These surveys come out on a fairly regular basis. There is a part of me that believes 20 years down the road we will still be seeing similar results to the findings in Inc.com’s Employees Feeling Underappreciated. Of more than 500 full- and part-time employees surveyed nationwide, 35 percent said the company they worked for was ineffective at rewarding strong performance, according to OfficeTeam, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based staffing services firm. At the same time, 30 percent of 150 senior executives surveyed admitted that employee recognition wasn’t a high enough priority. The reason I mention this survey is that that Gen Y/Millenials have a different take on employment. They value… Read More
Continue ReadingJuly Is _____ National Awareness Month
It has been a while since I last posted about important upcoming dates. I was looking through a promotional calendar and started chuckling at some of the titles I was reading. Instead of highlighting just one this month, I thought I would provide all of July’s honor: National Recreation and Parks Month Blueberries Month Cell Phone Courtesy Month Family Reunion Month Herbal & Prescription Awareness Month National Baked Beans Month National Culinary Arts Month National Grilling Month National Hot Dog Month National Make a Difference to Children Month National Purposeful Parenting Month Skyscraper Month Social Wellness Month Women’s Motorcycle Month Mental Illness Awareness Month
Continue ReadingWhere to Find Cheap Gas
We have a couple of approaches to purchasing gasoline within our company. If you are like me, you keep a close eye on the price of gas and attempt to purchase it before it spikes. If not, you are similar to the Hammer who fills up whenever and wherever he needs gas regardless of the price. I read an article on ManageSmarter.com that provided a link to software for your phone. The “Cheap Gas” widget is a free application from GetMobio. They provide an entire suite of applications designed to help cell phone users with a variety of tasks. The program has over 50 applications and the “Cheap Gas” widget… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Quality Orientation
Quality of standards is an important aspect of successful selling. A salesperson who does not ensure quality has a tendency to appear inaccurate, or to the extreme – sloppy. Since salespeople are initially the face of the company, this quality disconnect can present a poor view of the company’s quality as a whole. Quality OrientationThis trait is a measure of a salesperson€™s affinity for seeing details, grading them against a preset standard (internal or external) and identifying flaws. This is directly related to a person€™s preference for paying attention to detail. Whereas attention to detail is more a measure of how capable a person is to appropriately see detail, this capacity… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Americans Are Working From Home
Foxnews.com offers a story regarding the booming trend of working from home. I hope no one is surprised by this trend since it has been prevalent for many years now. Obviously, $3 a gallon gas is driving even more people towards this model. Yet, I think the gas prices are exacerbating the increasing commute times around the country. To my point, think of how much time is wasted each work day when commuting: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2005 an estimated 3 million Americans commuted more than 90 minutes to work each way €” almost twice as many as in 1990. Fifteen out of every 100 Americans traveled… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 5 Candidate Lies
CareerBuilder offers up the 5 most common candidate lies in this article. They bring up a good point in that 85% of all companies perform some type of candidate verification. Surprisingly, candidates continue to embellish or falsify their information. The top 5 lies: Exaggerating Dates of Past Employment…as many as 35 percent of all resumes include discrepancies related to previous employment Falsifying the Degree or Credential EarnedWith roughly a 20 percent discrepancy rate in information provided by candidates regarding their education qualifications, it’s important that companies understand the variety of ways applicants lie to claim unearned degrees.Even if a candidate has earned a legitimate degree, the applicant may lie about… Read More
Continue ReadingAre You Using Assessments?
Most people are, according to a Workforce Management Quick Take titled Organizations Look to Get Personal in €™07. Statistics from the short article (my emphasis): Organizations in 2007 will increasingly turn to personality tests when recruiting and hiring, according to Birkman International in Houston. Birkman, citing research from New Orleans-based Rocket-Hire Inc. (a Dear Workforce contributor), says 65 percent of companies used them in 2006, up from 34 percent a year earlier. That is a noticeable increase in one year. If you are not using assessments today in your hiring process, we can help.
Continue ReadingCustomers Don’t Walk
Here is an urban legend we encounter frequently in our sales hiring activities – customers don’t walk with the salesperson. What I mean is customers rarely follow a salesperson to a new company. If the salesperson quits one company and goes to a competitor, it is a rare occurrence in which the customers move their business with the salesperson. Yes, everyone can provide an example of when it happened, but we deal with many salespeople in many industries and it just is not common. Sales candidates, on the other hand, will go out of their way claiming that they can bring the business with them. Unfortunately, many companies who do… Read More
Continue ReadingValue Is More Than Price
I had an revealing discussion with one of our client’s this morning. This gentleman is the President of his company and we are running our process for a second sales position (selected 1 salesperson already). The conversation centered on the problems he had with a previous salesperson who has since been let go. This salesperson was completely reactive – he possessed no selling system whatsoever. His process was to take a call and fish for a request for proposal (RFP). He would respond to the RFP and hopefully get the business. Sad, but that was his process. The President was hesitant to let this sales guy go because he thought… Read More
Continue ReadingDealing With Dealbreakers
ManageSmarter.com offers a well-timed article titled Top Ten Ways to Kill a Deal. I say this is timely in that we have been dealing with multiple employment offers over the past week. These discussions are similar to salespeople closing a deal and, in fact, we like to observe the salesperson’s technique in handling these topics. The first point in the article is the most critical to success in negotiating: 1. Don’t show emotions Emotion€”such as neediness, desperation, or excitement€”are immediate turn-offs. Keep your body language and style of speaking emotionally neutral. Prepare your state of mind ahead of time. Repeat the mantra, “I don’t need this, I don’t need this,”… Read More
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