3 Tips To Hire Salespeople

Derrick Moe

From the Harvard Business Review Tip of the Day email: Most companies spend more on hiring in sales than they do in any other part of the organization. With an average annual turnover rate of 25 to 30%, and direct replacement costs ranging from $75,000 to $300,000, there’s a big opportunity for improvement. Here are a few places to start (emphasis mine): Focus on behaviors. A primary cause of turnover is poor job fit. Consider ramping up assessment tools, simulations, and interviewing techniques to help identify the right people. Or, try temporary positions to assess people on the job before offering a full-time position. Be clear about the relevant “experience”… Read More

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25 Fastest-Growing Job Titles for 2016

Derrick Moe

From Monster.com, I doubt you would guess what is number 1…Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers.  Seriously, there are 13% more of them now than 1 year ago.  Number 2 you might actually get – Registered Nurses which makes sense with the aging Baby Boomer generation. Sales Managers made the list, but you will have to follow the link to find out at what spot they landed.

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It’s All About Their Career Path

Derrick Moe

LinkedIn recently surveyed over 10,000 people who changed jobs in 2015 to find out why they made a change.  Some interesting findings: #1 reason they left – Lack of advancement opportunities (45%) #1 reason they choose their new employer – Career path & opportunity (59%) I’m convinced that there are always a myriad of reasons behind a job change, but the primary reason is simply the most interesting.  I’ve been beating this drum for some time, but it warrants repeating – you must provide a general career path to all new hires today.  Many times in sales the thought process is to simply hire a strong salesperson and let them… Read More

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Job Interview Mistakes That Will Make You Cringe

Derrick Moe

If you have done some level of interviewing, you have certainly come across some interesting characters.  Monster.com highlights a few: Wearing a tuxedo to an interview. I told him to dress nice and professional for his interview, but he definitely went overboard and crossed the line of dressing business professional. Needless to say, the hiring manager also thought it was a crazy move and the candidate did not get the job. I caught a candidate lying in his resume. He had made up so much of his previous experience that he then forgot a company name where he said he had worked. The candidate actually asked me to look at… Read More

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Don’t Ask This Interview Question

Derrick Moe

I haven’t heard of this one but it is intriguing: To boost the chances of preventing that hiring misstep, there’s one easy tactic everyone should take in an interview: Stop asking candidates to evaluate their own abilities. Here’s why. Underskilled candidates consistently overrate their abilities, and more skilled candidates consistently underrate their abilities. There’s even a name for this: the Dunning-Kruger effect, a psychological research finding that the poorest performers are the least aware of their own incompetence. So I’m immediately left questioning why?  Are highly-skilled salespeople awash in humility?  I don’t think so and neither does the author. Top performers set higher standards for their own performance, so they… Read More

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The Most Important Trait In An Interview

Derrick Moe

Trustworthiness.  It is true.  I have sat through many interviews where I simply did not trust, or believe, what the candidate was telling me.  The Harvard Business Review tip of the day quickly dissects this point. The most important thing to get across in an interview is not that you are smart and motivated – it’s that you are trustworthy. Trustworthiness is the fundamental trait that people automatically look for in others. To be seen as trustworthy, you need to demonstrate warmth and competence. Warmth signals that you have good intentions, and competence signals that you can act on those good intentions. If you follow the usual interview advice and… Read More

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More Bad Ad Writing

Derrick Moe

Just saw this title to a sales position ad (emphasis mine): Regional Sales Manager Job “Job”…seriously?  Don’t do this in your ads.  Salespeople, especially young salespeople, are looking for opportunities, careers, even a path.  If you promote the position as a job, you will instantly limit the perspective, or upside, of the position.

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Do Great Salespeople Make Great Managers?

Derrick Moe

That is an age-old question, isn’t it?  You can insert your favorite sports example here which typically involves a superstar/Hall of Fame-caliber athlete who fails as a coach because the game came too easy to him.  But does this analogy work in the sales arena also? This Sales & Marketing Management article approaches the topic with aplomb. The pull quote (emphasis mine): Sometimes great salespeople aren’t as good at coaching and managing other people – they’re excellent at being individual contributors, they’re great at building relationships with customers and working deals from start to finish, but they lack the patience or coaching ability or intangible interpersonal savvy to be responsible… Read More

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Don’t Write Ads Like This

Derrick Moe

I’m browsing through job postings in a specific sales category and I read this sentence in a fairly high-level position: The tols are here for you to make a diference in our busines and your carer. The modern day tools available to writers for proofing your text are abundant.  The entire ad has a similar “minimalist” use of double letters.  It is rather odd, isn’t it?

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2 Habits That Undermine Salespeople

Derrick Moe

Supposition – something that is supposed; assumption; hypothesis Think of supposition, in sales parlance, as being synonymous with stereotyping.  This is a dangerous approach to sale in that once you start making assumptions, you start derailing your qualifying skills.  In most prospect situations, once you stop truly qualifying you are headed towards prospects that are welded on your forecast 90 days out.  Eternally. Proposition – the act of offering or suggesting something to be considered, accepted, adopted, or done I suspect you are thinking of value proposition which makes sense.  I read an interesting post that turned that term upside down.  The author suggested selling to the customer’s value expectations… Read More

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