There was a good article in SalesForceXP’s recent newsletter (sorry no link) that quotes 2 recent surveys conducted by Miller Heiman and the Hay Group specifically looking at turnover amongst salespeople. The research concluded that not only is finding good salespeople tough (knew that), but keeping them is equally as difficult. Nearly one-fourth of the 2,176 sales executives who participated in Miller Heiman’s 2006 Sales Performance Study reported that turnover had increased during the previous year. That mirrors similar findings from the Hay Group, a Philadelphia-based management consulting company, which surveyed about 1 million employees at 330 companies in 50 countries. The least committed to a company are its salespeople,… Read More
Continue ReadingGetting Rid of the Dead Weight
We see many sales teams that have a handful of under performing salespeople on the team. Often, the sales manager rationalizes something to the effect of a warm body is better than no body. I don’t subscribe to that thinking and neither does Jack Welch as you can see in this CareerBuilder article – Terminate 10% of Your Employees Each Year. I haven’t worked in a company as large as GE, but I think this approach works well in that environment. Obviously, GE has been on a tremendous tear for quite some time. Under performing salespeople drag a team down. I think many sales managers are reluctant to train in… Read More
Continue ReadingAllowing “Pockets of Chaos”
The abcnews.com Working Wounded Blog is always reliable for a different take on things. The post from last night, Chaos 1, Order 0, weaves together airplane boarding procedures, elementary school and 3M in one short post. Impressive. Bob Rosner’s point – sometimes a little bit of chaos can increase productivity and creativity. In regards to Northwest Airlines scrapping its “by row” boarding procedure and opening it up: This announcement reminds us that sometimes a little chaos can get us all where we need to go faster. Significantly faster. He then provides this statement: Ironically, I’m going to accuse you the corporate people reading this blog of doing the very same… Read More
Continue ReadingFrequency of Rewards/Incentives
I’m not a fan of gambling, but this CareerJournal article contains an interesting point: Many newer programs incorporate elements of behavioral psychology, offering more targeted incentives for increasing sales or productivity, for example. They tend to offer smaller rewards more frequently so that employees make a mental link between their behavior and the reward. Ravin Jesuthasan, managing principal at consulting firm Towers Perrin, says employers are shifting to instant-recognition programs, instead of quarterly or yearly incentives. The article is clearly based on more of a B2C selling model (banks are prominently mentioned), but as a psych major, I appreciate their Pavlovian approach to reinforcement. Reminds me of rat lab –… Read More
Continue ReadingHandling Leads
Since our topic du jour seems to be lead generation, here is a very quick read from Sales&Marketing Magazine about how to handle leads once you receive them. Nothing revolutionary in the approach, but the author’s point is accurate – salespeople prefer to work only hot leads and ignore the warm to cool ones. The best sales management approach we have seen is to categorize the leads. That can be A, B or C or some other manner. The frequency of contact and focus of time needs to be defined for each level of lead. The A leads are obviously the priority, B is second and C is last. Simple,… Read More
Continue ReadingCommunicating with Style
From Tough Talks on monster.com: Generally, we recognize that open, constructive communication is crucial to business success. But many dodge these chats at all costs. Others charge right in loaded and ready. Others try to dance around the topic and not hurt feelings. None of these strategies is likely to accomplish your goal, so you end up where you started. Let’s parse this paragraph out and look at the Selling Style for each line: But many dodge these chats at all costs. (High S) Others charge right in loaded and ready. (High D) Others try to dance around the topic and not hurt feelings. (High I) The only thing they… Read More
Continue ReadingLost Sales Analysis
We posted on this topic in our old blog (predates The Hire Sense) and it is worth bumping up to this version. Paul DiModica writes in BDM News about one of the best sales tools around, the Lost Sales Analysis. I will warn you that this article is quite theoretical but I found it captivating. The lost sales analysis is more effective than percent of quota attainment as a measurement tool, because it measures not just the sales success of an account manager against some predetermined sales quota, but it also measures their success against competitors based on lost sales. The example he provides is excellent – even a numbers-challenged… Read More
Continue ReadingMore on Leaders
I was worried that title was going to be “Moron Leaders.” Deeper article here from Selling Power that provides The Nine “P”s of Great Leadership. This comprehensive article is a quick read with much usable data. I particularly like their take on character as opposed to the article in the previous post. From the Nine “P”s: Principles. Do the right thing all the time, not just when it€™s convenient and not just when you know somebody is watching. Strive to lead with credibility, integrity, vulnerability, accountability, and steadfastness. A descriptive explanation as opposed to a cluttered topic intermixing character, personality and style. One more excellent excerpt from the article: People.… Read More
Continue ReadingTraits of Great Leaders
CareerBuilder has an article out regarding the 5 Key Traits of Great Leaders. As you know, we enjoy lists at The Hire Sense. The author provides a fair explanation of each trait and I doubt anyone would argue with any of the traits. Here they are: You must have a vision. You must have passion. You must learn to be a great decision maker. You must be a team builder. You must have character. Again, who would argue with these 5? Well, I will…with the last one. First, an excerpt from the author’s explanation of that point (emphasis mine): Without character, all the other “keys” are for naught. That’s because… Read More
Continue ReadingOutside of Their Comfort Zones
I came across an article on Comfort Zones from a couple of years ago that discusses motivating salespeople and well worth the read. The author has this to say why sales managers don€™t push their salespeople out of their comfort zone. Many managers who are in their own “comfort zone” will not challenge this situation even though they know that the person concerned could achieve a lot more. The manager’s “comfort zone” tells them that it is perhaps too time consuming or counter productive to upset the “apple cart” and that letting the status quo remain is the best option. He goes on to say that this happens for 2… Read More
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