It’s true.  Do you?  Reading this blog would apparently qualify based on Inc.com’s article To Gain Competitive Edge, Companies Turn to Blogs, Video, and Social Networks.

A study by the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research found that 51 percent of Inc. 500 companies are monitoring social media, and they are doing so by various methods, including reading RSS feeds, looking at Web statistics, tracking video downloads, and watching online competitive activity.

Interesting.  The article isn’t overly descriptive of the methods, but the blog piece is certainly worth noting.

“Inc. 500 companies are saying that not only is it important for us to communicate in an outbound way, but it’s also important to listen to what is going on out there and what other companies are saying,” Mattson said. One of the popular ways to keep up with competitors, according to Mattson, is to read other companies’ blogs. “Blogs and their content have become a real market force, and provide the ability for word of mouth to spread and be around for a very long time,” Mattson added.

That’s an approach we subscribe to also.

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SellingPower.com offers a terrific how-to article regarding the sales manager’s role in developing his or her team. How to Ace Your Most Important Responsibility is a must read for any sales manager.

The article categorizes the sales manager’s approach into 5 straight-forward stages:

1. Set the schedule
2. Pre-call planning
3. During the call
4. Post-call critique
5. End of the day

A perfect breakdown of what has to happen to coach your team:

To ensure the call remains in the rep€™s hands, sit further away from the buyer than your rep does. Lean back rather than forward in your chair. If the customer directs a question to you, turn it over to the rep. And never speak to the customer €œexecutive to executive€ or do anything else to make the salesperson feel less than equal in the customer€™s presence. If you feel the need to nudge a call in the right direction, you can do so gently by using a question to make a point indirectly. For instance, if the salesperson suggests the wrong model of product, ask if the customer might also be interested in X product (the right one). Finally, remember to tune into the specific skills you want to evaluate in your rep.

And there is this suggestion at the end of the article:

On a final note, you might consider creating a checklist to help you evaluate your reps in pre-determined areas. This not only helps you focus your coaching efforts, it helps your reps to see areas of strength and weakness and track improvement over time.

We offer this checklist today – customized to your sales rep’s needs.

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No surprises here from the ManageSmarter.com article – Roundin’ Up Reps. Our clients often ask us what the employment market is like right now. For most of this year we have been telling them it is a candidate’s market right now. Some seem surprised while others seem to be familiar with this fact.

In case there were any doubts, this short article lays out the findings from a CareerBuilder.com survey (my emphasis):

The 2007 CareerBuilder.com Midyear Employment Forecast indicates that “46 percent of sales employers currently have open positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates, an increase from 39 percent heading into the first half,” reads a release on the findings. Employers are also more likely to give raises and raise base salaries for recruitment reasons.

Job opportunities opening up in the third quarter is “typical pretty much across the board for most employers,” says Tanya Flynn, corporate communications manager and career adviser for CareerBuilder. Flynn adds that particularly in the sales industry there will always be a demand for top sales recruits.

Also polled in the study were 389 sales employees. While 16 percent say are engaged in a job hunt, 50 percent admit that they passively consider a career shift but are not actively pursuing one, the results say.

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I’ve been talking to numerous prospects and existing customers this week about onramping salespeople.  This topic is germane to every company that employs salespeople.

The discussions I had this week have all involved a common thread – managing the trailing indicators.  Revenue, customers, pipeline, etc.  The sales managers in these discussions were discussing the performance of their new salespeople based on the aforementioned criteria.  But this data is a trailing indicator.  Think of it as trying to drive a car by only using the rear-view mirror.

Some of these companies were frustrated with the new salesperson and skeptical of their future.  Mistake.

Onramping a salesperson is difficult because the trailing indicators are not available.  Typically, the salesperson has only been there less than 3 months so the sales manager doesn’t have a historical pipeline, closed deals or new customers to measure.  In the absence of this data, many sales managers choose to let the new salesperson sink or swim.  This approach now compounds the problem.

Onramping a new salesperson requires extra attention from the sales manager.  I think many sales managers intuitively know this and therefore prefer to hire salespeople from their industry.  Their rationale is that they will not have to invest as much time onramping these industry veterans.

However, any new salesperson needs direction from the sales manager regarding the company’s value proposition, common prospect objections, accounts to target and so forth.  More importantly, the salesperson needs their manager’s frequent feedback to guide them in their efforts.  Are they calling the right companies?  Are they using the best value proposition?  How do they handle this objection?  These are all leading indicators that direct the new salesperson to success.  Withdrawing from this need leads to frustrated salespeople, doubtful sales managers and, eventually, costly turnover.

Don’t get caught in this pitfall.  Have a plan or use us for this critical step.

I’ll close with one of our customers who had some issues a couple years ago with a salesperson we found for him.  She required much initial guidance from him which was wearing him down.  We told him to hang in there and guide her – she will learn the ropes.  Well, he did that.  Yesterday, we met with him regarding another sales position and he mentioned that his salesperson was “one in a million – a true hunter.”  We also found out she just closed a large order for them that was the talk of the company.

Focus on the leading indicators and your onramping program will become a corporate asset of the highest order.

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From a resume received by a VP of HR:

Here are my qualifications for you to overlook.

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The thought of using social networking sites as part of a candidate background check has been debated greatly in recent months. I have to confess, I am of two minds on the topic.

Foxnews.com offers up an interesting story titled Job Hunters Hire Pros to Clean Up Online Profiles. Some CareerBuilder.com stats are provided within the story:

A study of 1,150 hiring managers by Careerbuilder.com found 26 percent of managers admitted to using search engines such as Google and 12 percent of managers said they used social networking sites like Facebook.com in their hiring process.

…

Of the 12 percent who checked social networking sites, 63 percent declined to hire an applicant based on what they found, citing lying about qualifications and criminal behavior as two of the top disqualifiers.

So there is an obvious opportunity here and now the companies are attempting to fill it.

For $10 a month, ReputationDefender.com will search your name everywhere €” even “beyond Google” €” including password-protected sites, and give a report of their findings.

For about $30 a month, clients can have them do a clean-up, which involves ensuring all links to, for example, a college kegstand on Facebook.com or a disparaging blog entry from a former partner, will not appear during an online search.

“More than half of my clients use us just to search and don’t even ask us to clean anything up,” the company’s chief executive and founder Michael Fertik, 28, told Reuters.

Yeah, 28 year-old founder. I think he is going to be successful with this one. In the end, I think I lean more towards using the social network sites for background checks due to this:

The Careerbuilder.com study found 64 percent of hiring mangers had their hiring decision confirmed by information found online and 40 percent of managers said their decision was solidified by seeing that a candidate was “well rounded” and showed a wide range of interests.”

Discretion is a desirable trait in any candidate.

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This week we focus on a critical sales management trait. We often encounter sales managers who attempt to sell first, manage later. This approach may pay short-term dividends, but the long-term effect is an underdeveloped sales team. We always look at this measurement when hiring sales managers.

Developing Others
The ability to understand the needs, interests, strengths and weaknesses of others and utilize this information for developing others. This trait is derived primarily from a person€™s concern, their ability to evaluate others, and their ability to identify with others. It is affected by a person€™s focus on structure and order. The person with a strong focus on structure will tend to better understand the importance of building an organizational system. If the person also has positive empathetic skills, they will see the development of others as the way to build
the organization through people.

A sales manager with strength in this trait will be able to: accurately identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual, evaluate them against the requirements of a job or goal and then design a program which will effectively elevate that person€™s skills to the needed level to achieve success.

A sales manager with weakness in this trait may have poor empathetic abilities and may not be able to determine who needs development. They simply may not consider it important. Also, a manager with weakness in this area may not take a proactive approach to management. They fail to perceive the importance in planning ahead to develop contingent talent. Instead, they may tend to be reactive and deal only with the immediate, or that which presents itself now.

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Good ManageSmarter.com article here titled Hiring as a Competitive Advantage (great title).  There are few echoes in the article that reflect exactly our thinking when it comes to successful hiring processes.

First, an amazing piece of data:

€¢ Interviews: A University of Michigan study found that a typical job interview only increased the likelihood of choosing the best candidate by less than 2 percent.

The statement could use some clarification, but the fact is that most ineffective hiring processes over-rely upon the interview in their decision-making.  Less than 2% is even worse than I would have guessed.  Hiring the “best” candidate clearly requires more input than what can be gathered in the interview alone.

Second note:

Let’s keep it simple. Productive employees are not made productive by elaborate compensation plans, group-think training programs, motivational seminars and convoluted benefits packages. They just show up and get the job done if they like the work and can do it well.

I would agree completely with that truth.  Of course, the issue is how do you find the productive employee in your hiring process?  If your answer is in the interview, see above.

We beat this drum often, but it bears repeating – you must measure the candidates’ skills, motivations and aptitudes to find the right fit.  The right fit often involves measuring these areas and then instructing the manager in how to draw out the salesperson’s best.  Successful hiring doesn’t stop at the signed offer.  It encompasses the ramp-up time as well.

If you only do one thing to improve your sales hiring, start assessing candidates with objective tools.  You will see a broad spectrum of information that impacts your process far more than 2%.

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Have you ever been flummoxed by some bizarre resumes you have received in response to a clearly written ad? We receive them frequently. And often we explain these scenarios to our customers. In case you ever wondered, I received a promotional email today that revealed much:

You can use <product> to instantly search all major job sites (at the same time) for jobs you like. Next, review the jobs it found and put a check mark next to your favorites. Then, press a single button to send your resume & cover letter to ALL the jobs you checked. It’s that easy! You can apply to 1 or 1000 jobs all at once, depending on what you find.

Consider it the spam approach to job hunting. You know, sometimes less is more.

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The first two parts of our series on proactive sales management have been focused on foundation and structure. An experience about a year ago, sums up the crux of the problem – and the eventual fallout.

Depending on the sales scenario, product knowledge can be a foundational item that should not be compromised. Having been in a very technical environment for most of my sales career, experience says a sound product foundation is important in the sales process.

I’m not suggesting that a salesperson delve into the minutia of every last product detail. What I am suggesting is the ability to use product information and knowledge in the sales process. Attempting to blurt out everything you know as quickly as you can does not work. Having an “expert” available for later in the process is also very valuable.

So back to the experience. A sales rep goes on a call by himself. Within the first two minutes of the call, the prospect says “I only have a few minutes to discuss this. I also have to make a decision this week. My boss wants me to get this ordered and delivered by the end of the month.” The sales rep smells blood in the water and, in his excitement, takes all the foundation and structure and throws them to the wind (playing into the prospects buying game, hook, line and sinker).

When quizzed about certain capabilities and abilities of the product and the company, the response was, “Yeah, we can do that.” When asked if it could be done for a certain amount of money, the response was “Sure, we can make that work.”

The rep comes back to the office boasting about the speed and efficiency of scoring the deal. The process of allocating internal resources begins. Internal purchasing contacted suppliers to insure delivery dates. The celebration had begun.

Prematurely.

The follow up call is not returned. An email message generates no response. Additional calls and emails yield the same result. What is going on here?

To make a long and painful story short, the prospect left the meeting with serious doubts about the ability of the company and the suitability of the product to meet his needs. He also used the meeting to leverage both price and capability with the incumbent vendor.

The lesson to be learned is the importance of the foundation and process in a variety of selling situations. Bypassing or skipping these items will almost always lead to the type of disappointment and embarrassment this rep experienced not to mention the wasted time and resources.

Build the foundation. Reinforce the structure. Read the Sales Management articles.

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