It appears that Monster.com’s legal woes are impacting their bottom line.  They are laying off 800 employees.  From the Pioneer Press’ Monster to cut 800 jobs:

Monster, which has been grappling with an investigation into its stock-option granting practices, said second-quarter operating expenses swelled by 34 percent, largely because of higher legal fees and severance payments. Profit fell 28 percent in the quarter, even as sales rose.

Good lesson here – businesses grow on profit, not revenue.  That should be obvious, but we still talk to salespeople who seem unaware of this truth.

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CNNMoney.com has an article that really tweaked me this morning – Help! I accepted a job – can I change my mind?  The article is the standard reader mail format with some good advice in the answer section.

An offer letter – which is usually a brief document describing your position, duties and compensation – is generally less binding than an employment contract – which goes into much more detail and usually states how much notice you must give if you decide to quit.

…

So just be honest and say, ‘I’m sorry, but my dream job opened up and I really feel I have to take it.’ Most often they will just let you go. One thing in your favor is that, after only two weeks on the job, it’s probably not too late for them to call their No. 2 choice and replace you.”

Here is what gets me – we had this situation play out a couple years ago when we were helping a client select a manager.  The position was here in the Twin Cities and the candidate was moving here from Denver.  She signed the offer letter and had a scheduled start date.

Unfortunately, she notified our client 7 days before her start date that she was going to pursue another opportunity.  We were stuck since we had ceased sourcing for the “filled” position.

To make matters worse, our client invoked what I like to call the “winner-takes-it-all” approach.  They had no interest in talking to the number 2 candidate even though that candidate was strong.  Our client had a tough time selecting between the two top candidates – they were that close.

For some reason, we see this mentality play out frequently in our clients’ minds.  They have 2 final candidates who are almost equal.  They select their top choice.  If they cannot reach an agreement with them, they want to start a new sourcing process.  The second candidate who made their initial decision so difficult is now considered damaged goods (or something to that end).  Frustrating to say the least.

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Check out this article – Top Interview Questions – from CareerBuilder.com.  It provides a handful of interview questions along with the rationale behind them.  A quick taste:

How do you alleviate stress?

Every job has stress. So if someone says they are not stressed or claim to not do anything about it, then they are either lying or they do not know how to control it. Look for positive activities or hobbies, rather than substance use or dangerous activities as stress relievers.

What was a major obstacle you were able to overcome in the past year?

Problem solving is the major topic covered by this question. What kind of thinker is this candidate? Can they do projects on their own or does their manager need to hold their hand. It also confirms how determined they can be toward a project.

And finally one we often ask in our sales candidate interviews:

What tools or habits do you use to keep organized?

Instead of asking are you an organized person, this makes the interviewee prove and describe their organizational skills. Most hiring managers expect that their employees have some type of system to stay organized. Whether it is using a planner, or electronic calendar, these tools confirm that the potential employee is reliable and responsible.

Obviously some of the questions are far better than others, but I am certain most hiring managers enjoy reading interview questions and strategies.  I’m sure you have also realized that many job seekers are reading this article too.

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Our local Pioneer Press offers a well-written story titled IT PAYS TO THINK SMALL.  The article chronicles the up-and-down nature of starting a business from scratch.  The piece that caught my attention was how this company, which makes wax-dipped pine cones for burning, grew almost overnight thanks to orders from Target, Wal Mart and Sam’s Club.  But that growth came with a significant problem.

The sales spike, though, concealed a weakness: The couple’s business was a one-product wonder. A seasonal product, at that. And its sales growth had been fueled by three big customers.

Talk about over-leveraged.  The allure of one big customer is enticing to a young, growing business.  I give these owners credit because they knew they had to diversify their offering and expand their customer base.  They moved away from the large retailers and expanded into specialty, small retailers and their business has taken off again.

We used to work with a company that received over 75% of its revenue from one customer.  This is a large company with many employees yet they have been struggling to expand their revenue stream.

This is a good lesson for any small company (including us).  The strongest foundation is one that derives revenue from a diverse customer base.

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I’m not sure this is the most compelling statement regarding your own skills on an email cover:

I am better at network management than anybody I’ve ever met

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We had a rather robust discussion at Select Metrix yesterday regarding corporate uses of instant messaging (IM).  I, being a self-proclaimed techno-geek, believe that IM will replace email in the near future.  Well, according to a CareerJournal.com article titled Instant Messaging Is Invading And Changing the Workplace, that future may be now (emphasis mine):

But tech consultant Gartner Inc. projects that instant messaging will be the “de facto tool for voice, video and text chat” for 95% of employees in big companies within five years.

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We have been discussing telecommuting in the sales world over the past year and have seen it appear in our sourcing efforts as a common topic. Inc.com looks into this trend in their article The Benefits of Telecommuting.

The focus of the article is in the realm of IT professionals. That group is obviously an early adopter of technology trends so this isn’t surprising:

In a survey of 1,400 chief information officers, 44 percent said their company’s IT workforce is telecommuting at a rate the same as or higher than five years ago, according to Robert Half Technology, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based technology-consulting firm.

Many IT workers fall to the younger side of the workforce so I would expect this trend to carry over into other departments. This trend is going to be an expected benefit of Gen Y workers over the next decade. If you are hesitant to go down this path, think of this:

The survey also found that among companies where IT employees telecommute, 34 percent of CIOs cited employee retention and morale as the greatest benefits. Another 28 percent of respondents said they saw increased productivity among employees due to the reduced commute time.

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The CEO-bashing that has occurred regarding their compensation is a sore spot for me – especially since the criticism is leveled by people who have never spent a single day as a CEO.  Now I catch up to this Foxnews.com story – Oprah Highest-Paid Star; Simon Cowell a Distant Number Two.

Do you know how much Oprah makes per year?

$260 Million.  A year!

Where is the outrage?  If I am not mistaken, Oprah is the CEO of her production company.  This number is her salary – what about her benefits and perks?  The second highest television salary is $215 MILLION less than her salary!  The mainstream media goes to great length to report these figures for CEO’s of publicly-traded companies, but I have a suspicion that they will turn a blind eye to this one.

Personally, I say kudos to Oprah for running a highly successful company and I am glad that the market demand for her allows her to make this type of salary.

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I have been sourcing sales candidates the last couple of weeks for several of our clients and received a phone call from a recruiter. Normally, I don’t get a lot of calls from recruiters. It was an interesting call so thought I would share the exchange with you.

To set the stage, the recruiter did not ask if I had time to talk or if it was a convenient time for me. In fact, his call came just a few minutes prior to a scheduled screening call with a candidate.

Recruiter: Hi, this is John Doe from XYZ Recruiting. I’m not sure you know me but XYZ has filled numerous positions with your company. Have you filled the Account Executive position?

Rock Star: No, we have not. We just ran a couple of ads this past weekend and I am in the process of working through the responses.

Recruiter: Good. I have a very strong candidate for you and would like to get her resume over to you. How can I send it over to you?

Rock Star: I’m sorry, but at this point I am still working through the applicants who have called-in and emailed me their resumes. I’m not interested . . .

Recruiter: (cutting me off) I think you would be very interested in this candidate as she is an extremely strong candidate for the position.

Rock Star: Can I ask what makes her a strong candidate?

Recruiter: She has many years experience in your industry calling on your types of customers and is always above quota.

Rock Star: Again, I apologize but I am still working through applicants who have responded to the ad . . .

Recruiter: (cutting me off again) This candidate heard you were looking for an Account Executive and is very interested in exploring the possibilities with you and I would like to submit her resume to you.

Rock Star: At this time we are not looking for additional recruiting help, but I encourage your candidate, if she is truly interested, to follow the lead of the other applicants and reply to one of our ads.

Recruiter: I think you would be extremely interested in her because she is a very strong candidate.

Rock Star: I’m sorry, but I have a conference call scheduled in a few minutes and need to get prepared for that call. My recommendation would be to tell your candidate to respond to the ads as we have what looks like several strong applicants that we are running through our process. Thank you for your call.

I ended up having to hang up on him as he would not respect my time constraints and kept repeating his strong candidate speech. You might be thinking that I was a little hard on this recruiter. Maybe, but the only way he could have gotten my number for this position was by seeing the ad. And if he would have read the whole ad he would have seen that my email address was not from the client company and the ads also asked for only applicants to respond (no recruiters).

So why wasn’t I interested in this candidate? Let’s assume that this candidate did learn about the opening on her own as the recruiter said. My question is if she is a strong sales candidate, why would she have someone else make the contact for her?

This position’s primary focus is to open new accounts. If she was strong, she would be making the call, herself. Which brings me to one of my pet peeves, why does industry experience mean she is a strong candidate for the position? If you run this out, what the recruiter was saying was that the person with the most understanding of the industry would be the most successful as a salesperson. Wrong! This is an urban legend and certainly not the basis for successful sales hiring.

My advice is to stop extrapolating abilities based solely on industry experience. Screen, assess and interview. That approach is accurate and repeatable. The aforementioned recruiter’s approach is not.

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I was reading some blogs, email messages and newsletters regarding many different topics and I realized something about successful selling that is often overlooked.

Sales is tough – I don’t think anyone would disagree with that premise.  It requires a unique blend of abilities that are simply not common in the general population.  Unfortunately, many underachieving salespeople look for a monumental solution to their sales struggles…a silver bullet, if you will.  Rarely does one exist (I’ve yet to find even one).

Success in selling simply comes from a series of small things that lead to something big.  What I mean is that the most successful salespeople we evaluate are usually the ones who do the little things right.  They make the extra call on a Friday afternoon.  They keep their calendar updated.  They go for no.  They use information to gain an edge.

It is a myriad of small things they do that, in sum, add up to large successes (i.e. closed deals).  When we work with sales managers who are trying to get more out of a struggling salesperson on their team, we start by analyzing the little things.  If those items are adjusted/corrected, the probability of success increases dramatically over time.

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