Also from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal (emphasis mine): Nielsen said “member communities” are now at 67 percent participation while e-mail is at 65 percent. The study found that of Internet users throughout the world, two-thirds visited a social networking site last year. Of those Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook is the leader, with visits every month by 3 of every 10 Internet users, the Nielsen study reports. In fact, Facebook had a 168 percent increase in users, the study said, while Mountain View, Calif.-based LinkedIn had a 137 percent increase. The biggest growth spurt for Facebook has been in the category of users from 35 to 49 years of age.… Read More
Continue ReadingHappiness Is Outstate
Ok, I’m confused – from our local Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal: Gallup, Healthways and America’s Health Insurance Plans earlier this week ranked Minnesota as fifth in the country for the overall health of its people. In the case of emotional health, Minnesotans were ranked fourth. The ranking, derived from the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, comes about a week after the Minneapolis metro area came in 19th in BusinessWeek.com’s list of the 20 unhappiest cities in the United States. In Minnesota, we refer to the Twin Cities as the “metro area” and the rest of the state as “outstate.” Apparently happiness is found in the outstate areas. This distinction is even more… Read More
Continue ReadingSpooky Accurate Assessments
From Inc.com’s article on how to screen sales candidates: It cost $400 a candidate, and the recruits took the tests online. Dolan and Kinaxis’s star salesperson took the test, too, and Opus analyzed their test scores and created a personality benchmark. Afterward, Opus discussed the results with each of the candidates to see if any of them disagreed with the assessments. None did. “They’re spooky accurate,” Dolan says. We use spooky accurate assessments for all of our sales candidates. Assessing sales candidates is one of the best ways to cut through the veneer and see what they are truly made of. This article places a priority on personality assessments which… Read More
Continue ReadingFind The 15%
CNNMoney.com provides this article regarding 2009 hiring. As you may expect, hiring is down and it appears more cuts are coming soon: Of the 31,800 employers surveyed, only 15% anticipate hiring more employees during the second quarter, down from 16% in the first quarter and 26% in the same period last year. About 14% expect a decrease in their payrolls, up from 13% last quarter and just 9% one year ago. Another 4% said they were undecided about their hiring intentions. The net employment outlook, or difference between employers who plan to add jobs and those who expect to cut them, was 1%, down from 3% in the previous quarter… Read More
Continue ReadingCompanies Get It Wrong Too
I was recollecting about a job I took in which I felt I did everything right. It is doubtful I did, but it is my recollection so bear with me. I qualified the opportunity, the sale, the expectations and the ramp time. All of the responses were a good fit to my abilities. The ramp time was 6 mos. before getting to a steady revenue stream according to the hiring manager. I knew I could beat that and I did by cutting it in half. I had closed a handful of fairly sizeable deals within 3 mos. and was chasing a handful of large deals. And then I was laid… Read More
Continue ReadingGPS-Buster
I’m perusing the employment ads again and came across one for a position in North Dakota. The company is using a large, national recruiting firm which is clear from the ad. One problem, the city listing for the ad: Bismarck, MN Since I know we have readers from around the country, Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota…there is no such town in our home state of Minnesota. Could be an oversight, but my guess is the recruiting firm passed on the chance to visit their North Dakota customer in winter. I’ve said it before – some errors simply cannot be made in an ad. This would be one of… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Recession Dictionary
This current economy is giving life to a handful of new words tied to the recession according to this abcnews.com story. Some of the words are making it into the online site of the major dictionaries. Thankfully they are not putting the words into the printed version…yet. Does anyone still buy the hard copy? Here are a few of these new words entering the lexicon: decremental: adjective The act or process of decreasing or becoming gradually less; the amount lost by gradual diminution or waste. Great Recession: noun The current recession, which began in December 2007. The length and severity of the current recession has led some in the media… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Work-At-Home Scam
This shouldn’t be surprising, but abcnews.com has a story regarding all of the work-at-home job postings on the Internet right now. As you can imagine, this type of economy breeds these types of “jobs.” I’ve always found them to be borderline ridiculous…like the email spam that says you have inherited millions from a deceased Kenyan official. “Currently there’s a 54-to-1 scam ratio among work-at-home job leads on the Internet,” said Staffcentrix co-founder, Christine Durst, who screens up to 5,000 online job offers every week and rates them on her Web site. “That means that for every 55 [work-at-home] job leads that you find on the Internet, 54 of them are… Read More
Continue ReadingDown 25%
That is the number I continue to hear from salespeople in a variety of markets when I ask them how are sales? That is a staggering number when you think about it. Unfortunately, those are the times we live in for now. I continue to believe that the best method for offsetting this decrease is to go take business from your competition. Who are their top customers? Those accounts must always be your top prospects in any economy. In today’s economy, I believe it will be difficult to persuade companies to invest in new purchases. However, if they are currently buying from a competitor, salespeople need to unhook the business. … Read More
Continue ReadingSales Hobble
Great title from Justsell.com, don’t you think? From their monthly newsletter (sorry, no link): Top 3 activities that can hobble a sales day… 1. Talking with people who can’t move the sales process along 2. Unnecessary research activities What’s too much? There’s really no definitive answer. It’s particular to your sales world. Many people start to get a gut feel for when they should move on. The key is to act on it and make the call (rather than making sure every little thing is known before the call – fine line, of course). You might be surprised what you can learn by asking a straightforward question of the person… Read More
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