We’ve had a very busy Q1 which has led to many sales positions for which we are actively sourcing right now. Hence, sourcing is foremost on our minds. We are not part of the “anti-online job boards” crowd. We actually find the boards to be quite efficient and effective for finding strong sales candidates. Our approach incorporates other channels simultaneously to broaden our candidate pool, but the boards should not be ignored. That being said, there is a critical piece of information to placing ads that should be maintained. Titles equal opens, plain and simple. I know this fact isn’t a revelation, but many companies still ignore it. We have… Read More
Continue ReadingCoffee On The Brain
Great news from Yahoo! Health – Salmon and Coffee – for Ultimate Brain Power: Listen up! Your morning cup of coffee and dinner delight can help sharpen your memory.…Researchers from the University of Innsbruck in Austria used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the brain activity of people working on a memory task. The volunteers were tested twice, once after receiving the caffeine equivalent of about two cups of coffee, and once without any caffeine. Caffeine improved the memory skills and reactions times of the volunteers. In addition, caffeine increased brain activity in two locations-the memory-rich frontal lobe and the attention-controlling anterior cingulum. Without caffeine, there was no increase… Read More
Continue ReadingMore Bad Ads
The opening line from a sales employment ad placed by a recruiter (edited to remove industry) : Must come from _____ Sales Related To ____ Products Manufacturing! Please, only do this if your primary goal is to recycle mediocrity from your industry. Remember, this is the opening line with their bolded text -the only bolded text in the ad. There are plenty of recruiters who dabble in sales positions and it shows. This ad is a cut and paste job from a typical internal job description. Unfortunately, someone pasted twice so the description is listed twice in the ad. Nonetheless, it is far more effective to list the intrinsic traits and transferable… Read More
Continue ReadingReally Old-School Motivation
Ok, this may be a bit ethereal, but it is Friday afternoon. From ManageSmarter.com’s Burn Your Boat! The ancient Greek warriors were both feared and respected by their enemies. In battle, the Greeks established a well-deserved reputation for their unsurpassed bravery and unshakable commitment to victory. The key to their overwhelming success on the battlefield had far more to do with how the Greek commanders motivated the warriors than it did with issues of tactics or training. The Greeks were master motivators who understood how to use a “dramatic demonstration” to infuse a spirit of commitment into the heart of every warrior. Once the warriors had been offloaded from their boats… Read More
Continue ReadingBest Jobs in America
Salary.com and Money teamed up to offer this article in which they polled more than 12,000 people in their 2nd annual Best Jobs in America survey. One interesting fact that they found was that 60% of those surveyed are considering or recently have completed a career change. Clearly the days of the single-company career are gone (all of here at Select Metrix can attest to that). They have actually broken down the top 20 jobs for 4 different categories, for the young (Gen Y), parent’s returning to the workforce, veterans and for those over 50 (baby boomers). The articles are quite long so allow me to preview the top 10… Read More
Continue ReadingDefining The Office Grandstander
Anyone who has worked in a large company has encountered office grandstanders in great quantity. Every department has them. Now CareerJournal.com offers an entertaining article titled Not Even Politicians Can Outdo Office Grandstanders. Another tactic: Speak first, and often, in meetings, says Greg Milano, a sales and marketing veteran of 22 years, and act like the boss you aren’t — yet. One colleague he remembers would often distribute minutes of meetings that weren’t his, make the first toasts at parties he didn’t host and grill people with questions only he felt he was entitled to ask. “It became such an annoyance that people started to refer to that behavior by his… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Meeting Standards
Salespeople are the face of your company to the prospect world. The salesperson’s output (emails, proposals, information) also represents your company in the market. Have you ever managed a salesperson who simply didn’t focus on the quality of his or her output? Or how about the salesperson who places a perfectionist’s expectation on a simple item? They drag out a simple item to exacting levels – even to the point of missing the opportunity. This week we break down that trait. Meeting Standards The ability to see and understand the standard requirements established for a job and having the commitment to meet them. This is an internal motivation which combines… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Dawn Of Corporate Text Messaging
We are gradually moving towards instant messaging for our internal communications at Select Metrix and away from email. Speed is a big part of this move for us, but email spam is also driving the change. I have a difficult time imagining email disappearing all together, but this article from Inc.com provides some insight: Due to increasing levels of spam, companies may soon have to look beyond e-mail as the primary method of communicating with employees and customers, according to a new study. In 2007 alone, it is predicted that nearly 97 billion e-mails will be sent daily worldwide, 40 billion of which will be spam messages, the study found. In… Read More
Continue ReadingRetention – Bad Moves And A Good Move
If you have noticed in our posts, we are paying more and more attention to retention. (say that 10 times fast!) The employment market clearly indicates that it’s a hot topic. Over the years, two compensation moves really set off the negative alarms in my mind. They also made me, as a sales manager, more aware of how compensation impacts salesperson performance. Increased quotas. When quotas are increased (which isn’t necessarily “bad”), the first thing I always looked for was the corresponding compensation. If the message was “We need you to sell more,”that’s fine as long as everybody in the organization wins. However, trouble developed when the message came through… Read More
Continue ReadingAn Indirect Cost Of Turnover
We at The Hire Sense have been focused on employee retention this year. Pretty smart of us, I know (especially when the national unemployment rate is 4.4%). Michael at Hidden Business Treasures pointed us towards the Herman Group’s Trend Alert e-newsletter and I received my first one this week. The topic – wellness programs and their impact on benefits. This shocked me: The financial impact of healthcare spending is indisputable. Starbucks spends more money in one year on health insurance for its employees than it spends on coffee for its customers. The US automakers will spend more money this year on health insurance than they will on the steel that… Read More
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