“Let me think it over.” “I’ll get back to you.” “We’ll take a look at it.” If you have been in sales more than a day, you are familiar with these sayings. They are the prospect’s attempts to “stall” a buying decision. These comments are trouble for any salesperson who does not get these fuzzy phrases qualified. And yet often the salesperson accepts these stalls and presumes a close date for the deal. This approach is almost always the explanation for a prospect making it through the sales funnel but never closing. These are the deals that hurt because they have been forecasted with a high probability to close. And… Read More
Continue ReadingPlanning For Turnover
Salespeople will leave your company – it is an undeniable truth. Selling Power offers this short article – Recruitment Planning 101 – that covers the basic points that all sales managers should be aware of. A couple of strong points: Keep your pipeline full of qualified candidates. Determine the skill sets for each sales position and keep your search open for candidates with these special qualifications. However, remember that top candidates aren’t usually available for long and you need to be upfront with them about what you’re doing. “Let them know that you are building a candidate pipeline composed of individuals that your company may have an interest in hiring… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Persuading Others
Sales is the art of convincing other people to change their behavior. Obviously, this ability relies upon the following sales trait. Persuading Others This is the capacity to convince others – to present one’s viewpoint in such a way that it is accepted by others. A salesperson with strength in this capacity can see and talk from another’s point of view. A person who has the ability to understand other’s objections and concerns and then respond to them effectively. A weakness in this area indicates a salesperson who is insensitive to others – not knowing what they want to hear. A weakness can also be due to having excessive role… Read More
Continue ReadingTop 30 Job Boards
Weddles.com has published their annual user choice awards. Here are their top 30 online job boards. Unfortunately their newsletter does not have a link but does have some interesting points worth noting: Nine of the sites are making their first appearance. Two-thirds are niche or specialty sites providing recruiting support in a specific career, field, industry, location or group. One-third are general purpose sites.
Continue ReadingThe Unsaid Often Says It All
Many thanks to Eric for his compelling comment to this post from a couple days ago. I thought this was too good to leave in the comments. It may come as a surprise to know that there are ways to assess the potential value of ‘professional actors’ when they show up in your selection process net. Two of my early careers were production stage manager and theatrical stage director – and key to the success of our productions were selecting the best actors for the roles and the show. If you can imagine – many actors are a lot better at auditioning than actually performing. Anyone familiar with the process… Read More
Continue ReadingSalespeople Are Professional Actors
Inc.com offers this article – When Is It Safe To Hire? The focus of the article is a software manufacturer’s assistance to their rep companies in hiring salespeople. Basically, the manufacturer will provide $10,000 to the rep company to assist them in hiring salespeople. The money can be used for assessing, training, supplementing salary, etc. Apparently this approach is relatively common in the software industry. The article discusses the pitfalls of hiring salespeople in the context of small business owners ($1-2 million revenue). This ground is well travelled by us. I am convinced that in companies this size, sales hires are a make-or-break proposition. And when I say “break” I… Read More
Continue ReadingWhat If All Your Senior Execs Left?
What If All Your Senior Execs Left? from BusinessWeek addresses a topic we have been shouting from the mountaintop. First, a great point that I haven’t considered: Organizations today are running with lean, highly productive staffs. While such streamlining is great for budgets, the fact that workplace productivity levels have continued their upward trajectory has created a dearth of available talent.Losing multiple key executives within a short time can tear a hole in the business plan and hurt both a company’s bottom line and stock price. Companies are highly streamlined today which makes every position important to overall corporate success. Technology continues to drive productivity increases, but I believe the… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Informed Sales Candidate
Our friends over at Hidden Business Treasures have paid us a nice compliment by posting about The Hire Sense last week. They allowed us to be a guest writer on their blog and we offered up this post – Searching for the Sale. The topic of our post is the importance of finding sales candidates who possess the web-searching skills needed to prospect today. We provide 3 techniques for determining a candidate’s information literacy. If you are interested, please follow the link and leave a comment for them if you are so inclined. While there, take a look at their consistently thoughtful posts.
Continue ReadingMedian Hiring Time Shortens Slightly
3.7 months. According to this CNNMoney.com article, that was the median time it took to hire in the fourth quarter. As long as that may seem, it trended down from third quarter which is a good sign. U.S. workers needed less time to land a new job in the fourth quarter of 2006 than they did in the prior quarter, according to a survey released Thursday.After hitting the highest level in more than three years in the third quarter, the median job search time fell 12 percent in the fourth quarter to 3.7 months, according to the survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. While fourth-quarter job search times improved, they… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series – Using Common Sense
Today we tackle a tough trait that is in short supply according to Mark Twain. The Using Common Sense trait provides for us some insight into a salesperson’s ability to think on their feet. This trait is most important for effectively dealing with a prospect’s objections. Using Common Sense This capacity is determined by the persons focus on practical thinking, their ability to see the world clearly and their general intelligence. A salesperson with strength in this capacity will have use of everyday, informal knowledge that has not been formally evaluated and placed in the decision-making process. The utilization of common sense in the decision-making process appears to be more… Read More
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