Well, that is my paraphrasing of this author’s post. The Myers-Briggs test is common throughout many business-world assessments and it serves a purpose. The difficulty I have always had with it is the binary aspect of the assessment. You are either Extroverted or Introverted…there is no grey area. I think the author explains it well: More problematic, though, is that it classifies personalities by a binary preference for a particular trait. In reality, however, most people exist on a spectrum between the two and can vary between them from week to week… Agreed. People are the ultimate variable and far from binary. I think the best use of the Myers-Briggs… Read More
Continue ReadingApproaching Via The Ad
I recently read this line in an approach email/ad for a sales position: Do you have open availability that includes holidays, days, nights and weekends? To be honest, it appears to be a retail position, but my word, I would not lead with that fact in an ad. Think of that sentence…what times are not covered by that statement? I would not recommend ever making a job appear to be a 24/7 proposition.
Continue ReadingInterrogating A Prospect
Questions are the backbone of qualifying any sales opportunity. Yet, many salespeople seem to flounder with this approach and I believe it comes from over coaching/training. Ask this series of questions, use this linguistic trick, turn the tables on them…improper use of these “moves” stands out to every prospect. To that point, here is an excellent excerpt from a recent Eye on Sales article: We’ve all been taught the difference between closed-end and open-ended questions. We’ve been given instructions on when to use which type question. Some trainers have given us formulas; others have given us specific questions to ask. It’s these detailed guidelines that seem to get many sellers… Read More
Continue Reading3 Ways The Brain Handles Info
This article is from Eye on Sales with some key points about how our brains handle information (emphasis mine): It all goes back to how your brain is wired to work. Despite how advanced our technology has become, the brain inside your head is brilliantly primitive. There are really only three ways that our brain handles any information that it receives: If it’s boring or expected, the brain ignores it. If it’s too complex, the brain dramatically summarizes it. If it’s threatening, the brain makes you fight or run. So what you’re saying doesn’t really matter. Especially if the brain in the person listening to you is feeling threatened or… Read More
Continue ReadingCoffee House Creativity
Sometimes stories come along that just land in the wheelhouse. This article would be one of them – Study of the Day: Why Crowded Coffee Shops Fire Up Your Creativity. Hello. I don’t need a study to tell me this fact. In case you didn’t know: Compared to a relatively quiet environment (50 decibels), a moderate level of ambient noise (70 dB) enhanced subjects’ performance on the creativity tasks, while a high level of noise (85 dB) hurt it. Modest background noise, the scientists explain, creates enough of a distraction to encourage people to think more imaginatively. Which leads to this assertion: The next time you’re stumped on a creative… Read More
Continue ReadingOf Authenticity
I have encountered this issue of authenticity recently in a handful of situations and it has captured my attention. Here’s why – Gen Y is all about authenticity. As a Gen Xer, I would argue that it is high on our list also. Yet, some Baby Boomers have a different approach to authenticity and it stems from one key approach – they believe they have to have the answer to every question. Now I’m not talking about aerospace-grade questions, but questions regarding their field of expertise. Recently I witnessed 3 different situations where different Baby Boomer-aged experts encountered a difficult question. The question was clearly beyond what they knew yet… Read More
Continue ReadingRapport Sells More
This is one of those topics I always believe people inherently know…and then I come across a robotic salesperson. Apparently not everyone is aware of this truth. This quick post from Selling Power speaks to the importance of rapport-building and successful selling (and I lifted the title from them). A quick refresher: 1. Match your customer’s style. Pay attention to how your customer prefers to communicate and get in step. Does your customer prefer to get right down to business or warm up by engaging in some small talk? What kind of a sense of humor does your customer have? If your customer talks fast and loud, you certainly won’t… Read More
Continue ReadingOverused Adjective
I am spending an inordinate amount of time reviewing resumes and one particular word keeps appearing throughout many of the resumes. The word is… proven Perhaps the most insipid phrase is this – “proven track record.” Every time I see this phrase I immediately want the candidate to prove it. In most instances, the quoted achievement would be difficult to prove to an outsider. That fact makes this throw-away phrase easy to included. My personal take is to have the candidates simply state their record in numbers.
Continue ReadingA Shorter Presentation
Here is a great, short article from Selling Power about an ad agency’s sales call with Steve Jobs at Apple. A taste of the setup: When Steel and his two partners arrived at Apple, they were met by two senior members of Apple’s marketing department-employees Jobs had inherited from the former CEO. "Steve’s running late," announced one of the executives. "We’ll get you up-to-speed while we’re waiting." And they ushered Steel’s group into a darkened conference room. They droned on for 2 hours as you will read. The saving point in the article is the second Steve Jobs entered the meeting. You’ll have to read it to see the marked… Read More
Continue ReadingKeep It Clear
I have sat through some interviews which have been enlightening in terms of the struggles of hiring managers who do not hire often. One of the blatant deficiencies I observed was this – a lack of good questions. Is there anything more important than questions in interviewing an external candidate? Even an internal candidate. Here is one instance of what I observed – a rather inexperienced manager asked esoteric questions that left me scratching my head. The candidate did a good job attempting to answer the question without embarrassing the hiring manager. One question took almost 2 minutes for the hiring manager to ask! The question included an analogy, an… Read More
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