I’m not British so waiting is not my specialty. This factoid is from the JustSell.com daily newsletter: According to the National Restaurant Association, the average consumer is willing to wait 23 minutes for a table for dinner. That number rises slightly to 31 minutes if it’s a weekend. If you replace minutes with seconds, you will know my threshold for waiting at a restaurant. My wife, who will wait 45 minutes to get into a good restaurant, has initiated a behavior modification plan to correct this weakness in me.
Continue ReadingBest Cities For Jobs In 2008
I always question how these lists are compiled, but they are interesting nonetheless. Forbes.com recently released their list. A quick preview of the top 5 cities: Salt Lake City, UT Wichita, KS Austin, TX Atlanta, GA Forth Worth, TX My sister and her family lived in Wichita for a couple of years and I took my family down there a couple times to visit. I liked the town and it seemed to be quite busy for a smaller city. I have to confess, I am surprised it is number 2. There is a large aviation sector down there so that may be driving it.
Continue ReadingSelling Is Not Telling
Conventional Wisdom = The best talkers make the best salespeople. If I could rewrite that to make it accurate, I would state it like this: The best questioners make the best salespeople. Yes, I know that is oversimplifying things, but it is an attempt at rewriting conventional wisdom. The key takeaway is that the person asking the questions is in control of the conversation even though they are not doing the majority of the talking. This is a fundamental principle in sales that often gets ignored, overlooked or worse. In that light comes an excellent article from the weekly Salesopedia newsletter: Initially you need to ask questions to uncover whether… Read More
Continue ReadingA Red Flag Job Title
I came across a sales resume this morning that listed this title for the person’s current sales position: Bid Writer Every siren at Select Metrix simultaneously went off on that one. If you are in sales and this is your title, change it on your resume. This title reads of someone who simply responds to Request For Proposals (RFP). Yet, this salesperson describes himself as a “High Performance Salesperson.”
Continue ReadingDressed For Success
I’m no slave to fashion so this CareerJournal article – Aspire to Become a CEO? You Have to Dress the Part – struck me as being quite superficial when it comes to hiring. The thought that attire could eliminate a candidate seems trivial. The deep analysis from the article: “People don’t understand the messages that their clothes send,” says Ms. Waldt, a recruiter with CTPartners. Women sometimes don’t realize how often a tight shirt or a low neckline comes across as seductive. People who meet them are likely to assume the sexual innuendo is intentional. It’s harder for men to goof, but they do — for instance, by being sloppy… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Most Important Tool For Writing Ads
Spell check. Seriously. There are few things worse than misspellings in an employment ad. The image an error creates is difficult to measure, but I am certain it has a sizeable impact. I came across the worst place for a misspelling…the title of the ad: Sales Carreer Opportunity I have squiggly red lines and windows popping open in my blog software trying to correct that word. Yet someone at the hiring company did not catch this obvious error. The reason this error is so egregious is because the title is often the only description of the position that the jobseekers will see. It has to be correct (and intriguing enough… Read More
Continue ReadingWisdom From Sports Illustrated
I read many things across the web including certain columnists from Sports Illustrated. Peter King writes an insider’s view to professional football that I find fascinating. Plus, the guy is a coffee (actually lattes) addict like myself so I always appreciate his weekly coffee tips. This quote from his article last week caught my attention: But I will say one thing about the firing: It’s always dangerous when you start polling players and people in the building about the job the head coach is doing. If you’ve got a conviction about the coach, act on your conviction, and the beliefs of your closest associates, like president Dick Cass and GM… Read More
Continue ReadingA Lack Of Praise
This sounds almost comical, but I have seen it first-hand. BusinessWeek.com’s article – Is Praising Employees Counterproductive? – discusses the topic of praising employees for their good work. The gist of the article: After the meeting, James asked Tom, “What were you going to say at the meeting, and why did you stop?” Tom answered: “I was going to praise Penny on her marketing plan, but I’ve already praised her twice this week. I don’t want to go overboard.” There is a fear—an irrational one, in my experience—among certain managers of praising employees too much. It’s as though they believe that one “attaboy” or “attagirl” too many can spoil a… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Subtle Requirements For Successful Sales Hiring
ManageSmarter.com offers up an interesting article titled Do You Have the Right Talent? First off, I love the fact that they advocating the pursuit of talent – that is the key to a successful sales hire (read: not experience). Second, the author strikes a chord that resonates with us: There is no one-size-fits-all salesperson. The right approach is to look at a salesperson’s abilities and see how well they fit into your sales model. This approach is talent/skill-based, not experience-based. Here is an excellent example of this principle in action (emphasis mine): A client of ours is a partner in a construction company specializing in commercial ventilation systems. They have a… Read More
Continue Reading3 Sales Time Wasters
A good reminder from the JustSell.com newsletter: Top 3 activities that can hobble a sales day… Talking with people who can’t move the sales process along Unnecessary research activities What’s too much? There’s really no definitive answer. It’s particular to your sales world. Many people start to get a gut feel for when they should move on. The key is to act on it and make the call (rather than making sure every little thing is known before the call – fine line, of course). You might be surprised what you can learn by asking a straightforward question of the person who answers the phone or responds to an email.… Read More
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