The JustSell.com guys put out a helpful, quick-read daily newsletter that I recommend salespeople and managers subscribe to. The quotes are poignant and their free resources are extensive. Their salestools section is overflowing with great tools.

Today’s newsletter directs us to their Sales Glossary. I have to admit, I was stuck on the site for quite some time. Here’s the first (and most important) sales term I searched:

qualify
to determine the purchasing potential of a suspect, prospect or customer

I love it. That definition cuts to the quick of qualifying. The next one I searched:

disqualify
to determine the purchasing potential of a prospect or customer as unlikely and therefore a poor use of sales time (see qualify)

By now you can see where I was going with this pattern. As an aside, being a good qualifier means that you are truly a good disqualifier – a task many salespeople avoid since it means they have to find a new prospect.

The glossary is quite extensive and well worth the time to explore. The definition for “yes” is worth the visit alone.

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From abcnews.com – How to Have More Fun at Work. This topic is going to become more common as Gen X ascends and Gen Y populates the workforce. Already we are seeing numerous articles on work/life balance enter the article sphere.

I’ve worked for many Boomer managers who were suit-and-tie, get your work done leaders with no time for, well, fun at the office. At one technology employer, we had a dartboard and ping pong table in the lunchroom that was a huge hit. In the sales department, we would take a 15 minute afternoon break to go trash-talk each other while competing like we were in the Olympics. To this day, I remember how enjoyable those competitions were. Afterwards, we would get back to work almost invigorated from the mini battle.

Now for a strange aside. When my son was in preschool years ago, the teacher explained that children learn better when they have large-muscle activity before a seated learning time. I don’t know if that is true of adults or not, but as I mentioned, I always felt invigorated after a game of ping pong. I had more energy and was more “alive” on my phone calls.

Yet there is a downside to offering this type of fun at the office. The word came down from the Boomer management team that salespeople should not be playing ping pong at any time during the day. Mind you, no other departments received a similar dictate, just sales. After that, every time we went to get a coffee or snack, we would see others enjoying a part of the corporate culture that was forbidden to us. That rule created much angst and resentment between the sales team and the managers.

My point is simple, if you are going to commit to a culture of fun, make sure you set parameters at the beginning and make it accessible to all employees. And remember, the opportunity for employees to have some fun will go miles to improving morale and hopefully retention.

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In Selling Power’s latest Sales Manager’s Newsletter there is an article from Anthony Parinello, author of Selling to VITO and Think & Sell Like a CEO. As a sales manager who is working with a salesperson on their messaging, Anthony makes some great points about assumptions CEO’s hold about the business world. He provides seven assumptions – if your sales approach aligns with the CEO, he/she will not feel you are wasting his or her time:

1. Knowledge is power. CEO’s seek knowledge. They understand that the more they know, the better their decisions. Thus your message must expand his or her flow of critical information, not clutter that flow.
2. Passion and commitment make the difference. CEO’s typically are very passionate about what they do. Make sure your own enthusiasm for the topic under discussion complements the CEO’s enthusiasm.
3. What’s good for me is good for the company. CEO’s self-identify strongly with their organization and “tend to feel very good about both,” says Parinello. Ask yourself whether what you’re doing supports the CEO’s best view of him or herself and his or her company, says Parinello.
4. You can do, get, and be anything you want if you see a big enough picture. CEO’s don’t focus on tactics; they focus on strategies. They take “50,000-foot views” of the world, says Parinello, and tend not to get bogged down in details. Are you focusing on the big picture? Or are you stuck in selling features and benefits?
5. Good things happen when you get people to buy into your message. Every successful CEO knows the importance of communicating persuasively and effectively. If what you are doing will help the CEO get the message out and communicate effectively within his organization, you’ll have instant status with him.
6. You can never get enough good ideas to support your plan. “CEO’s love to consider ideas they can connect directly to the plan or vision that gets them up early in the morning and keeps them going late at night,” says Parinello. Ask yourself whether the ideas you’re presenting directly support the CEO’s plan.
7. Results are what count. CEO’s know they must deliver tangible and intangible results in their own markets and in the markets of their prospects and customers. It is essential that the issues you plan to talk about help the CEO create positive results for shareholders, customers, and prospects.

Some excellent points to remember if you are calling on CEO’s!

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CNNMoney.com offers this quick story – Planned job cuts take big Dec. dip. The phrase “planned job cuts” is a poor construction, but it essentially means expected layoffs.

Planned job cuts for all of 2006 fell below 1 million for the first time since 2000, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an employment consulting firm.

Be wary of the naysayers spouting an impending doom for our economy. The economy is robust and it truly is an employee’s market right now. The reason why you should be aware of this fact:

“With the American economy at full employment for the first time since Sept. 11, 2001, the latest job-cut data provide strong evidence that employers turned their energy toward retention in 2006,” Challenger said.

There is a perfect storm brewing right now (or perhaps already raging). We have historically low unemployment, almost automated job search agents and a new generation of workers who monitor new opportunities . . . all the time.

Retention will be a top priority for 2007. It should be a top priority every year. Salespeople are on the look out for something better. If turnover is trampling your sales staff, perhaps it is time to provide some assistance to your sales management team?

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Each morning I peruse the sales employment ads to see who is hiring and what ads they are placing. I came across a local company I have never heard of and was impressed by a bullet point in their ad:

Accountable for achieving sales goals within an assigned territory which has key accounts.

The emphasis was theirs. This approach may seem trivial, but it is important in putting the right bait out their to find the right salesperson.

Companies often have glorified visions of a single salesperson with minimal marketing help being able to take a zero revenue territory and grow it into a highly profitable territory. This can happen – I’ve personally done it. But I had much help from the marketing department and a strong brand to sell.

Yet finding a salesperson to grow the dormant territory usually takes much money and a long time frame. If you have existing accounts in a territory, do not be afraid to give them to the new salesperson once they are ramped up to full speed. Give them the rewards of the commission for those accounts even though they inherited them. A taste of that sugar will keep them motivated. The commission structure also teaches them to earn as opposed to receiving a handout in the form of a guaranteed commission for a set time period (unless you have no existing accounts in the territory in which to earn commission).

One other point, if your commission plan pays the same rate for a dollar of existing customer business vs. a dollar of new customer business, you need to revisit your commission plan.

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This morning I heard numerous references to this Florida State survey regarding lying bosses. I caught up to the story and found a slightly different read – Study: Bad Bosses Abound in U.S. Really? I’m not sure how this is newsworthy, but it hooked me.

Here are the stats from the upcoming survey:

• 39 percent of workers said their supervisor failed to keep promises.
• 37 percent said their supervisor failed to give credit when due.
• 31 percent said their supervisor gave them the “silent treatment” in the past year.
• 27 percent said their supervisor made negative comments about them to other employees or managers.
• 24 percent said their supervisor invaded their privacy.
• 23 percent said their supervisor blamed others to cover up mistakes or to minimize embarrassment.

I do not see any direct statements regarding lying. I chose to highlight some of the egregious offenses discovered by the survey. To me, it looks like much ado about nothing.

I believe most people have experienced some of these interactions (thought I’m not sure about the context of “invaded their privacy”). Some of these statements have emanated from my 7 year-old son’s mouth.

Leading others is a difficult proposition for any one person. I believe it was Bill Cosby who once stated, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” The best managers I have every worked for share one common trait – they were all fair.

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From our local Pioneer Press – Drug company sales reps sue for overtime wages.

Her lawsuit, part of a series of class action claims filed in November against nine major drug companies, seeks tens of millions of dollars in back pay for the thousands of drug company salespeople across the country.

Honestly, I have never in my life heard of such hogwash. The victim mentality of the plantiff is only outdone by her lawyer’s quote in the article. If you employ an outside sales force, you need to read this article. The one bit of common sense comes at the end of the short article:

Not all sales reps support the lawsuits.”Everyone I know who does their job well works 60 or more hours a week,” said Anthony DeMeis, a co-founder of the Pharmaceutical Representative Society of New York. “The harder you work, the more work you make for yourself. I think they’re getting paid for overtime, through the bonuses they’re getting.”

The question that perplexes me – If you don’t like the hours, why don’t you get a different job where you can work fewer hours?

Unbelievable.

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The information topic seems to be appearing everywhere we look this week. Now this article from Selling Power – The Cost of Poor Communications – attempts to put some metrics to inapt communication between managers and employees.

While managers are off worrying about sales trends and marketing plans, they often overlook a primary drain on productivity: poor communication.

• 55 percent say their employees are not easily able to find information they need.
• 44 percent say the information they use lacks appropriate detail.

What amount of money could this miscommunication be causing your company? There is a way to neutralize this problem – assess your team and provide your sales manager with an effective development plan for each salesperson.

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I got this military quote from my brother-in-law:

Good luck is often with the man who doesn’t include it in his plans.

That sounds like a great line for a sales manager when reviewing his or her team’s forecast this new year.

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Yesterday I posted on an interesting article involving the importance of providing information to your employees. Now I as I catch up on my RSS reading for this week, I have kicked up a complementary Selling Power article with a quick reference to the same topic – Low-Budget Motivation.

From the article:

4. Keep them in the loop
Your people often depend on you to be the intermediary to the corporate powers that be, and the information that may affect them and their jobs. You need to honor that role by keeping them abreast of whats going on as much as possible. In the midst of bad times, your candor can often mean the difference between an office where everyone is upbeat and hopeful, and a team of employees always on edge about whether they’re still going to have a job tomorrow.

Granted, the focus is on internal information, but the principle is the same. Motivation is a common topic with our customers and one we discuss frequently. Salespeople who are Utilitarians is the backbone of our topics. Yet, information, or should I say a lack of information, supplied to the employee can quickly derail their motivation. Most of us have experienced an office where information was withheld and the uncertainty is created in the employees.

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