Sales Executives

from: smartsalestips.com

Businesses can have all the sales they need to be wildly successful. How you ask? Well you could sit in your office cold calling, but that is a numbers game and most salespeople don’t like doing it so they are not very effective. Most people don’t buy from a cold call – do you? Or do you reach out to someone you know for a recommendation? Most people tend to buy from people they know and trust and that’s why making connections and building relationships is the key to increasing your sales.

How many networking events do you attend each month? Are you getting enough leads from those?

Unfortunately, all too often I walk into “networking” events and see the following: people register, walk into the meeting room, find their friends or coworkers, sit down and start eating. They chat with the people they know and then listen to the speaker while they finish their meal. When the speaker finishes the raffle prizes are given and people leave.  Or sometimes I see the ‘product-pushers’ who aren’t interested in connecting or learning anything about you, they just want to sell their product.  Sound familiar?? I don’t consider either of these networking.

Networking is one of the easiest and most important things you can do to increase sales – when done effectively. But to get results you need to develop a strategy, set goals, and you need to do the follow up.

Dave Allen

How many people make it to adulthood and regret giving up the creative pursuits of their youth? Hobbies of all kinds, from piano playing to painting with watercolors, often go by the wayside upon entering the working world; it gets harder to find time to practice, of course, and those lessons that tuition money once paid for no longer look so affordable.

Upon entering the working world and beginning your career search, though, don’t shy away from making your creative endeavors a part of the package. Even if you never dance ballet or pick up the oboe ever again, there’s a place for non-traditional skills on your resume and in your job search.

Skills in the arts can be an eye-catching item—listed under “Other Interests,” perhaps—because you never know if a former musician or current aficionado might reading your resume. But skills you’ve gained as a performer or creator can be valuable in the working world, too. A tour with a choir or dance company could be presented as significant abroad experience, for example. If performing or other creative work makes up a considerable part of your career experience—say you spent a year or two after school playing as a musician on cruise ships—it can be a main item on your resume.

Studied ballet or other choreographed dance? You’re teachable! Led a section of a band or orchestra? That certainly builds leadership skills. Take and develop art photographs? You have an eye for detail and are comfortable with step-by-step processes.

The skills needed to succeed in the modern workplace don’t only come from hours spent at internships or in the classroom. They can come from anywhere, and it’s worth making the ones that don’t fit the typical mold part of a creative and considered job search.

By:  Alice Heiman

So how do you find good salespeople in a market like this?  There are several things you can do and the first is read, You’re Not the Person I Hired, by Boydell, Deutsch and Remillard.  I highly recommend it.  It is a great “How to” guide and there are so many things covered that most of us don’t think about.  After reading it, I confirmed my feeling that the vast majority of you should find a professional recruiting agency to do the work.  I know that many companies believe they can’t afford this but I have learned over the past 10 years that it almost always costs more to try and recruit and hire on your own unless you have an inside recruiter and plenty of HR people to help.  A bad hire can cost you big dollars but worse it may hurt your reputation.

Knowing that despite my urging many of you will hire salespeople without assistance I am going to give you my best tips on how to improve your hiring process.

• Interviewing Questions
• Series of interviews
  • On the phone
  • Face to face
  • Team
• Check References
• Background check, financial check
• Offers
• New Hire Training
• On going training
• Retention

Recruiting

Job Description – Recruiting starts with an excellent job description and performance standards.  Once everyone agrees on those the job ad can be written.

Job Ad – A well written job ad will attract the right kind of people.  The authors of You’re Not the Person I Hired have a great example in the book.  The job ad should be about the person, not your company.  It should describe the attributes the ideal candidate will have. It should entice high performers to send you their resumes.

Ad Placement – this is crucial.  The best written job ad will do nothing for you if the right people don’t see it.  The first thing I recommend is to send the ad out to everyone in your company. Someone who is already and employee may be interested.  Then ask them to refer anyone they know who is interested. Ask them to send it to colleagues, family and friends in the local area.  EDAWN does a great job of this and they find excellent people.  Post the ad in Career Builders and on Monster.com and then get creative.  Find other job posting sites within your industry.  Be sure the ad is posted on your own website.

Interview Process

Prepare Questions – You would do well to consult an expert here.  All of the questions should be planned in advance and address the requirements in the job description and ad.

Behavioral interviewing is the way to go.  According to Quintessential Careers (www.quintcareers.com) “The premise behind behavioral interviewing is that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in similar situations. Behavioral interviewing, in fact, is said to be 55 percent predictive of future on-the-job behavior, while traditional interviewing is only 10 percent predictive.”

There is a lot of information in books on hiring and on the internet.  QuintessentialCareers.com is one I have used.  It has some good examples of behavioral-based interview questions and other resources.  There is also good information in You’re Not the Person I Hired.

It is important to plan all of the questions in advance.  You should plan appropriate questions for each interview. The first interview on the phone serves as another screening, so questions that will screen the candidate in or out should be asked.  The second interview may be face to face one to one or with a team.  Everyone involved in the interview should be prepared to ask questions.  There should be questions about past situations and performance that will indicate the candidate’s future success as well as questions to determine the character of the candidate.  A third interview may be necessary and more questions that will reveal the character and potential of the candidate should be asked.  It may be helpful to ask some of the same questions during the different interview sessions to see if the candidate answers consistently.

In order to be successful in comparing candidates the same questions should be asked to each.  Another thing to consider is that when you have several members of your organization participate you need to make sure each knows what role to play during the interview and what questions to ask.  Determine that in advance and do a run through so that everyone is comfortable.  It is important that the person who will manage the new hire and some of the people who will work with the new hire be involved in a team interview.

Resume Screening – the toughest part but if you have a solid job description and placed a good ad you should have some good resumes.  It is easy to look good on paper; it is also easy to look bad.  Immediately eliminate any resumes that are sloppy or have errors.  Next start looking for results not job duties.  Does the candidate state the results achieved at previous jobs?  Does the candidate have the needed education and skills?  Has the candidate been in similar work situations?  Is the language used positive and engaging?

Look at as many resumes as you can.  It is not always possible but I recommend that you find at least 3 candidates before you start the interview process.  This gives those involved in the interview process some means of comparison.  Do what you can to get several at the same time because candidates won’t wait weeks to see if you are interested, someone else will snap them up.  A good job ad properly placed should bring you a good amount of resumes to choose from.

Plan a series of interviews

Phone Interview – The first interview should be on the phone.  Explain your interview process to the candidate.  Ask if they have looked at your website and what they know about your company and the product they will sell.  If they say nothing or they know very little and you are still interested ask them to learn about your company and get back to you, but typically that is the end of the interview with me.

Use a standard set of questions to screen all aspects of job related fit. For example, one of my clients has a non-negotiable requirement.  The candidate must be able to handle a 200lb piece of equipment that they will have to take in and out of a van and push into doctor’s offices in order to do a demo.  So questions need to be designed to careful screen this ability with out discriminating. Questions about credit, references, why they are looking for a job, current income anything that will screen them in or out should be asked here and marked on some type of rating scale.  This interview could be done by someone in HR or an admin. to save time.  It is not something a sales manager should be doing.  The purpose of this interview is to see who will continue on with the process.

First Face to Face Interview – Check out the obvious – manners, dress, attitude, posture.  I recommend starting with a tour of your office and facilities.  Make introductions to people who might work with the candidate.  Make the candidate feel at ease so they will be able to give their best performance.  Watch to see how the candidate interacts with people and note the type of questions asked.  If the interview goes well, some companies schedule the candidate to shadow a successful salesperson.  This can be done for several hours or a whole day.  At the end of that time you can meet again to answer questions.  This can be very enlightening for both you and the candidate.

I also like to ask the candidate to come up with ideas for selling the product or service.  I ask how they will generate leads and how long it will take for them to become the top salesperson.

Second Face to Face Interview – This can be team or one to one.  If appropriate, I recommend taking the candidate out for a meal.  I do this for a couple of reasons.  First it gets them out into a different setting and I can watch the reactions.  It provides a different setting for conversation.  If the team goes to lunch you can watch to see how the candidate interacts with each person.

Second most sales jobs require meeting customers for meals I want to be sure they have the manners and business etiquette required.  I want to be sure they can handle eating and holding a conversation at the same time.

References and Checks

Check, Check and Check – I can’t tell you how many problems I have heard about simply because references were not checked.  You read about senior executives who didn’t really have degrees from universities or who lied about prior jobs or reasons for termination and yet references still go unchecked.  Hiring the wrong person is a very expensive mistake.  It is worth someone taking the time to check references.  Someone at your company must be responsible for doing this.

• Personal  - check at least 3
• Professional – minimum 3 employers.  The best case is to check with 2 co-workers, 2 people who managed the individual and if you are hiring a manager 2 people who worked for the candidate.

Ask touch questions like how does the candidate handle pressure?  Tell me about an incident with a customer that the candidate handled well. Tell me about one handled poorly.  What would you say are the strengths of the candidate?  What are the weaknesses?  How would you describe the candidate’s personality?  Look for consistency in answers from those who talk about the candidate.  There are professionals who do nothing but check references and if you use a professional recruiter they may do this for you but be sure they are checking in all of the areas and with multiple people.

There are websites you can use to do financial and background checks.  It is important to note that you need to get permission from the candidate to run these checks.  I often ask, “Is there anything you would like to tell me before I run these checks?”  There can also be legal ramifications.  It is important to check with your HR department or your employment law attorney to be sure that you do all of this correctly.

Here are some areas you will want to check.

• Education
• Background – Criminal and DMV
• Financial

Personality and Performance Survey

I urge all companies to do some type of testing and assessment before hiring.  It is important to be sure that simple things like computer skills are verified.  If you require salespeople to input information into any type of sales force automation tool then typing proficiently is a must.  Can they write a letter or email to a client that is acceptable?  Do they know how to use email?  If they don’t know these things then you better be willing to teach them or not hire them.  How quickly does this person learn?  What is the personality type of the successful salespeople at your company?  Does this person match?  There are many different types of assessments to help you determine these things, find one that is suitable for your company.

Making the Offer

Be sure that you have everything ready to go before making the offer.

Read chapter 13 in You’re Not the Person I Hired.  The authors say, “Never make an offer unless you are absolutely sure it will be accepted.  Once accepted you should have everything in place to provide a smooth transition and training period.  Don’t wait until after they accept to have everything in place.

By:  David Ronick

Thinking about leaving your job to start a business? Before you take the plunge into entrepreneurship, consider these tips I gleaned from coaching over 100 founders over the past three years.

1. Stay close to shore. Today, you and your company are “known”. When a prospective customer or partner gets a call or email from you – “John Smith, VP of Sales at big company X”, they’re likely to respond. But once you start a business, prospects getting the same call will ask “Who? From where?” The closer you stay to your area of expertise, the stronger your network and reputation will remain. That will make it easier for you to land customers, partners, distributors, suppliers, press and investors.

2. Pack light. When you envision your product or service, you probably get excited about all the bells and whistles you’ll eventually offer. Stop it! Instead, start by developing a “minimum viable product” – the most basic version of your offering that will let you address the needs of your core customers. That will let you move faster, spend less, and get your product into the hands of customers, so you can start getting feedback.

3. Roll up your sleeves. Startups tend to have flat organizations with limited resources, so you probably won’t be able to delegate as much as you used to. At first, it’s a drag to be the one fetching coffee and assembling desks. But you’ll quickly learn how every important task needs to get done. That will make it easier for you to hire the right employees, and give them the training, guidance and tools they need.

4. Swim with the fish. Just because this is your first startup doesn’t mean you have to be the only first-timer involved. Instead, find partners, employees and advisors who have built successful companies before. You’ll balance each other out, and move faster.

5. Dive in. At a big company, you’ve got to plan extensively. After all, you’ve got brands to protect, money to spend, and years of historical data to help you predict the future. But startups are more fluid, and less predictable. Instead of spending months trying to anticipate what’s about to happen, take a few weeks to plan just enough to avoid making big mistakes. Then dive in, and get started. You’ll learn things once you’re in the water that you wouldn’t see from the deck.

By:  Kevin Davis

There are a lot of things about selling—and especially about losing a sale—that can seem mysterious. How you can deliver a well-received sales presentation only to learn a few weeks later you lost the sale to a competitor; why an almost-sure sale dries up at the last minute, because the customer decided to do nothing; why a formerly enthusiastic buyer goes silent, and doesn’t return your phone calls, just as you think you’re about to close the deal…the list could go on.

If you find yourself losing more sales than you can afford, here are some tips to get you back on track:

1. Be the first in the door

Studies have shown that customers, managers and executives will often buy from the first person who helps them understand their needs. Step up your prospecting. Think high persistence, not high pressure.

2. Listen before talking

Salespeople have been taught how to get through the steps of their sale quickly and sales managers often encourage them to close a deal faster. What salespeople haven’t been taught is how to slow down and get the customer to do more of the talking.

3. Identify more customer needs

The first need a customer mentions may be at the forefront of their minds, or it may be something one of your competitors planted in their brains. When the customer is talking, listen for additional needs. Probe some more. The more needs a customer recognizes, the greater urgency they will feel for taking action.

4. Go down the chain before going up

Have you been taught to get to executive-level decisions makers as quickly as you can? That’s not bad advice…unless you go there with nothing interesting or important to say about their business! Going downthe organizational chart to talk to users about their challenges and needs can give you insights that will help you deliver a more compelling sales message to executives.

5. Don’t just dance with the one who brung ya!

Most major purchasing decisions are made by a team of people. You can hit a lot of speed bumps if all your knowledge comes from only one customer contact. Identify all the decision makers on the buying team. Ask your contact, “What other key people should I talk with to gather more information about these problems and needs?” Get to a second decision maker as quickly as you can in the process.

6. Link your differentiators to priority needs

For a differentiator to become a competitive advantage it must be connected to a customer problem. The customer will see you as the best choice only if the things that make your solution different from your competitor’s are directly connected to what they see as their most important needs.

7. Figure out what step of buying the customer is in

When a prospect calls, many salespeople fail to ask a vital question: “What steps have you taken thus far in your decision-making process?” You need to learn whether the prospect has just starting thinking about this idea, perhaps wondering if they have a need to do something, or if they have already been meeting with some of your competitors and are now shopping around for a good price.

8. Measure success based on customer actions

You may think a sales call went great, but what did the customer doafterwards? Did you have them commit to take a specific action by a certain date? If not, why not? Every call should get the customer to move forward another step, or at least another inch, through their buying process.

9. Schedule a follow-up

Customers often start to have second thoughts after they’ve heard all the presentations or read all the proposals submitted to them. This is not the time to back off. Stay in touch so you can address any concerns the customer raises about what you’re offering.

10. Slow down

Good salespeople are enthusiastic and knowledgeable—it’s very hard to fight the urge to rush in and fix everything with your good advice! But you’ll get farther with the customer, and faster, if you fight the urge to sell on your timeline. Think instead about helping the customer through their buying process.

Now more than ever, sales leaders will be those who differentiate themselves not by what they sell, but by how they sell…and how they treat customers after the sale.