Termination By Email

Over a year ago Derrick posted on Radio Shack’s faux pas regarding the emails they sent to their employees telling them that they had been terminated. If you would have told me then that this trend would be on the rise, I would have never believed you. Unfortunately, a recent survey of 752 people found that 75 of them had experienced or knew someone who had been terminated/laid-off via email. Maybe it’s me, but does anyone else out there think that this is beyond inappropriate? Firing or laying off an employee is never a fun thing to do and I have had my share to do, but emailing some one… Read More

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The Right Perspective From Customer Service

I interviewed a customer service manager candidate this past week who had a good approach to her job.  I asked her as a manager how she wants her reps to handle customers. Her response, “Like eggs.” She went on to explain how she would personally handle the difficult customer situations and so forth, but I thought that initial, quick response was quite good.  And obviously memorable.

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Sales Managers Must Set Expectations

I had a sales manager many years ago whom I really disliked. We had little in common, he went out of his way to annoy and he was cheap. I mean really cheap. Anyway, he did one thing that changed me as a salesperson – he asked me for qualified information on any prospect I put on my forecast. It sounds simple, but trust me, it was effective. He wanted to know why they were on the forecast, who was the decision maker, what was their budget, what was their time-frame and who was our competition. I was selling high-tech, capital equipment so this information was crucial to advancing a… Read More

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