I saw this on LinkedIn and through it was fascinating:
Continue ReadingBest Notes Are Hand-Written?
This is a good Monday morning topic – note taking. I am a Microsoft Surface user and happily so. It is an amazing tool that allows you to switch to tablet mode and take hand-written notes. But let me add this bit from Harvard Business Review (emphasis mine): Few people bring a pen and notebook to meetings anymore. Instead of taking notes by hand, more and more of us take them on a laptop or tablet. This change makes sense: Digital devices just seem more convenient, plus they let you multitask during the meeting. But research has found that there are real benefits to taking notes by hand. Studies have… Read More
Continue ReadingOne Third Of CEO’s Are Worthless In Sales
Those aren’t my words but rather the findings from a Selling Power survey. From the article: A recent Selling Power online survey found that 29 percent of sales leaders judged their CEO useless when it comes to creating a sale. Almost one third and I think I have worked for all of them! The savvy sales CEO is a rare bird indeed. Of course there is more to the article than just this survey. The author focuses on the customer experience as seen through your salesperson representing your company in the market. This representation is critical in making a successful sales hire – you have to envision the salesperson selling… Read More
Continue ReadingIt’s All About Their Career Path
LinkedIn recently surveyed over 10,000 people who changed jobs in 2015 to find out why they made a change. Some interesting findings: #1 reason they left – Lack of advancement opportunities (45%) #1 reason they choose their new employer – Career path & opportunity (59%) I’m convinced that there are always a myriad of reasons behind a job change, but the primary reason is simply the most interesting. I’ve been beating this drum for some time, but it warrants repeating – you must provide a general career path to all new hires today. Many times in sales the thought process is to simply hire a strong salesperson and let them… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Interview Mistakes That Will Make You Cringe
If you have done some level of interviewing, you have certainly come across some interesting characters. Monster.com highlights a few: Wearing a tuxedo to an interview. I told him to dress nice and professional for his interview, but he definitely went overboard and crossed the line of dressing business professional. Needless to say, the hiring manager also thought it was a crazy move and the candidate did not get the job. I caught a candidate lying in his resume. He had made up so much of his previous experience that he then forgot a company name where he said he had worked. The candidate actually asked me to look at… Read More
Continue ReadingSimple Writing Tips
Harvard Business Review’s Management Tip of the Day covers 7 common writing mistakes. This may be the most helpful thing you read today: Affect/Effect: Affect is a verb; effect is a noun. It affected him. The effect was startling. All Right/Alright: Although alright is gaining ground, the correct choice is still all right. A Lot: A lot is two words, not one. Allot means “to parcel out.” Between You and I: Nope. Between you and me is the correct phrase. Complement/Compliment: Things that work well together complement each other. Compliments are a form of praise. Farther/Further: Farther is for physical distance; further is for metaphorical distance. How much farther? Our… Read More
Continue ReadingThe On-Demand Economy
More and more workers are moving away from traditional jobs and towards the “gig” economy of on-demand roles that have a finite time frame. Some of the startling trend from the Yahoo article (emphasis mine): The report said the number of independent workers in America is expected to grow from 30.2 million to roughly 37.9 million in 2020, in part due to businesses seeking flexibility and also because young adults are more comfortable in the lifestyle. Adding occasional independents, the projected number of US adults working independently will grow to an estimated 54 million or nearly 45 percent of the private, non-farm workforce, the group said. I’m not sure what… Read More
Continue ReadingMake Time To Daydream
I’m not kidding. From the Harvard Business Review: Thanks to our smartphones, tablets, and laptops, it’s easy to be working all the time. But our devices can actually make us less productive by interfering with an important mental process: daydreaming. To be effective, our brains need opportunities to be “off,” which is hard when we’re constantly taking in new information through our devices. And research has found that letting our minds wander facilitates creativity and long-term thinking. If we’re facing a challenge that needs new ideas, we’re more likely to find some if our minds drift away from the problem for a while. So the next time your mind starts… Read More
Continue ReadingDon’t Ask This Interview Question
I haven’t heard of this one but it is intriguing: To boost the chances of preventing that hiring misstep, there’s one easy tactic everyone should take in an interview: Stop asking candidates to evaluate their own abilities. Here’s why. Underskilled candidates consistently overrate their abilities, and more skilled candidates consistently underrate their abilities. There’s even a name for this: the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological research finding that the poorest performers are the least aware of their own incompetence. So I’m immediately left questioning why? Are highly-skilled salespeople awash in humility? I don’t think so and neither does the author. Top performers set higher standards for their own performance, so they… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Psychology Of Color
This is a little off the curve, but it’s Friday and I thought it was interesting. From a MyeVideo blog post: Color psychology, apart from studying physiological reactions to colors, also studies the cultural aspect of color use – the traditional deep-seated patterns in people’s minds that differ across the globe. Thanks to symbolism and psychology, we can target specific audiences that a certain product is meant for, thus achieving more meaningful sales results. So the money question is what do the color represent? Here they are: Red – excitement, strength, passion, speed, danger Blue – trust, belonging, freshness Yellow – warmth, happiness, joy, cowardice Orange – playfulness, warmth, liveliness… Read More
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