the job’s primary purpose or contribution to the department or organization?
What are the essential duties and responsibilities?
What are the all important aspects of the job?
Are they performed daily, weekly, monthly, or annually?
Think about what is necessary to the job €“ is it really a bachelor’s degree?
How will the candidate be challenged on the job?
What does the company want them to accomplish? Is it realistic? Has it been done?
Most important, what’s in it for the candidates?”

Comments(0)

There is something about industry experience that is seductive to many hiring managers. The allure of a salesperson who has been “in the industry” for some time is almost irresistible.

The same infatuation seems to exist with salespeople once they are on the payroll. The salesperson’s ability to understand the company’s product and service offering is important to the position. But why are many new salespeople judged by their level of product/service understanding? Is this really the best determinant of sales success?

In a word, no.

At the risk of being overly simplistic, salespeople are hired to . . . sell. Their sales skills trump all other skills. These skills and abilities should be the measure of their growth in starting a new position. It is remarkable how many hiring managers take the short-term view of a new salesperson’s product knowledge.

Invariably some managers will think of salespeople who were never able to learn the product/service in enough detail to sell it on their own. I am reminded of a salesperson who went to work for a customer of ours who sells wireless scanners. This salesperson did not know the first thing about computers and although she was strong at selling, she was not able to have a qualifying discussion with a technical prospect. In those misalignments, product/service knowledge can nuke strong sales skills.

In most instances, salespeople may not have the fine knowledge needed to devise a proper wiring scheme, write a specific program or read a complex blueprint. But if they have the skills to get the deal to quote/presentation stage and can then close it, how valuable is that? If technical expertise closed deals, the right approach would be to move the most technical people in your company into sales. If you have been in sales more than a day, you know this approach rarely works.

Here is the crux of the issue - your company is probably filled with product/service experts of some sort. I suspect that top-level sales abilities are far less common within the company. If you hired well, this new salesperson brings these scarce sales skills to your company. This is the area in which to focus.

In response to this need, we are expanding our sales development plan and offering a new sales manager track as a new service. This focus will provide sales managers with a specific path to grow new salespeople into revenue quickly while developing a stronger long-term salesperson.

Comments(0)

We are continuing to grow here at Select Metrix and The Hire Sense.  Let me be the first to introduce you to the newest member of our team - Mike Cardinal.  Mike will be heading up our new offerings which will revolve around sales management.

Mike has almost 30 years of experience in the sales and sales management arena and will be a strong addition to our team.  One of the first orders of business will be a significant change to our hiring process and specifically our warranty.  More to come on that topic later this week.

Mike will also be contributing to The Hire Sense with his expertise in sales management.  Please look for his first few posts in the near future.

We have also updated our About the Authors page with more information and background on each of us.

Comments(0)

From the StarTribune’s Beyond The Basic Job Search Rules:

His company (Jericho Communications) has conducted research that shows on average it takes one month for every $10,000 in salary in order to find a new job. So, if you’re looking for a $50,000 per year position, it could take up to five months €” if you work at it daily.

I haven’t heard of that equation before reading this article. We work on the company side of hiring, but I suspect this equation holds water for candidates? My initial take on sales positions is that candidates find opportunities faster than this rate. Of course, a strong salesperson can find a new career opportunity much quicker than a schmoozer.

Comments(0)

From CareerJournal.com’s Employers Try Plain English To Improve Quality of Job Ads:

Traditional job descriptions, some recruiters say, emphasize qualifications, but skimp on describing the work, the challenges and the company culture.

This topic has been a sore spot for me for many years. I read many sales ads during the week and find many of them lacking. Crafting an effective sales is difficult and takes a fair amount of work. Many ads read like 1980’s retreads.

Some solid advice:

The new ads can also help recruit a broader pool of promising candidates because they don’t set strict education and work-experience requirements.

HealthEast Care System, a Minnesota hospital group, began rewriting job descriptions for certain nurse and nurse-manager posts, among others, several years ago. The old descriptions emphasized requirements and tasks; the new ones describe a job’s goals and challenges. An ad for a management position, for instance, might mention dealing with high staff turnover.

Absolutely love that approach. Too often we see companies state in their ad that candidates must have a Bachelor’s degree. My first question is always why? How is that degree going to help in this position? For sales, I would be more concerned to find someone who is iron-clad strong when it comes to handling rejection. That trait is far more valuable than a degree.

My guess is that many of these poorly-constructed ads are hangovers from the newspaper ad days.

Comments(2)