From the rumor mill: Setting the stage for a possible bidding battle, Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more, according to a report published Monday. Citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal said Microsoft is holding preliminary discussions that could culminate in a $300 million to $500 million in Facebook, a Palo Alto social-networking site founded just 3 1/2 years ago. Interesting, but here is the information that caught my attention: An outright sale of Facebook is considered unlikely. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 23-year-old co-founder and chief executive, has repeatedly expressed his… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Way That Seems Right In An Ad
There are many methods for writing sales employment ads, but many companies seem to fall into the trap of wanting their ads to fit a predefined mold. I think this is a mistake. Certainly there are key points of information that much be placed in the ad. But how you frame the information can be the difference between attracting strong candidates vs. wasting money. I recently read an ad posted by a recruiting company looking for a VP of Sales. I realize there are certain criteria they are looking to fill. But look at these bullet points: 4-year BS degree in engineering (preferably mechanical or chemical) with an MBA being… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Lefty Rebound
From the “this may only interest me” file – Yahoo offers Number of Lefties Bounces Back: While lefties currently make up about 11 percent of the population, earlier studies found only 3 percent of those born in 1900 were left-handed. … “Left-handedness is important because more than 10 percent of people have their brains organized in a qualitatively different way to other people,” McManus said. Half my family is left-handed so I am always keen to these articles. And I can confirm that left-handers have a completely different way of thinking. I often tease my left-handed wife that she has laid out a left-handed kitchen since I often get confused about where… Read More
Continue ReadingHow Lawyers Earn Their Reputation
I hadn’t heard about this case until reading the short Inc.com article. Unbelievable: The owners of a dry-cleaning shop that successfully fended off a $54 million lawsuit over a pair of pants are being forced to sell their business as a result of costly legal fees. Soo Chung and Jin Nam Chung, the owners of Washington-based Custom Cleaners, were sued earlier this year by a customer for allegedly losing his pants. While the case was eventually dismissed, the heavy legal expenses have since forced the Chungs out of business, according to the couple’s lawyer. It is embarrassing to have a legal system where a $54 million lawsuit can be litigated… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Web Is Watching You
I’m a big fan of online purchases mainly because I can get exactly what I want, click to order and forget about it. I’m not a big tracking guy either – I pick the slowest, cheapest method for shipping and the stuff usually arrives within 1 week. Fire and forget. Now Inc.com offers up Ever Wish You Could Read Your Customers’ Minds? Get a load of this new software: Proclivity is a consumer predictive engine technology that is able to analyze a customer’s online activity and identify their interest in certain types of merchandise. … For example, if an online clothing retailer wants to launch a campaign around jeans, Proclivity… Read More
Continue ReadingTough Hiring Data To Spin
Time to suspend the recession talk for one more week. From CNNMoney.com’s Unemployment claims down: WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in seven weeks, an unexpected sign of improvement for the job market. The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications for unemployment benefits totaled 311,000 last week, a drop of 9,000 from the previous week. It marked the lowest level for jobless claims since July 28. The decline came as a surprise to economists, who had been forecasting a rise in claims of about 6,000. As I have said before, our day-to-day activities at Select Metrix are… Read More
Continue ReadingFlamboyant Incompetence
I’ve been swamped of late and am still trying to catch up on my RSS reading. I did just read this hilarious post from GL over at What Would Dad Say. You have to read the whole thing – it is excellent. I’m still laughing as I type. The content primarily discusses what not to do in a layoff The post is written from the recently laid-off employee’s perspective. The line that got me laughing (emphasis mine): 1. Include an obvious misspelling or two in the letter €” ideally, something that would slip past a spell checker but be caught easily by anyone who bothered to proofread it. Suggestion: €œIf… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Correcting Others
Another managerial trait this week that we measure when assessing sales manager candidates. A critical aspect of successful sales management is the manager’s ability to hold salespeople accountable. At times that can be like herding cats, but it is still mission critical to developing a top-notch sales team. Correcting OthersThis ability confronts controversial or difficult issues in an objective manner while having non-emotional discussions about disciplinary matters. This trait is directly related to the manager’s balance in their ability to evaluate others and be empathetic. A manager with strength in this trait can usually provide constructive criticism to another in a way that it is not received as insulting or degrading. The… Read More
Continue ReadingWhen Leads Stall
Selling Power offers up an article that explores reasons for bloated pipelines. That never happens in sales, does it? The article – Warning: There€™s a Gash In Your Pipeline – presents some excellent suggestions for why this happens and how to correct it. Robert Kear, SPI€™s chief marketing officer, observes that the lead generation challenge stems partly from the erroneous view that lead generation is a quantity problem; that the more leads you can get, the better. Instead, he says, the lead generation challenge is about maximizing value awareness with the right potential buyers. Right. It is a qualitative issue. I enjoyed Kear’s solutions offered in the article. But the last… Read More
Continue ReadingOne Sentence That Sums Up Value
We’ve referenced this quote before, but JustSell.com has it in their daily email and it catches my eye everytime I read it. Harvard Business School Professor emeritus Theodore Levitt once said, “People don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.“
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