We are working through some offers for sales candidates with multiple clients this week and thought it would be helpful to discuss some general points. Salary – we’re big believers in a modest/decent salary. The best plans we see provide a salary to cover the basic needs of the salesperson. If they are worrying about basic bills, they are not as effective. I know there is an old school belief that commission-only plans are the best – purest form of selling, you eat what you kill. The largest drawback to this approach is that sales managers often leave the salesperson to their own devices. Their rationale – the salesperson will… Read More
Continue ReadingActivist Shareholders…
are two words you don’t want to hear if you are CEO of a publicly-traded company. From Inc.com: At public companies, this [turnover] is reflected in the rise of activist shareholders, Jacovitz said, seen most recently in the public ousting of top executives at Hewlett-Packard. I think there may be one other slightly significant item that had an impact on the HP ouster. The article focuses on C-level turnover, which is on the rise. But I found these graphs towards the end of the article to be more notable: Meanwhile at the lower rungs of the workforce, small employers are having trouble finding qualified workers, according to the National Federation… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Self-Starting Ability
There may be no more popular buzzword in employment articles today than “self starter.” The majority of ads list this trait as required for the position. We can objectively measure it. Self-Starting Ability A measure of a person’s ability to initiate tasks in order to fulfill responsibilities and commitments along with the degree to which a person will maintain that ability in the face of adversity. A salesperson with strength in this capacity is adept at synchronizing their internal drivers (e.g., level of initiative, persistence, goal focus, etc.) and directing these combined abilities toward a common goal or task. They are also capable of marshalling these strengths on their own… Read More
Continue ReadingA Different Pricing Model
We have kicked around a pricing model in jest but it conveys a point. One part of our business is assessing candidates for many different positions but sales is our specialty. We have clients that do their own sourcing and interviewing and then use our online assessments to measure the candidate’s sales skills, aptitudes, motivations and style. That being said, here is what the Rock Star and I were discussing: If a company locates a sales candidate they feel is strong, we assess them and confirm that they are strong, the fee is $500. If a company locates a sales candidate they feel is strong, we assess them and reveal… Read More
Continue ReadingCandidate, Google Thyself
MarketingProfs.com puts out an always interesting enewsletter and this week’s edition is no exception. Have You Been Digitally Dissed? starts out as an article about googling yourself since hiring managers are googling you. …75% of recruiters google candidates, according to a survey by Execunet. We do. In fact, we posted about this topic back in June. The article states: The moral of the story: Google yourself. It’s called self-googling or ego-surfing and you should be doing it regularly. Here is the point I truly enjoyed – the author, William Arruda, employs this premise in the article: If you’re looking to advance in your career, you’ll want to proactively manage your… Read More
Continue ReadingSpotting Strong Salespeople
I’m in to analogies this week so I have had this one rattling around in my head for a while. Its Friday so let’s try it. If you are familiar with football and specifically the wide receiver position, you know that their primary purpose is to run fast, accurate routes and catch the football when it is thrown to them. On running plays, they may run hard downfield as a decoy or they may try to block a defensive player. These activities are simply secondary at best to their role. Suffice to say, wide receivers usually have the cleanest uniforms at the end of a game (sans the punter and… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Sense of Timing
This week’s series stops on an important aptitude for success is selling. There is nothing more clumsy than a salesperson with bad timing. Sense Of Timing The ability to accurately evaluate what is happening in such way that their statements, decisions and actions are effective, accurate and timely. This capacity evaluates a persons ability to look at the whole picture and effectively evaluate how their immediate request or action fits into the current timeframe. A salesperson with a strong aptitude in this capacity will be able to effectively interact with others by adjusting the timing with which he/she presents ideas, suggestions, criticism or solutions. A salesperson with a weak aptitude… Read More
Continue ReadingAbsentee Sales Management
Imagine your goal is to lose weight so you sign up for a 1 year membership to one of the large health clubs in town. You pay the steep initial fee and the monthly amount. In the first 6 months, you go to the club and workout a total of 5 times for 30 minutes each time. Suffice to say, you have not lost the weight you expected to lose. In fact, you have actually put on 5 pounds in those 6 months. You could call the club and complain that you have not lost the weight you had intended to lose. They will probably pull up a record of… Read More
Continue ReadingQuantity vs. Quality
We prefer quality. We often tell our prospects if we do our job perfectly, you will only interview one candidate. If you think about this approach, we are confident in our process and our tools to find the most skilled and talented candidate for the position. Some people are uncomfortable with this approach. They require interviews with multiple candidates before making a decision. But is this the best approach? If you are hiring for a specific position and the first candidate you interview is a strong fit for the position, is there any reason why you wouldn’t hire them? Most people prefer to have options so they seek interviews with… Read More
Continue ReadingWork-life Balance When Hiring
Anthony Meaney from Recruiting.com has a great post today unpacking a CareerJournal.com article titled Acing a Dicey Interview Question:Why Did You Leave Your Last Job? Straight from Anthony’s keyboard: Work-life balance has become a key issue for people these days with employees striving for it and employers gushing about how their company supports work life balance. Yet we are supposed to look askance at candidates who want to knock two hours of commute time off their day? The only person who can legitimately scoff at shorter commute as a reason for leaving is someone who is doing a longer commute. I couldn’t agree more. We are located in the Twin… Read More
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