I’ve been mining through a major job board resume database looking for a specific type of salesperson this morning which is tedious work. The “detailed” view includes very little information about the person. The one item that does stand out is the resume title. Most are boring and forgettable. However, I did find this one rather clever: “Dry Behind The Ears” Sales Pro That is a good approach to get noticed from a long list. In a separate resume, the person appears to have mistyped. Well, at least I think he mistyped. His desired salary is $801,000. I have a feeling that number is going to keep him out of… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Disarming Casualness Of The Web
We’re in full-fledge sourcing mode here at Select Metrix and I am taking up the task of resume mining. I am aghast at what I am finding. A new trend that I have seen before, but not to this level, is writing without capitalization. I know this is an offshoot of texting. My dislike of this improper writing format probably reveals my lack of appreciation for text messaging. I don’t do it – email is fine with me. Online resumes are difficult to manage in that the formatting is often truncated and oddly spaced due to the job board’s coding. Yet, capitalization is not affected. I just read through a resume… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Key To Rapport
Selling Power’s article – Establishing a Relationship – discusses methods for establishing rapport quickly with a prospect. This ability is critical to successful selling. The established approach is to mirror the prospect’s “personality style” (or what we call Selling Style). We teach salespeople how to do this and it is most effective. However, there is one point that has to be made before mirroring the prospect’s style. You cannot establish rapport if you are dominating the conversation. We see this often with highly-extroverted sales candidates. They attempt to talk through many topics in what appears to be a fishing expedition for a connection. Bad move. The prospect has to be… Read More
Continue ReadingLinkedIn On Top…For Now
Online Media Daily has a news brief regarding the fastest growing social networking sites. AMONG TOP SOCIAL NETWORKS, LINKED-IN was the fastest-growing over the last year, according to October ratings released Wednesday by Nielsen Online. The site geared toward professional users drew 4.9 million visitors last month, up from 1.7 million a year ago. Other fast-growing social networks included kiddie site Club Penguin, up 157% to 3.8 million users, and Facebook, more than doubling its audience to 19.5 million in the last year. MySpace remained the top social network with 58.8 million users, up 19% from 2006. LinkedIn was the fastest growing, but it seems like Facebook is the site… Read More
Continue ReadingThe No-Show Trend
We haven’t seen this trend yet, but I suspect it may show up on our front stoop at some point. From The Career News (sorry, no link) comes this abridged story from MSNBC.com: The first step to acing the interview: Show up! I know this sounds obvious, but apparently not to everyone. “It happens all the time lately,” says Emmanuel Conde, director of recruitment for Alliant Technologies, an information-technology staffing firm that estimates about 50 percent of entry-level IT professionals they try to place don’t show up for interviews. Among senior level folks, about 20 percent skip it. The no-show phenomenon is a growing problem for many recruiters and hiring… Read More
Continue ReadingFinancing Via Job Change
I enjoy skewering the mainstream media for “talking down the economy” which is a practice they condemned back in 2000. But all signs point to a slowdown in this red-hot economy which has led the Federal Reserve to target a soft landing. I’m no economist, but I found this article by John Sumser quite interesting. His take on the economy is one I have not heard (emphasis mine): The veterans, burnt by the dot com bust and the post 911 recession will argue that business will contract and layoffs will ensue. That’s the prototypical recession profile. Everywhere you turn, this scenario is forecast or implied. … Or, there may be… Read More
Continue ReadingThe 8 Essential Objections
From JustSell.com: the objections 1. lack of perceived value in the product or service 2. lack of perceived urgency in purchasing the offering 3.perception of an inferiority to a competitive or in-house offering 4. internal political issue between parties/ departments 5. lack of funds to purchase the offering 6. personal issue with the decision maker(s) 7. initiative with an external party 8. “it’s safer to do nothing” perception Of these, I believe salespeople fall down most often with the last one. If your salespeople are not qualifying a prospect properly, the prospect will most often allow the deal to stagnate. They perceive no loss in waiting. If that is true,… Read More
Continue ReadingEntrepreneurial Lessons
CareerBuilder.com links to an Entrepreneur.com article that asked… 9 entrepreneurs take a look back at their startup days and reveal what they would have done differently if they knew then what they know now. Great premise. Here’s the response I enjoyed the most (emphasis mine): “We would have spent more time and money on search engine optimization. Top placement in Google is key to any business in this day and age, and the cost of PPC gets higher every day. In addition, we would have placed more emphasis on employee commissions. We’ve learned over time that commissions and incentives drive employees to bring in more business.” How true that is. … Read More
Continue ReadingSelling In The Information Age
I was reading an interesting article from ManageSmarter.com titled Sales Triggers for Advantage and came across this opening: Do you remember the old days when the sales professional’s role was easier to manage? I’m not saying the actual job of selling was easier—none of us signed up for a sales career because it was easy—but the amount of information we had to work with was far less than today. Before the Web, you had a directory of industry professionals to cold call and some leads to follow up on. You drew from your own contacts and those of your colleagues, and perhaps read a trade magazine or journal for industry… Read More
Continue ReadingPresumed Solutions To Unqualified Problems
Salesopedia’s topic this week is listening. Is there a more important ability in sales? The article – Active Listening and Active Rainmaking – discusses techniques for being an active listener. The tips are excellent, but I particularly enjoyed this insight: Often times the technical training and development of service providers hinders their ability to be good listeners. Due to the nature of their work, engineers, lawyers, accountants, and consultants of all types are extremely knowledgeable in their particular area of expertise. In order to get their jobs done and done well, they often need to be directive and tell people what to do to complete the tasks on which they… Read More
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