This week we look at a trait that is beneficial to both salespeople and sales managers. The ability to stay balanced in forming decisions is integral to sales success. Salespeople who can look at the entire opportunity and properly weight the pieces before pursuing it are the most successful. Salespeople who can’t often chase the proverbial rabbit down the hole. Balanced Decision Making This trait involves the ability to be objective and fairly evaluate the different aspects (people and other) of a situation. This ability includes making an ethical decision that takes into account all aspects and components. It is the ability to maintain a balance between the needs of… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Not To Deal With The Salary Question
From Foxnews.com’s How to Deal With the Salary-Expectations Question: Don Sutaria, president and founder of CareerQuest, a staffing and training firm, advises job seekers to avoid offering a solid figure. “Don’t answer the question. Say, ‘I’ll expect the fair market value. Make me an offer and we can discuss it.’ Or, ‘Maybe you can tell me what your range is?’” Sutaria adds that the best approach is to arm yourself with information. “It’s very easy to find now, based on the job title and industry, what your range is.” This is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t think candidates get anywhere by being coy about their salary expectations. Candidates… Read More
Continue ReadingResearching A Candidate Online
CNNMoney.com offers a fairly innocuous story: Survey: CEOs bullish on better economy. That is always good news and I am bullish along with them. Small and mid-sized companies are optimistic about the U.S. economy’s prospects in 2007 on the back of brisk first-quarter sales and increased revenue, according to a survey released Tuesday. But catch this little throw-away line from later in the article: Twenty-one percent of all executives surveyed report having conducted Internet searches via News Corporation-owned MySpace, Facebook or Google when researching job candidates, the survey showed. I found that number staggering – almost 1 in 4 executives are using social networking sites or search engines to research… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Board Convergence
Monster Pairs With Tech Company to Increase Newspaper Ties: Under the deal, newspapers using Adicio’s service will have several options to increase their ties with Monster, including having their own employment ads co-listed in Monster’s database and giving online advertisers an easy way to buy print ads in the paper. A good move by the fading newspapers for sure. The traditional newspaper help-wanted ad is just about toast, as it should be. Surprisingly, we still encounter companies that only advertise in the local newspaper (at confiscatory rates). The trend is clearly towards a handful of major online job boards and a myriad of niche online job boards serving specific industries… Read More
Continue ReadingHire Fast, Fire Fast
From Dick Costolo’s Ask the Wizard blog: Briefly, the “No False Positives” school of hiring says that bad hires are worse than no hire because bad employees infect the company with all sorts of issues. Better to march on with nobody filling an important slot than to bring in a sub-par performer. The hire fast, fire fast approach basically can be boiled down to “it’s really almost impossible to understand whether a person is going to be a killer A+ match before they start working with you day to day, so best to find somebody that seems close enough, and then remove them quickly if they don’t work out.” This… Read More
Continue ReadingQualifying or Responding
Managesmarter.com offers a short article regarding Best Sales Practices of 2007 that contains a stellar piece of sales advice: “The dictum of ‘No RFP shall go unanswered’ is not a good idea,” says Sam Reese, CEO of sales training firm Miller Heiman. Because of the time, energy and money involved in responding to an RFP, “If you didn’t spec it,” says Reese, “don’t bid it.” Salespeople have a hard time walking away from any deal whether it be a good deal or not. RFP’s tend to be bad deals unless you helped author it. Main point – people can be qualified, RFP’s generally cannot. We’ve seen many sales managers struggle… Read More
Continue ReadingDon’t Wing It
Selling Power published How to Manage Customer Meetings Effectively which offers some sound advice for running an effective sales meeting. There are many salespeople who believe they can wing it through a sales call by simply talking loquaciously. Mistake. Here is some advice found within the article: Hoffman suggests that you begin by clearly defining a personal goal for the outcome of the meeting. Don’t define a weak goal such as, “I want to establish next steps or action items.” Instead he suggests identifying a specific goal €“ is it an order? A trial for your software? Expansion into new markets? Referrals? And yes, says Hoffman, you can have more… Read More
Continue ReadingNo Email Fridays – Part 2
We posted on this topic last November and here it is popping up again. Abcnews.com offers No E-Mail Fridays Transform Office. An interesting stat: The volume of e-mails has exploded in recent years with over 170 billion now being sent daily around the globe, according to technology market researcher Radacati Group. That’s two million every second. I’m not surprised by that stat. But here is the piece of data that spawned the idea: Two and a half years ago, Ellison was receiving an average of 200 e-mails a day, many of which went unopened. After getting cyber-indigestion, he sent out a memo to his 5,500 subordinates. “I’m announcing a ban… Read More
Continue ReadingCover Letter Confidence
It seems early this first Monday of daylight saving time so I thought we would start with some levity. From the email cover pile: I am THE sales SUPERMAN I am willing to relocate, I am your new Head Salesman. I put up big numbers… Really, what can I add to this cover letter?
Continue ReadingHow To Allay Sales Fears
A quick note from a well-constructed sales ad I just read. The company is a medical device manufacturer and contained a strong sentence for attracting salespeople: A strong work ethic is required to meet sales quotas. You will be supported by solid marketing programs, support staff, and innovative products that are designed to continue our growth in the medical device industry. Anyone who has been in sales more than a day has experienced selling for a company that does not fully support the sales team. I once worked for a large company where I had to pull my own product information, find the right envelope, address it and put the… Read More
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