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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.

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