Wisdom From Sports Illustrated

I read many things across the web including certain columnists from Sports Illustrated.  Peter King writes an insider’s view to professional football that I find fascinating.  Plus, the guy is a coffee (actually lattes) addict like myself so I always appreciate his weekly coffee tips. This quote from his article last week caught my attention: But I will say one thing about the firing: It’s always dangerous when you start polling players and people in the building about the job the head coach is doing. If you’ve got a conviction about the coach, act on your conviction, and the beliefs of your closest associates, like president Dick Cass and GM… Read More

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The Subtle Requirements For Successful Sales Hiring

ManageSmarter.com offers up an interesting article titled Do You Have the Right Talent?  First off, I love the fact that they advocating the pursuit of talent – that is the key to a successful sales hire (read:  not experience).  Second, the author strikes a chord that resonates with us:  There is no one-size-fits-all salesperson.  The right approach is to look at a salesperson’s abilities and see how well they fit into your sales model.  This approach is talent/skill-based, not experience-based. Here is an excellent example of this principle in action (emphasis mine): A client of ours is a partner in a construction company specializing in commercial ventilation systems. They have a… Read More

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Some People Play Checkers, Others Play Chess

BusinessWeek.com offers up the Best Corporate Practices 2008 which is a fascinating slide show if you have time to view it.  This is from the opening of the article: In fact, much of the gap between the best and worst management practices can be described by that word: trust. At one point as a corporate human resources leader during the dot-com boom, our company switchboard was bombarded with calls from recruiters, seeking to pull away our sharpest technical talent. Our hardworking phone operators did their best to deter search consultants looking to make contact with talent by any means possible, but it wasn’t always easy. … We said to our… Read More

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The Greatest Risk When Hiring

I propose that it is hiring new employees without performing a thorough background verification.  Think of the implications if you are wrong.  The outcomes can be the ultimate dealbreaker in that they can end a company’s existence.  With the stakes that high, it never ceases to amaze me that companies take this risk when hiring. Clayton at Salesopedia links to an excellent article concerning this topic in the context of sales hiring.  Take this point from the article in Clayton’s post: Some of you may be reading this and thinking that you already have a defined scope for all applicants so there is no need to be concerned. However, the… Read More

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The Toughest Topic To Qualify-Money

It’s not really when you know how to do it.  Unfortunately, many salespeople have a distinct weakness when it comes to even broaching this topic with a prospect.  This weakness leads to compounded expenses in that the salesperson will typically invest time and resources on a prospect who will disappear at the first discussion of price.  Many salespeople are aware of this fact so they deem it best to avoid the money topic all together with the hope they can persuade the prospect with an extended dog-and-pony show. The entire sordid affair feeds upon itself. The costs here can be enormous.  I’m of the belief that a salesperson’s greatest asset… Read More

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The New Year’s Itch

I’m willing to guess that a majority of New Year Resolutions involve weight loss and career/job changes.  If so, then January is the apex of retention within a company.  In sales recruiting, we typically see January as one of the premium months for finding sales talent.  Salespeople have completed the previous year’s commission plan and are staring at an empty commission plan. In other words, this is an excellent time to upgrade your sales team. The time to hire is still extended right now in spite of the dire economic predictions of the media.  This week’s Herman Trend Alert email speaks to this point: The activity of job boards is… Read More

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Sports And Selling

Older article here from our local StarTribune paper – Sales Skills Hiring Managers Seek.  There are some interesting points from the quotes in the article, but one thing that stands out to me are these quotes from different recruiters: …and have achieved in athletics. and A sports background also helps. This background is couched around the competitive nature of sports transferring to successful selling.  I’m not sure I buy into that correlation, but it does intrigue me.  I played sports throughout high school and college and can envision many self-centered teammates I would not recommend for any sales position.  Still, I am probably over-focused on the exceptions. However, I do… Read More

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Time Kills All Deals

I recently read an excellent Career Journal article – Speed Date a Potential Employer And Get an Offer That Same Day.  A point made in the article is to include a response deadline when extending an offer to a candidate. The author puts in the following quote: “Time kills all deals,” he says. “I’ve had clients that lost out on candidates because they went the traditional way and dragged their feet for three or four weeks.” No one is making you, as an employer, change how you hire.  If you want to take 3, 4 or even more weeks to run your hiring process, that is your choice.  Remember, you are looking at a salesperson and… Read More

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ATS Sterilization

Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are widely employed on corporate websites and by recruiting agencies.  I understand the automated efficiency of a computer program in handling a large number of applicants.  Yet, I don’t find them helpful for hiring salespeople. When we place an ad for a sales opportunity, we provide the option to email or call for response.  We do not ask respondents to fill out an online form. First off, if they send a resume (the most common response these days), I get the opportunity to see how they present their experience and abilities.  Formatting, presentation, flow…these are all pieces of information that can be gleaned from their resume. … Read More

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Wearing Out The Delete Key

From a cover email I just received in response to an ad for a regional sales manager: Hi, Lee. I am _____. I live in __, however, I am international, or regional, or national, or whatever the job calls for. It gets worse.  The candidate worked in a collection-type role and included 2 pages of collections (amounts, dates, commission, payment type).  He included the first and last names of the people from which he collected the late payments. Unbelievable.

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