Selling has always been about relationships, but it is becoming more significant in today’s world. According to a recent study referenced in this Selling Power.com article – The Relationship Imperative – product superiority is not as big a driver in customers’ decision-making process. “Product superiority used to be a big advantage for companies,” says Jim Dickie, partner at CSO Insights. “But collapsing product lifecycles is changing that. If a competitor doesn’t have a feature or function today, they can catch up a lot faster than they could in the past.” The result: product superiority has dropped down to the number three reason companies win deals with just 35 percent of… Read More
Continue ReadingFastest Dying Industries
Clearly newspapers are the poster child for this topic. ABCnews.com approaches this topic with research that forecasts industry changes over the next 5 years. Some of their predictions and suggestions: Another way to avoid disaster? Diversify. In response to decades of declining circulation and shaky print advertising numbers, newspaper publishers are expanding their holdings in non-traditional ways. The two largest, Gannett and Tribune, own a stake Careerbuilder.com, the online job search Web site. In 2005, The New York Times Co. bought About.com, a general information site. Will it work? The jury is out. Worth noting, though–the industry’s most successful transition is also its most radical. The Washington Post Co. secured… Read More
Continue ReadingNow Is The Time
We have been sourcing for a handful of sales positions around the country this past weekend and we are starting to see some potential movement of strong candidates. What I mean is that there is some contraction about to start among large sales forces. Some strong salespeople will be pushed out in the contraction which makes for an excellent time to expand or upgrade your sales team. Revenue-generating positions are always a priority no matter what the economy does. A slowdown generally pushes companies towards cost-saving maneuvers which is good for sales hiring – some good salespeople are going to be squeezed out. One example is a candidate we recently… Read More
Continue ReadingComeback Careerists
That title is for John Sumser – one more colloquialism for the recruiting world. The Wall Street Journal offers up this article to discuss mothers re-entering the workforce after taking extended time off (years) to raise their family. I have a soft spot in my heart for this topic since my wife recently reentered the workforce after taking 8 years off. It took her some time, but she landed an ideal position at a medical clinic. That isn’t always the case: Though 74% do find work, only 40% say they are gainfully employed in full-time, mainstream jobs. “There is still a tremendous amount of stigma and suspension when employers see… Read More
Continue ReadingQ2 Hiring To Remain Consistent
That title probably got your attention. The economy is completely dynamic so things can change, but the quarterly CareerBuilder.com/Harris Interactive survey came back with some surprising results (my editing). “The job loss reported in the first quarter signified a gradual deceleration in recruitment in the U.S. as the nation’s economy downshifted,” says CEO, Matt Ferguson. “In the next three months, employers anticipate marginal change in their hiring pace. While some industries are experiencing a contraction in employment levels, areas such as information technology, healthcare, professional and business services and sales continue to add full-time jobs.” …29% of employers state plans to grow their number of full-time, permanent employees from April… Read More
Continue ReadingGen Y Retention Strategies That Work
Yesterday I posted on this “determine your own vacation time” approach to management. It is totally foreign to me. Today I come across another company with the same approach. This HRE Online article – In Their Own Words – contains comments provided by Gen Y workers on a recent survey. First the vacation comment (my empahsis): CarMax “Time away from work policy instead of vacation and sick days. There is not a set amount of time you can take, you just work it out with your manager. The office’s atmosphere is very bright and open. Management is very accessible and will answer any questions that you have. They encourage management… Read More
Continue ReadingFuturistic Jobs
I have a weakness for future predictions of jobs, markets, trends, etc. This particular one is from the Job Market Weekly email (sorry, no link). Technology will create new jobs as well. Out-of-work “top gun” pilots may find jobs captaining dirigibles, says Joel Barker, author of Five Regions of the Future. A relic from the 1920s and 1930s, these rigid blimps will revolutionize travel in the developing world, he adds. Hollywood’s woes may be solved by holography. Since consumers are perfectly happy watching DVDs at home on big flat-screen televisions, box-office receipts have slipped and movie moguls are scrambling. But eventually, Barker says, film companies will start producing three-dimensional holographic… Read More
Continue ReadingBright Spots In A Bleak Economy
The economy is slow, but this is a different economy than we have encountered before now. I suppose this is always true since the economy is completely dynamic so no two points in time are ever the same. Nonetheless, abcnews.com offers us this story – Job Winners and Losers in Hard Times – which has an excellent bit of information regarding this economy: In an environment of a sluggish economy and rising unemployment, analysts said there will be some safe harbors where job demand will keep growing. First and foremost in this group will be health care, where the demographics of an aging population mean the demands for medical care… Read More
Continue ReadingReturn To Thoughtful Communication
Here is an interesting article from Selling Power regarding predicting trends of the future. Specifically, this one caught my eye: We’ll return to real, thoughtful communications. In this era of text messaging, blogging, and email, we’ve become lazy in our communications. We tend to dash off notes without proofreading them. We tend to use generic catch phrases like “seamless solution” and “superior service” that sound good but don’t really mean anything. Why do we do it? Because it’s easier and quicker than taking the time to think, write, edit, and edit again until our message is clear, compelling, and precise. There’s going to be a backlash against today’s generic, rushed… Read More
Continue ReadingOnline Job Ads Decrease
No question the economy is slowing down so this article from Forbes.com is not surprising: The Conference Board found there was a total of 3,733,200 online-advertised job vacancies, a 0.6% decline from March 2007 and the first year-on-year fall in total numbers since the index began in 2005. The Board said the decline reflects a slowing in annual growth in 42 states, with 14 states showing negative growth. Yes, I know, the index is only a few years old, but there is enough data to show the present-day trend. Here is some anecdotal information from the survey: The online-ad volume in California dropped 118,000, or 19%, below its March 2007… Read More
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