Sales 2.0 Conference
Sales 2.0 is a conference sponsored by Selling Power to introduce sales professionals to the new methodologies and technologies that can help accelerate sales growth. In today’s world, buyers are smarter and more educated than ever before, as a result corporations must communicate and share ideas to support the true needs of potential customers today. Today’s market is centered around collaboration; companies working together to build businesses and industries.
The Sales 2.0 conference was held on May 21st in Boston and was attended by some of the nation’s most innovative and technologically advanced companies. The conference was unique in nature and instead of the standard sales pitch from a company’s executive, we as attendees had a chance to hear from the sponsor’s clients and then ask questions in an open forum. In this market, we don’t want to hear the standard pitches where companies over promise and under deliver, we want to hear about how it works and what the products/services can actually do for our business.
The future of selling is here and the Sales 2.0 conference delivered the message that businesses need to collaborate in order to build new enterprises and industries. The majority of the products presented were solutions about how to increase your sales. From Lead Generation, Customer Engagement, Sales Process and Analytics / Compensation Management, the leaders and innovators of these processes were at Sales 2.0. For more information, check out http://www.sales20conf.com/boston
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Market Turnaround
Remember that company that you cold called last quarter and they laughed at you when you tried to qualify them? Call them back. Remember that prospect that you had in your pipeline for 6 months and brought the deal to final stages only to find out that their budget got yanked? Call them back. Remember that guy who you offered a blockbuster discount to get a deal before year’s end and he backed out because he was preparing for the worst in 2009? Call him back.
It has been a tough year – we started feeling the market slowing down a year ago…a full quarter before Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns showed the world exactly where this economy was heading. The market came to a standstill. Companies went into hiding, budgets were cut, layoffs occurred, employees put their heads down and hoped that their name would not be called to the chopping block next.
Some companies are still feeling the effect of the economic down turn. However, for many companies – the market is opening back up. Companies that have kept quiet for the past three quarters cannot sit still any longer. There are many companies that are no longer reacting to the market but are rather trying to define it. These companies are easy to identify – they are the companies that are making headlines in the news…for good reasons. For a lot of companies, including Treeline, the phones have started ringing again and business is brewing. For the first time in a while, my voicemails are being returned and companies are looking to grow again. We in the staffing industry consider ourselves ahead of the curve in terms of seeing the direction of the market. So, for those of you who are still in a holding pattern…hang in there.
Pick up the phone and call everyone. Let them know that the turnaround of this market is in their hands. If your prospect is not in the position to buy at the time, tell them “no sweat, give me a call when you are. It is not too far down the road.” I am not saying that it will happen tomorrow, in fact, I am saying that it is happening today. I am not being optimistic, I am being a realist – buy into the good news and start selling again. If you don’t somebody else will. Happy hunting…and call me back.
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Press the suit and shine the shoes!
Everyone claims that they don’t judge people but let’s be honest, within the first few seconds of meeting someone we tend to sum them up someone just by their presentation. Be it a friend of a friend, colleague or a potential client, you will be judged. Whether you like it or not, every part of your presentation will be inspected within minutes. From your choice of attire, your grooming style, your handshake and your overall demeanor. Being in the recruiting industry, I meet hundreds of people year after year and I always look for surface clues. What are these clues that tend to be immediate insights to you as a person?
- Where you on time?
- Did you bring your padfolio and a few copies of your resume?
- Did you bring a pen?
- Do you have a firm handshake?
- Do you have strong eye contact?
- Did you wear a suit? What kind of suit?
- Did you take the time to iron your shirt?
- Did you groom yourself in an appropriate manner?
These are things that are judged before you even utter your first word. Interviews are supposed to be events in which a professional is presenting their best representation of themselves. Your first impression will set the tone of the interview process and despite the fact that you may have a conversation with good content, that initial judgment may have sealed the fate of the interview. It is only human to make these “judgments” in a business level or a social environment. Make sure that you are putting your best possible foot forward and pay attention to the small things. You may think that chipped nail polish or scuffed up shoes are not a big deal, but the interviewer may think that you are sloppy. Chances are, if you treat an interview like a casual meeting what’s to say that you won’t treat a client presentation like that? When you make a poor first impression, you will lose the attention of your audience and your chances of moving forward will be extremely difficult.
So before you match into that conference room and prepare to sell your background, remember that it all starts with your first impression! So polish the shoes, comb the hair and put on your best suit because it’s go time!
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Don’t take your foot off the gas yet…
According to a report made by Reuters this morning, consumer confidence made the largest jump in 8 months and the labor market has showed signs of easing. As business professionals, we all seem to be sharing stories that we’re seeing the clouds of the recession starting to break and we’re seeing a little bit of sun.
It’s been a long eight months and most of us are bruised, battered and looking for a break. Although the recent weeks have shown signs of ease, we must not forget to keep our heads in the fight. The unemployment rate has declined in 21 states over the past month but they are still some of the highest numbers states have seen in years. We have heard more success stories recently of people landing new positions, however it seems that those candidate who land the jobs are those individuals who are willing to give the extra mile for their job search.
CNNMoney.com had a great story this week about a computer programmer that was laid off from his job and went the extra mile to ensure that he landed a new job as soon as possible. If you read the article you’ll see that he did everything we have encouraged to do in our blogs. He networked with is immediate sphere of influence and utilized LinkedIn. He was analytical with his job search and researched the openings and companies he applied for. He understood that this is still a buyer’s market and that companies are not necessarily going to hire the person with the most relevant background, they will often hire the candidate who knows how to sell themselves the best.
Therefore, use these rays of sunshine as motivation to keep pushing. We’re not out of the woods yet but the path is starting to clear a bit. Instead of waiting for things to ease up in your business or your job search, go the extra mile and keep pushing.
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Candidate: How to Use an Agency
Head Hunter…such an ugly term that I have never embraced but seems to be the going phrase that people often use to describe our profession and industry. Granted, we are hunting for top talent on a daily basis, but “head hunter” makes it sounds like we’re running rabid around the streets looking to chop people from their companies with conniving tactics, which is not the case.
Utilizing an executive search firm can either be an amazingly successful experience or it can be a bit disappointing. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat across from a candidate or a client and they have told me that they’ve had terrible experiences with recruiters in the past. Treeline turns that misconception around on a daily basis and we provide our candidates and clients with what they’re looking for because we’re really digging in deep to find out their real wants and needs. We have had a great deal of success over the years but it’s not because we have all the answers; it’s because we form partnerships with our candidates and clients and work together. Working with an agency is a two-way street, the more you give, the greater you’ll get. Therefore, what are the things that you should know about working with an agency?
Two things you should know:
1) What you’re looking to get out of the experience
2) Who should I utilize?
Finding a great executive search firm can be a daunting task. There are many out there, all of them cater to a different audience. There are temporary staffing firms, IT firms, medical firms, administrative firms, etc., etc. Do your homework, ask around and chose a firm or firms that cater to your specific career path or who you’re looking for in a candidate. For example, Treeline specifically caters to permanent placement of sales professionals. We have clients from all verticals (medical, financial, technical, general business, etc) with the common goal of building top sales forces, therefore if you’re looking for a sales position at any level, Treeline is one of the best agencies to call. Once you’ve found the firm(s) you wish to utilize, here’s what you should know:
Searching for a job, especially in this marketplace, can be difficult and exhausting. People often look to search firms to find them the amazing job that they’ve been searching for their entire life, but didn’t know existed. That can, and does, happen but not if the candidate does not expect to do any of the leg work. A relationship between a recruiter and a candidate needs to be a trust worthy one, if you are not open to sharing information about your previous employment or compensation structure, chances are a search firm is not for you. You cannot walk into an agency with a “show me what you can do” attitude and expect a great experience. In order to find maximum success with minimal frustration, you need to work with your recruiter and not expect them to do all the work. An important fact to remember: recruiters are compensated by their clients to find top talent, therefore it’s in your best interest to work with your recruiter and create a strong relationship so they will push for your candidacy to their clients.
In order to maximize your time with a recruiter, you should come to the table with a few things:
1) A full knowledge of your background
I know that this may sound ridiculous, but it’s extremely important to have a full knowledge of your background. I’m not talking about knowledge of what you’ve sold or who you sold to. I’m talking about numbers! What your average size sale is? What is the average sales cycle is? What was your quota and what was your percentage to that goal? These are important pieces of information to share with your recruiter because they need to understand how to sell your background. Take a minute and make sure you know this specific information. Bring a brag book if you have one and look at your W2’s for confirmation on what you’ve made. It’s also crucial that you are honest with this information. Falsifying your numbers or your salary information will only hurt you in the end and taint your reputation with staffing professionals.
2) A general idea of the type of position that you’re looking for
You want to treat your job search in a similar manor as you did when you started looking at colleges. Your guidance counselor told you to pick a few safety schools, a few match schools and a couple of reach schools. The same applies for a job search. You always want to have a diverse pipeline of job opportunities but be realistic about the positions that you’re applying to, especially in this marketplace. So before applying to jobs, it’s extremely important that you have some idea of the direction you want your career to go in, whether it be by industry, job responsibilities or job growth: have an idea of what you’re looking for. Do you want inside sales or outside? Are you looking for a hunter or a farmer role? Do you want to have a team quota or an individual quota? These are things your recruiter will ask you, so be prepared to answer them.
3) An open mind!
This is the most important thing you need to bring to a recruiter! Be open to the experience and collaborate with them on your job search but be open to receive feedback regarding your resume, your background or your interviewing skills. They also may be able to open your eyes to different positions and industries. You maybe presented with an opportunity that is not in your direct wheelhouse but take their suggestion and go on an interview. You may get in there and hate it, but you may interview and find that you really enjoy the company and the job. Be open to different roles and take a look at them yourself. Your friends are sure to influence you about companies and positions you are looking into but they typically don’t know any of that information first hand, they’ve just heard it through a massive game of “telephone”. Also, just because one of your friends didn’t like the company doesn’t mean you won’t. It’s like restaurants or movies, not everyone is going to like the same things. There is a lid for every pot but you won’t know if you’ve found yours until you try it on for size!
For any other questions prior to your interviews with a recruiter, feel free to reach out to us. We’re here to help you…
COMING: How to use a agency if you’re looking for sales reps
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It’s all fun and games until someone loses their job…
Social media has taken over the globe and it’s getting much easier to find someone on the internet and easily assess their character by means of pictures, comments or conversations they’ve had with their friends. Companies are actually using Facebook and MySpace as part of their background screens. Social networking sites are great tools to connect with your friends and they have been updates so that you can follow your friends every minute of the day. Between Facebook status updates and Twitter, you sometimes know more than you’d like about what people are thinking or doing. You may make off-color comments to your friends or talk about your wild weekends by means of social media sites because it’s funny and they understand your personality and love you just the same. But what if someone reading your profile doesn’t know you well? What if that person is the CEO of the company that you just did a final interview with? What if that person you’re your boss and your friends just wished you luck on that interview? Because this information can be found so readily on the internet, it is important to filter what you really want people to know about you. Many employers are using these sites to get a glimpse of who you really are when the interview mask comes off. Depending upon the person and organization, you could loose points as a viable candidate based on what they see. You could also lose your current job by broadcasting your current interview status or even your opinion of your current company. I’ve seen it happen. Your profile could tip the scale towards one direction or another and most of the time you won’t even know that your Facebook page is a factor. So before you update your status or accept that friend request from someone you don’t know, be conscious about what you want other people to know about you.
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Can you play without passion?
I still play in adult men’s hockey league and recently we finished our winter season. Unlike a few of the past seasons, this one ended with us not only in the playoffs, but with a good chance to win our league. As the playoffs went on we had success in winning our games and found ourselves in the Championship. Now normally there is a little bit more urgency for a playoff game during the game itself but the moment the game is over, whether win or lose, the game is quickly forgotten. But, this game was different, it was a back and forth affair that featured lead changes and a passion not usually seen in a men’s league hockey game. Guys were sacrificing their bodies to block shots, which is common in the NHL but is almost never seen in a men’s league game. The game ended regulation with a tied score so the game continued into overtime. Much like the first three periods, overtime was hotly contested but unfortunately for my team, we lost.
What surprised me most after the game was how my teammates and I reacted. Normally, if you were to walk into our locker room 5 minutes after the game you would have no idea if we won or lost. It is a men’s league game after all, we don’t play to win, we play because we love the game. But, after this game we were all visually angry that we lost. There was silence, disbelief, anger, and a general mood that I had not seen after a hockey game since college. On the ride home I started thinking about what was different. Why did we care so much? After all, there are no fans in the stands and nobody is going to be talking about the game the next day. Only the teams that played would even know the result…but it finally hit me a couple of days later: there was a passion that was present in everyone that played this game. The ‘why’ didn’t matter it just was fact that we all really cared if we won or lost this particular game.
I thought of this recently as I was making calls at work. In recent months it has been quite commonplace to call a company looking for a contact that you have been speaking with for months or years only to find out they are no longer with the company. Or to hear that budgets are slashed. Or most depressing, “We just had lay-offs, we are not hiring for the foreseeable future.” As a salesperson, what we love is the hunt and the game of negotiations. In this economy, for some months, the only focus has been on just making it through this day, week, or month. And like one of my candidates said to me recently, as salespeople we can handle failure but it is frustrating to not even get a chance to get a chance to bat. It is difficult to recapture lost passion but without it, as salespeople, we are lost. To be successful in sales requires an emotional commitment to fight through all of the negativity that we face every day. For me, I used to brush off the small victories – I now count on them to help me keep my passion every day. How do you fight to keep your passion for selling? And can you recapture it if you lose it?
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Additional Tools and Resources for a Job Search
Every day I meet with talented sales professionals who ask me what other resources should I be utilizing in supplementing my job search?
If I were to start a job search tomorrow I would use two major websites - linkedin.com & jigsaw.com
There are a handful of social networking websites on the net but Linkedin will give you the most leverage in a professional setting. As sales professionals we all know that networking is the most important trait we have in building a pipeline and closing business. This couldn’t be more similar in your job search. Beyond the ability to network and build connections, you have access to hundreds of thousands of blogs. Start reading and start commenting on blogs. Start building relationships with these sales professionals by commenting on their blogs. Typically, if you frequently comment on blogs your name becomes highly recognized by the blogger and the organization that publishes it. You can build credibility by making frequent and topical comments regarding their posts. Why should you do this? People buy from people they like, they also hire people they like. Find a VP of Sales, a Director, a manager who works for a company that you have interest in and start building relationships by contributing to their blogs.
Joining LinkedIn and commenting on blogs are great starting points but how do you take your conversations to the next level? Well there is a wonderful sales tool called jigsaw that is an online business card networking site that has over 12.8 million contacts online. You can use their service in two different ways: you can purchase the contacts on a per-card basis or you can add to the community and receive free points. Think of it as a “put in”/”take out” system. You can access direct contact information and then pick up the phone and call the decision maker.
Too many people think the start to a job search starts with HR and submitting your resume online. If you break your job search down and compare it to the sales process you will realize that the hiring manager, director, or VP has the actual pain. They have an open seat or an underperforming rep that is holding the team from their goals and ultimately the commissions or over rides. Pick up the phone and start pitching your background. None knows your story better than you do, right?
Happy Internetting….
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How to maintain a Work/Life balance as a sales professional
Well, how do you do it? As a sales professional, we understand that “9-5″ job does not really exist. Think about it, sales people are always on cal and always working! So how do you balance your professional life from your personal life?
I have been in sales for the past 6 years and I found myself going in early, leaving late and checking work emails from my Blackberry when normal humans are sleeping. I can’t put my finger on why I’m always working, but I believe that it has to do with the passion, the drive and the willingness it takes to become better at your sales career. I have been in the staffing industry for the past 5 years and in order to be a successful recruiter, you constantly need to network. I constantly find myself talking about my job, whether it be in or out of the office. The first year on the job, I found myself constantly talking to friends, colleagues and acquaintances about business. Whether I was at a small gathering of friends or at a night out on the town, I found myself taking notes on potential clients I could call on or people I could do business with. I was so caught up in work that I had noticed a strain on my relationships with friends and family, not to mention the extreme fatigue from all the long hours. So I took a serious look at my life and started working on a better work/life balance. How did I do it?
First thing that I do now is get prepared. I want to maximize my time during office hours, so being organized and having a plan of attack is a good recipe for getting things done. Typically, I prepare the night before in order to gain a clear perspective of what I need to accomplish the next day. Creating a daily “To Do List” is a great way to organize your tasks and prioritize them by importance. Writing things down keeps me in line and of course ensures that nothing falls through the cracks.
After I start to dig into my day, it is also important to not get distracted by things that are going to waste your time. It’s incredibly easy to get distracted at work. You find yourself chatting with colleagues about irrelevant topics, checking Facebook or MySpace, or browsing your favorite websites. It’s a huge waste of time and then the next thing you know it’s 4:30 and you have nothing accomplished. Sometimes, you have to step away from your desk and take a “mental moment” and it may be better for production to take a deep breath or a quick walk outside to refresh yourself, but make sure you complete the tasks that you’ve outlined on your “To Do List”. At the end of the day when you ask yourself “Did I do everything that I needed to do today!?”, the answer should always be “yes.”
The reason that you want to push yourself so hard during the day is so you can literally leave your work at the office and take time to enjoy your own personal time. For instance, have you found yourself skipping out on things that you typically do after work such as dinner with friends, sports league, working out, taking time to spend with your significant other or spending time with your children? Is work your #1 priority or life outside of work? For every sales professional it should be both. Personally, I need one to satisfy the other. Eliminating the activities I do for myself could lead to mistakes in the office or the detrimental feeling of being burnt out. Work hard and work smart, but don’t forget to enjoy yourself and do things that make you happy! This will certainly fuel your fire! Remember: All work and no play makes sales professionals dull boys and girls!
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Great balls of FIRE!!
About a month ago there was a whole big bowl of Fireballs on our kitchen table in the office. I never really liked Fireballs for the simple fact that they burned my mouth. I also could never figure out why so many people liked them. So, I decided to have one Fireball every day until I could figure out what people like about them and I can tell you, it was certainly not the HOT feeling I got when I first put the Fireball in my mouth. To be honest, the first couple times I ate one, I could not finish it. I really did not like the burning sensation that it gave me.
After about 10 days of spitting theses things out I finally had enough guts to keep one in my month the entire time, until it was gone. To my surprise, I enjoyed the center of the Fireball. The next day I was more excited about the Fireball. I started to think about the sugary center of the candy and not think about the “hot shell” the encases it. After about 20 days eating Fireballs I found myself growing akin to them and actually looked forward to not only having one, but eating about two a day.
The thing that I realized about eating the Fireballs is that it is a lot like sales. NOBODY likes to cold call or the heavy lifting of any job. But, EVERYBODY loves the sugary center or the closing of a deal. Now, after eating the Fireballs for a month I understand that it is not the HOT feeling that people enjoy but it is the sweet center. In life or the working world it is the same thick shell with a sweet center! The thicker the shell, the sweeter the center and that is what we are all after. So remember, every day when you wake up, you too will have a “hot shell” to go through before you get to your “sweet center”. Some days the shell will be thicker than others but there will always be a sweet center.
As a reminder, I now brush my teeth with a cinnamon tooth paste to make sure I never forget that I that I need to get through the “thick shell” before I enjoy the “sweet center.” Plus, I will get fewer cavities.
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