I receive many email approaches each day which often leads to studying each one’s strategy.  Here is the opening line from one I received today:

WANT TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?

Lazy.  Insulting.  Those are the first two words that come to mind when I read that opening.  I suspect the author’s belief is that everyone will agree to the opening question so it will be effective.

It isn’t.

The opening approach needs to warrant the reader’s attention, but don’t do it in an insulting manner.  The question has a subtle intimation that the person doesn’t know how to do it…but you do.  That is a bad position in which to place yourself on the first approach to a cold prospect.

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everything else falls into place.
-Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

Now that is an interesting position, isn’t it?  The article is from Human Resource Executive online and features a brief look at Mr. Hsieh’s “unorthodox” HR strategy.

“We do two [job] interviews — the first for skills and the second for cultural fit,” he said, adding that the company has opted to not hire many talented candidates and has fired employees because they didn’t fit the culture or weren’t passionate enough about customer service.

Fifty percent of the company’s performance review focuses on culture fit, he said.

To ensure employees are committed to Zappos’ core values, it offers new hires $2,000 to leave the company.

Now that is commitment to the culture.

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SellingPower.com offers up a spot-on short article about maintaining customer relationships in this economy.  The pressure on salespeople is extremely high right now in two regards – there are limited opportunities to close new business and the business world continues its radical information shift thanks to the Internet.

First off, companies have slowed down their purchasing, but they are still purchasing.  I think this fact gets lost in the doom-and-gloom reporting that saturates our senses.  The tactical truth is that salespeople are going to have to unhook business from their competition to increase their sales.  Many order-taking salespeople will fail miserably in this endeavor.

Second, prospects are far more informed than at any time in history.  They are able to research companies, products, services and solutions.  Companies that are small and nimble can use the Internet as a force multiplier to compete with larger companies.  Prospects no longer start out in discovery mode – their first approach is usually a fairly educated question and discussion about your solution.  The prospect probably has your competition’s value proposition sketched out also so salespeople leap right into an intense qualifying call.

These two factors make customer retention even more critical today.  The author of the article makes a salient point (my bold):

Little “r” relationships. These are the interpersonal relationships between members of a selling team and members of a buying team. They are built gradually, over time, and rooted in “a salesperson’s ability to demonstrate that he or she is trustworthy, competent, and credible as a business consultant and advisor,” says Emde. These relationships are most effective when they’re built not with just one or two people in the buying organization, but with an entire network of people who come to view the sales rep as a trusted business partner. To build little “r” relationships, Emde says reps must know how to establish credibility, build trust, demonstrate the value of the relationship on every call, and be savvy about identifying the right people with whom to forge connections.

What’s the cost of not building these little “r” relationships? When your relationships are weak, or you’ve eroded them with substandard performance, you leave the door wide open for your competitors, warns Emde.

Exactly.  I have seen this play out firsthand in the marketplace.  This problem is most evident with order takers.  They simply wait for the phone to ring and provide a quote.  This approach, in this economy, requires the company to be perfect.  Perfect product/service, perfect delivery, perfect terms, etc.  The second the perfection falters, a competitor moves in and the battle is on.

The key is to make sure you hire salespeople who have the ability to nurture the little “r’” relationships while closing the deal.  If you are not assessing your sales candidates, you are risking more than you know.

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We’re fans of Jeff Thull here at The Hire Sense and his latest article on the Salesopedia.com only supports our belief.  Anyone who has been in sales longer than a day has seen a sea change in the customer relationship over the past couple of years.  Rapid commoditization is a huge problem even for “unique” solutions.

Here is the crux of what is happening (emphasis mine):

Seeking competitive differentiation through increasing uniqueness and complexity can be a deadly double-edged sword, especially if building that differentiation exceeds the needs and understanding of your customers.  You and your competition may believe you have a high-value product or service, but if your customers can’t comprehend, calculate or measure that value, they see a sameness and will respond by ignoring the features they do not need or simply won’t care.

Many sales hours are wasted building differentiation that may, or may not, be of vital interest to the prospect.  This is also known as qualifying and it is in great demand in this economy.

Thull provides 4 suggestions for handling the downward spiral to commoditization.  Here is a taste of one suggestion:

In the complex sale, the search for a mythical buyer – “the decision maker” – is fruitless. Today the majority of decisions, quality decisions, are the result of a consensus building effort – an effort that the best of sales professionals orchestrate with multiple people either deciding on or influencing the decision to buy. It is your responsibility to manage the issues of the transaction from multiple perspectives. You must connect your unique value offer to each individual in the context of his or her job responsibilities and their own self-interest. Using the same approach from middle management up through the C-Level will prove to be futile.

Read the entire thing…

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If ever there was a time to make a move into the healthcare sales market, now is it.  According to RecruitingTrends.com:

“Healthcare continued to add jobs in February, with a gain of 27,000. Job growth occurred in ambulatory healthcare (16,000) and in hospitals (7,000). Employment gains in the industry averaged 30,000 a month in 2008,” the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this and last month alongside news that the nation’s overall number of unemployed individuals increased by 5 million over the last year.

Select Metrix is located in the Twin Cities which is home to United Health Group, Medtronic and most of the other medical device players.  This market is one that continues to hire as the Baby Boomers continue to age.  The demand is only going to increase over the next decade or two.

My generation – Gen X – will not put the same demand on the healthcare system since there is far fewer of us in comparison to the Boomers.  But that layoff is many, many years away.

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Also from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal (emphasis mine):

Nielsen said “member communities” are now at 67 percent participation while e-mail is at 65 percent.

The study found that of Internet users throughout the world, two-thirds visited a social networking site last year. Of those Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook is the leader, with visits every month by 3 of every 10 Internet users, the Nielsen study reports.

In fact, Facebook had a 168 percent increase in users, the study said, while Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn had a 137 percent increase.

The biggest growth spurt for Facebook has been in the category of users from 35 to 49 years of age.

I believe it.  I volunteer to work with teenagers and they all are social site users who mock my antiquated references to email.  That is the generation moving into college and then into the work world.  Be prepared for the change is already underway whether you realize it or not.

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Ok, I’m confused – from our local Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal:

Gallup, Healthways and America’s Health Insurance Plans earlier this week ranked Minnesota as fifth in the country for the overall health of its people. In the case of emotional health, Minnesotans were ranked fourth.

The ranking, derived from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, comes about a week after the Minneapolis metro area came in 19th in BusinessWeek.com’s list of the 20 unhappiest cities in the United States.

In Minnesota, we refer to the Twin Cities as the “metro area” and the rest of the state as “outstate.”  Apparently happiness is found in the outstate areas.  This distinction is even more pronounced this weekend as our state high school hockey tournament is underway.  You have to live here to appreciate the enormity of this tournament.

Anyway, isn’t this a sign that we have way too many polls occurring in this country?

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From Inc.com’s article on how to screen sales candidates:

It cost $400 a candidate, and the recruits took the tests online. Dolan and Kinaxis’s star salesperson took the test, too, and Opus analyzed their test scores and created a personality benchmark. Afterward, Opus discussed the results with each of the candidates to see if any of them disagreed with the assessments. None did. “They’re spooky accurate,” Dolan says.

We use spooky accurate assessments for all of our sales candidates.  Assessing sales candidates is one of the best ways to cut through the veneer and see what they are truly made of.  This article places a priority on personality assessments which is fine but not ideal.  However, a personality assessment is still better than no assessment.

We categorize personality as Selling Style and it is analogous to fashion style.  It is the means by which the salesperson prefers to communicate, but it shouldn’t be a knockout factor when hiring.  Companies who hire based on personality tend to be the ones who believe that all successful salespeople are extroverts.  Not true and we have years of assessments to prove it.

Using the fashion analogy, there are a few faux pas that would lead you to seriously question a candidate (yes, I have sat through those interviews too).  The personality style is similar – there are some that are probably a complete mismatch to the position’s needs.  Those candidates should still be pursued in the interview process with questions to reveal more of their style.

The better assessment for successful sales hiring is to measure their motivations, natural aptitudes and existing skills.  These factors are far more predictive of success in a sales position than personality.

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CNNMoney.com provides this article regarding 2009 hiring.  As you may expect, hiring is down and it appears more cuts are coming soon:

Of the 31,800 employers surveyed, only 15% anticipate hiring more employees during the second quarter, down from 16% in the first quarter and 26% in the same period last year.

About 14% expect a decrease in their payrolls, up from 13% last quarter and just 9% one year ago. Another 4% said they were undecided about their hiring intentions.

The net employment outlook, or difference between employers who plan to add jobs and those who expect to cut them, was 1%, down from 3% in the previous quarter and 17% in the year-ago period. That’s the lowest net employment outlook since the recession of 1982.

But what of those 15% who anticipate hiring more employees?

Alternatively, employers in construction and leisure and hospitality anticipate increased hiring as compared to the first quarter, Manpower said.

Only employers in transportation and utilities said they plan to keep hiring levels relatively stable for the second quarter, according to the survey.

Those industries would be a good place for jobseekers to look right now.

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I was recollecting about a job I took in which I felt I did everything right.  It is doubtful I did, but it is my recollection so bear with me.  I qualified the opportunity, the sale, the expectations and the ramp time.  All of the responses were a good fit to my abilities.

The ramp time was 6 mos. before getting to a steady revenue stream according to the hiring manager.  I knew I could beat that and I did by cutting it in half.  I had closed a handful of fairly sizeable deals within 3 mos. and was chasing a handful of large deals.

And then I was laid off less than 6 mos. into my employment.  There were other factors involved including the company losing some large customers, but I never even got through the ramp-up time.

The company got it wrong – they should have never hired me.

I’ve seen companies hire salespeople simply because they were from their industry, not because the salesperson was a good fit.  I’ve seen companies hire salespeople for one position and then try to force them into a different position once they start.  I’ve seen companies hire hunters and give them farmer tools.

The key is to prepare for your next sales hire.  I tell companies not to hire a hunter unless you are prepared for one to join your team (read: most companies are not ready).  The little things should be handled before the salesperson arrives (business cards, laptop, email, CRM, etc.).  The big things like product training, key accounts, support people, etc. should be the initial focus.  Finally, call reports, travel, presentations, etc. should be the last piece of the ramp-up piece.

Unfortunately, companies often fail at setting these targets up.  It is usually at this point that the compass starts spinning and the salesperson is in trouble.

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