Trustworthiness. It is true. I have sat through many interviews where I simply did not trust, or believe, what the candidate was telling me. The Harvard Business Review tip of the day quickly dissects this point. The most important thing to get across in an interview is not that you are smart and motivated – it’s that you are trustworthy. Trustworthiness is the fundamental trait that people automatically look for in others. To be seen as trustworthy, you need to demonstrate warmth and competence. Warmth signals that you have good intentions, and competence signals that you can act on those good intentions. If you follow the usual interview advice and… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Bad Ad Writing
Just saw this title to a sales position ad (emphasis mine): Regional Sales Manager Job “Job”…seriously? Don’t do this in your ads. Salespeople, especially young salespeople, are looking for opportunities, careers, even a path. If you promote the position as a job, you will instantly limit the perspective, or upside, of the position.
Continue ReadingDo Great Salespeople Make Great Managers?
That is an age-old question, isn’t it? You can insert your favorite sports example here which typically involves a superstar/Hall of Fame-caliber athlete who fails as a coach because the game came too easy to him. But does this analogy work in the sales arena also? This Sales & Marketing Management article approaches the topic with aplomb. The pull quote (emphasis mine): Sometimes great salespeople aren’t as good at coaching and managing other people – they’re excellent at being individual contributors, they’re great at building relationships with customers and working deals from start to finish, but they lack the patience or coaching ability or intangible interpersonal savvy to be responsible… Read More
Continue ReadingDon’t Write Ads Like This
I’m browsing through job postings in a specific sales category and I read this sentence in a fairly high-level position: The tols are here for you to make a diference in our busines and your carer. The modern day tools available to writers for proofing your text are abundant. The entire ad has a similar “minimalist” use of double letters. It is rather odd, isn’t it?
Continue Reading2 Habits That Undermine Salespeople
Supposition – something that is supposed; assumption; hypothesis Think of supposition, in sales parlance, as being synonymous with stereotyping. This is a dangerous approach to sale in that once you start making assumptions, you start derailing your qualifying skills. In most prospect situations, once you stop truly qualifying you are headed towards prospects that are welded on your forecast 90 days out. Eternally. Proposition – the act of offering or suggesting something to be considered, accepted, adopted, or done I suspect you are thinking of value proposition which makes sense. I read an interesting post that turned that term upside down. The author suggested selling to the customer’s value expectations… Read More
Continue Reading9 Phrases Emotionally Intelligent People Don’t Use
This list will make you cringe, especially if any of these phrases are in your common parlance. 1. “You look tired.” 2. “Wow, you’ve lost a ton of weight.” 3. “You were too good for her anyway.” 4. “You always…” or “You never…” 5. “You look great for your age.” 6. “As I said before…” 7. “Good luck.” 8. “It’s up to you.” or “Whatever you want.” 9. “Well at least I’ve never _______.” Ha! How good is that list? As a father of teenagers, I am constantly correcting them for using #4. I was a little surprised by #7 so I’ll close with the author’s explanation (which is a… Read More
Continue ReadingDoes Job Jumping Matter Anymore?
I would answer no. I have the opportunity to look at many resumes on any given day and there is a definite sea-change in the job jumping area. Millennials are far less loyal to their employers than any generation before them. In fact, I would say “job” jumping isn’t accurate, they are actually “skill” jumping. These employees are often looking for personal skill development and once they sense they have tapped out their growth curve in their current role, they leave. I spend a fair amount of time explaining this skill jumping behavior to old-school hiring managers. Companies must have a plan for ongoing development of their Millennial workforce otherwise… Read More
Continue ReadingForming, Storming And Norming Teams
That is how teambuilding occurs according to the Tuckman model and I agree. Assessing entire sales teams provides me an inside view at teams and how they function and this model plays out consistently. This article covers many interesting topics with a focus on creativity killers. Creativity is difficult to measure or assess, but there are things a sales leader can do to help foster creativity. From the article (emphasis mine): It’s easy to look at models like that and think that cohesion and friendliness should be the ultimate goal. But surprisingly, when it comes to creativity, the best teams fight a little (or even a lot). Structured, task-oriented conflict… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Singular Difference Between Introverts and Extroverts
Stereotypes abound around introverts and extroverts-most of them are simply untrue. The stereotypes go too far in categorizing behaviors. Part of the issue flows from the Myers-Briggs and its binary assignment of introversion/extroversion. You are simply one or the other…completely, according to that tool (of which I am not a big fan). This article provides a succinct, accurate definition based on Jung’s work: Shyness and being outgoing don’t have anything to do with it; it’s more about where we get our energy from. In fact, the differences are pretty simple: Introverts get exhausted by social interaction and need solitude to recharge. Extroverts get anxious when left alone and get energy… Read More
Continue ReadingCultural Qualifying
I ran into an old coworker, whom I consider a good friend, at a coffee shop this Friday morning. He is the VP of Sales with 75 or so direct reports. His company is international with a majority of their revenue occurring in Asia. He was telling me about sales training he held for the entire sales team. The focus was on negotiating and, more specifically, how to ask the right questions to qualify the opportunity. The Asian sales reps balked at some of the questions based solely on their approach to qualifying. Let’s just say they prefer to take a more passive, unquestioning approach which leads to prayer rug… Read More
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