I started laughing out loud when I read this title for an article in Sales Vault’s weekly newsletter. I just got off the phone with a persistent telemarketer who did it to me. So what is this “Barf Factor?” The author, Kelly Roberston, describes it as:

Too many sales people mistakenly believe that they should open their conversation with a background and history of their company. Or, a complete description of their products, services, or solutions. It’s seems like they can’t control what comes out of their mouth once they open it. They puke. They barf. They spew all over themselves.

Exactly what the telemarketer had just done to me. I am not a prospect for the product he was pitching but it didn’t matter. He wasted 2-3 minutes going through a canned speech only to hear me say no thanks, I just purchased a competitor’s item.

But enough about the telemarketer – what tips can you provide your salespeople so they don’t “barf” on their prospects and customers? Here is the criteria Kelly suggests you use along with an example script:

• It focuses on the other person.
• It conveys how you help your clients & customers.
• It is easy to understand.
• It does not contain an excess of adverbs or adjectives.
• It intrigues the other person.
• It must be delivered in a conversational tone.

Mr. Adams, I’m Pat from Geeks R Us. We specialize in helping small businesses like yours fix computer problems. The reason I’m calling is to see if you have ever experienced computer problems, and if so, how have they affected your business?

The example is not perfectly constructed, but it is better than what I just experienced. Too bad I didn’t have the telemarketer’s email address to send him this article – it could have saved him the 3 minutes he spewed on me.

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We are asked from time to time about the best way to conduct an employee compensation review. I have to relay a story to you regarding a friend’s annual review. Here’s how it played out.

She sat down with her manager and recieved a very positive review. She was told she was one of their better employees – recieving 3′s and 4′s out of 5 in all performance areas. In fact, my friend is the top person in her territory and the territory is ranked 2nd out of 8 in a large corporation.

Everything was going well and she received a lot of verbal praise about her performance. Then the manager told her that she would be receiving a 1.5% increase in salary and it would be this amount. My friend interrupted her manager and told him, “That is my current salary.”

The manager asked, “Are you sure?”

He then looked it up on his computer. After about 5 minutes he said, “You’re right, but you are really going to like this then. You are actually going to be getting a 2% raise this year.”

This raise was less than $600 a year. Her manager told her that she really needed to bust her butt because he wanted to win a corporate contest and was not going to settle for second place. My friend is motivated by money so his statement was launched at the wrong time. He never told her what was in it for her: extra cash, a trip, recognition, nothing. The only thing that mattered to the manager was that he would not settle for coming in second place.

Suffice to say my friend was completely de-motivated.

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In a recent article from Workforce Management on new employee retention, 7 months seems to be the magic number when it comes to retaining newly hired employees. Office Angels interviewed 1,400 new recruits on this subject. Here are some of their findings.

In the first seven months the workplace is viewed as a trial period for:

1. The boss – is he or she ‘lackluster?’
2. Are there mentoring opportunities available for them?
3. Does the new job accommodate their lifestyle?

Another important opportunity new employees look for is the camaraderie between the team.

77% of the respondents find it essential for the team to make a trip to the local pub.

No, I’m not suggesting you make an emergency field trip to the local pub as part of your orientation/training program (not an unappealing thought though). But how much time are you spending with your new recruit during the all-important first 7 months?

We’ll be adjusting our hiring process to address this need in the near future.

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Our website is a constant topic of discussion for us – one of the subjects is how much information should we be publishing. I came across a post relating to this topic on the B2B Lead Generation Blog. There are a number of very good points made in this entry, but a couple really stand out.

People use the web for research; they are looking for fresh ideas, insight and actionable information. Intellectual property is difficult to protect and is quickly commoditized by the market. Why not leverage some of your IP to your advantage? Leverage it and demonstrate your thought leadership.

I have read numerous articles in the past couple of months that bring up similar points. In today’s market buyers are engaged much earlier in the selling process, sometimes even before a salesperson calls on them. I don’t know about you, but if something isn’t working right, I am on the web looking for solutions. After I have finished the research, I usually will make calls to a couple of the companies that have the most helpful websites.

There will undoubtedly be a few companies that look like they have great products/solutions, but the only way I can learn about them is to call the company. So why do I rarely call these companies? Because I am looking for some basic understanding of the problem I am encountering and I want to find that on their website. Instead, I figure that this company will want to start at the very beginning and try to troubleshoot the problem. After a long, tedious call, I expect that they will finally provide a solution. I also expect that I will be put on a call/email/follow-up list whether they solve my problem or not. Which leads me to the second point I wanted to share with you.

This is particularity important for companies engaged in a complex sale, where up to 70% of a customer€™s perception of your brand comes from their interactions with your sales people. I believe that the people and companies who succeed today are those who learn faster and teach others what they know more effectively.

And what better way is there to start building your brand then through your website, blog, white papers, etc. Start building your brand by sharing your expertise. The author of the B2B blog, Brian Carroll, uses this analogy:

I have a friend who is a NASCAR fan and what he loves is that it’s more about the driver than the car. All the cars are the same. It€™s the driver and the crew that make the difference. It’s kind of like that with business now. Most companies have the same basic car. It’s really about how well you drive it.

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We are presently running multiple processes and I received an email in response to one of our ads. The respondent listed the job title in the subject line and this in the body:

Good morning:

If I could show you the following:

• How to generate more leads
• How to increase company revenue and referral business
• How to be one step up on your competition
• A marketing program that will separate you from your competition

Would you be open to look at information?

John Doe

123-456-7890

I admire him for trying to create interest in his services, but this approach is insulting. Who wouldn’t want to increase company revenue? The implication is either that I don’t want to or that I don’t know how. His problem – he has not built any credibility with me to believe that he can deliver on these statements. His approach reads like a cut and paste job from some trendy selling book.

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I posted on this subject last December, but a recent article in SHRM’s newsletter touched on this subject and got my attention. Here are a few interesting stats:

Dr. Anne E. Laumann, associate professor of dermatology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, and co-researcher Dr. Amy Derick, of the University of Chicago, found that tattoos were more common among younger individuals: 36 percent of people aged 18 to 29 had tattoos, while only 24 percent of those aged 30 to 40 and 15 percent of those aged 40 to 50 reported body art.

Tattoos were seen in all ethnic groups studied but were more common among those with Hispanic ancestry than among all other ethnic groups combined.The researchers found that women accounted for almost three-fourths of people with body piercings other than earlobes.

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This is a timely topic considering we are in the midst of a blizzard up here in the Twin Cities. I personally have a short commute, but this topic is a big deal for the thousands on the road this morning stuck in stop and go traffic. The 2006 Commuter Impact Survey from the TransitCenter, Inc. looks at commuting issues from both an employer and employee viewpoint. We have touched on this topic in previous posts (Energy Prices And Recruitment, Telecommuting Town?).

There were some interesting findings in this survey that I wanted to pass along form this 18 page white paper. First, 76% of the employers who responded think their employees are either very or extremely concerned with the rising fuel and commuting costs. Second, only 43% of the employers offer flex time and 27% offer telecommuting as a means to offset these rising costs. I am still amazed at how few companies provide their employees with a telecommuting option. Many surveys reveal that companies are concerned with the effect commuting costs will have on their recruiting efforts. Yet, only 20% of the companies surveyed are planning any initiatives to impact these issues.

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Yes, you read that correctly. This is the topic covered in SHRM’s February issue of HR Magazine. The article titled “Days of Contemplation” (membership required) has the tagline “Have a problem employee? Give him a time-out to decide whether to come back fully committed or to move on.” The article discusses the use of paid decision-making leaves or “days of contemplation.” Here is the premise behind it’s use:

Adult learning theory will tell you that when you treat people like adults, they will respond in kind. Unlike formal discipline, which tends to punish workers formally for substandard job performance or inappropriate workplace conduct, decision-making leaves are much more subtle. More important, they don’t negatively affect the worker’s take-home pay, so there’s no element of resentment toward the employer or embarrassment for having to explain to a spouse or family member why the paycheck is less that particular week.

“This element of holding people accountable without negatively impacting their personnel file or payroll tends to catch people off guard, because problem employees, like problem children, are often expecting negative attention for their bad behaviors,” says Tim Field, principal of The Field Consulting Group in Los Angeles. “When thrown into this new adult perspective of responsibility and accountability, workers tend to respond, well, like adults, and their assuming responsibility for the problem or at least the perception of that problem often times works exceptionally effectively at shifting their mind-set and fixing the problem once and for all,” says Field.

“The value in this exercise is in shifting the traditional disciplinary paradigm that a day of contemplation provides,” says Field. When workers are disciplined, they’re angry, and anger is external, so the problem is someone else’s fault. When they’re held accountable without formal discipline, they’re feeling guilty, and guilt is internal. That’s always where you want to be when dealing with your subordinates because that’s where problems get fixed once and for all.

The author says that when using decision-making leaves they are best used on the Gen Y-ers, longer-term employees or executive family members to correct performance problems or conduct issues. They do not work well to correct problems arising from tardiness or excessive advertising. The article also explains how to use them effectively. So please, before you send someone home with a time-out because you read it here, check with your HR department and read through the article so it delivers the results you want.

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“Don’t Make These Top 10 Selling Mistakes!” Bet that got your attention. I found it on the Business Buyer Directory which provides a non-traditional means for business buyers to locate businesses for sale worldwide. The article is a couple of years old, but makes some excellent points, in fact ones that applicable to a hiring process.

4. NOT Looking the Part – Selling involves approaching strangers, people who have never met you before. People naturally base purchase decisions on first impressions. Look the part you are playing, or better yet, exceed the common image expectation in your industry. Always dress and groom one level above your targeted audience. It portrays success and gives you an opening edge over your competition. The least you can do is look like you know what you are doing!

In regards to the hiring process, does the candidate look the part you are expecting them to play? How will your clients and prospects perceive them? These are questions you probably ask yourself when you first meet your candidates. Don’t let your bias jump in here, really think about what your clients are looking for.

We once had a customer who wanted to base their decision entirely on a candidate’s looks and speech. The strongest candidate fit the stereotypical engineer look (I’m not going any further than that statement) What was astonishing to me was that is our client didn’t think he was “professional enough” to call on President’s and CEO’s. Fair statement and that task may have been a bit of a stretch for him. However, this position actually called on plant managers, engineering managers, manufacturing, etc. He was able to speak to these position’s needs.

6. Not Knowing Your Product or Service – Believe it or not, depending most on your product or service knowledge to get the order is one of the most common mistakes made in selling. Understanding the common application benefits and associated features of your offerings is critical, but constantly regurgitating nebulous product and services details to a customer will quickly send them to your competitor. Mastering knowledge of your competitors offerings is also critical to selling success.

How does the candidate apply his or her experiences, skills and talents to your position’s needs? Do they attempt to qualify the position and then focus their responses on how they will fit into the position? No two companies are the same, how you go to market, the culture and the team all vary greatly even between close competitors. What you need to look for is how they apply their product (their skills) to your needs (position’s requirements).

Again the article is well worth the time, if nothing else as reminders for pitfalls to avoid during the selling and hiring process.

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This week I have been reading a lot of different posts and articles that try to answer the question how many jobs is too much on an applicant’s resume? I run into this topic all the time with our clients. Some clients will even try to disqualify a candidate if they feel they have held too many jobs based on their resume.

Let me be clear, I am not saying that you should ignore their work history, but don’t use it as the sole means for disqualifying. That statement usually leads me to answering this question from our clients — How many jobs is too many? I never really had a third-party reference point to give them. Well, now I do. In Monster and DDI’s webinar titled Thanks but No Thanks, they found that 63% of all Job Seekers have had multiple jobs over the last 5 years. Here is the breakdown of those surveyed on how many jobs they have held in the last 5 years.

37% have held 1 job
52% have held 2-3 jobs
8% have held 4-5 jobs
3% have had 6 or more jobs

If you are looking for someone who has only had 1 or even 2 jobs in the last 5 years, you are going to eliminate a significant portion of the talent pool. I recommend that you use the number of jobs as a discussion point. Ask questions regarding why they changed jobs, did the jobs live up to their expectations, what skills did they learn, etc. You will learn far more about them as a person and a potential employee by asking these questions than by attempting to divine answers from their resume.

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