If a salesperson’s customer relationship is based in the purchasing department you have trouble. It is difficult to build a strong relationship with purchasing in that they are incented to cut your margins, shop your competition and demand ever-improving terms. Clearly you have to have a good relationship with purchasing if your typical sale goes through that department. However, it is high risk to base your customer relationship on that department. Selling Power offers up an article that discusses the importance of knowing your end customer – the one who actually uses your product or service. Consider this statement: Once you know your core customer as a person and not… Read More
Continue ReadingAre You Really Running A Behavioral-Based Interview?
Behavioral-based interviewing has been the buzz in hiring for the past few years and rightly so. This technique brings real-world clarity to a sales interview as opposed to theoretical, positional answers. Selling Power provides a good article to assist you in your interview strategy. In order to ensure you are using a behavioral-based approach (emphasis mine): “A lot of people think that they are conducting behavioral-based interviewing when they’re really not,” says Wolf, who defines behavioral-based questions as questions that allow candidates to relate real situations and demonstrate how their strengths and weaknesses are exhibited on the job. “Many times hiring managers are asking theoretical questions, such as, ‘How would… Read More
Continue Reading8 Things Not To Do On A Sales Call
I read this post on Bnet and got a chuckle out of a couple of the points and thought I would share this article by Geoffrey James with you. I especially laughed when I read don’t flirt with the admin…who does that?! Anyway, here are the 8 things not to do: Flirt with the admin. It may seem tempting, but unless you’ve got soap-opera-quality looks, chances are you’re only going to annoy (or even alarm) the admin, who will tell the boss. Fix: Stay polite, friendly and respectful. Talk more than you listen. Initial sales calls are all about relationship building and gathering information, which you can’t do if your… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Extended Unemployment Rate
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has put out their numbers for October and the unemployment rate rose to 6.5% and non-farm employment fell by 240,000. The job losses occurred across all industries other than healthcare, which rose by 26,000 for the month. Not surprising, the Healthcare industry has grown in employment by almost 350,000 in the past year alone. Manufacturing took the biggest fall with over 90,000 losses (27,000 of them are the results of strikes in the aerospace sector) with construction employment second, falling by 49,000. But reading a post from Liz Wolgemuth over at US News & World Report provided some interesting facts that I had not seen before. The extension… Read More
Continue ReadingCover Email?
We are sourcing for a sales position and are running some ads in different locations. I received an email from a candidate that listed the title of the ad in the subject line – good move. But this is all that was in the body of the email: Would like to learn more, thanx!
Continue ReadingJob Churn
The Career News newsletter has a short article about “job churn” that provides some good news for our present economic situation. The immediate reaction of companies, in a slumping U.S. economy, is to pull back on hiring activity, declare hiring freezes and even make layoff announcements. But these are only short-lived strategies as employers soon realize that they are deficient on talent in a competitive job market. After a period of reactionary cutting and freezing, hiring activity will return to a level of normalcy. Hiring is largely a function of ‘job churn’ and there is no evidence that churn will do anything but accelerate in the coming quarters. Churn is… Read More
Continue ReadingUsing Email In The Sales Process
Using email effectively is an absolute must in today’s business world. It is surprising to me how much email has started to dominate the selling landscape over the past 5 years. That being said, understanding email etiquette is vital to moving a deal through the pipeline. Eyesonsales.com has an article that gives some good guidelines to follow in using email: View email as the new prospecting tool. After you leave a voicemail, follow-up with an email, giving prospects 2 easy ways to respond. Remember, your goal is to connect with the person. Even if they respond “no”, you’ve connected and can respond to try to generate an interest. Keep the sales… Read More
Continue Reading14 Cold Calling Suggestions
Eyesonsales.com has a short article that lays out 14 steps in making successful cold calls. With the lengthening of the sales cycle in regards to the economy, it is important to make sure that your salespeople stay on top of their pipelines. This article has 14 points that can be used as a refresher for your experienced salespeople or as a starting point for your new salespeople. Have a dedicated time each day to prospect. Know the reason for calling before you call: customer benefits, not product features. Leave short voice mail messages. Assume your voice mail messages will never be returned. Always call one level higher in an organization… Read More
Continue ReadingProper Pipelines
Here is a terrific article from Selling Power titled Pare Down Your Pipeline. Let me give you the opening paragraphs: One key differentiator between your top 20 percent of performers and everyone else on your team is the way the superstars find and qualify leads. Let’s be honest: most of your reps – especially these days when business is agonizingly slow – are working feverishly to fill their pipelines. Their goal is to cram in as many leads as possible, knowing that a certain percentage of them are bound to come out the bottom as closed deals. Top producers, on the other hand, “are more interested in disqualifying prospects than… Read More
Continue ReadingQuoting Is Not Qualifying
I run into this topic often and it is one worth defining. Many companies value quotes as strong sales activity. Now don’t get me wrong, quotes are a step in the sales process and typically one that occurs before a close. However, companies that have under-defined sales processes often choose to substitute quotes for qualifying. Here is what I mean – just because a suspect asks for a quote does not mean that they are a prospect. This applies to customers too. First, let’s define suspects and prospects. A suspect is a company that shows some interest in your product or service but you are not sure of the level… Read More
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