I thought I would start your Monday with some levity. This is from the general resume pile and is serious, from what I can tell: I am the GREATEST Tele Sales GURU on the planet. Again, some times you do not need an assessment.
Continue ReadingMost Prestigious Careers
How did salesperson not make this list? Ok, maybe we are not completely objective about this topic.
Continue ReadingRetaining Employees
Here is a follow up to the previous post. ‘Career Path’ Programs Help Retain Employees discusses efforts by companies to retain workers. Some strong points: Most career-path programs outline promotion possibilities and offer training in required skills. Some employers also offer career-planning sessions. Leigh Branham, a human-resource consultant and author of “The Seven Hidden Reasons Employees Leave,” says training is particularly appealing to younger workers, who are more likely to jump ship. A real-world application: Each new hire requires 158 hours of training, at a cost of roughly $7,000, according to Purdue. So keeping workers even a little longer can mean big savings. At Huntington Bancshares, 75% of the call-center… Read More
Continue ReadingEmployees Are Looking
The modern employee can easily track sales opportunities. Job board search agents, Google agents and RSS feeds do most of the work. With that in mind, read this monster.com article – Are You Underpaid? Some highlights: Keep One Foot in the Job Market “The best way to know your value is to be on the market” — even if you aren’t looking for another job, says Lee E. Miller. The best practice for this topic is to assume your employees are aware of other opportunities and may even be considering them as you read this post. Good advice from the author: Is Pay Really the Issue? Finally, step back and… Read More
Continue ReadingAnecdote – Sales Training
Earlier this year I was conducting phone screens for a client whose service was always changing and evolving. Essentially, we knew a major key leading to success in the role was to find candidates with a Theoretical motivation. One of my screening questions was “What have you done in the last 3 years to further develop your sales skills?” A response from one of the applicants: “I have taken a bunch of Microsoft classes, from PowerPoint to Excel to Word to Access. If you name it, I’ve taken it.” Sounds right. Shows a desire to learn. But notice my question – develop your sales skills. Did these courses afford them… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 10 Sales Killers
CareerBuilder put out a well-written newsletter this week that I am still trying to find time to read. This article by Tom Hopkins provides 10 fundamental sales points that apply to all selling situations. My favorite: Sales Killer #5: Lack of a qualification system. A certain percentage of the people you talk with won’t be good candidates for your product or service. If they don’t have the need or the money for your product or service, there’s no sale. Your challenge is to figure this out as early in your communication with them as possible. Come up with at least three or four questions, the answers to which will tell… Read More
Continue ReadingBenchmarking Workshop
We completed our first Benchmarking Key Performance Indicators Workshop yesterday and are working through the results and reports. We used this workshop as a market research project to test drive this new process and assessment. There will be a need for us to run a second workshop some time in September to test our adjustments. Same workshop, slightly improved (hopefully). We won’t finalize the date until mid-August, but please click here for more preliminary information.
Continue ReadingWhat Workers Want?
An envelope caught my eye this past week as I was rifling through my junk mail. Printed on the envelope was “Employee Recruitment & Retention.” Since that is my field, I decided to open it up. Inside, I found a complimentary copy of a monthly newsletter from Lawrence Ragan Communications dedicated to employee recruitment & retention. I’ve never heard of this company, but I discovered a couple of interesting short articles on employee retention in their Quotes & Statistics section. First, What do workers want? You may be surprised. In it were the results of a survey of more than 1,000 US workers by the Sarratoga Institute (my emphasis). When… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 10 Recruiting Myths
CareerBuilder.com – Top 10 Recruiting Myths – Busted. I’ll tease you with my 2 favorites: 2) Good questions reduce hiring errors Good questions are essential but are fallible. Many hiring managers think that asking good questions will result in good answers and that’s it. Listening, observing and adjusting the interview is as important as a list of good questions. By noting how the candidate reacts to the questions, and listening intently do the details of the answer, the interviewer can learn much more about the individual and reduce hiring errors. 10) The ‘perfect fit’ employee is out there somewhere All hiring managers would like to think that the ‘perfect fit’… Read More
Continue ReadingBiggest Employee Time Wasters
Salary.com has a great article called Wasted Time At Work Still Costing Companies Billions in 2006. From the opening paragraph: the average worker admits to squandering 1.86 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time Amazing, but it gets better: The biggest distraction for respondents was personal Internet use. 52.0% of the 2,700 people polled cited web surfing as their #1 distraction at work. Socializing with co-workers came in second at 26.3%. Conducting personal business, “spacing out,” running errands, and making personal phone calls were the other popular time-wasting activities in the workplace. I particularly enjoyed the “spacing out” time waster. It came in at 6.6%. The sum… Read More
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