A recent conversation brought to mind the responsibility of sales management for the development of both existing and new sales people. Why?

Retention.

As the employment market has shifted to an “employee market” – at least for talented sales professionals – sales management needs to make plans to retain sales people. After all, the talented sales person chose you and your organization, just as you chose them. Don’t kid yourself…this isn’t a one way street. Far from it my friends!

Those tasked with the responsibilities associated with sales management (regardless of the title given them) have a wide variety of tasks that need their attention everyday. The investment in sales people ranks as one of the highest people costs in the organization. If you’re going to invest, then it makes sense to protect your investment. It would also seem logical to provide a compensation component in the sales manger’s plan for retaining sales people. Compensation guides behavior.

In a recent sales manager role, I was dubbed the “Master Manager of the Comp Plan.” I’m not sure it was an entirely positive title (one of the finance guys didn’t like my efforts at all – but that’s a topic for another post). The key here is to provide an incentive to sales management to protect your investment. If your investment is protected, retention will increase. If retention rises, perhaps additional funds can be invested in other areas for sales success!

If you can convince finance of the ROI.

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I came across an interesting article from Selling Power titled “Stop Nodding and Ask.” A far too common mistake I make with my wife is nodding as if I am paying attention, understand and agree with her. This interaction usually occurs when I think I am just too busy to stop what I’m doing and listen to what she has to say. Unfortunately, she always catches me and rightly busts my chops. You would think after 23 years of marriage I would learn.

Okay the article isn’t written for the purpose of having better spousal communication. It is written for salespeople to ensure that they don€™t fall into the trap of simply nodding their heads and pretending that they understand or agree with the prospect. Joel Epstein, CEO of Friction Factor and author of The Little Book on Big Ego gives some great tips that we as salespeople can use to push our ego aside and ask questions (instead of vacantly nodding).

ADMIT to yourself that you don€™t understand.
ASK for clarification when you don€™t €œget it.€
ADJUST your thought process to accept and understand the new concept.
ACHIEVE incredible growth by learning something new or embracing a new concept.

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April Fool’s went by this year uneventful for me, no practical jokes and no annoying pranks. At least so I thought. I have a group of guys that I lead in a bible study on Monday nights. Since it is Spring break this week, we talked about moving our usual meeting day and time. After several emails and conversations everyone agreed that we would keep it our normal time.

I showed up, as usual, about 15 minutes early to shoot the breeze with some of the guys. Our 7pm meeting time came and went and no one showed up. I thought out of my 8 guys that at least half of them would show up. Soon it was 7:05, then 7:10 and still no one so I decided to call the guys and see if anyone was going to make it. Each call ended in their voicemail so I decided to pack up and head home a bit perturbed.

At that point they snuck up behind me and royally scared me. The guys decided earlier in the day to come up with a prank to pull on me after one of them found a website with the top 100 April Fool’s jokes of all time. (My favorite of the top 100 is the 1st one – The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest, pulled off by the BBC in 1957).

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Ok, earlier today I posted on mistakes made by candidates in the interview.  Now it is time to look at mistakes made by hiring managers in the interview.  From CareerBuilder.com’s article Five Common Hiring Blunders and How to Avoid Them:

Experience is important, but life experience is sometimes better

Yes, you want to make sure your candidate has relevant experience in the field, but don’t place all your eggs in that one basket. Some candidates lack the desired amount of relevant experience, but they make up for it with their life experience. Military experience, studying or working overseas, volunteering a year of their life to saving the whales, or taking a year off of work to write a novel; these all offer valuable learning experiences and experiences other candidates can’t duplicate. In tough times candidates can draw upon their life experience to develop a solution, or use it to look at problems from different view points. Anyone can work long enough in your industry, but not anyone can boast about blistering cold while living in a thermal tent somewhere in the Antarctic.

We preach this truth often since it is the number 1 hiring mistake we encounter.  My guess is that a hiring or sales manager who does not understand how to properly assess a sales candidate will simply revert to hiring experience.  If the new employee is a bust, the manager can simply state, “I’m not sure what happened – they had extensive experience selling in our industry.”

I wouldn’t necessarily promote life experiences as an alternative.  Instead, I would encourage you to assess the candidates and see what the iceberg looks like below the waterline (a strange metaphor that makes sense if you visit our assessing page).  It is far more insightful to assess a candidate and interview them with that information at your disposal than attempting to divine abilities from an embellished resume.

Another common mistake we see in interviews:

Too much talking, not enough listening

During the interview process, slow down and make sure you are letting the candidate speak. Spend more time listening to them and less time talking about your company or the position interviewing for. You need to make sure that you fully understand their background, experience, and qualifications and if you’re the one doing all the talking. It is important for you to find out if the candidate does in fact have an opinion of their own, and if so, does it correlate with the opinions already in place at your company?

Don’t spill your candy in the lobby.  What I mean is that even bad salespeople can be good communicators.  If you are talking extensively about the position, company or culture, you are tipping your hand in a way that can be used by schmoozers to adjust their answers.  Remember, the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation.  Ask questions, drill down on their responses and allow the candidate to do the vast majority of the talking.

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In an effort to stay on top of the hippest trends, I give you this:

The top 10 most annoying buzzwords or phrases in the creative industry today:

* Outside the box
* Synergy
* The big idea
* ROI
* Paradigm shift
* Strategy
* Integrated solution
* CRM
* Customer-centric
* Voice of the consumer

From ManageSmarter.com’s Office Lingo: Buzzwords That Are Losing Their Buzz.  The bolded entries are ones I have used in the past 7 days.  I will make the proper adjustments to my lexicon, but “ROI” is too important to abandon.

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We attempt to keep track of the interview tips that are offered all over the web to candidates to assist them in their job search.  Some tips seem clever, others seem robotic.  This StarTribune.com article – Ten Things Not To Do In An Interview – provides a general, helpful list of interview faux pas.

For instance:

3. Don’t speak badly about previous employers or co-workers. Make sure you’ve practiced an honest answer but one that doesn’t show that you’re angry with the previous employer or circumstance.

Very true and yet I have encountered many candidates who cannot resist the urge to denigrate previous managers.  I worked for my share of bad managers, but I have not brought them up in an interview since I knew it was a big red flag for an employer.  Again, I still encounter candidates who seem to take enjoyment from discussing the lameness of their previous boss.

Good tip here for sales candidates:

9. Don’t tell the interviewer you have no questions. This shows a lack of interest, curiosity and depth. Have 5- 10 questions prepared, and it’s OK to pull out the list if you need to.

Salespeople should be asking questions to qualify the opportunity.  This is simply good sales behavior.  We not only want to hear their questions, we pay attention to what questions they ask.  Questions regarding vacation, work hours, etc. are less desirable than questions about sales cycle, targeted markets and average-sized deals.

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The title of this post is a statement often offered by my father. The statement can be slightly aggravating in certain situations, but there is much truth in it. Who? What? Where? When? How? and Why? When phone screening or interviewing salespeople, one of those 5 words should be the lead-in to your question. Yes, I crossed out “Why” for a specific reason that we will get to shortly.

We have covered this technique before but it is immeasurably important when screening sales candidates. Do not ask questions that leave you “boxed” in a corner. Those questions tend to have a structure that leads with a verb and always elicits a yes/no answer from the candidate. Some simplistic examples to make my point:

-Did you make your sales quota last year?

-Are you a good communicator?

-Have you ever sold to a corporate Vice President?

Boxed in. Dead end. Now you are forced to ask a follow up question that may be as weak as these questions. Notice on the third question how you have tipped your hand regarding your target prospect? If I am a clever salesperson, I’m adjusting my answers on the fly to reference the VP-level sales I have ever closed (even if it has been 5 years since I closed one).

Often you will see these types of questions listed with a follow up question that simply states, “Why or why not?” Avoid this. Here is the reason – the word “why” is frequently associated with a critical parent. This association typically has negative connotations.

Think about when you were younger and got in trouble for your actions (I have many examples in case you are lacking). I suspect every reader of this post heard some form of “Why did you do that?” Yes, I’ll give extra credit to parents who used the curveball “What were you thinking?” I guarantee even those parents used “why” at some point in their interrogation.

The 5 words listed above will cover all the bases without invoking any subconscious, negative emotions. These words will also lead you to more revealing responses from the candidates without revealing your desired response. Rewrite your interview questions if needed. Avoid starting your question with a verb or the word why. Instead, use one of the five investigative words to get a better answer from your sales candidates.

BONUS: This question format is just as important for salespeople to use when qualifying prospects. Keep your ear tuned to sales candidates who take this approach when qualifying the position.

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We’ve discussed no email Fridays here before and now this morning I kick up this CareerJournal.com article regarding the use of other communication channels.  Instant messaging is popular here at Select Metrix and does work well as a companion tool to email.  In case you didn’t know the history of email:

Electronic mail was invented in 1971, but wasn’t widely adopted by businesses until the late 1980s, with the arrival of Lotus Notes and other programs. Since then, its use in the corporate world has exploded: Research firm Radicati Group Inc. estimates the average corporate email user sent and received about 171 messages a day last year, a number expected to double by 2010.

1971 is surprising to me – I didn’t know email was that old.  I’m old enough to remember VAX accounts being the thing in college.  171 messages a day also surprises me that it is that high.  Maybe this no email Friday has some legs?

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