This story from abcnews.com carries some weight in terms of a real economic forecast. It isn’t good: More of America’s largest companies will shrink their staffs than will hire in the next six months, according to the latest survey of their CEOs. Nineteen percent of the CEOs expect to expand their work forces, while 31 percent predict a decrease in the next six months, according to a quarterly survey from the Business Roundtable released Tuesday. That’s slightly better than the 13 percent who expected increased hiring three months earlier. At that time, 40 percent forecast cuts. Granted, the trend is good, but the actualities are not. 2010 is shaping up… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Blunder-They’re Worse
Part of what I do in our company is ride around with sales reps on sales calls. The goal is to get market information that isn’t easily discovered – how the prospects view the solution, what degree of buzz words are incorporated, what stalls and objections occur most frequently, etc. You never learn more about a sales position than when you are in the trenches with the salespeople. That being said, I came across this article in SalesHQ.com. The format is a theoretical construction of a mistake-ridden sales call. The article is a bit exaggerated, but not by much. The concluding exchange is priceless: “Well,” Arnie responded, “I understand that… Read More
Continue ReadingSales Dumb
This is from the JustSell.com crew – it is a description of things salespeople do to upset prospects. I found it quite comprehensive: They (Ed.-prospects) don’t like it when… we’re pushy we call too much we’re “just checking in” we’re unprepared we’re disrespectful of their time we keep calling if they say they’re not interested we don’t respond fast enough we appear not to understand them, their industry, their situations, and their challenges we don’t work in their interest we don’t listen we don’t know about our own products/ services we’re rude, arrogant, or inattentive we’re vague or unclear they’re made to feel like they’re interrupting us we seem like… Read More
Continue ReadingWhy Sales Forecasts Matter
I’ve noticed in some companies a casualness regarding sales forecasts from their sales team. Heck, I’ve worked for some companies that shared that casualness. Some companies view it as an exercise in Excel gymnastics. Others view it as a coffee klatch activity. One customer of ours had multipliers (<1.0) for certain sales reps since they knew those sales reps’ forecasts were inflated…greatly. Here is a news story about a local company and a significant change to their forecast. The setup: Digital River Inc. shares plunged Monday after the e-commerce services provider announced it will lose its largest customer. Cupertino, Calif.-based Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) notified Digital River on Oct. 9… Read More
Continue ReadingQ Is For Qualifying Questions
I come across this often – a company wants to hire a superstar salesperson and the hiring manager’s first instinct is to find a loquacious talker. Perhaps you have seen this approach too? Clearly no readers of the Hire Sense would administer this approach in their hiring. Right? Ok, maybe not. The point is that smooth talkers are not categorically the best salespeople. I am appreciative of good communicators, but being good at talking is the lesser part of communication. Being an active listener is more important. This fact is often overlooked in sales hiring. The reason this ability is important is that is supports the foundation of successful selling… Read More
Continue ReadingThe Opening Impression
This is the opening sentence from an email caught by my junk filter: Sorry for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer as it is utterly hell confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature. “…utterly hell confidential” is a new construction for me. This example is anecdotal – the larger issue is the prevalence of email communication in selling. The days of cold calling are receding while initial email communication is advancing. This fact adds another factor to successful sales hiring. The ability to be effective on the phone will always be important in successful selling, but the email approach is replacing the… Read More
Continue ReadingStupid Sales Moves
Funny article from Saleshq.com: While working my way through college, I sold vacuum cleaners. Trying to close a sales call, I asked the prospects if I could use their phone to call my boss and see if I could get them a better price. Of course, I already knew what I could sell it for. So instead of dialing the whole number and bothering the boss, I only dialed six numbers. After a few minutes of acting like I was talking to my boss, the phone started making that really loud beeping noise that lets you know the phone is off the hook. They asked me to leave. R-O-O-K-I-E. I… Read More
Continue ReadingFunnel Or Sieve?
This Selling Power article title made me laugh – Are You Using a Funnel or a Sieve? I laughed because my son is a hockey goalie so the word “sieve” carries a special horror. That horror is compounded by the fact that we just returned from a hockey tournament in Winnipeg where I expected to hear some rowdy crowds and perhaps a sieve chant towards my son. My fears were unfounded as the Canadians were extremely pleasant. Hockey colloquialisms aside, this article makes many excellent points before turning into an advertisement. This entire graph is valuable: It’s an issue that makes sense from a cost standpoint as well. Karam says… Read More
Continue ReadingPreparation vs. Execution
SellingPower.com’s article – Help for Your Pre-Call Prep – makes a bold statement in the opening sentence: When you get right down to it, sales are won or lost on preparation. I would argue that sales are won or lost on execution. Give me a salesperson who executes flawlessly any day over one who prepares flawlessly. Again, the context is in terms of where deals are lost. Be that as it may, the article has an interesting statistic found in one of the later graphs. At a time when relatively few initial discussions with a client are progressing further into the sales cycle (40 percent of organizations say only 25… Read More
Continue ReadingBite-Sized Selling
I have come across many articles recently that promote selling tips in this recession. One common thread runs through all of them – chase smaller deals. Here is an example from Inc.com – 5 Tips for Selling a Service Now: “The big change for us in 2009 is that we are more flexible on minimum amount of an engagement that we’ll pursue,” says Gay Gaddis, the founder and CEO of T3, an Austin-based advertising and marketing agency that specializes in digital media. In years past, her firm only went after client engagements that were worth between $1.5 million and $2 million. Now, “some larger clients are breaking RFPs into smaller… Read More
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