Sales Manager-Are you building your A team?

Are you a sales manager and never seem to find and keep the A players? Are you being sold during the sales interview? That’s what good sales people are supposed to do; sell you on them.

As a sales manager your role is to find, keep and help your people sell. First you do a preliminary interview to establish whether the prospective rep has the attributes that you are looking for. These questions are generally about their strengths and weaknesses, functions and achievements. You now must determine if past successes will be a predictor of future successes at your company.

A sales manager must ask behavioural type questions to learn how a candidate handled certain situations. You might ask “give me an example of how you won a deal from the competition and the steps you took to succeed”. These answers should give you a lot of information about how the sales rep prospects, sales cycle, how they position their company, themselves and buying criteria of their clients.

If, as a sales manager, you are pressed for a question, ask a sales rep why he/she chose the career path that they chose or why they chose to study what they studied in school. Does that sales rep plan or fall into situations?

You also want to know a lot about their work habits. Are they morning people, do they punch the clock at 5 pm, do they return their phone calls in a timely fashion or at all?

You need to match the A player with the other A players on your team without creating a team that looks and sounds just like its manager. You should look for diversity of ideas and people but people that share your ethics and desire to win.

Happy selling
D

How to handle a telephone interview

I have noticed an increasing trend with companies and that is the phone interview. The phone interview is normally done with the human resources manager to pre select those sales candidates who will meet face to face with the hiring manager.

These interviews are not to be taken lightly. I have a customer and if human resources says NO, the Sales manager will not meet the candidate. Some of these human resources managers and sales managers have developed a symbiotic relationship and HR knows who’s going to work and who is not.

The first things I advise my sales candidate is if possible do not do the call on your cell phone. They are not 100% reliable yet.

Dress professionally as if you are in a face to face interview “clothes don’t make the man” but it can influence your behaviour and tone. Try standing up-it makes you feel differently than when sitting.

If you are doing the interview from home, get someone to watch the kids.

If you are doing it from work (this does happen) do it behind closed doors.

Have your resume on hand. This will help you remember dates and details. You should prepare for this interview and take it as seriously as a face to face.

If the prospective sales position involves a lot of phone time expect they are evaluating you on how you express yourself on the phone. Does the sales candidate mumble do they project confidence; is the vocabulary professional and clear?

It will be difficult to get “buying signals” from the person interviewing you so you will need to focus on what is being said. Prepare some well thought out questions to get them to speak freely.

Your goal with a telephone interview is to get to the next step; the face to face interview.

Happy selling
D

Having problems staying motivated in November?

If you are like most people, staying motivated in November is a challenge. This is because we have less light, days are shorter and we are distracted by sugar plum fairies and the upcoming holiday season.

So much of sales and sales recruiting happens between your 2 ears so you must put everything on your side and find what motivates you. Some mornings, I put on my happy song in the car and sing as loud as I can.

It's really important to get outside while it's light outside. Take a walk at lunch or even before work to get some much needed vitamin D. As sales people most of us have the liberty to plan our schedules ourselves so why not do a work out at lunch? Exercise raises those much needed endorphins that produce that feeling of happy.

I started writing weekly goals and checking back on a daily basis to gauge whether I will accomplish them by weeks end. Keep your goals in mind-think of what you want to accomplish and when.

Your attitude is one of the biggest things about staying motivated and only you can change that. Get enough rest. When I'm sleep deprived, I have a tendency to be more sensitive, irritable and less positive. Hang out with positive people. Misery likes company so the opposite should be true.

Let it go.There are some situations where we have to just let it go and not take a situation or customer to heart. Although we want to win them all, we can't. Move on to someone who wants to do business with you.

And when in doubt "fake it till you make it". Put on a fake smile until it becomes real.

Happy selling
D

Are you a true sales hunter?

One of the most sought after positions in sales is the sales hunter. This is the person who will open and close sales day in and day out irrespective of the length of the sales cycle. This person is not afraid of rejection, thrives on making new deals, loves the hunt and is not deterred by bad news.

Here are some characteristics needed to be successful as a hunter:

1. A strong desire to win- this goes hand in hand with competitiveness.

2. An ability to say “next”- this means that you don’t wallow in the losses but you can analyze them, learn from them and move on.

3. A positive attitude- I have yet to meet a great hunter who is not positive. Through my 14 years managing sales people and now as a sales recruiter; this is one underlying theme with good hunters; no matter what they are naturally positive people.

4. Energetic- hunters have energy. They are up for the task leave people scratching their head saying “where does it all come from?”

5. Goal oriented- Many hunters are goal oriented and you will hear it when they speak about where they want to be when their x age or how much money they want to make this year.

6. A desire to be better- good hunters read books, attend courses and ask a lot of questions of other top performers.

7. Motivated- whether they are motivated by outside influences or self-motivated; the fact remains that they are motivated.

8. Knowledge of their numbers- they generally know how they have performed, know what it takes to repeat it and the different steps to get there.

9. Absence of fear- I have not seen many hunters who are fearful of failing. In fact what I have seen is that they do what it takes to succeed.

10. No blaming or excuses- great hunters don’t blame others and don’t offer excuses.


Some of these behaviors can be learned and others are innate. One thing is for sure is that you put more on your side by having most if not all of these traits.

Happy selling

Top 10 sales books

Earlier this year I did a rather non-scientific poll on Linkedin and asked sales people and sales managers which 3 sales books made an impact on them and that they would recommend to others. Here is a list of books that came up time and time again:

1. Green Eggs and Ham- Dr Seuss (believe it or not). I went back and reread the book now understand why it’s a top sales book.

2. The Bible- inspired by God,need I say more. This book was on many people’s list and I definitely understand why.

3. SPIN spelling by Neil Rackham- a classic

4. Any book by Jefferey Gitomer- he’s written such books as “the sales bible” and “the little red book of selling” as well as many others

5. Selling to Vito by Anthony Parinello-this is about selling to C levels. I enjoyed this one.

6. Power based selling by Jim Holden- also a classic.

7. Don’t fire them, fire them up by Frank Pacetta-this is a great motivating book about taking a last place team and bringing them to 1st place.

8. Success for dummies by Zig Ziglar- in fact many books by Zig were mentioned by many people

9. The 25 most common sales mistakes and how to avoid them by Stephan Schiffman- many of Stephan’s books were mentioned.

10. You can’t teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar by David Sandler- this will be my next sales book to read because the title is rather intriguing.

This is by no means a complete list but it’s a great starting place for some interesting read. As I mentioned in my last blog post, personal development includes reading and learning. Do something for yourself by reading and learning.

Happy selling
D

PS if you would like to suggest a book just send me a note.

Keeping your sales skills relevant over time

Times are changing quickly; we grind through our days sometimes without looking up. The next thing you know we are at the end of another fiscal year and we’ve done nothing to upgrade or polish our sales skills. We may have had a great sales year but it’s important to plan for next year.

We have all probably met someone who was a great sales person in their time but now seems washed up and obsolete. What that rep failed to do was become more relevant over time. You don’t have to wait for your employer to pay for a course or send you to training to do so.

Reading sales books, blogs and websites are a great way to learn of new trends. Just committing to reading 1 sales book per quarter is a great start. What these books tell you, most of us know but we sometimes need a reminder.

What about taking a course either online or at a local school? Some people need to brush up on their software skills. As a sales recruiter, often I can tell if a candidate’s software skills are good by the quality of their resume. Of course I know that they may have gotten the resume professionally done but if the resume is poor, it’s an indication of something.

There’s a lot of free content our there such as webinars and lectures. Sure some of them want to sell you something but they give out free information in exchange for you being on their mailing list.

There are many 1 day seminars offered by local universities that target busy working people. Some of them are half day seminars. These are also great places to network and share stories; which by the way is a great source of learning.

For the over 40 sales crowd this is probably more important for us in an effort to show potential sales managers that we are current and up to date. Some employers may have the misconception that older workers are out of date.

Many employers will pay for courses that help you to better in your current sales job. You should take time to keep up to date on issues within your industry. Customers look to their sales representatives for knowledge and count on you to educate them. If you are more knowledgeable than your competitor, this is another element that puts you ahead of your competition.

As a sales recruiter, I look for people who invest in themselves not because they are forced to but because they see the value in doing so.

Happy selling
D

I've just been made an offer-how do I negotiate the terms?

This issue causes many sales candidates stress. As sales people, we should be used to negotiating with customers, our managers and our support departments. If that is the case, why are so many sales people uncomfortable negotiating a sales job offer? What I have seen is that women tend to negotiate their deals less and only the minority of men negotiate their offer. Some clients actually expect sales people to negotiate their offer and work some wiggle room into it.

It’s true that going through a sales head hunter, you know almost all of the terms and conditions going into the process. The key about negotiating the offer is that it must be a win-win where both sides get something. The first thing that you as a candidate should do is be honest with your sales recruiter. I want to know what motivates you, why are you making this move and what are the “nice to have” and what are the “must haves”. You must also take into consideration the long term effects on your career that this move will bring. Is this offer/job bringing me closer to my personal and professional goals? If you cannot answer yes, reconsider earlier in the process. Be honest with the recruiter if you are involved in other processes that are as interesting or more interesting that the impending offer.

Ensure that your prospective employer knows that you are very keen on the position. The way you present your counter offer might influence how you are perceived. You don’t want to start your new sales job with a bitter taste in your mouth or have your new boss have that bitter taste.

Don’t accept or reject the offer right away. Tell them that you need to think about or talk about it with your significant other but keep it positive.

It’s probably not a good idea to take a job for money only. That feeling of euphoria won’t last. And if you are thinking of turning down a job because of money, think about it twice. Break it down into bite size pieces; $5000 annually is actually $192 per pay before Canadian taxes have taken their share. Can you get more by negotiating more vacation time?

If you have to turn down the offer, do it with class. Remember “6 degrees of separation”. You don’t want this to come back and bite you in the behind.

Do your homework before, know what you are worth, know the non-monetary things that are important to you and most of all, match the culture of the company that you are going to with what you are looking for.

Happy selling
D