From ManageSmarter.com: • Blended jobs. These are jobs where the salesperson is doing two or more dissimilar selling tasks. Sales specialization improves performance. • Corrupted jobs. Decontaminate jobs that are degraded with non-selling tasks such as “fetch and get” after-the-sale customer service duties. • Account ownership confusion. While necessary, the effective use of global account managers, national account managers and overlay specialists requires explicit account ownership protocols. The ownership confusion bullet catches my eye in that we have a customer that is working through this problem. They have a major account manager who has a tendency to swoop into territories covered by local sales reps. The major account manager often… Read More
Continue ReadingInformation Is Money
One thing that consistently stands out in sales is the ability to gather information. I’m not talking about personal information like family, home, education and the rest. That information is important for building rapport, but many salespeople (i.e. schmoozers) never move past that level. The national sales team with whom we work has a strong sales manager who is constantly beating this drum. He implores his team to go beyond the excitement of a potential deal and start asking the straight questions about competition and pain. The sales manager’s approach is excellent in that they sell in a competitive market where customer loyalty is almost lacking. The service is viewed… Read More
Continue ReadingCashing In On Skills
From the Career News newsletter (sorry, no link-my emphasis): And a growing number of employees have concluded that the best way to move up is to move around. According to international-employment-matchmaker Randstad’s latest World of Work Survey, more than half of today’s employed are searching the Internet for a better situation; yet most profess to be happy in their current jobs, despite a 41-to-60-hour work week. A just-released study by the Conference Board confirms that almost three-quarters of job-seekers are pounding virtual pavement. They’re scanning Internet job boards like Monster.com or CareerBuilder.com and networking with friends, acquaintances and friends of acquaintances on sites like Facebook and its business-networking predecessor LinkedIn.… Read More
Continue ReadingStuck In The Middle With You
When recruiting sales talent, we often get caught in the middle on one important topic. Timing. Sourcing a strong candidate who is looking to move at the right moment is a complex undertaking. Few salespeople will cash in their current job for blue-sky possibilities which is how most opportunities appear at the outset. As we approach Thanksgiving here in the States, the timing window shrinks. With Q4 one third of the way complete, most salespeople have a good idea of how their quarter is going to finish up in terms of revenue and, more importantly, commission. On top of that, they probably have family time, holiday travel and time off… Read More
Continue ReadingJudge Them By Their Performance
Here’s a mindbender for you – we have a customer who has a relatively new salesperson and a new sales manager. The salesperson has sold more than the 5 other new salespeople hired within a few months of him (mostly before him). The sales manager has not met the salesperson in person yet, but has voiced some concern about him. The concern – this salesperson does not have industry experience (we sourced him from a completely different industry that has a similar sale). The industry they sell in is, well, to be blunt, rather not complex. Again, this salesperson is off to the best start of the group, but the… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Expectations Set By The Offer
We’ve run into some “unique” problems in handling offers with sales candidate. Strong salespeople all share one significant ability – qualifying. This ability, when used in the negotiation process, leads to a desire for real clarity when it comes to an offer. We lost a strong candidate last week due to a lack of informational clarity within our customer’s offer. There are many variables to this specific situation, but one thing that came out was that the offer was too vague. The critical piece of information that was poorly defined was the expectations for the position. No quota, no targets and no defined levels. This is a new sales position within an… Read More
Continue ReadingCounterpunching The Recruiting Firm
Great quote that is. Selling Power provided it in their article Re-Recruiting and Retention. The gist of the article deals with keeping your top performers when they have been recruited from your company. The article lists some suggested goals you can gather by conducting exit interviews: – Eliminate the barriers to retention that were mentioned in surveys of ex-employees.– Identify essential, “can’t operate without” employees and thank each one of them (often).– Upgrade personal performance contracts, paying special attention to the problem areas identified.– Provide extra compensation and rewards. (Pacetta suggests establishing a recruiting and retaining fund for this purpose.)– Ask each of your essential employees to come to you… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Traits Series-Monitoring Others
This week’s sales management trait sports a word that I don’t particularly enjoy – “monitoring.” That isn’t a great description of this trait since it is far broader than that term. Nonetheless, in today’s world of remote salespeople, this trait will be in even greater demand in the near future. Monitoring Others This ability focuses on the actions and decisions of others in a practical, pragmatic way to identify both successes and mistakes. It is the ability to identify the causes of success and failure and to do so in an objective, accurate manner while not allowing personal feelings or biases to influence such decisions. A sales manager with strength… Read More
Continue ReadingProduct vs. Service Sales Compensation
We have been running into this topic of late with offers in different industries and it is a real stumbling block for some companies. I have worked as a salesperson for both product sales and service sales with different commission plans. The crux of the issue falls on margin. We typically recommend commission plans based on margins instead of revenue. Businesses grow by making money. Yes, a simple statement, but one that can be undercut by a discount-oriented salesperson. If you provide a percentage of revenue to a salesperson as their commission plan, they are not incented to maintain the price. It is far more expedient for the salesperson to… Read More
Continue Reading6 Reasons Why Top Performers Leave
Tight employment markets require a successful hiring processes and strong retention programs. Companies have to play good defense when it comes to the rainmakers within their sales department. CareerJournal.com ‘s Six Reasons Top Performers Seek Out Greener Pastures lays out a handful of clear pitfalls to avoid in this present market. First off, number 1 is rudimentary…and, in our experience, the most abused of the list: They receive few rewards for good behavior. If high performers receive no extra kudos or compensation for their extraordinary performance, they’ll begin to wonder whether it’s worth putting in the extra effort. It’s important to acknowledge those who work to promote the success of the… Read More
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