We don’t do much work in the pharmaceutical market but I do have a couple of friends who sell for the big players. SellingPower.com’s article Have You Heard Who€™s Hiring? discusses a downsizing trend in sales hiring that is occurring in that specific market.

€œThe days of armies of sales reps in the field driving revenues are over,€ Davenport says in a recent Business Wire story. €œIt will no longer be about numbers and volume €“ now the focus will shift to productivity and performance of the remaining sales staff.€

This comment is spot on even though it seems counter-intuitive. My sales friends in this industry have mentioned that their roles have consisted of a strong “shake and howdy” approach. They have both traveled in their territory on a regular basis taking samples into doctor’s offices and then taking the staff out for lunch or dinner. Not what you would call a “focus on productivity” in most other industries.

Now that the companies are changing their focus, the salesperson numbers will cease to expand at the outrageous numbers they have been at for the past decade. That means the competition for the top performers will increase dramatically.

The overabundance of talent flooding the market will also impact how pharmaceutical companies operate. Instead of focusing on recruitment and hiring, companies will need to redirect resources into programs that reward, recognize, and retain the top performers most likely to seize on shiny, new opportunities elsewhere.

Retention activities should always be a priority in any industry. However, as this industry shifts more towards productivity, the top salespeople at one company will become the top recruiting targets for a competitor. This fact is common to many industries but appears to be a nascent trend in Big Pharma.

Yet, smart people run these companies and they are making the right adjustments (sound advice no matter what industry you are in):

Companies are already responding by opening up more career €œtracks€ for salespeople who have no ambitions to jump into management €“ a group whose numbers grew from 57 percent to 74 percent from 2003 to 2004 alone. Wilcox says such developments will only increase in importance as the competition for the best salespeople continues to grow.

€œIt€™s crucial that pharmaceutical companies do all they can to hire and retain the right people with the right competencies, skill sets, and experience,€ he says, €œand to make sure they are deployed in the most effective manner possible.€

Sounds like competencies (aptitudes), skill sets (sales skills) and deployed in the most effective manner (sales development plan).

Of course I’m biased.

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From CNNMoney.com comes a humorous article titled Do CEOs make lousy dads (and moms)?  The Q&A format is a discussion of an entertaining new book from a former comedy programmer at HBO.  The guy is now a CEO of an executive search firm in Los Angeles who almost lost his wife during an armed robbery.

The article starts with some stats from a monster.com survey:

…found that 58% think their employers should do more to accommodate the demands of fatherhood; 71% of those with a child under age 5 took a paternity leave when it was offered. The poll also found that, if money were no object, 68% of fathers would consider being stay-at-home dads.

I’m not sure what accommodations they are looking for and I know I could not be a stay-at-home dad.  There must be a happy medium in there.  Anyway, on to the author who was clearly out-of-control in his work/life balance:

I used to be the kind of guy who would be texting clients while riding the Matterhorn at Disneyland with my daughters. It was nuts.

And later on this tongue-in-cheek gem:

They (his family) like me better. I play with my kids now. I don’t take work calls at dinnertime anymore. I’ve accepted that, at home, I don’t have the control over events that I have at the office, which is why most CEOs have trouble with family life. You can’t fire your kids, although I am thinking of transferring them, as soon as I find the right storage facility.

It’s a fun article to read before Father’s Day with a good message.

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As I was searching the web this morning came across an interesting site for The Conference Board. The company is “the world’s preeminent business membership and research organization.” They have been around for 90 years and are best known for the Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators that you see referenced so often.

They provide an economic analysis based on a monthly basis is the total number of online job ads. The report and analysis they provide is amazing – a total of 17 pages of information for the month of May alone!

Although the total online job ads were 4,374,400 in May, a 0.2 percent increase from April, the number of vacancies is up dramatically from a year ago. The number of advertised vacancies rose 29% over the year (May’06 – May’07). There was also a total of 2,812,900 new ads that did not appear in the month of April.

They also breakdown these numbers by region and state. Some of the analysis they provide in this report: ad rates (number of posted vacancies per 100 people), supply demand ratio (number of unemployed/number of posted vacancies), trends by state, and trends by occupation just to name a few.

Here are some interesting stats from their report (pdf):

Top states by total number of posted vacancies

1. California – 705,200
2. Texas – 368,400
3. New York – 313,700
4. Florida – 288,100
5. Illinois – 207,900

Top states with the highest ad rates (number of posted vacancies per 100 people)

1. Alaska – 5.23
2. Massachusetts – 5.04
3. Colorado – 4.84
4. Delaware – 4.76
5. Oregon – 4.42

Top states with the lowest supply/demand rate (number of unemployed/number of posted vacancies)

1. Montana – .56
2. Virginia – .68
3. Utah – .68
4. Colorado – .72
5. Wyoming – .77
6. Nebraska – .77

The full report provides data on all 50 states in case you are wondering how your state stacks up.

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We do not make sales sourcing decisions based on resumes as you may know from reading our blog. It’s an unreliable approach when looking for strong salespeople or sales leaders. Yet, we do receive resumes in response to our ads and that always leads to some interesting reads.

Here are the bullet points listed in one resume describing a candidate’s recent managerial position:

–Create and maintain dedicated sales programs and outside events to increase revenue and overall sales
–Motivating staff on a daily basis to achieve sales goals and maximize retention
–Daily sales analysis to coach representatives into meeting monthly quotas

These are 3 good points but they are not backed up by any quantifiable proof. Without specifics supporting the successes, I am left to view these responsibilities as little more than theoretical musings. That might not be accurate, but you get my point.

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This trait is one to measure in all salespeople since it reveals much of how they approach prospects, how they handle rejection and how they hold up under stress.

Sense of Self
The ability of a salesperson to realize and appreciate their own unique self-worth. They base these feelings on internal factors as opposed to external ones. This internal feeling of value allows them to appreciate themselves based on who they know themselves to be on the inside. They do not judge themselves based solely on what they do, what role they occupy or what success they attain. This capacity could also be considered the level of €œself acceptance.€

A salesperson with strength in this trait is able to value themselves as a unique entity aside and apart from their role or ambition. They base their value on their own internal standards.  This internal €œhappiness€ with one€™s self plays a crucial role in job performance and satisfaction.

A weakness in this area can be a major deterrent and manifest itself in a person in different ways; domineering, perfectionism, risk aversion and/or the inability to handle criticism or rejection effectively.

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This is from an online job board:

I live in _______. I have a lot of customer service experience, but I am willing to do just about anything. I am in a lot of debt and need a good solid job to help me get out of it.

Not good.  Apparently the appeal here is to have a company provide money to them to relieve their debt.

I feel for them being in debt, but this type of positioning is terrible.  Far better to articulate what the company receives for employing the candidate’s services.

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Nary a day goes by that we are not assessing a salesperson for one of our clients.  This activity gives us the opportunity to measure different traits in a wide variety of salespeople in many diverse markets.

There is one trait pattern we always dissect and that is a salesperson’s self-esteem vs. their empathy towards others.  At the risk of going too deep, the issue is how much does the salesperson value themselves vs. others.  Here is why it is important – a salesperson who greatly overvalues himself will often appear condescending, or even cocky, to prospects when placed into a long sales cycle.

But if you have a high-rejection, short-term sales cycle, this overshifted self-esteem can be quite useful.  These salespeople tend to be almost bulletproof.  Rejection hardly phases them.  Their strong view of themselves allows them to keep moving through calls without overreacting to a hang up.

If your sale requires voluminous call prospecting, this strong ego-driven sales style can be most advantageous.

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According to a recent study by World at Work:

The number of Americans whose employer allows them to work remotely at least one day per month increased 63 percent, from 7.6 million in 2004 to 12.4 million in 2006.

Based on government estimates of 149.3 million workers in the U.S. labor force, the 2006 data means that roughly 8 percent of American workers have an employer that allows them to telecommute one day per month.

The article goes on to say that this trend is a result of the proliferation of high speed broadband, wireless access and the willingness of more employers to embrace flexibility in regards to work-life balance.

I think we also need to look at the rising costs in gas and the sophistication of technology. VPN tunnels allow access to company documents without setting foot in the office, the new MS Office products now allow simultaneous group work on a document and VoIP phones allow business-grade phones into a home office. With a gallon of gas going over the $3 mark and the amount of time that is being wasted on commuting, I think we will see this number continue to rise.

The national average commute time is 24.4 minutes which amounts to approximately 4.5 days a year spent in commute. The number one city is New York City with an average commute time of 38.4 minutes, Chicago is second at 32.7, Philadelphia third at 30.3. Our hometown of Minneapolis is tied with Nashville at 52nd (21 minutes) and rounding out the list in last place (or should it be first?) is Wichita City, KS at 16.5 minutes.

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As in driving the car!  From Yahoo News’ Shd u txt, chat n drive? Young drivers say OK (my emphasis):

A survey by the Zogby International polling firm released on Wednesday found 66 percent of U.S. drivers aged between 18 and 24 send text messages while driving and 93 percent talk on their cell phone behind the wheel.

I have no problems with people talking on their cell phone while driving, but text messaging?  I may be too old to appreciate this ability, but I have a hard enough time text messaging on my phone when I am sitting in a restaurant undisturbed.

Unbelievable.

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It’s 91° here in the Twin Cities today so vacation is on the brain.  CareerBuilder.com offers up some interesting survey results in Using or Losing Your Time Off?

E-leashes and hectic schedules are cutting into vacation time as increasingly wired workers are finding it hard to leave the office at home. Although an improvement from 27 percent in 2006, 20 percent of workers say they plan to stay in touch with the office during their vacation this year, according to CareerBuilder.com’s annual vacation survey, conducted by Harris Interactive of more than 6,800 workers. Nearly 15 percent of workers say they gave up at least one of their vacation days in 2006 because they didn’t have time to use it. Ten percent gave up four or more days.

First off, “e-leash” is excellent.  I’ve never heard that term before but it is quite appropriate.

Second, we had a Chicago-based sales candidate take time away from her family vacation in Orlando to spend an hour on the phone with us.  The Rock Star had to work through getting her schedule to align with our client’s schedule (a President) which was no small feat.  The candidate did quite well on the phone interview and is moving through the process as I write.

Interestingly enough, the President thought the candidate should be available even though she was on vacation.  His comment was “that is the way of sales these days.”  I think he is right.

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