The Pioneer Press posted this AP story – Playing hooky a popular pastime – Absence from work at 7-year high. I guess there are still companies that offer sick days as opposed to PTO. First, the breakout of sick day excuses: It found that personal illness accounts for only 35 percent of unscheduled absences, with the rest due to family issues (24 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (12 percent) and entitlement mentality (11 percent). I found the “entitlement” reason quite entertaining. I suspect some employees feel they have earned that time and choose to use it their own way. The piece of information I find most interesting is the… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Job-Hopping Path
CareerJournal.com has to be one of the best sources for hiring information on the web. Today is no exception as they release this article – Job-Hop to the Top Of the Corporate Ladder. To cut to the quick of the article: If you want to make it to the top of the corporate ladder, job-hopping may actually be the only way to get there… Yup, this is a common strategy amongst the younger generation. We wrote about it in this article from earlier this year. Our perspective focused on the manager’s viewpoint while the CareerJournal article focuses on the employee’s viewpoint. First, from the CareerJournal article: Identify what you want… Read More
Continue ReadingHow To Retain Employees
Earlier this week we posted on employee turnover via a survey that found 75% of jobseekers believe they will find greater career success elsewhere. As jobs become more plentiful and workers more scarce, employee retention is going to be a top 3 topic for most companies. Steve Rothberg posts on the CollegeRecruiter.com blog a handful of tips to increase your company’s employee retention rate. Please read them – he is spot on. The suggestion that stood out to me in terms of the younger generations: Keep it fresh. Create new ways to ensure your employees continue to learn and grow within their related field and your company.
Continue ReadingTop 10 Tips for Prospecting Success
As you know, we are intrigued by lists and statistics and I came across this article in Sales Vault’s current newsletter. It is a quick read and I recommend that you read all 10 tips. To give you a taste of what you will learn: 5. Schedule your prospecting sessions for 3½ hours. Take a fifteen-minute break between each hour. That is more productive than five prospecting sessions of one hour each. Very interesting thought. If you are like most salespeople, being able to reduce the amount of time you need to spend on prospecting sounds most appealing. 7. Always be in a “Disqualification” mode. Be determined to spend your… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling Power Daily Video – 2
As I stated in my previous post I would keep you updated as to the effectiveness usefulness of Selling Power’s daily video clip. I have been watching them off and on the past couple of weeks and each time I find a usable tidbit in them. For instance, today Gerhard Gschwandtner is interviewing John Roberts – CEO Sugar CRM. As you would expect, the interview is on the effectiveness of CRMs. The one point that I pulled out of today’s clip is on what John Roberts sees as the biggest reason for CRM failure is user adoption. His clear point – quality of CRM training drives user adoption up. A… Read More
Continue ReadingBest Buy’s Results-Only Work Environment
There has been a lot written on Best Buy’s Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) in articles and in the blogs. Everyone seems to have an opinion about this type of work environment and if it could work outside of Best Buy. One article specifically addresses the point of the adaptability of Best Buy’s culture in other companies. I found a couple of points of interest that I would like to share with you. “Best Buy’s culture is very young,” says Washington, D.C.-based flexibility consultant Paul Rupert of Rupert & Co., who has worked with clients ranging from Wal-Mart to Xerox. “They have a lot of significant managers who are still in… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Managers – Manage and Lead
Selling Power has a short, but valuable article titled The Two Things You Must Do Well to Succeed as a Sales Manager. I’ll cut right to the chase: 1. Manage the Sales Process 2. Leading the Salespeople That is it. Sounds simple but rarely do we see it in action. Instead, we normally see some variation of this: …managers are compensated primarily on their salespeople’s sales revenue, which leads many managers to jump in and act as “super closers,” taking over the relationships in the most critical accounts – and in the process, often undermining the motivation of their sales reps. Super closers – I like that. Most sales managers… Read More
Continue ReadingFaith in the Workplace
CareerJournal offers another well written article covering a topic of interest to us – Managing by the (Good) Book Some Mix Business with Faith. As Christians, we have been in many discussions about faith in the workplace. We are strong supporters of it and do not believe that there needs to be this distinct difference between work life and spiritual life. In fact, it is impossible to separate faith from any aspect of life. I was not aware of this group: And C12 Group — a network of executives, like Mr. Dillon, who meet monthly to discuss management trends and the tricky intersections of religion and commerce — has grown… Read More
Continue ReadingGet the Stress Out
From CareerJournal – The Top 14 Reasons We’re Stressed Out Here are the complete results to the survey’s question, “Have you experienced the following in the past month?” Respondents could point to any of the following 14 options. Rising prices, 74% Too many things to do, 56% Trouble sleeping, 53% Concerns about money for emergencies, 53% Concerns about health in general, 43% Illness of a family member, 36% Not enough money for basic necessities, 36% Too much information to process at one time, 33% Being lonely, 29% Problems with your work, boss or fellow workers, 24% Problems with aging parents, 21% Frequent or excessive noise, 20% Problems with my children,… Read More
Continue ReadingSelling Power Daily Video
I received an email over the weekend from Selling Power inviting me to watch a new series they are launching. It is a daily video clip roughly 5 minutes in length with Gerhard Gschwandtner. Here are the selling points they used to hook me: You are invited to watch my new Selling Power Daily Report, a series of online videos. – Watch for less than five minutes a day – Enjoy insightful interviews with top thought leaders – Get bright ideas to implement every day – Learn new business solutions every day of the week – The reports are FREE for the month of October 2006 I went to check… Read More
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