I am going to chime in here a bit on the Velvet Hammer’s post from below regarding the 1 week window for making offers to candidates. Last week, Selling Power had an excellent article in their newsletter that contained some great tips. Dan Miller, vice president of Talent Acquisition and Retention at Monster.com made this smart suggestion (my emphasis): “Don’t just talk about the base salary; talk about the ability the candidates will have to achieve the upside,” says Miller. “Candidates may take a lower offer on the base salary if they feel that they have the tools and opportunities to exceed quota. If you’re trying to build a world-class… Read More
Continue ReadingThe 1 Week Window
There is a subtle psychology to working with sales candidates in a hiring process when you get to the offer stage. The ideal time frame for an offer is approximately one week after the final interview. This 1 week window provides enough time for both sides to contemplate the position and the salesperson’s fit to it. Now understand, I’m talking about a hiring process where a phone screen, assessment and multiple interviews have occurred. This candidate has been fully vetted and found to be a strong fit to the position’s requirements. Unfortunately, we have seen a couple of clients work past this ideal window into an extended time period after… Read More
Continue ReadingDo Your Salespeople Talk The Talk?
I was talking to references for one of our clients last night and the reference kept telling me the candidate was excellent at solution selling. To sum up what he was telling me – the candidate is excellent at speaking the customer’s language instead of using company jargon or convoluted questions. The candidate ran a selling process to find out what business problems the company was facing and then articulated his company’s value proposition in regards to resolving their issue. Interestingly enough, I then caught up to an article in my RSS reader titled 5 Quick Tips for Creating Conversations Salespeople Will Use from ManageSmarter.com. The tips can help your… Read More
Continue ReadingRetention In A Downsizing Industry
We don’t do much work in the pharmaceutical market but I do have a couple of friends who sell for the big players. SellingPower.com’s article Have You Heard Who€™s Hiring? discusses a downsizing trend in sales hiring that is occurring in that specific market. €œThe days of armies of sales reps in the field driving revenues are over,€ Davenport says in a recent Business Wire story. €œIt will no longer be about numbers and volume €“ now the focus will shift to productivity and performance of the remaining sales staff.€ This comment is spot on even though it seems counter-intuitive. My sales friends in this industry have mentioned that their… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Sales Metric
We’ll keep our baseball theme going today by referencing a well-crafted post from Dave Kurlan – Baseball and Sales Management by the Numbers. He develops a good analogy between how a manager’s style affects his starting pitchers’ stats (ERA) and how different situational factors affect a salesperson’s revenue totals. Towards the end, you get the fastball right down the middle of the plate (my emphasis): Turning to sales, there are a number of statistics that are equally difficult to equate with performance, the most obvious being revenue. Many salespeople, considered top producers by their companies, top the charts for revenue but don’t perform in such a manner as to justify… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Sales Mindset
Yogi Berra once said, “Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.” Sales slumps are a fact of sales management life. I personally think most sales slumps occur because salespeople get complacent and out of the good behaviors that lead to closed deals. As a sales manager, it is important to stay engaged with your salespeople and hold them accountable for the activities that keep the pipeline fresh, not stagnant. If a slump does befall one of your salespeople, ManageSmarter.com offers a worthwhile article on this topic – How to Get Out of a Selling Rut and Regain Your Selling Spark. The second point in the article is… Read More
Continue ReadingAccelerate The On-Ramping Time Frame
SellingPower.com has released their monthly sales management newsletter which is usually filled with insightful articles. How Long Are Ya€™ Gonna€™ Be New Here? is a client study on one company’s efforts to shorten their sales ramp time. One of the universal problems all sales managers face is getting new hires up to speed quickly. It€™s simple math: the longer it takes for a rep to learn the €œins and outs€ of your company, your product, and your sales process, the longer it will take him to stop dragging down the average performance of your sales team and start producing meaningful results. Another universal problem is sales managers hiring salespeople with… Read More
Continue ReadingFocus On A Salesperson’s Strengths
Great article from SellingPower.com titled Don’t Fix Weaknesses; Build Strengths that discusses salesperson development. The core tenet of this article is to focus on building strengths and not in transforming weaknesses into strengths (it won’t happen). The entire article is worth the read, but this is the pull quote for me (my emphasis): In fact, while talent will get you to a certain point, developing and strengthening that talent is what brings the greatest success. Consider this experiment, conducted by the University of Nebraska some years back. To study the effectiveness of its speed-reading courses, the school evaluated students€™ natural reading pace and placed them in one of two groups… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Path To Sales Improvement
When you boil it down to the basics, sales departments are measured by profit increases. Simple, yes, but that is the crux of the goal. Operational efficiencies are part of the equation, but the focus here is on increasing profits via increased revenue. So how do companies go about achieving improvement in their sales-driven profits? Profile Your Sale Too often sales gets muddled by general tactics, inconsistent value propositions and rogue selling systems. Understanding your ideal sale is the first step to repeatable results. The output is a definition of what your ideal sale looks like from this day forward. This clarity provides direction and consistency to all sales efforts.… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Is More Than 5 Things
Top five traits you gotta have to sell! The top five traits of a successful salesperson! Discover the 5 key behaviors of sales superstars! You have probably seen these amazing statements across the web. Isn’t it interesting how “5” seems to be the magic number for sales traits, behaviors or attitudes? I say that is hogwash. There are two main reasons why hiring strong salespeople is more than just these marketing-laden headlines. The Ideal Sale.Processes that focus on the salesperson without understanding the sale are flawed. The issue is simple – how company A goes to market (value proposition, market share, key competencies, etc.) is not the same as company… Read More
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