This week we look at a trait that ebbs and flows with salespeople. Typically, candidates have a lower level of role confidence (a driver in their reasoning for finding a new job). Established salespeople who are having success tend to have higher role confidence. The lack of this trait usually reveals an indecisive, uncertain salesperson. This weakness unfortunately is most often revealed in front of a prospect. Role Confidence The ability to develop and maintain an inner strength based on the belief that one will succeed. Role Confidence is a combination of a salesperson’s ability to see their role clearly, positively, practically and functionally. They see themselves as valuable in… Read More
Continue ReadingWhere NOT To Post Employment Ads
The local paper. Simple, right? We monitor sales employment ads on the major boards and the local papers (we have 2 here in the Twin Cities). We have been doing this for over 6 years now and have watched the gradual decline in ads. The only ads we tend to see now are placed by staffing firms and what I would characterize as “old guard” industries. The death rattle of this newspaper section is palpable.
Continue ReadingThermostat Wars
I was reading through the latest Herman Trend Report this morning about the new souped up cubicles that are being developed by IBM and Steelcase. Yes, it sounds similar to customizing a Yugo, but there actually are some interesting ideas geared towards Millennial workers. For instance: Two new technologies facilitate people working in collaboration: “MyTeam” uses sensor data to connect team members and to broadcast availability awareness. One touch opens the preferred communication channel, whether it is e-mail, phone, or instant message. Their Everywhere Displays projector transforms any surface into a touch-screen. Rather than gathering around a monitor, participants working together may project their work onto tables or walls. Users may… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Beginning Of Sales Mercenaries
Ok, this is more brainstorming than well-developed post (don’t touch that – they are all well-developed in my mind). Anyway, I read through an interesting piece on BusinessWeek.com titled Coping With the Talent Crunch. The article is from last year, but the author hits on a couple interesting points. First, this (my editing and emphasis): It may be that employers (especially large ones) are increasingly out of touch. True, for most of the past two decades employees have consistently said there are reasons more important than money that make a job attractive. The problem is, most of those reasons to stick around have gone the way of the manual typewriter.… Read More
Continue ReadingReading The Resume
If you have read The Hire Sense for any period of time, you know we have some strong feelings about using resumes to filter sales candidates. This approach is ripe with problems. However, we know it occurs and until we change the world on this topic, we’ll have to make the best of it. In that light, here are the items we look for when reading through resumes: Performance. Has the person succeeded by what you can see in their work history? Is this success supported by specific numbers? Progression. Has their sales career shown overall growth through their different positions? Have they been with only 1 company or have… Read More
Continue ReadingTelecommuting Or Cube Farm?
As a resident in many cube farms for many years of my career, I have a fondness for stories involving this topic. This article – Why Silicon Valley Firms Are Rethinking the Cubicle – provides probably more insight than the average person cares to know about this topic. But this caught my attention: Intel Corp. is often credited, or blamed, for popularizing the office cubicle. Now it is joining some prominent Silicon Valley peers in reconsidering the concept. I didn’t know that, but later in the article you find this statistic: Sun Microsystems Inc. is particularly aggressive about flexible work styles; the computer maker estimated that about 55% of its employees… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Most Annoying Coworker
It’s me. Well, I didn’t make the list, but I think I could have won it (Lee will confirm it). But this article in CareerJournal.com reports that SnagAJob.com went with their own list and came up with these answers: According to the 7,000 people who responded to the poll last month, the “slacker” and the “kiss-up” tied for the most annoying person to work with. Each type was selected as most annoying by 32.6% of those who responded to the one-question survey. … Third on the list of annoying co-workers was the “gossip hound,” which 18.4% said was the most annoying co-worker. The “loud talker” was deemed most annoying by… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Expectations Set By The Offer
We’ve run into some “unique” problems in handling offers with sales candidate. Strong salespeople all share one significant ability – qualifying. This ability, when used in the negotiation process, leads to a desire for real clarity when it comes to an offer. We lost a strong candidate last week due to a lack of informational clarity within our customer’s offer. There are many variables to this specific situation, but one thing that came out was that the offer was too vague. The critical piece of information that was poorly defined was the expectations for the position. No quota, no targets and no defined levels. This is a new sales position within an… Read More
Continue ReadingCounterpunching The Recruiting Firm
Great quote that is. Selling Power provided it in their article Re-Recruiting and Retention. The gist of the article deals with keeping your top performers when they have been recruited from your company. The article lists some suggested goals you can gather by conducting exit interviews: – Eliminate the barriers to retention that were mentioned in surveys of ex-employees.– Identify essential, “can’t operate without” employees and thank each one of them (often).– Upgrade personal performance contracts, paying special attention to the problem areas identified.– Provide extra compensation and rewards. (Pacetta suggests establishing a recruiting and retaining fund for this purpose.)– Ask each of your essential employees to come to you… Read More
Continue ReadingHidden Keys To Building Rapport
I am most interested in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) when it comes to enhancing communication. We have been through some rudimentary training on this topic so ManageSmarter.com’s article – Rapid Rapport and Riches – piqued my interest. The long article covers many details, but here is a general definition of NLP: NLP is a behavioral technology created in the 1970s by Richard Brandler, a student of mathematics and Gestalt’s Therapy, and John Grinder, a professor of linguistics at the University of California Santa Cruz. Neuro refers to the nervous system, through which we experience the five senses: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. Linguistic is language and non-verbal communication systems that… Read More
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