{"id":1738,"date":"2008-09-23T15:25:32","date_gmt":"2008-09-23T20:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/09\/initiative-in-front-of-you\/"},"modified":"2008-09-23T15:17:56","modified_gmt":"2008-09-23T20:17:56","slug":"initiative-in-front-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/09\/initiative-in-front-of-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Initiative In Front Of You"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a long set-up, but you&#8217;ll get the point.\u00a0 I just read an interesting Q&amp;A article on BusinessWeek.com titled <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/managing\/content\/sep2008\/ca2008099_694079.htm\">Being Pushy&#8230;or Taking the Initiative?<\/a>\u00a0 Here is the question posed by an office manager who is hiring for a sales position:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;m the office manager in a branch of an international PR firm with more than 50 offices in the U.S. I run the administrative processes, work as the liaison with our U.S. headquarters, and serve as the HR chief for this branch. Last week I interviewed a candidate for an account manager position. This man had applied for the job through an online job ad. I do the first-screen interviews, and so I met with him to talk about the role and his qualifications. We had a fruitful cha (<em>sic<\/em>), and I was pleased enough with our meeting to say to the candidate in closing: &#8220;It&#8217;s been wonderful to meet you, and I&#8217;ll be speaking with Amanda Jones, our general manager, about our conversation and taking the next steps.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As far as I could see, I was doing the candidate a favor by letting him know that I was taking his candidacy to the next level. I guess I shouldn&#8217;t have mentioned Amanda&#8217;s name, because this morning I received a thank-you e-mail from the candidate, and saw that he had cc:d Amanda on the note. That feels really pushy to me. Because I mentioned Amanda&#8217;s name, the candidate figured out Amanda&#8217;s e-mail address and wrote to her directly. I&#8217;m tempted to cross his name off the list of finalist candidates. Any thoughts?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I am always perplexed by this belief that a salesperson should not be effective at selling.\u00a0 If I were in her shoes, I would move this candidate to the top of this list.\u00a0 he showed moxie in attempting to move this &#8220;deal&#8221; to the next stage.<\/p>\n<p>We see this in interviews also.\u00a0 A hiring manager will state that they didn&#8217;t think the candidate talked much, but we sat and observed the candidate asking the right questions to qualify the position.\u00a0 I know it is difficult, but when hiring salespeople, you have to step back from the process and review the candidate&#8217;s actions and words.\u00a0 Look at them in entirety.\u00a0 This approach will show you the candidates with initiative&#8230;initiative that may be sitting there right in front of your eyes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a long set-up, but you&#8217;ll get the point.\u00a0 I just read an interesting Q&amp;A article on BusinessWeek.com titled Being Pushy&#8230;or Taking the Initiative?\u00a0 Here is the question posed by an office manager who is hiring for a sales position: I&#8217;m the office manager in a branch of an international PR firm with more than 50 offices in the U.S. I run the administrative processes, work as the liaison with our U.S. headquarters, and serve as the HR chief for this branch. Last week I interviewed a candidate for an account manager position. This man had applied for the job through an online job ad. I do the first-screen&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/09\/initiative-in-front-of-you\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[16,10],"tags":[1762,1016,1015,38],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring-salespeople","category-interview","tag-hiring-salespeople","tag-how-to-hire-sales","tag-hring-sales","tag-sales-hiring"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-s2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1759,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/10\/tips-for-interviewing-sales-candidates\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":0},"title":"Tips For Interviewing Sales Candidates","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"October 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Too many times the process of hiring a sales person rarely takes priority in a sales manager's duties\u00a0- they have enough to do already.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the hiring tasks get pushed to the margins of their day.\u00a0 Any sales manager knows how important it is to hire strong sales people, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2230,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/01\/interview-myths\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":1},"title":"Interview Myths","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This article from Yahoo\u2019s Hot Jobs contains 5 hiring myths designed to help candidates perform better in an interview.\u00a0 Myth #1 is excellent for the hiring manager: Myth #1: Be prepared with a list of questions to ask at the close of the interview. There is some truth in this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2518,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2012\/08\/5-tips-for-hiring-a-sales-manager\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":2},"title":"5 Tips For Hiring A Sales Manager","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"This Selling Power article is a quick, solid read.\u00a0 The 5 tips are all on point with this one being my favorite: 2) Metrics without context. Your candidate noted that his or her team closed $2 million in sales last year. That's great. But what was the quota? What were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1545,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/3-sales-hiring-inhibitors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":3},"title":"3 Sales Hiring Inhibitors","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Even bad salespeople can appear to be strong in a face-to-face interview situation.\u00a0 This reason is why sales recruiting is truly different than any other form of recruiting.\u00a0 Reviewing resumes and assuming abilities is is a fool's errand.\u00a0 Yet, there are certain aspects of general recruiting that can that hinder\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1654,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/quality-of-questions\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":4},"title":"Quality Of Questions","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a sales candidate ask an excellent, subtle question yesterday - \"What other positions is this company currently hiring?\"\u00a0 Again, the subtlety of this question provides a view into a company's needs, growth and possible turnover.\u00a0 It is an excellent question to ask in any interview. The second part\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1634,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/subtle-hiring-tells\/","url_meta":{"origin":1738,"position":5},"title":"Subtle Hiring Tells","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 26, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm thinking of the poker colloquialism \"tell.\"\u00a0 From Wikipedia: A tell in poker is a detectable change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues to that player's assessment of his hand. A player gains an advantage if he observes and understands the meaning of another player's tell, particularly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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