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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