I found this article in a recent Selling Power Newsletter that piqued my interest. After reading it, I found that the author touches on some very good points to remember when making an offer to a candidate. It is a very short read and well worth the time. The author, Craig Silverman gives these 5 reasons you will get a no: Need – If your message isn’t compelling enough, they won’t feel the need to make a change. Motivation – You have to understand what motivates the candidate before you offer the position. Once you find out, build it into your offer. Compensation – Most salespeople don’t want to make… Read More
Continue ReadingJob Offer Etiquette
Call first, email second. There is no other way to do it safely. This BusinessWeek.com article – Hiring Companies Should Show the Love – got me thinking about this topic. The article is written to the candidate’s perspective, but it holds good advice for hiring companies too. For starters, if a company calls you with a job offer, they should have all the details ready to explain to you, including title, reporting relationship, compensation (salary, bonus, 401(k), etc.) and amount of travel. Now, much of this may have gotten sorted out during the interview process. But because the processes are often so fragmented, you may only have one shot with… Read More
Continue ReadingA Misguided Sales Ad
From a sales ad for an Account Executive role (emphasis mine): This person will play a critical roll in the sales process to help educate and market product offering to prospective customers. No. Please don’t do this. Here is what that one sentence implies – features and benefits selling. That approach to selling should be buried at the bottom of a tar pit with other dinosaurs. From a post last week – “people don’t want a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole.” In other words, your ad should speak to salespeople who know how to sell solutions. This company would be better served speaking to the salesperson’s ability to… Read More
Continue ReadingQuestions Often Reveal The Skills
We’re working through some sales candidate sourcing activities this week for some new customers and uncovering some strong salespeople. There are many reasons why we incorporate a screening step in our recruiting process, but one of the most important reasons is the questions posed by the candidates. A crucial component of selling is asking the right questions. I laugh as I write this because a saying my father uses came to my mind – “If you want a better answer, ask a better question.” The question content, the question pattern and the follow-up questions are all highly revealing of the quality of sales candidate. A real-life example from one candidate… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling With Brand Power
First, a Foxnews.com article – Tech Companies Top Survey of Most Influential Brands with this ranking: Google Apple YouTube Wikipedia Starbucks Now the lesson we have learned over time – salespeople whom sell for the market/brand leader often have difficulty moving to a company in the same market with less market share. This fact has played out time and again. The issue is simple, when you sell for a market leader, getting sales appointments is never as difficult as selling for a mom & pop competitor. Hiring companies often think they have scored a coup by hiring a salesperson from the 800lbs. gorilla in their market. Most times, these salespeople… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Ads Gone Wrong
I just read a sales ad for an Account Executive that was 85 lines long. The font size was 8pt! The competencies section along covered 16 different topics. Don’t do this with a sales ad. I realize there are many people who want to be thorough, but this level of detail is extreme overkill. A couple of years ago we wrote an article in our newsletter describing the basic layout for an effective sales ad. We have tweaked the format slightly by adding a “Job Rewards” section to better explain the rewards offered for success in the role. One thing we should have added was don’t write 85 line ads!… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Realistic Personal Goal Setting
This week’s sales traits comes with an anecdote. At a previous company, I worked with gentlemen who ran their own part of the business and had responsibility for their own forecasts. I remember submitting my forecast for the upcoming – it was a reasonable number. The 2 other business segment managers submitted astronomically-high forecasts. I took much heat for my forecast since it was much less than the other 2 managers. At the end of the year, I finished at 90% of my forecast. One of the business managers finished at 25% of his forecast. The other finished at 5% of his forecast. Honestly, it was that bad. Ever since… Read More
Continue ReadingEmployee Retention Wake-Up Call – Part 2
A couple of months ago we posted on an article from the Pioneer Press titled Speaking Up Helps Keep Star Workers. One of the surprising findings was that 47% of the 16,273 stellar workers surveyed are mailing out resumes, going on job interviews, even contemplating other offers. I just recently caught up to an article from a WorkForce Management newsletter of a survey Yahoo HotJobs conducted on 5,300 people. They found that nearly two-thirds are open to switching jobs, with an improving job market cited as the chief cause for such optimism. Here are some interesting points they found: 39% cited unhappiness with wages as the chief issue 75% cited… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Sales Hiring Security Blanket
There is a security blanket in hiring salespeople and it is this – experience. Experience is the balm to bad sales hiring. Companies start with a desire to hire primarily from their industry. If someone has multiple years selling in the industry, skill and talent are assumed to be sufficient and transferrable. But this approach works far less often than you think. We see it play out almost on a weekly basis. There is no truer example than one of our customers who sells in a distribution market. They sell electronic parts that are integrated into larger machines. These parts can be purchased at numerous other companies in the Twin… Read More
Continue ReadingSpell-check Sloppiness
We’ve discussed the candidate faux pas of spelling errors in their resume. The resume is typically the most formal document the candidate will write themselves. Proof-reading and spell-checking should be standard practice. If you have read any bulk of resumes you know this is not the case. I have a real problem with employment ads which contain spelling errors. This morning I read an ad for a sales manager (reads more like a salesperson with a big title) that contained this error: “Develope” Honestly, how hard is it to run a spell-check before posting? Most of the boards have built in spell-checkers and if they don’t, write the ad in… Read More
Continue Reading