How to escape E-Distractions
The CSO E-Distraction Dilemma
By Dan Fantasia, Treeline Inc. CEO and Founder
The Chief Sales Officer (CSO) drives a corporation’s sales success. They are at the hub of all communication regarding a corporation’s sales force.
Today’s CSO’s are expected to know how to build sales 2.0 organizations that leverage social media, inbound marketing and engagement based marketing tactics. They are utilizing LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook to communicate with their audience and are constantly distracted by “noise.” As the distractions increase, so do the work hours. Twelve hour work days no longer exist when you are trying to communicate with your customers, employees and board.
The CSO is expected to keep up with email, inmail, tweets, Facebook messages and the wide variety of other social distractions. They receive hundreds of message on a daily basis and many times can lose sight of what is important.
Here are three tips to stay out of the weeds and ahead of the game.
Electronic correspondence. Sales executive are constantly overwhelmed by a constant flood of emails. There is no shut off valve. Take a day off… impossible. Drowning in a pool of hundreds of emails is a common occurrence.
Tip 1: Make it a rule to read an email only once and Reply or Delete. Make the decision immediately. Do not let emails sit in your inbox. Reviewing an email more than once is a waste of time.
Social Media. Time is money. Social media takes time. Stop with the heavy lifting. Learn to use tools that cut down on the time it takes to convey your message. It is your job to drive a message to the market about your sales team. Connect with the market place and your audience through tools that save you time.
Tip 2: Use www.hootsuite.com and other social media tools to help drive positive brand awareness and excitement around the success of your sales team and corporation. Create, schedule and distribute consistent messages around your company’s success.
Build a Sales Team. When building a sales organization expect to be overwhelmed by communication from unqualified candidates. Do not let this correspondence distract you from the talent you are looking for.
Tip 3: Use www.dadomatch.com to drive awareness and prequalified candidates to your company. This is a social hiring platform that helps define key characteristics important to your organization, it helps qualify candidates and communicate to a large audience of sales professionals. Post jobs for free to a handful of boards, then share through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Candidates are prequalified and hiring is made simple.
In order to be a successful CSO you must be able overcome the many e-distractions you encounter on a daily basis. Try these helpful tips to make your day more efficient. Leverage these tools to decrease the amount of e-distractions you are bombarded with and manage your day more efficiently.
What other tips or services do you find effective in minimizing E-distraction?
Posted in Sales Advice, Sales Team, Comments (0)
What is the Best Resource for Hiring Sales Professionals?
Top Sales Talent Wanted
By Ray Mills, Treeline Consultant
One absolute guarantee about recruiting is that there is NO one best source to find the dream sales candidate. This does not mean you rush out and cancel your subscription to the likes of CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed and stop running your job ads, but it does mean you may want to truly digest what investments you have been making and what resource(s) may work best to drive effective sales recruiting results. Your current investment(s) being the time, money and resource allocation of internal employees required to source, screen, schedule, interview, debrief and follow up on conversations that would be necessary to hopefully deliver your next great sales rep.
Successful sales recruiting DOES involve tapping large resource pools via multiple channels to find the best sales talent. It means partnering with individuals who have the resources, the knowledge, the passion and the street credibility for sourcing and truly qualifying potential sales individuals. It simply boils down to understanding if utilizing job boards, internal/external resources or a combo of the such would deliver the greatest “ROI” for your organization as it scales over time. In today’s economy and with the power of social networking the best and most feasible approach is one that will enable an organization to funnel a large talent pool into a workable number of sales candidates most effectively.
Sales recruiting is not free…..
Keep in mind there are real costs tied to sourcing and running sales candidates through your interviewing process. There are job board fees, there are internal costs for allocating the time of your employees and these costs can add up quickly over time as you search for sales candidates. With sales management driving so hard on a daily basis to capture market share, to increase revenue and to retain clients any deviation from their traditional job duties to conduct a search decreases their overall productivity. It is often seen and very easy for an organization to come away from a search without a ROI after having thrown a bunch of internal resources at chasing resumes and interviewing unqualified candidates.
To work towards the best ROI and to create the most effective search for your organization you need to first complete your own upfront homework. You need to truly understand the requirements, the skills and the behaviors that will be most successful in your organizations environment. You need to understand and define the budget (not free) that you will need to source top notch sales people and you need to recognize and deliver on devoting the necessary time to work with any additional resources required to ensure a success.
A 3rd party search firm can offset most if not all of this responsibility and do so by tapping many different sources and social networks which have become a staple in today’s world. Although leveraging a reputable 3rd party search firm has not always been seen as an option it is the most complete and valuable resource when used properly to deliver on time, on budget (predefined) sales candidates and to serve as a great positive marketing tool for your organization. The 3rd party firm will be working with you to share your organizations story with the world and will be doing so with a sense of urgency and with a fixed fee based on your salary parameters.
With that being said I am not saying the best approach is to partner up with any recruiting firm that will just throw resumes at you and hope something sticks. Rather, a successful contingency based recruiting firm will be able to tap a huge database, reach out for referrals from a trusted network and effectively cold call into your market all while having the same marketing tools (CareerBuilder, Monster, Indeed, etc) to scan for hidden gems if they happen to be out there on such job boards. A successful third party firm will also conduct in depth interviews to narrow the pool even further by understanding what matters most to your organization based off the business conversations that have been conducted up front with your hiring managers prior to launching the search. This means you as an organization will not be sifting through thousands of unqualified resumes that have been sitting on job boards and/or trying to understand if the online submittals to your job postings have any sort of relevant background. An effective third party firm will be filtering this massive pool of candidates and will only be submitting to you a drastically reduced pool of qualified candidates who have a genuine interest in exploring your sales opportunity. A true win/ win situation for everyone that is involved in the process.
For a contingency based firm the only success is a successful hire as the firm is only compensated if the organization they are partnering with hires one of the sales candidates. This means a contingency based firm will be conducting heavy upfront legwork to screen out candidates who may not be a match based on requirements, skills, personality, culture, etc and to ensure that every candidate your organization reviews is always that much closer to what you truly need.
Keep in mind that recruiting is not an exact science and the better feedback you can provide to a search firm the better the candidates you will see. As we stated earlier their isn’t ONE best source to find sales candidates but by leveraging the help of a 3rd party firm you will ensure that all doors are being opened , all sources are being tapped and that a successful sales candidate will be found.
Posted in Sales Advice, Sales Team, Comments (0)
Treeline Sales Job of the Week: Inside Sales Representative
Inside Sales Representative – Software Sales – Boston, MA – $120K
Our client is a UK based Software Company that is looking to build a North American office in the Boston Area. They provide a single pane of glass for managing and monitoring distributed IT infrastructures. They offer monitoring software for IT departments to view performance of in-house IT centers. Performance of Servers, Cloud, Applications, etc.
This is a tremendous opportunity to join a growing company that is looking to build a solid foundation in the US market place. This candidate has the potential to build an office in Boston and be a pillar in the North American market place. This is an Inside Software Sales role, working the full sales cycle. Autonomous, self starter sales role that will grow as the office grows.
Requirements:
- 2-6 years of software sales experience
- Monitoring software experience a plus.
- SFDC experience
- Full sales cycle selling
- Autonomous, self starter, mature, trust worthy
- Small company experience
Base Compensation: $60K
Total Compensation: $120K
Apply Here: http://dadomatch.com/job/guestapplyjob/id/2028
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Treeline Sales Job of the Week: Strategic Account Manager
New Business Strategic Account Manager – Burlington, MA – Technology – $180K
Company Profile
Our client is an innovative, growing company, experiencing 30% growth, year over year, with an excellent product and talented people. Our client’s talented staff works together to produce an electronic clinical information resource for physicians and patients that provides current medical information in a format that is easy to access and use. Their subscription based technology allows doctors and patients to answer real-world clinical questions in real time.
Job Description
This opportunity is calling for a successful strategic account manager to call on C-Level Executives with medical institutions. This is a consultative relationship based sale where the representative will need to sell over the phone as well as face to face. This person will inherit current strategic accounts to manage and must be able to work in an autonomous, home office environment.
Requirements
The ideal candidate will have a Bachelors degree, a minimum of 3 years experience leveraging relationships with C-Level Decision makers inside medical institutions to grow strategic accounts. Must have well developed negotiation skills and the ability to vet new opportunities within current clients.
Base Comp. $80,000.00
Total Comp. $120,000.00
Click Here to Apply: http://dadomatch.com/job/viewjob/jobId/2478/job_title/Strategic_Account_Manager
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Treeline Sales Job of the Week: Inside Sales Representative
Inside Sales Representative – Technology – Burlington, MA – $120K
Company Profile:
Our client is a UK based Software Company that is looking to build a North American office in the Boston Area. They provide a single pane of glass for managing and monitoring distributed IT infrastructures. They offer monitoring software for IT departments to view performance of in-house IT centers. Performance of Servers, Cloud, Applications, etc.
Job Description:
This is a tremendous opportunity to join a growing company that is looking to build a solid foundation in the US market place. This candidate has the potential to build an office in Boston and be a pillar in the North American market place. This is an Inside Software Sales role, working the full sales cycle. Autonomous, self starter sales role that will grow as the office grows.
Requirements:
·2-6 years of software sales experience
·Monitoring software experience a plus.
·SFDC experience
· Full sales cycle selling
·Autonomous, self starter, mature, trust worthy
·Small company experience
Base Comp. $60,000.00
Total Comp. $120,000.00
Job #917
Apply Here: http://dadomatch.com/job/guestapplyjob/id/2451
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Are You Losing Your Next Sales Superstar to Your Competition
The Competition is Heating Up!
By Kathleen Mauriot, Division Manager at Treeline, Inc.
As a search firm exclusive to recruiting sales professionals, we are definitely seeing a shift in the job market. We have noticed that the percentage of companies that are hiring today verses in Q1 is much greater. As a result, sales reps have the luxury of turning down job offers because they have more than one offer to choose from. Moving forward, as we continue to see this shift grow, the search process for hiring managers will become more challenging and at times frustrating. There’s nothing more disappointing than your projected sales superstar declining your offer and instead accepting a job with your competition. Things are definitely heating up!
According to the 2012 Sales Hiring Trends Report – The Emerging War for Sales Talent: “One clear finding is sales hiring and retention will become a major issue for many organizations in the coming year. In 2012 we project that the pressure on sales leaders and HR managers to recruit, hire and retain high-performing sales organizations will become much more intense than over the past five years. As companies increase headcount and the sales talent market tightens, sales recruiting will pose one of the most daunting challenges for business leaders.”
For most companies, sales positions are critical to a companies growh. Without sales, there is no company. The reality is that most companies are looking to add headcount to their sales team. The Bureau of Labor reports that the number of sales jobs will grow at a rate of 7% to 13% over the next nine years. Organizations have started putting their resources into sales and stepping up to the plate with more attractive offers to entice talent away from their competitors.
Get ready for the battle. The companies that are winning have solid company branding, hire with a sense of urgency, and have a clear and easy internal hiring process.
Posted in Sales Advice, Sales Team, Sales Trends, Comments Off
The Two Approaches to Sales Hiring
You Found A Good Candidate…Hire ‘em!!
By Sean Cashman, Senior Consultant at Treeline, Inc.
There are two approaches to hiring:
- You do know what you want. You have defined it, now go get it, and hire it.
- You do not know what you want. You need to meet candidates in the market to help define it, then, go get it, and hire it.
Here is a view into how the two approaches typically play out…
You found a good candidate, brought them through the interview process, passed all the assessment tests, checked all the references and everyone on your team likes him/her – what are you waiting for?!!
When some hiring managers are looking for a new talent – they start the interview process the way some people approach an art gallery – “I know what I like, and I’ll know it when I see it.” The problem with this approach is that you don’t know what you have until it is too late. A company will meet a good candidate who meets all the criteria – right background, right culture fit, overall – the right person. The hiring manager starts to think, “if I found this person this quickly, what else might I find?! – I better bring some other people in to compare.” This is the kiss of death for a lot of companies. I know some of you might be thinking, that is just doing due diligence, but it is not. Rather, it is the fear of pulling the trigger that causes many companies to lose great sales talent.
Conducting due diligence is when you look at 10 resumes, you bring 6 of those resumes in for initial interviews and then 3 of those come back for 2nd interviews; and then you make an offer to 1 of them. If they do not accept the offer, then you may like one of the other 2 as a back fill. That is good process.
On the other hand, if you only bring one person through your interview process and they do well, you like him/her, the team likes him/her – hire them or be prepared to lose them. At that point, it is too late to bring anyone else into the process. Your #1 candidate will not wait forever while you conduct another interview process. Despite what the media is telling you – the market is picking up. Companies are hiring – I know this because I am making placements. People are getting offers…that’s right…I said “Offers”…plural. If you want to stay competitive and hire good talent – then do not let your process get in the way and once you identify a candidate as being someone you want – pull the trigger.
Both approaches work when done the right way and both approaches break down when they are not done the right way. Just know that if you need to look at multiple candidates – start building your pipeline from the get go. If you do not need to meet a lot of candidates – be prepared to pull the trigger when you meet the person you want. It is getting more and more competitive out there to hire talent. Happy hiring!
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Treeline’s Sales Job of the Week: Eastern Regional Sales Director
Eastern Regional Sales Director 960 – Woburn – Software – $250k
Company Profile: Our client is a very dynamic, high growth start up that is ramping up their sales organization. This is a very exciting time for this company as they build brand and gain market share quickly. If you want to contribute to a growing organization and help build a successful sales organization, this opportunity may be of interest to you.
Job Description: Reporting to the VP of sales the Eastern Regional Sales Director will be responsible for driving new business. This is a newly created position to support the company’s rapid growth. It requires a proven track record of success selling complex software solutions. You will be responsible for travel throughout Eastern USA and will have a team of 8 direct enterprise sales reports. Experience selling at the C Level is very important and a strong ability to understand complex sale processes, forecasting, and a strong ability to recruit talent is needed.
Requirements:
- 10 years enterprise complex technology sales experience
- 5 years management experience
- Proven track record of success driving results
- Driven motivator, articulate, intelligent
Base Comp: $150,000
Total Comp: $300,000
Click Here to Apply: http://dadomatch.com/job/viewjob/jobId/2420/job_title/Eastern_Regional_Sales_Director_
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Treeline Sales Job of the Week: Director of Sales
Director of Sales – Technology – Boston, MA – $200K
Company Profile
Our Client is a leading provider of SaaS software solutions used by Operations, Sales, Marketing, and Product Development professionals. They have a cutting edge SaaS platform that helps clients better position their own products and solutions to compete more effectively and win new business. Strong leadership of this company combines people with backgrounds in marketing, strategy and consulting, learning, publishing, knowledge management, and collaboration software.
Job Description
The Director of Sales will be responsible to hunt for new business while working as a key member of the executive team to hire and develop a larger sales team or strategic, consultative sales professionals who can sell a SaaS solution to C-level buyers. The right candidate will have demonstrable success selling a SaaS solution that evolves core business practices, and can develop and lead a team doing the same. The Director of Sales will have experience managing a group of at least four sales professionals and can demonstrate effectiveness in this role. This is a tremendous opportunity to grow with a 2009 start-up that is gaining momentum and market share rapidly. Our client’s solution is well positioned relative to competition; now they need to expand their team to gain more market share. Are you looking for an opportunity that will propel you to the next level?
Requirements
·8+ years of SaaS software sales experience
·2+ years of SaaS software sales management
·Success selling a solution and driving strategic/conceptual discussions with c-level stakeholders
·Track record of quota achievement and accomplishment as a hunter and as a dynamic leader
·Ability to achieve success in a fluid, young environment
·Experience with salesforce.com and other sales 2.0 tools
·Strong business acumen and comfort communicating at the C-Level
·4-yr college degree
Job #957
Base Comp. $100,000.00
Total Comp. $200,000.00
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How to Conduct A Successful Job Search
Desperate or Aggressive?
By David Demelo, Division Manager at Treeline, Inc.
With today’s volatile job market, are you coming across as desperate or aggressive in your job search?
Desperate times call for desperate measures. However, at what point do you cross the line of desperation and no longer appeal to the company you have worked so hard to impress. Sales professionals are competitive, strive to beat out their competition, and do not like to hear no for an answer. Yet, when this mentality is applied to your job search, you are at risk of crossing the line of being aggressive and coming across as desperate.
So, what are some signs that you are on the verge of blurring that line?
Bombarding the potential employer with emails and phone calls, showing up at the office unannounced, and applying to multiple positions within the organization are all signs of desperation. Remember, everything in moderation, and this holds true in your job search.
In order to avoid these blunders, make sure to close the potential employer and ask when you should hear back from them with feedback. Do not act out of impulse. Instead have a plan. Read Ask a Recruiter- How can I conduct a better job search (http://blog.treeline-inc.com/blog/ask-a-recruiter-3/) for helpful tips on conducting your job search.
Often a job seekers’ desperation is triggered by a couple of interviews gone wrong. If you have crossed the line of aggression and become desperate was it due to any of these circumstances…
- You did not receive any calls back from the firms that you applied to?
- You did not get past the first round of interviews and received no feedback?
- Do you keep on getting to the final stages of the hiring process and all of a sudden they give the job to someone else?
There can be thousands of reasons why you did not get the job, but it is the UNKNOWN that takes you down a path of insecurity, doubtfulness and eventually a drastic change.
First things first, are you being realistic with yourself?
- Are you applying to jobs that you are qualified for?
- Are you applying to jobs with a salary that is unrealistically greater than the salary you have now?
- Are you applying for roles that require a degree and you do not have one?
- Are you just sending your resume to every job you come across online and not following up?
- Are you trying to relocate and sending your resume to jobs with an address not in the area you want to move to?
These are some common mistakes that job seekers often make and can leave you feeling frustrated.
In order to avoid coming off as desperate you should:
- Start with a plan. Get a list of job opportunities that you are qualified for and that you are interested in. What can you leverage in your background or experience that will get you an interview?
- Do not just send your resume through the online portal. Find out who the decision makers are and call them! Introduce yourself and find out the hiring process.
- Certain requirements can be bent, but others cannot such as, degree, driving record, background check etc. If they want it and you don’t have it, why bother sending your resume?
- Did you close the hiring manager? Did you ask if they had any concerns about you or your background? Did you ask them the next steps in the process? Did you practice your ABC’s, always be closing?
The best thing you can do is ask and find out where you are in the hiring process. Hold hiring managers accountable, find out your place within the interviewing process, and do not be afraid to ask questions! Communication is key to a successful job search.
Remember in a job search you will face rejection before you land your next new sales job opportunity, keep going and learn from the process.
Posted in Sales Advice, Sales Interview Advice, Comments Off
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