You heard me right, that is an indirect quote from this Inc.com article. This topic comes up often in our sales hiring activities as the conventional wisdom is that extroverts make better salespeople. Not true. Successful salespeople have a wide variety of abilities that go far beyond their communication style. And that is the point here, introvert/extrovert is more of a communication style than anything else. It is important to know a salesperson’s style, but it is not predictive of sales success. Here is some excellent advice from the article (emphasis mine): “When selling as an introvert, use your abilities as a good researcher to really know audience, know what… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Two-Pizza Rule
Full confession – I despise meetings. I have spent much of my career sitting through insanely inefficient meetings – I prefer to call them “boil the ocean” meetings. The topics in these meetings usually lacked clarity and focus so the meeting would drift…badly. Of course, when your boss is sitting in the meeting (or worse, was the one who called it) it is difficult to exit early. But alas, I have found an inspiring article with a fantastic idea. This is from Inc.com (emphasis mine): “Interaction should be constant, not crammed into meetings once a week. You just turn around in your chair and bounce an idea off one of… Read More
Continue ReadingHiring Like A Detective
Yes, the title is a bit quirky, but it is true. A significant portion of successful hiring involves being a good detective. I have always taken that approach when helping our customers find the right salesperson for their position. To be a good detective, you need to be a bit skeptical. Sales candidates blow sunshine. Few have ever missed quota, most state their primary weakness is being a workaholic and all have earned everything they have accomplished. Right. In reality, most have missed their sales quota at some point, many have real weaknesses discussing money and handling rejection and most have benefited from somewhere be it marketing, territory, company market… Read More
Continue ReadingDoctor Dollars
This CNNMoney.com article is fascinating, at least to me. A doctor opens up about his clinic/practice in terms of the financials of it. As a small business owner, I have a complete appreciation for the decisions he has to make in terms of his business. At the end of the day, it is a business. If you think your business has to fund some extraordinary insurance policies, wrap your mind around this information: Fixed costs for a private practice also include malpractice insurance. He pays about $7,000 a year for himself and $2,000 each for his two nurse practitioners. Schreiber admits that his cost for malpractice insurance is relatively low,… Read More
Continue ReadingBou Branding
Being a coffee addict, this news is huge for me. Caribou is rebranding itself with a new logo an some drinks/products (I’m in it for the coffee so these ancillary items are inconsequential to me). The logo change: Here is the part of marketing/branding that catches my attention: Alfredo Martel, Caribou’s senior vice president of marketing, said that the new logo focuses on “optimism and an optimistic outlook on life.” Don’t you love that? That is a pretty heavy analysis of what seems to be a simple logo. I was more intrigued by the fact that the new logo uses a coffee bean for the caribou’s body. I’ve read some… Read More
Continue ReadingDouble Dip
The title of this post is one that brings pause to many people. Are we headed towards a double dip recession? I don’t think we can say one way or another quite yet. However, today’s numbers are not good: The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance surged to just below the 500,000 level last week, and have climbed more than 12% over the past two weeks, the government said Thursday. … The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 473,750, up 6,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,750. I have talked to many companies who are in a holding mode for hiring. Thankfully, I have not… Read More
Continue ReadingInfinite Pay
I had this thought when talking to a customer – he has an employee to whom he pays a set wage (hourly pay, but same number of hours every pay period). Week in and week out, there is no discernable, tangible output of work from this employee. Does this fact make this employee’s pay infinite per hour? Just a thought.
Continue ReadingHiring Time
According to this CNNMoney.com article, 2010 hiring will be steady and growing (emphasis mine): “We see a healthy expansion under way, although it will take time to reduce economic slack and repair damaged balance sheets,” said Lynn Reaser, president of the National Association for Business Economics, which conducted the survey of 48 top economic forecasters in late January and early February. I wonder if those are the same “economic forecasters” who are perpetually surprised by the latest economic news? Nonetheless, I don’t mind a little positive outlook during this recession: The NABE panelists expect that jobs will return slowly this year, forecasting an average monthly increase of 50,000 jobs in… Read More
Continue ReadingBattle Lines
I’ve been busy over the past week or two handling a myriad of business topics and tasks which has decreased my blogging time dramatically. One item has come up during this time at one of our customers – a battle of wills amongst managers. This is no small battle, it has turned into an ongoing war for which I am now in the midst of the battlefield. Without going into specifics, I can tell you where we start in these situations – motivations. The first place to look when there is interpersonal conflict within an office team is the motivation pattern for each individual. In the instance with our customer,… Read More
Continue ReadingQuality Is Overrated
I picked up a business card this week from a business associate that had this tagline on it: Were Quality Is #1 Absolutely not kidding.
Continue Reading