This is an actual title from a sales ad I read this past weekend:

TSM-IL (203684-022)

Good grief.  Unless you are hiring a specific model of robot, do not do this when writing your title.

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I keep an eye on the sales employment ads looking for trends, positions, companies and prospects.  I admit it.  One of the aspects that catches my attention is the sheer length of some of these ads.  It seems apparent that some companies simple publish their internal, HR-drive job descriptions as an employment ad.  Mistake.

Ads that incorporate this style read as an onerous task list as opposed to describing the opportunity and, more importantly, describing the ideal salesperson in his or her terms.  The salesperson should read the ad and think to themselves, “Those are my skills, those are my strengths.”

Many ads like to list the reporting requirements of the position.  This task is assumed in sales – you have to provide a forecast, you have to update the CRM package, you have to keep notes.  The specifics of these tasks are not required in the ad.  In fact, they create word bloat in the ad.  Don’t waste the space.

Here is a prime example from an ad:

6.  Engage service delivery owners within the company coordinating mutual stakeholders meetings for repetitive or client initiated strategic business issues or launching of a new/additional service.

Look up “bloviation” in the dictionary and you will find this ad.  Couldn’t the above quote simply state something like “coordinate internal, strategic customer review meetings” or something to that point?  The example is so overwritten that I am not sure of the gist of the sentence.

Concise, succinct writing is key when writing sales ads.

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Here is another line from a sales employment ad (emphasis mine):

The primary role of this position is to build a revenue generating sales pipeline which will primarily consist of prospective accounts.

Pipeline bloat is something we encounter with sales managers on a regular basis.  As you probably know, salespeople have a tendency to…overestimate their pipeline.  This is done for a number of reasons, but the primary one is to make their sales manager believe that the salesperson is on the cusp of big revenue.  Many a sales manager has been drawn in by potential deals.

So with that as a backdrop, I am surprised to see a sales ad written with the weak qualifier: primarily consist of prospective accounts.  The sales managers we work with are usually attempting to reduce the pipeline to only prospective accounts.

Clearly the better sentence for the ad would have been: The primary role of this position is to build a revenue generating sales pipeline consisting of qualified, prospective accounts.

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This line is from a sales ad I read this morning:

Pre-qualified prospects are provided by <company> (cold leads).

Reminds me of President Clinton saying, “It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.”  “Pre-qualified prospects” and “cold leads” seems to be a stretch, at least in my mind, to be used in the same sentence.

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There seems to be some ethereal ad writing of late that I am not certain I understand.  I read a sales manager ad this morning that was written by a recruiting company for their client.  Here is the “Job Requirements” section:

All sales will be direct at this time.

What?  I have no idea what that means in context of the requirements.  The simple, best approach to writing sales ads is to use descriptive language that allows the reader to see themselves in the position.  Our goal is always to write ads that make the right candidate know that we are describing their abilities.

This ad falls far short of that approach.

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Don’t do this:

If you have the contacts in these areas with such customers, let us know!

That line is from a sales employment ad I read this morning and it is a tremendous red flag to savvy salespeople.  The ad is also from a recruiter and not the hiring company which makes it worse.

It is this approach that makes sales recruiting so difficult.  Clearly this recruiter is less interested in ability and more interested in an existing network.  Fair enough, but having a network is one thing, getting customers to walk over to a new company is another.  It rarely works in spite of what the salesperson thinks or says.

The better approach here is to identify what skills, talents and experiences will lead to success in the position.

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I read this line from an sales employment ad this morning:

Reps are NOT restricted by territory.

The unrestricted territory seems innocuous enough…maybe even valuable.  It usually isn’t.  As a salesperson, I would read this ad with some skepticism in that the company may be trying to add salespeople without a cogent management plan.

Back in my early years I took a job with a company that had no territories.  There were approximately 15 salespeople in there serving the local market.  What I learned is that the “old-timers” had effectively squatted on all of the accounts, whether they had an active relationship or not.  Since there were no defined territories (geographic, market, size, etc.) and weak sales management (completely hands-off), I was left to scavenging like a meerkat to find any lead.

The aforementioned line from the ad may seem like a benefit, but I would suggest that most savvy sales candidates will drill down on that topic for absolute clarity.

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I have a new favorite title for a sales ad:

Territory Manager, Swine-Minnesota

I’m not making that up, it is an actual title.  This seems remedial, but employment ad titles do matter.  Most of us remember the days of looking at ads in a paper where space was limited and costly.  Titles were less important then because the ad was still displayed.  Not today – I only see the title of the ad and the company in the electronic format.  The title has to be strong enough to elicit the click.

I think there are many companies that still miss that critical point.  And the major culprits are companies with substantial market share.  Apparently they are relying on their name to carry through the click.  Perhaps it works?  I’m not certain and neither are they based on their title writing.

One simply suggestion – don’t use “swine” in your title.

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I was shocked today when I read this sentence in a sales ad”:

Please note that at this time this posting is for purposes of building our talent pool only and there are no current available positions.

That was the 2nd sentence in the ad.  This is an interesting approach in this market – the company appears to be building their bench which is an important task.  What type of response they receive…well, that I wonder.  Nonetheless, I like the approach.

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Proofread your ads – a simple, simple task that seems to be ignored by some companies.  From an ad I read this morning (my editing):

A fast growing ______________ is seeking one great sales person to take the Minneapolis/St. Paul market to the next level.

Innocuous enough, but when you read through the ad you find this requirement:

Organization, computer proficiency, a valid Massachusetts driver’s license and proof of insurance required.

That is going to drastically reduce their candidate pool in the Twin Cities.  I wouldn’t recommend writing the entire ad in bold font either, but that seems minor compared to the Massachusetts license requirement.

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