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We will be sharing information with you about the employment industry, business trends, best practices and other information we hope you find useful.  In the meantime, we invite you to read our guest columnist's article that we hope you will enjoy.

Beware of Hiring Your Competitor's Sales People
Life would be grand if we could sprinkle a few seeds in the ground, fertilize, add water…and a great sales person would sprout. This is truly a pipedream, but one often pursued by small business owners and sales management executives in their quest to find great sales talent. Rather than grow their own, they attempt to steal the crops from their competitors. Why not, their competitor is much better at growing a sales organization than they are. They will grab some magic from their competitor's land and they too can enjoy great success.

When did the competition begin building a better sales organization than your company? Before you harvest their crop, consider these five myths when hiring your competitor's sales people.

"Hiring from the competitor means the sales person will hit the ground running with no training." Some of the attraction to the competitors' sales people is sheer laziness. Hire a sales person from the competitor today…instant revenue tomorrow. No need to train them, they already know everything. Needless to say, this is flawed thinking. Sales people always need training and development regardless of who their former employer was.

That said, every once in a while, lightning will strike and you will hire a rainmaker. More often than not, this approach is a recipe for a making a bad hire. A thought…What sales people do you really think are available from the competition? Rarely is it the top performers. It's the bottom 20% that, truth be told, the company is glad to see leave.

"Our industry is so complex that we must hire a sales person from within it." How can this be true? No one ever came out of the womb mastering your industry…not even you. You were taught it and so was everyone else. If you truly feel that industry experience is the top requirement, be prepared for another major challenge…scalability. There are only so many people in your industry and very few that you will consider hiring. At some point, your talent pool will run dry.

Sales people need to have a certain level of knowledge to effectively sell in an industry. Determine what they need to know to be effective and develop training tools to quickly get them up to speed. Identify resources in your company that can help them with their questions. Test their knowledge assimilation along the way to make sure they are getting it.

"They're going to bring a book of business with them." Before you buy that argument, consider these three points. First, despite what they tell you, it is extremely difficult to move clients. The pain of change is not one that is easily resolved with clients. It is rare to find a sales person with that strong of an influence to overcome that issue.

Second, the sales person doesn't own those clients, their employer does. While non-competes don't usually hold up in court, client list protection does. And, you can be at risk in the mess. Do you really need that headache?

Third, don't think for a minute that the sales person you hire today will one day retire with your firm. They will leave your employ some day. Imagine your sales person attempting to take your clients with them when they go. It doesn't feel overly ethical, does it? And, it’s a flawed reason to hire a sales person.

"We're a little firm and we could really use a sales person that comes from one of our large competitors." This statement is true if, and only if, your company and the large competitor are identical twins. A synergistic match between your company and the candidate is needed to put together a long-lasting sales marriage. There are a number of nuances that affect this synergy.

The flaw with this statement is that it assumes a complete sales culture match. Every sales organization is different, even within the same industry. The large competitor may have a ton of sales support for prospecting and presentations, while in your company the entire burden is on the sales person. The sales person at the competitor may enjoy great name recognition in the marketplace while you do not. Thus, a different skill set is needed to get in the door with prospects. The list goes on and on. The key is develop a profile of your ideal sales candidate with the required and desired attributes and interview accordingly.

"Since they have been in the industry, they are passionate about it and passion sells." Absolutely true! Passion sells, but it's an incorrect assumption that these sales people arrive with passion. Sales people who bounce from company to company in an industry become "vanilla."

Years ago, I had a sales person on my team who had sold for three of our competitors prior to joining our company. I participated in a ride-along sales call with her and the meeting was interesting to say the least. She could have had any of her former employer's business cards in her hand, or ours for that matter, and everything she said was accurate. There was no passion. It was all vanilla information that failed to arouse any excitement in the prospect.

Sales hiring is daunting for companies of all sizes. The key is to have a profile of your ideal sales candidate and interview the prospects against it. This will help you find the right sales talent for your team whether they worked for your competitor or not. Need help interviewing sales candidates? Send me an email for my 28 favorite interview questions for sales candidates.

Lee B. Salz is a sales management strategist specializing in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right sales people, on-boarding them effectively and efficiently, and aligning their sales activities with business objectives using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of the award-winning book Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager. Lee is a featured columnist with SalesforceXP Magazine and the host of the Sales Management Minute. Coming soon is Lee's new book The Sales Marriage...How to Hire and On-Board the Right Sales People. He is a results-driven sales management consultant and a passionate, dynamic speaker. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitects.net or 763.416.4321.
 

Identifying the Right Sales Talent for Your Company
Hiring sales talent is one of the most critical activities a company performs. However, few are adept at hiring the right people for their firm. This article shows you how to hire the right talent.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of CEOs about their sales recruitment needs. To make a point, I mentioned to them that my friend, Willie McMoney, had heard that I was speaking to this group and asked that I mention he was looking for a new sales home. I shared Willie’s background with the group: Willie has a Bachelor’s Degree from a well-respected institution, has a great look, has been selling for over ten years for household name companies that offer low-price products, and has exceeded quota each of the last three years. That being said, I asked the group who wanted to hire Willie. Most raised their hands in earnest.

I shared with the group that there were a few more details to discuss before a decision could be finalized. The information to consider was the profile of their company, which included the following attributes: they were a start-up with no name recognition in the marketplace, positioned as a high value/high price provider, and required customization for each client. I asked the group again about hiring Willie. The light bulbs started turning on. They began to recognize that finding a great salesperson is not a one-dimensional exercise; rather, it requires that the company look within to determine the necessary skills and attributes for someone to be a great salesperson in their environment. The term “great” is the issue here. Willie is a great salesperson and he has the credentials to prove it, but the question is: will Willie succeed in your company?

Consider this: companies spend thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, defining their ideal client. They hire firms to help them analyze their approach and identify the audience, as well as how to reach them. When I asked this group to share with me the attributes of their ideal client, I felt like a game show host. The group came to life and was shouting out answers non-stop. I strategically interrupted them and asked them to share with me the attributes of their ideal sales person. After hearing the deafening sound of crickets chirping, I shared what I often heard as attributes of this ideal: someone who is very strategic, solution-oriented, sells on value, experienced, and a strong seller. The group sighed in relief as they thought I had let them off the hook. Not so fast! I asked them how they can hire talent to match that scope. How can recruiters translate that criteria into a project whereby they can laser-focus their approach and produce the right candidates? The relief disappeared from the room and was replaced by angst.

Hiring sales people is the business equivalent of formulating a marriage… a sales marriage, that is. Appearance may be enough to initiate the relationship, but without deep commonality of needs and values, the future of the marriage is bleak. Why does that matter? The expense of sales turnover is truly immeasurable. Sure, you can measure cost of turnover, recruitment, and training but how do you place a value on the damage caused by sending the salesperson of the day into the same accounts over and over again? “Hi, I’m Ben this week’s salesperson representing Widgets We Make. I’m here to help with your needs.”

The way for employers to avoid this peril is to develop a profile of their ideal salesperson. This profile requires the executive team to collaborate and be truly honest about the interworkings of the company in order to produce an effective exercise. The profile includes three primary components: product characteristics, buying process, and organizational attributes.

Product Characteristics
* What is the nature of the product(s) being sold? Is it tangible, abstract, or concrete?
* What is the nature of the buying relationship? Is it a one-time, transaction sale or a repetitive, complex one?
* Is the product a component of something broader (niche) or is it a comprehensive solution?
* How recognizable is the product and company in the marketplace of your buyers?
* In contrast to the competition, where is the product priced?

Buying Process
* What are the expectations of the salesperson with respect to prospecting? Are you generating leads or are they expected to self-generate them?
* How long is the buying process?
* Is the product “off the shelf” or does it require the salesperson to creatively build a solution?
* At what level is the purchasing decision made? Who are the other buying players that influence the purchasing decision?
* What sales support is available for the salespeople? Is the salesperson required to go from end to end or is the salesperson only required to handle certain parts of the process?

Organizational Attributes
* How flexible does someone need to be to survive in your environment? Think in terms of how often the organizational structure changes the compensation, and/or the territory.
* What is the sales management approach? Is the sales manager a hands-on coach or a distant observer of performance?
* What are you willing to teach to a salesperson? The product? Prospecting? Product positioning?
* What aren’t you willing to teach to a salesperson? Sales 101? Prospecting?
* What corporate baggage does your company have? What are the oddities that make it challenging for a salesperson to succeed in your environment? Is there a difficult individual in your company? Are there technical flaws that make it challenging to sell the product? This one requires true introspection and honesty.

With this exercise complete, you are ready to formulate your ideal salesperson profile which looks like this:

We want a salesperson who is experienced at selling
A product with the following attributes…
In a buying process that includes…
For a company characterized by…

Now that you have a profile for your ideal salesperson, don’t keep it a secret. Be sure that your entire leadership team has a copy of it! Share it with recruiters so they can deliver candidates that match it. Develop interview steps that allow you to measure if these candidates meet the profile. Formulate interview questions that expose these areas.

I concluded the meeting with a quick comparison of Willie’s skills and the company’s attributes, which can be seen on the first page. A marriage between these two would be disastrous! Although I wasn’t able to find Willie a new sales home, I did succeed in making the CEOs aware of the steps they need to take in order to create the best sales team possible for their company.

Lee B. Salz is a sales management strategist specializing in helping companies build scalable, high-performance sales organizations through hiring the right sales people, on-boarding them effectively and efficiently, and aligning their sales activities with business objectives using his sales architecture® methodology. He is the President of Sales Architects, the C.E.O. of Business Expert Webinars and author of the award-winning book Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager. Lee is a featured columnist with SalesforceXP Magazine and the host of the Sales Management Minute. Coming soon is Lee's new book The Sales Marriage...How to Hire and On-Board the Right Sales People. He is a results-driven sales management consultant and a passionate, dynamic speaker. Lee can be reached at lsalz@SalesArchitects.net or 763.416.4321.

Mistakes Of The Self-Centered Sales Person
Thursday, April 30th 2009, 9:37 PM

A sales person like me may be the easiest person for a good sales person to sell to. If I allow you to sell to me, I truly want to purchase what you are selling. Believe me, I've seen and heard a lot of sales presentations in my life, and unfortunately nearly all of them amuse, bore, repel, or anger me.

I actually pity the people who use out-dated, scripted and ineffective techniques. Then I realize that what they say is a result of the poor information they have been trained with. Sometimes I even give them advice on how to best sell me if they are open to listening to me. Unbelievably most are NOT open to this advice and so they fail. They leave the experience not knowing how they were “paper-thin” close to actually getting the sale.

It's amusing being a sales person and observing to a sales pitch from someone else. You feel almost like a hidden camera sting operation. I watch more about how the product is being sold, than to what they are selling.

I've thought about some of the most egregious mistakes I have heard and seen when others try to sell me. See if you can spot a trend. Without further ado, here they are:

1. Pretending To Know Us – The lousy sales person acts like they care about us but never bother to ask questions to better understand what our lives are really all about. This reduces the sales person to taking a guess at what we want and how we buy. In fact most sales people talk about their own experiences when a buyer brings up a concern instead of allowing them to continue to talk. Buyers have no choice but to tell the idiot sales person their price is too high just to get rid of them. Hey it's not the buyer's job to teach you how to sell. Remember that your customer is the “star” of this call, not you.

2. Making Obviously Self-Serving Moves – Salesy questions like, “If I could show you a way to save money on your purchase today, would you be interested?” Or other stupid rehearsed proclamations like "You're really going to like this new program" or "If you purchase today I am authorized to offer you these special bonuses and benefits" never have worked very well. Buyers today have their radar up for these obvious and antiquated techniques. These are the types of “used-car salesman” moves that give sales people a bad name.

3. All Talk No Involvement – Some think that through the sheer force of their words, the buyer is expected to spend their hard earned cash. It is as if they are in love with the sound of their own voice as they drone on and on without pause. Occasionally they stop to scrape the “white stuff” that gathers on the sides of their mouth from talking so much. What they don't know is that what they are scraping is actually solidified spit! Yuck! Here's a hot tip. Give the buyer a chance to tell you what they really want, and then shut up and give it to them.

4. Making a Company Centered Presentation - Rather than basing what they sell on the specific needs and interests of the buyer, the sales person talks about how the product is made or some obscure little know factoid about the history of the product. Remember that everything you present should be “on code” with your buyer. Who gives a rat's a** if the screws used to assemble your product have a ceramic coating? Present your solutions with what this exact buyer needs and wants. What's in it for them?

5. Using Literature As Visual Reinforcement – All literature does is put people to sleep. There is the funny sales person reading the literature upside down to the buyer. Is this bedtime or what? The fact that you are reading to your buyer insinuates that the buyer can't read on their own. What will literature tell them about the relationship and trust that a good sales person develops? Absolutely nothing. Spend this valuable time learning about your buyer and you will be far ahead of the pack.

6. Bragging About Company History & Credentials – Buyers put little weight on you bragging about how good you are. Anything you say is discounted because they believe a sales person will say anything to sell them. It is of little consequence how long you have been in business without knowing how this information translates into any benefits to the buyer. In fact your 30 years of experience might mean you are a dinosaur in the eyes of a buyer. Stay on point and stay relevant.

7. Ask If You Have Any Questions – Many sales people “check in” and ask at the end of a snooze-fest presentation if anybody has any questions. This after the audience has been verbally abused with a boring diatribe. Talking down to your buyer and acting as if they can't understand you, is always bad selling. Why do sales people ask this question? Do they think the buyer can't hear them? Or do they think the buyer is too stupid to “get it?” I really don't know the answer. When a sales person asks me if I have any questions, the only one that comes to mind is "When will you leave me alone?"

One thing all of these mistakes have in common with each other is that they center around the sales person focusing on gratifying themselves. They do nothing to please the potential customer in the process.

In essence, they are performing “sales-masturbation” by this self-centered approach. Remember why you are selling in the first place. The BUYER has an issue they could resolve and THEY would benefit from your solution. Make your approach about them and not you and you will always succeed.

About the author: Joe Crisara is CEO of www.ContractorSelling.com, a website that helps sales professionals to change their thinking and grow their sales. You can contact Joe by emailing him at joe@contractorselling.com

Copyright 2009, ContractorSelling.com - May be reproduced without change, with proper attribution and brief bio. Notice of when and where article is to appear to joe@contractorselling.com
 

How to take a step down the ladder
By Caroline Waxler, Fortune Magazine
April 1, 2009
http://tinyurl.com/d6sbqh

It may be against your instincts, but in this job market, one good move might be in a backwards direction.

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- The scenario is becoming all too familiar. Last month you were a CFO or senior vice president, then comes a layoff and the nasty realization that not only are there fewer jobs at the top to begin with, but jobs at your rung of the ladder are even scarcer. Moving down the ladder goes against every experience you've had in your career so far, but is it something you should consider?

Mitch Drew, 46, of Vancouver, recently accepted a position as an account executive at a television station where he was formerly general sales manager. He had been enjoying a nice upward career progression and was hoping to make station manager next. But when a change of management came in and he was downsized, he found options limited in his local industry. "I now report to a person who has my old job," he says.
Interactive guide: How to find a job

Jim McGovern, 38, of Manhasset, NY, was laid off from a senior vice president job in leveraged finance and took a step down to a position as corporate treasury VP at a Fortune 500 telecom company, a former client, at 25% of his old salary. He took it in large part because he has a family to support and was spooked after seeing "a friend from Bear Stearns leveraged finance twisting in the wind for a year." With a family to support he couldn't afford to be that guy. But your ego has to be ready to take the change in status. It can be disorienting.

"One of the downsides of taking a lesser job was that I was not in a position to contribute as much as I could have. It was a loss for me and a loss for the company," says Peter Rosen, Atlanta, who, after business slowed at his HR consulting company in the wake of 9/11, took a lesser job within human resources at another. "Because of my level I wasn't invited to certain meetings" - the type of meetings that he once ran.

But it's the smart companies that will harness the experience and talent that you have to offer. Says McGovern, "Even though I'm the lowest guy on the totem poll, my boss treats me like a professional and doesn't keep me in a back room someplace. I work for this guy, so if he wanted to dump all the grunt work on me he could. Instead, he decided to take advantage of what I do know."

If you can get past the blow to the ego and the disappearance of perks - goodbye company car, cell phone, window office - there are some nice upsides. Says Drew, "Less stress, more time with my family...and more freedom. Also, I don't have to deal with upper management or owners at a time when the business climate is challenging." Drew doesn't fear being on the firing line, because he's already been there, done that. Echoes McGovern, "I can do the basics in my sleep."

And there's always this: "You can take a lower job and really wow them," says California career coach and author Cynthia Shapiro. "You can make sure you are promoted to close to the job you had previously so by the time you leave it doesn't look like a backwards step on your resume."

However, while taking these lesser jobs can provide much-needed income and the opportunity to stay in the same town, not everyone is ready to make that kind of change. Leslie Padilla, former PR executive for Comcast Programming, cautions those in transition not to feel desperate and take the first job they are offered. Within her first month of severance, she received such an offer for a job at a much lower title and salary. She acknowledged the employer's generosity and instead offered to freelance.

But for many people, having a full-time job, even a downgrade, can be better for self esteem than reading the want ads. Says Georgia-based career coach Walter Akana, "I'd rather see people work in a lesser job where they can continue to network and feel good about themselves. I think it's important for people to be productive."

If you're thinking of taking a lesser job, career coaches advise you to keep the following in mind:

1. Make the most of your new job. This can be done by going to a high-status company - Google, anyone? - or picking up new skills. New York-based executive business coach Carol Vinelli suggests people use this time, whether it's freed up because of less catch-up work or shorter required hours, to develop themselves and do things they've always wanted to do. "Start a formal mentoring program, take classes, teach classes...it could be a big status symbol for your new company to say, 'We have someone on staff who is an adjunct professor at NYU.'"

2. You don't have to stay in the position forever. Most companies realize that when the market opens up you may leave so you'll have to assure them that you are interested in a long-term career there. That doesn't mean a long career staying in that particular job. Once you're in the door, your employer may see your potential and want to keep you on - in another capacity. If a better job elsewhere beckons, take it, but make sure you don't burn bridges. Do what you can to help fill your post and help with the transition.

3. You don't have to put the lesser job on the resume. It's very likely that your prospective employer won't probe who has been giving you a salary if you don't put anything down. "Running checks nowadays is expensive," says Shapiro. To avoid a gap in your resume, however, if you are consulting or taking classes, just say that you were doing that. No one will fault you for putting food on the table in this economy. "The stigma will be blown away," says Dan Finnigan, president and CEO of Jobvite, a recruitment software company.

Optimize Your Website or Get Lost in the Crowd!
by Allan Gunneson
CEO, Gunner Web Group

It used to be that designing an attractive website to promote your company and products was fairly straightforward.  After you designed your site and built a few keywords into the code, you would simply submit the site to the search engines or a directory, grab an iced tea and wait for the traffic.

That model worked fairly well in 1996 but if you are still following this strategy in 2005, you are effectively non-existent on the internet.  Why?  There are now dozens of search engines and directories and somewhere in the area of 80 million websites on the www.  Still think folks are finding you?

So how does the average consumer find your company?  They type in a couple of keywords into a search engine and are then presented with thousands of your competitors’ websites. 

Let’s say your company is Walt’s Widgets.  You have a pretty website with pictures of your widgets, a nice “about us” page, maybe some employee pictures and a picture of your beautiful building.  It all looks good on the website but when Mr. Consumer types “widgets” into Google, poor old Walt’s Widgets is on page 620 of the search results!

How can this be?  Your site is not optimized for the search engines and is not being indexed by the search engine spiders and robots so you aren’t being seen! 

Research has shown that the average surfer will only review the first three pages of search results and will not drill down any deeper.  If you are on page 62, you effectively don’t exist!

Surfers and search engines view a website completely differently and for you to appear on the first three pages of search results is critical to your continued profitability.  You must know what the search engines are looking for, what relevance they are placing on your keywords, what elements of your site have a “welcome sign” for the spiders and, most importantly, know what keywords the surfer is using in his search.  Just because you sell widgets it doesn’t mean that “widgets” is the term being used the most by surfers when looking for your product.

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is the process of analyzing keywords, reviewing search trends, analyzing link popularity, building code tags, analyzing your competition, optimizing pages within your website to be search engine friendly, editing web pages, submissions to directories and search engines, and reciprocal link building…just to name a few.

What you are after with SEO is not getting the highest number of website visitors.  What you are actually seeking are qualified site visitors who have an interest in buying what you’re selling.  Professional SEO can help deliver a targeted audience to your business.  After all, what would you rather have?  500 site visitors with a 1% conversion rate or 100 site visitors with a 10% conversion rate?

Professional SEO is critical to your company’s web presence so if your site was designed by your summer intern in 2002 or your bookkeeper’s son as part of his high school “media class”, I assure you that you have some work to do.

Start with a good website design featuring good content and navigation.  Then, utilize an SEO professional who can wring the most out of your website and deliver dollars to your doorstep.

Allan Gunneson is the CEO of Gunner Web Group, an internet marketing and web presence provider.  Visit Gunner Web Group here.