I am speechless: Graceful Services recently started offering a BlackBerry Finger Massage that promises to help eliminate neck, back and finger-cramping caused by excessive typing on tiny BlackBerry keyboards. A repetitive-stress injury informally known as “BlackBerry Thumb” may also affect people who spend too much time with a video game controller, television remote control or any number of handheld devices. Graceful’s hour-long BlackBerry massage costs $60. It’s a full-body massage with emphasis on the back, neck and fingers.
Continue ReadingSales Management Primer
Selling Power is covering topics near to our hearts this Valentine’s Day. A Primer for New Pharmaceutical Sales Managers discusses some of the challenges facing new sales managers and provides 5 key tips. Obviously the context is the pharmaceutical industry, but these challenges are consistent throughout industries. I couldn’t agree more with this statement from the article: “The biggest mistake new pharmaceutical managers make,” Williams says, “is failing to properly evaluate the sales team’s strengths and weaknesses prior to developing and implementing a firm plan of action for the team’s sales improvement and increased goal attainment.” Amen to that statement. In fact, we see this error play out amongst existing… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Team Selling Approach
This article – Sell Your Team on Team Selling – from Selling Power’s Pharmaceuticals Newsletter approaches a trend we are seeing in spades these days. “The greatest benefits from a team selling approach are what I call just-in-time factors,” he says. “That includes just-in-time technical expertise to address complex and/or outside the box inquiries, decision making to solidify the deal without self-imposed company decision making delays, and the confidence gained by being a team, especially from internal support from the potential purchaser or user.” The “team” typically is composed of a single sales rep along with members from other departments (i.e. engineering, financial, operations, production, etc.). In today’s world, this… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Fog Of Job Ads
I attended a monster.com webinar today regarding sourcing from, interestingly enough, the job seeker’s perspective. I wanted to share an important finding from their survey. The number 1 job seeker complaint about finding new jobs (in sourcing terms) was vague job descriptions. I shudder as I write this because I envision companies writing even longer sales ads. The key word was vague, not short. The 3 negative outcomes job seekers perceive from a vague ad: Bait and switch – once into the process, the candidate learns that he or she is really being considered for a lesser position Misrepresentation – the ad doesn’t truly describe what the actual job entails… Read More
Continue ReadingVideo Resumes
I found this site – RecruiTV – from the ERE.net newsletter. The company that runs this site is called Wetjello (I have no idea why, but it is memorable). From their website: Wetjello provides powerful online video recruitment solutions including recruitment campaign video development, video production and integrated web video solutions. Were helping create a new online recruitment medium with powerful, edgy and impactful video campaigns for companies around the world. Their claim to fame is that they feature video resumes. I have been drawn in to watching a few of the sales resumes (is that the proper word for these). I have to admit, some parts of the videos… Read More
Continue ReadingHow To Manage Gen X and Gen Y
CareerBuilder.com’s latest newsletter features Managing Outside Your Generation which discusses the differences in managing Gen X employees vs. Gen Y employees. The article is a good, hands-on read for any manager. To cut to the summary statement of the article: Generation X requires more training, whether on-the-job or through continued education, and feedback on a regular basis. Generation Y also requires a higher amount of feedback than what you may be used to, but they also desire greater flexibility and the freedom to run with a project once it is assigned to them. Good advice and insight. Then there is this specific suggestion: If you are not doing so already,… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Office Love Trend
Inc.com offers As Valentine’s Day Approaches, Office Romance on the Rise – an appropriate story the day before Valentine’s. Check out the lede: The number of workers caught canoodling at work has skyrocketed over the past year, according to new research. That deserves mention simply for using the verb “canoodling.” When is the last time you read that in a business article? Yeah, I know, maybe last year at this time. Anyway, the stats: Four out of 10 U.S. workers admit to being involved with another colleague at some point, according to a new survey by Spherion, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based employment firm, and Harris Interactive. … Twenty-five percent of… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Social Media Boom
From Foxnews.com – Study: Inc. 500 Companies Fast Adopters of Social Media: The nation’s fastest-growing private companies are making use of social media – including blogs, social networking and podcasts – at a rate more than twice that of Fortune 500 companies, according to a new study. The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth’s Center for Marketing Research surveyed companies from the 2006 Inc. 500 list, to gauge the level of familiarity and usage of six forms of social media blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking and wikis. Out of 121 respondents, generally managers and other senior-level executives, 42 percent claimed to be “very familiar” with social networking, followed by 38 percent with… Read More
Continue ReadingResume Knock-Out Factors
CareerJournal.com reposted an older article regarding resume errors that land in the “no interest” pile. From These Resume Gaffes Do Immediate Damage: These knockout factors invariably mean sure death to a person’s candidacy. They typically include: 1. An objective that doesn’t match current openings. 2. Inappropriate or insufficient educational credentials. 3. Incompatible salary requirements. 4. Poorly organized, sloppy or hard-to-read content. 5. Geographic restrictions incompatible with current openings. 6. A long list of employers in a short period of time. 7. Too much information. 8. A lack of U.S. citizen or permanent-resident status. The list is comprehensive, but I have to add one more item – misspellings. We’ve posted on… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Turnover Symptom
Turnover is a symptom of a deeper disease in most companies. A consistent turnover level typically speaks to one of two problems – poor management skills or hiring the wrong employees. Corporate culture, compensation and other topics can come in to play, but I want to focus on the former topics. One of our placements resigned this week after only 6 weeks in the role. This is not a sales position so it is somewhat outside of our expertise. Nonetheless, I contacted the former employee and discussed with her what went sideways. She laid most of the blame at the feet of one of the co-owners of the company and… Read More
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