Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 23, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
April, one of my blog correspondents, wrote this week that she’s moving to another geographical location, and she’ll be looking for a new inside sales job in the tech industry. We always try to help match up people that have taken our inside sales training courses with new companies when appropriate, but April is located far from us, in a locality that we’re not serving right now. She’s starting from scratch, and wanted a few tips on finding a new company. Many of you reading this blog post have been, or are in the same position.
Finding a great new job takes planning and foresight, so here are 6 great things to build upon as you identify and go after an inside sales position at a new company:
1) Update your LinkedIn profile. Ensure that your LinkedIn profile has been completely updated. Include in your contacts as many professional people as possible that you actually know, including colleagues and customers. Don’t invite people you don’t know, or haven’t talked to in awhile. In the case of the latter, why not call again, have a conversation, then mention you’ll send a LinkedIn invitation to him or her. Many employers are reading LinkedIn profiles before they read résumés, so make sure your LI profile is spotless.
2) Identify companies for whom you’d like to work. Read business section in your target area’s local paper, focusing on stories about companies that are doing interesting things, hiring, or getting venture capital funding. In our local paper, I regularly read the quarterly Venture Capital report, as those are often the companies with immediate inside sales hiring budgets.
3) Visit those companies’ websites. Once you’ve identified companies of interest, visit those companies’ websites. Begin your process by first selecting a company whose product or solution offering resonates with you, and you have a passion for. You’ll want to be in love with the solution offering before you interview, and your interest and enthusiasm will be apparent during your eventual interview.
4) Identify your target individuals at those companies. On the company’s website, find out who the top sales and marketing execs are. Plug their names into LinkedIn to see if you have mutual contacts. If you do, you can cold call them, mentioning the names of common associates. In addition, under the “people” search box in the upper right of the LinkedIn screen, type the name of your target company and the term “inside sales” (but don’t uses quotation marks). You may find that the inside sales manager is listed that way, and you can cold call that person, too.
5) Cold call your prospect company’s contacts. Since your new job will involve cold calling, show them that you’re fearless, and love doing it!
6) Prepare for a world-class interview by honing your interview techniques. Unless you’re a world-class interviewee, read Allison’s post in my blog about preparing for an interview. It’s the best document I’ve seen on the art and science of interviewing, so don’t wing it, prepare for it.
OK, so there are 6 critical elements to finding a position at a company that’s right for you. Following these steps will give you a head start on others who may be competing with you for the job, and you'll be expected to compete, just as much as you would for an order or a next call to action on the telephone. Add them to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 16, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
One of my blog correspondents has been raving enthusiastically about the diversity of employees at her new inside sales job, where the manager of the department has loaded the team with people of a myriad of ages and ethnicities. These differences of backgrounds and cultures has created a very strong team that seems to be energizing everyone, and she says it’s elevating the concepts of Best Practices and team communication to a high level, as the inside reps bring their diverse experiences into the dialogue as to how best present and sell the solutions the company offers. Some of the most effective and efficient teams that have gone through our inside sales training courses have had this type of diversity, too.
A while back, I blogged about concerns over age bias in inside sales teams, and this past week, the San Jose Mercury had a front page article describing a lawsuit that’s now moving forward against a major Silicon Valley company because of an alleged age-bias issue. The worker is claiming, among other things, that he was told he was not a good “cultural fit,” a term I’ve heard used several times in the past year as an excuse for not hiring an experienced inside sales rep. In each case, the rep was an exceptional one, was very successful in previous inside sales roles, and would have been a formidable contributor to the success of the company. This will be an interesting case to watch, as the concept affects, or will potentially effect, virtually everyone reading this post.
So what’s texting got to do with this? Texting has become a standard method of communicating, especially among younger inside sales reps, and recently I blogged about using mobile phones in creative ways to engage prospects and customers. If you’re a texter, be careful about assuming that your prospects are actually receiving your texts, if you choose to communicate that way. Recently, someone texted my landline, so assumed I got the message. I didn’t because it was on a landline. My colleague Trish Bertuzzi is fond of saying the inside sales business is not the “pen pals” business, and there’s still no better way of communicating information over distances, where KPIs (key performance indicators) dictate large numbers of qualified prospects and sales. So if you do like to text your prospects, ensure that they like communicating that way, and that they’re using mobile devices and will be amenable to receiving them and responding to you.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 10:02 AM
Today's post wasn't written by me. It was written by an individual that has just landed herself an outstanding six-figure inside sales job. I know her, because she took one of my inside sales training courses. More than one company was bidding for her, so she was able to choose from among several. How was she able to accomplish this? She gave outstanding employment interviews, and I know, because I got feedback from more than one company. She "wowed" everyone, so I asked her what the heck she did to gain all this traction. She told me, and I asked her to put it in writing for the blog. She wants to remain anonymous, but we'll call her Allison for the record. What she says below should be adopted by everyone looking for an inside sales or qualification job, and most of it actually applies to just about any job. It's 4 pages long, but trust me, it's worth it.
Here's what Allison says:
How to Prepare for a Sales Job Interview – Not exactly like a date, but close!
When you get asked out for a date, wouldn’t you want to know who you’re dating, what the person is like and how much fun you think you’ll have? With the internet as your tool, you can easily find the answers to these questions on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Podcasts and Google searches. It is no different for a job interview. You can use these sites to mine company and personnel information. Knowing the answers to these questions about a company and the people you will be interviewing with will have you prepared and possibly close the interview as well. Do your homework!
When I receive that wonderful call about scheduling an interview, there are several steps I take to prepare. Most importantly, I treat my interview from my first point of contact to the last as a sales call which has a beginning, middle and end structure to it. I also set my intention of getting the close (the job) by being prepared with the knowledge of “who, what and how” (homework).
In the Beginning - Before the Interview
Before I find the office on MapQuest and park my car to get to the interview on time, I need to know “who am I talking to?” The company’s website has loads of information to answer this question. Most company websites have an “about us” tab. This information will tell you what the company does and usually has a marketing tag line in the likes of answering “…we create an efficient way to save money and time with our software product…” It’s a compelling, succinct and simple message that the company wants its potential customers to understand and is known as “branding.” Knowing a company’s branding message is very important in understanding the product and what problems it can solve for their client. If you get the job, you will need to know this to meet your quota.
In addition to knowing a company’s branding message, it’s important to know about the company in its competitive market. Who are their competitors? What is the differentiation of their product in comparison? It’s good to know whether the company has recently been acquired, are currently active in acquiring other companies, its financial strength and whether it is a national or global company. I use Hoovers.com to get a brief overview of the company. You don’t need to pay for their in-depth service. If the company is a publicly traded company, information about the company is readily available. You can also search for a company in LinkedIn.com for the same purpose.
Another component to “who am I talking to?” Are the Executive Team (E.T.) and most importantly, whom you will be interviewing with. Again, the company website will have a tab to view the E.T. with their previous job experiences, which will tell you if you have any connections to their past companies. Most of the time, the people you will interview with, although important enough to hire you, will not be on the website under the E.T. and you will have to dig further. It is why it is critical to know the correct spelling of the names of the people and their job titles of whom you will be meeting so that you can review their profiles on LinkedIn.com. I use LinkedIn.com to get a sense of the person/people I will be talking to in an effort to create a connection in the interview. If you find an interesting tidbit about the person, he/she will recognize that you searched their profile in LinkedIn. This information alone, can give you a lead in building rapport during the interview (more on that later). In addition, you should have your own LinkedIn profile as it is now the business standard.
What does the company do? Read the “Press Releases.” Press Releases are a company’s pitch of putting their best foot forward. Select one or two that peak your interest. It will give you something you can talk about during the interview. Knowing whether the company has received recent venture capital support, current business partnerships, won industry awards, or launched a new product or version. This information will ignite your enthusiasm and ability to articulate that you did your homework about the company. This will also tell you if you like the company, where it’s going and answer if you want to work for them.
How does the product solve a client’s problem? Read a “Success Story.” You’ll need to know this to meet your sales quota. Does this solve a problem for one person, SMB (small/medium businesses), Fortune 500, Fortune 1000 or other? Does this solve a problem on a national or global scale? You’ll need to know this if you have a geographic territory and whether or not you have the experience to call a variety of markets. This will also tell you about the vertical markets the company is attempting to reach.
Review the job description. This will tell you how the company believes the client’s problems will be solved. The job description will tell you what you will be responsible for and what type of work experience they are looking for. You will need this information to build your compelling stories of WHY you are the right person for the job.
In the Middle - During the Interview
In real estate, the mantra is “location, location, location.” Location is all that matters. The best locations are usually where the best deals are to be had. In sales, whether it is doing your job or going on an interview for a job, my mantra is “connect, connect, connect.” In sales, if you cannot quickly connect with the prospect be it a warm or cold lead, you won’t have a close. People buy from people. In the case of job interviews, the interviewers are the “buyers.” You are the “seller,” selling the goods i.e. YOU.
You must have compelling stories to tell aside from your resume about how you are the perfect person to fill their needs in the job opportunity available. Understand that your resume gets you to the interview or in some cases; helps recruiters get you in the door. Your connection of stories between what you (the seller) can do for them (the buyer) is what is critical to a successful interview.
Actively listen. There is a saying in sales, that “the first person to speak loses the sale.” When you are actively listening, you are taking mental notes on how to respond to the interviewer’s interest in you and how you can help the company with your skill set. You will spend a good amount of time listening to the interviewers talk about the company, where it’s going and what they would like to accomplish with filling in this job. This is a good time to ask each interviewer’s job title and responsibilities so that you can understand the reporting relationship and what’s at stake for hiring you, a highly qualified sales person.
Build a rapport. Remember, this interview is a two-way street. Build a rapport with each person interviewing you. You need to create dialog to show interest and ability to articulate that you can do the job. Asking questions is the best way to create conversation. Sometimes you will meet on a one-to-one basis and other times the interview is a group interview. The sole purpose for you in an interview is to build a relationship (connect, connect, connect) to create a dialog (compelling stories) about how you can solve their need to increase sales. It’s up to you to create an on-going articulate conversation.
Some questions to ask:
What is the most challenging objection to purchasing this product? How do you overcome the objection? What do you like about the company? Where do you see yourself and the company in 5 years? Who are your competitors? How do you differentiate your product?
You’ll need to know this if you get the job. Why not know what’s in store for selling the product? Know the hurdles the company is against in improving sales growth.
Know your numbers. In sales, it’s a numbers game. All sales people know their numbers: quotas, KPI’s (e.g. 40-60 calls a day) and percent of outcomes of prospects to close. You should be able to quote from memory what you have accomplished in numbers.
Top Skills. Have a list of your Top 20 Skills (I got this great recommendation from a VP of Sales) and another list of five specific skills in detail related to the job to have for yourself in the interview to remember and discuss while in conversation. You can craft a generic list of your own or use the job description for listing necessary skills. At the end of the interview hand this copy to your interviewer. Handing this list to the interviewer shows that you have confidence in yourself and helps the interviewer position you in the company’s organizational chart. The fact that you crafted a list and gave it to the interviewer will leave a lasting impression.
Be positive. Nobody wants to work with a stick in the mud. How would you feel if your date was negative and complained about past relationships? What would you think if you had to listen to boring stories? Wouldn’t that tell you that this date isn’t going to work? All your worries about not having a job, needing money, the “what ifs” about not getting this job, etc, leave these at home before you drive in the car to the interview. Be positive about your compelling stories, your abilities, your past work experience, people that you have worked with and other hobbies you might have.
Be passionate. Have a passion that has nothing to do with work. I’m a baseball fan and I am passionate about the game, the score and the players. For others, cooking, art, sailing, collecting and traveling are other passions. Wouldn’t you rather work with someone who has a passion than not?
The end - The Close of the Interview
When you sense that the interview is coming to a close, you can ask:
What is your time frame for hiring? In your opinion, how do I (you) rate against the other candidates at this time? What are the next steps?
Be thankful. Make sure you get a business card of those you meet. It will give you their email addresses. Thank all the interviewers with a strong handshake and nice smile. Write an email within 24 hours to thank them for their time. Understand that you both spent time out of your day to meet while other things were boiling on the stove. As long as you can show respect for them it shows that you have respect for yourself as well. Look at this as a possible beginning rather than a means to an end. Your paths might cross again.
Reply and Stay Active. Once you have sent your thank you email, return any emails and calls from them as promptly as you would any sales call. Your response shows how you are an active sales person by treating the interviewer as a prospect.
In summary
Preparing for a Sales Job Interview is not exactly like a date, but close in knowing the “who, what and how” elements it takes to understand why you are there in the first place. It has been my experience that no interviewer wants to see a candidate fail. For some interviewers, it’s just as uncomfortable for them to interview you as it is for you to be interviewed. As long as you know that you have done your best in doing your homework and creating a connection, it is the most you can ask of yourself.
- Warm regards, and Play Ball!
Geoff here again: I can't add anything, except take Allison's great advice whenever you're applying for an inside sales or qualification job, and add it to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, May 10, 2010 @ 10:05 AM
I read a very good article today on career development strategies, written by
Kriengsak Niratpattanasai, a management consultant who writes periodically in the
Bangkok Post. While his article is geared to people already managing, I'd like to take a more basic approach, and suggest that if you're a Business Development or Telesales rep right now, I think it's a very good idea to look at your career in its current state, and design a plan for your next career step.
A good number of inside sales reps fail to do this, primarily, i think, because many of us landed in this profession by accident. Inside sales was just something we'd do to bridge the gap to our next real job. And now, 5 years later, we're making real good money, have exciting conversations with prospects, and know an awful lot about business in general. But we're still not thinking career, when perhaps we should be.
Consider a model that could work like this. Say you're fresh out of college, and six months into your role as a BusDev rep. There isn't any reason that you shouldn't set your sights on eventually managing your (or another) BusDev team. By working hard and smart, you could easily be there in 5 years. As an Inside Sales Manager, you could set your sights for a director position in 5 years. Complete the model until you project yourself to be a VP. The model suggests that if you work hard, continually exceed quota, develop your career and business skills, you could be a VP 15 years from leaving college. If you started the whole process at 25, you'd be a VP at 40.
If this sounds crazily aggressive to you, consider the fact that over 150 people I originally trained as reps are now in management. This didn't happen by accident. So I'm going to give you some steps to execute that can get you started:
1) Determine what job function you want to have in 5 years. List your 10 and 15 year plans, too.
2) Conduct a critical self-analysis on your current skill set. The questions you should ask are:
- Are my current skills adequate to perform my current job at optimum proficiency?
- What skills will I have to improve or obtain to exceed at the management job I'd like to have in 5 years?
3) Once you have a list, meet with your own manager to discuss your "5 year plan." Ask him or her for a brutal assessment of where your skill set is today, and where it needs to be to move to the next level.
4) Armed with those two improvement lists, start a plan to make immediate improvements. If those include additional training your company won't pay for, figure out a way to acquire those skills through other means. Books and Toastmasters come immediately to mind as two possibilities.
5) Keep your manager in the loop, by meeting occasionally to discuss the progress you're making, and to get additional feedback. Remember that your own manager is on an upward career curve, too. These discussions will be great for both of you.
So there's your 5 point plan for becoming a VP in 15 years. You don't have to be 24 years old, either. As far as I'm concerned, you should start this process at any age. Chances are you won't be doing this all at one company either. If you've taken all the right steps, you very well may be interviewing at another company eventually for that high-level position.
One of the great things about living in tough economic times is that you're forced to really think about what matters in your career. So the challenge I'm throwing down is this: think proactively, not reactively, about where you're headed, and start taking some notes today about where you really need to improve to get to the next level. You won't be alone, as all successful people beat themselves up over something they could have done better yesterday, then figure out fast how they'll do it better next time. So add a process for fast-tracking your career to your Best Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 19, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
This blog was begun as a way to share some of the best practices in inside sales techniques that we discuss in my telesales training courses, but has evolved to encompass inside sales management techniques and practices as well. Last week's post on the concept of yearly commission checks prompted both blog responses and a number of telephone calls. One of the most interesting communications I've received about the whole process of interviewing came from Barbara, who emailed the following story about an uncomfortable interview experience she went through with a well-known high technology company. I'm reprinting it here because many inside sales executives and managers are readers of this blog, and I'm sure they'll want to avoid having interview candidates feel as badly about their companies as this candidate feels about the company she just interviewed with. Multiply that number by 20, as that is the number of people that were "mass-interviewed" that day. At the end of Barbara's story, I'll have some specific recommendations for things to avoid when interviewing someone.
About the candidate: Barbara has 10 years successful experience as both an inside and field-based sales rep selling hardware solutions. The company she interviewed with sells both hardware and software, and Barbara was interested in an inside sales position. Here's her story:
"I, along with at least 10 other candidates, was brought in at 8:15 am on the morning of the interview. The in-house recruiter finally came down stairs about 8:35 to bring all of us up to a conference room on another floor. We were all in business suits. I was told there would be another session starting at 11:15 am, more candidates, with the same format.
"We all sat around for another 15 or so minutes, tension building, until the director of the sales group for which, if hired, we'd be working, came in and gave a 10 minute summary of what was happening and introduced the "interview team" of probably 7 other people. One by one our names were called (not quite like the Registry of Motor vehicles, but close) and we were escorted into individual conference rooms for the first of our 30 minute interviews. I was last.
"The in-house recruiter made small talk until the person I was supposed to interview with arrived about 10 minutes later. It started off badly, because the first person I interviewed with had no clue about the industry I came from or how we go to market. He proceeded to grill me asking what CIO, CEO and every other high level IT executives I knew. I told him I dealt with hardware people and he became angrier. Then we started role playing. He told me I had no inside sales experience and wondered why I was there. I told him I did, and that I was already interviewing for senior management, director VP roles. I totally threw him off. We started to role play. I had to set up a call, and close him He just didn't get it, or me, or my background, or how to interview candidates. We ended our "hostile" chat with him saying, because of my hardware background, "If you are willing to give me 200% then we will ‘take a chance' and bring you on." He asked for references, my reply was to check my LinkedIn profile (my references are there) and he was very put off by that as well.
"The second guy I interviewed with was so desperate for someone who knew even a little about hardware and how a system worked, that about five minutes into the conversation he said "we need you" and "I'm going to put my recommendation in to hire you." He asked me zero interview questions. He briefly scanned my resume, made a comment about how good it was that I was well familiar with a certain microprocessor, then repeated himself on how I had such a great background, and how he would strongly recommend me for a role with the company. He told me he was asked to interview candidates early yesterday morning and that all the people interviewing were given questions to ask the candidates.
"The 3rd person I interviewed with was the inside sales manager. She asked me a few questions, then we started a role play where I set up a cold call. She asked me how I felt about making 50-100 calls a day and I said it was no problem, but felt quality of quantity is what really mattered. She ended the interview.
"At the end of the 3rd interview I walked back into the conference room and the in-house recruiter was standing there, more small chat. I felt I performed well and was still quite dumbfounded about the whole process. We made small talk, and she told me to "call me next week." At that point I knew I did not get the job. I was also not escorted down to the lobby. Not one of the people I interviewed with handed me a business card or any company collateral. The only common thread was that they all asked me why I wanted to work for the company. The following week, I got a two liner email declining me as a candidate and a thank you."
So there's Barbara's story. My guess is that with the exception of the inside sales manager, none of the people doing the interviewing knew prior to one day earlier that they would be interviewing inside sales candidates. If they received questions to ask during the interviews, they certainly didn't follow them.
Putting a bunch of candidates in a room and "speed interviewing" them may not make the eventual "winner" feel very good about wanting to accrue any longevity with the company. Professionalism starts at the top, and issuing a "cattle call," not giving out business cards, and not even bothering to walk the candidate to the door sends loads of messages about how the company operates, not only to candidates, but to everyone who works at the company. I imagine this company's attrition rate is significant.
Putting together a list of Best Practices often consists of listing poor practices and resolving not to do things that way. If you're a hiring manager, insist on treating every candidate that walks through your doors the same way you'd like to be treated when you yourself are engaged in interviewing with a company with whom you'd like to work. If you do, you'll have great candidates wanting to work for you, and your attrition rate will be lower, too.
Those of us who work in a high tech environment do so for a number of reasons, which generally include a high level of professionalism, easy access to management, and a philosophy of focusing on solutions rather than problems. Taking the "high road" in interviewing practices gives a company the best shot at hiring effective individuals that will reciprocate with the same degree of professionalism they were shown in the initial interview. And I'm trusting that Barbara's interview process was an industry anomaly, rather than an emerging trend.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Apr 12, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
In my telesales training classes, reps tend to crab a bit sometimes about company policies. Often, these are about how Marketing could do a better job getting them leads, or how cumbersome the CRM is to use. I tell them that I've yet to see a company whose sales reps didn't have the same concerns, and these generally are the result of a red hot company growing real fast, fast enough to easily outgrow systems that would have been adequate if the company were not growing at all. In other words, hot companies have growth challenges, while failing companies don't. My recommendations are to do a better job with the leads you have, and leave the CRM headaches to someone else (I remember the days of keeping prospect info on 3x5 cards, so any CRM is a joy, compared with that). And, as just about all of us in high tech telesales know, change is constant, and embracing change is a big part of what makes superior reps superior.
Last year, several pay practices that drew complaints did cause me to raise an eyebrow, although these came from companies outside my customer base. One concern was the practice of paying reps commissions quarterly instead of monthly, and I blogged about this, because it has the opposite effect of motivating sales people to close sales fast, which is one reason I'd like companies adhering to this practice to rethink it.
Recently a blog subscriber of mine encountered a new one that I hadn't yet heard of, and it's being offered to Managers who are interviewing for sales management jobs. If you're a rep, it's worth reading this as well, because payment packages do have a way of eventually filtering down to the rep level. This individual was offered a decent yearly base, but would have to wait a year to collect the accrued commission. The benefit to the individual would be a huge commission check at the end of the year. What are some of the drawbacks? Here are the first few that come to mind:
1) If the individual leaves the company before a year elapses, he or she gets zero commission.
2) The individual can only leave the company within 30 days or so after haven received the commission check, in any subsequent year. Otherwise, again, any accrued commission will be forfeited.
3) And therefore, the individual sacrifices career mobility, unless he or she chooses to stay in that particular company, and somehow negotiates a pro rata commission if moving to another position within that company.
I can see what's in it for the company. People won't want to leave "prematurely." When people do leave, the company can just about predict the month he or she will be leaving. And overall, this practice locks in solid performers for years. Great for the company, but not so great for the individual.
One of the characteristics of the high tech world is that startups are always introducing fascinating new technologies, progressive companies are improving the ones they already have, and this environment of continual and rapid change tends to benefit everyone down to the consumer level. So when you're interviewing, do a thorough job of reading your offer letter, and don't be afraid to question elements of the employment contract that may have an impact on any potential career moves you may eventually want to make.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Feb 08, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
One of the inherent beauties of selling or qualifying over the phone is that since no one can see us, hiring practices have been egalitarian, for the most part. In my telesales training courses diverse workforces have been the norm, and the resulting cross-pollination of ideas and experiences has resulted in smarter workforces. But in the past six months, I've been made aware of several outstanding inside sales candidates that were told they weren't hired because they "didn't fit in." And that was the sole reason given that they weren't hired. It had nothing to do with lack of professionalism or poor work stats. But these individuals were all over 40 years old, and the postings ran the gamut from Rep to Director.
In every case, the individual was interviewed at a company with a predominantly younger inside sales force, and came away with the feeling that management at these companies was more concerned that the new hire could party and socialize at the same level with younger workers than with what it takes to get the job done and over-perform in quota-oriented activities.
We're getting a good reputation in this blog for dealing with issues no one wants to discuss, and age discrimination is an uncomfortable topic for many. Human Resources departments are well aware of discrimination laws, but companies work around them with the "not fitting in" clause, which is not falsifiable. I'm going to give you two stories that underscore my point, but before I do, let's set up the argument.
Here are some reasons not to practice age discrimination in hiring:
1) If you're a younger manager or exec enforcing age discrimination at your company, it will eventually affect you as well. You may get succeeded by a younger person, or laid off because of your age. And you won't be able to prove it, because your company has a process in place for successfully removing older people without overtly violating discrimination laws.
2) We're not talking about the palliative crowd here. People over 35 have generally acquired great work habits, are intelligent conversationalists, and are focused on making themselves (and the company) money. They tend to be less "entitled" and accept authority more readily than many younger people.
3) Your younger inside sales reps can learn a lot from them. If they have a sales concern, they may readily go to a more experienced rep for advice than a manager, as they may feel they want to fix the problem before management becomes aware of it. This additional level of expertise provides for quicker inculcation of Best Practices, and can open up intelligent dialogue throughout the entire inside sales team.
Here's one story about an experienced inside sales rep I'd like to share with you. I trained an inside sales team in Florida that had one rep who was noticeably older than her colleagues. I would guess she was in her sixties. I always ask my participants what their passion in life is. When it was this woman's turn, she said it was flying Stearman aerobatic aircraft. She was a stunt pilot who still was doing air shows, and was probably the most focused rep in the room. In coaching sessions, she was far and away the best of the group. In follow-up discussions with management, we had serious discussions about how to find more people like her, and I would have recommended her to any of my client companies in a second.
The second story is perhaps a bit more poignant, but goes to the heart of the issue. In the early 1980s, I was putting myself through college driving a taxi in Boston. We had a number of black drivers in our company (probably half of whom were African). There were also a number of steady customers calling for cabs that specified they didn't want a black driver. So the argument went one way that the company should send white drivers in those situations, because if they didn't, the customers would refuse to ride with the black driver, call the competition, and we'd lose the business forever. The contrary argument ran that by refusing to send black drivers, we were perpetuating discrimination, and it would never end if we didn't draw the line somewhere and say "no more." The second argument won. None of us wanted to live in a discriminatory world.
This post is primarily directed to sales managers and executives that can
change the policy of age discrimination by recognizing that having experienced reps on the team makes the whole team better, then showing leadership by taking the position that neither you nor the company will stand for it. Discrimination in any form is odious, and pre-selecting out great reps because they may not join in on the Friday afternoon paintball tournament is just plain silly. Building a great inside sales team is all about talent and ability, and not about homogeneity. So please strongly consider adding real personnel diversity to your Best Management Playbook. You'll have a more effective and powerful company if you do.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
We don't just create and deliver world-class telesales training courses here. We also help great telesales reps who've excelled in our classes and at work to find jobs. We know reps that have never been under quota that were laid off this year. The other day, veteran inside sales executive Alicia Assefa interviewed a candidate we sent her, and she gave the candidate some outstanding advice on how to make a presentation in the interview that would be compelling to any sales executive. It's all about describing how you use KPI (key performance indicators) to increase your numbers and overshoot quota. I asked Alicia to share her perspective with my blog, and she did. I'll let her put it in her own worlds. Here's what Alicia says:
Everyone knows how difficult it is to find work. It's tough out there. Although job opportunities are more prevalent than they were say, six months ago, it is still a very competitive market. A few months ago, you could expect hundreds of applicants for one open position. Now, the number may be in the tens of applicants. In any case, the odds are still against job seekers. In order to get noticed, your resume must stand out. To get to the next level of the interview process, you must stand out, during each interview.
If you are looking for a sales position, there is a sure fire way to stand out from the crowd and position yourself as the "right "person for the job. Know your numbers.
Your numbers are metrics that Sales Managers call Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. A manager's performance rating is, in most cases, tied to KPIs such as pipeline growth and quota achievement.
What are the KPIs for an Inside Sales Professional? KPIs will vary, based on whether you do Teleprospecting or have a sales quota.
KPIs for Teleprospecting Reps: If you are a Teleprospecting Representative and your primary focus is on generating leads for a Field or Inside Sales team, your KPIs might include the following:
- Average Daily Dials: You should know, on average, the number of dials you make, each day. If the product is a high ticket complex solution that requires that you speak to a Senior IT professional, you may make 40-50 dials per day, as you must get past gate keepers, etc., to reach the required high-level IT professional. If, however, your product is a lower-priced commoditized solution, you may be able to make 60-100 dials per day.
- Raw Lead (RL) to Qualified Lead (QL) Conversion: Raw leads are the leads that marketing provides you, each day. Depending on the type of solution and contact level you need to reach, your RL to QL conversion should be in the range of 15%-20%. If you have a position, currently, check out the RL-to-QL conversion statistics for your team, for a 2 week period. See what the average is and where you rank. If you are looking for work and don't know this particular KPI, try to remember the total number of leads you received and how many of those turned to a qualified lead.
- Cold Call Ratio: Cold calls are calls that you make to contacts that you uncover without the aid of marketing support. Sales Managers are, typically, very interested in Sales Representatives who are not afraid to make cold calls. In general 20% of your dials should be cold calls into your accounts or territory. Managers will want to know where you got the contact names and how you pitched your Company's value proposition.
- Contact Ratios: Dials and lead conversion are interesting to Sales Managers because Sales is a numbers game. The more dials you make and the more leads you qualify, the greater your chances are of successfully meeting sales targets. A very important KPI is the contact ratio number. For example, if your daily dial average is 50, you should expect to connect with a minimum of 5 important contacts, or 10% of your dials. Ten to fifteen percent of your dials should be with important contacts that can help you move your sales activity to the next levels.
- Pipeline Growth: Pipeline is not just for quota bearing reps. Teleprospecting Reps, who generate leads for a Sales team, will have a pipeline of Qualified Leads (QL). Know the Average Sales Price (ASP) of your solution. Know your team's quota. Once you have this information, you can start to build your qualified leads pipeline. Typically 33 percent of deals will roll off the sales forecast, 33 percent will close and 33 percent will stall. If you are supporting a Sales Team, in general, you will need a qualified leads pipeline of 3X your teams' quota targets.
- Emails: Emails are another touch point that connects you to prospects. Although the phone is the primary way to connect with prospects, it is often necessary to stay in touch through an email. Know how many emails you send out, daily. Emails, when added to your average daily dials, increases the total number of prospect touches you have, each day. On average you should send out 15-20 emails to key contacts, daily.
KPIs for TeleSales Reps: If you are a quota bearing Sales Professional, your KPIs will include most of the items above, including:
- Average Daily Dials
- Cold Call Ratio
- Contact Ratios
- Average Sales Price
- Emails
In addition, as a quota bearing representative, you have a quota (monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, etc.). In order to achieve your quota, it is important to build your pipeline to ensure that you will meet sales targets.
- Pipeline Growth: Depending on the type of solution you are selling (complex, high-priced or commoditized, low-priced) you will need to build a pipeline of 3X to 6X your revenue objective. If you are currently working in a sales position, ask your manager how large your pipeline should be to meet sales targets. Start building to that level, to ensure your success.
- Quota Achievement: Every Sales Manager is going ask you if you made your sales targets. If you did, you should know how (pipeline growth of X times of Sales Targets, X Cold Calls made per day, 50-60 Daily Dials, etc.). If you didn't, you should know why. If you didn't, make your numbers, were you within 85+ % (an acceptable range). If you didn't, how did you rank against your peers?
After you've derived your numbers: Now that you know your numbers, the next step is to ensure that your résumé lists your numbers (KPIs). List your achievements, by company. For example you might list:
- At ABC Company I achieved 92% of my quarterly objectives for 6 consecutive quarters. I was ranked number 2 amongst my peer group. I achieved my numbers based on:
- 1) Average Daily Dials: 65
- 2) Cold Call Ratio: 20% of all dials
- 3) Pipeline: 2.5X quarterly sales objective
- 4) Contact Ratio: 20% of my daily contacts were with senior level IT Executives
Once your resume is completed and lists your KPIs, your next and final step is to complete a one-page overview of your accomplishments. This overview should list your major accomplishments, with the most important accomplishment listed at the top.
Your overview should list the following:
Sales Highlights and Accomplishments
Company XYZ:
- 2009 Presidents Club
- Achieved 120% of Quota
- Pipeline 5X revenue objective
- ASP: $50,000
- Contact Ratio: 20%
- Cold Call Ratio: 15%
When you have an onsite interview, make sure that you give your Sales Highlights and Accomplishments document to the hiring manager. Keep a copy in front of you, for the entire interview. You have a lot of numbers to discuss and you don't want to forget your most important KPIs.
Knowing your numbers and communicating your numbers, during the interview process, will put you way ahead of the competition. When you know your numbers, Sales Managers will feel very comfortable that they won't be hiring a junior person. Rather, they will see you as a seasoned and serious Sales Professional who is goal oriented and highly motivated. Start building your list of KPIs. Know your numbers and communicate them in your resume, Sales Highlights and Accomplishments overview and during the interview process.
It's Geoff here again. So there's some important advice from an inside sales executive whose job entails determining who to hire and who to discard. One day while I was a juror, a judge told me after the case was finished that he was frustrated because he'd told the prosecutor exactly how he wanted the case presented, and the prosecutor went and did it his own way anyway. And lost the case. Here, we have an inside sales exec who's telling you how to get hired. Add Alicia Assefa's advice on presenting your KPIs to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jan 18, 2010 @ 10:01 AM
Today's post is for sales executives and managers and those who wish to become them. A sales executive I know just went through one of the worst interviewing experiences of his life, and asked what he could have done to change the outcome. In today's hiring market, every one of you reading this post could run into the same thing. My solution touches on a closing technique I use in my telesales training courses, too. So let me tell you the story, and what you can do to turn a similar situation that you might face into your advantage.
Robert interviewed for a sales exec position at a medium-sized company that had a sales situation that needed to be turned around. As part of his interview, they asked him to present a sales plan for the upcoming year, based on what he knew about the company. He spent quite a few hours designing it and writing it out. He told me about it, and it was a brilliant plan. The interview took three hours, in front of the company's executive board, and he outlined it all out. They told him they liked the plan, would discuss it, and call back. They did, and invited him for another interview to discuss the plan, as they had questions. He did, addressed all the issues, and they told him they'd call him back. They did, and said they were moving in another direction. He didn't get the job.
All in all, Robert spent many hours designing and interviewing for a job he was probably never going to get. They just needed some free consulting. So I suggested that since this was becoming an all-too-common experience these days, he turn it around to his advantage the next time this happens by following the following steps:
1) When a prospective interviewer asks for a business plan, walk in with an outline, not a whitepaper.
2) Answer any questions, but keep the interview to two hours or fewer.
3) If the interviewer wants a more detailed plan for the next interview, tell the company that the detailed plan is what you'd be implementing at the company. Suggest that the company hire you to build a sales plan for a consulting fee. When you present the plan, the company will have four options:
a) hiring you (the candidate) to implement the plan
b) hiring someone else to implement the plan
c) doing the plan in-house with current personnel
d) not doing anything at all
This is an approach I've used successfully when a prospect company wants me to do a lot of front-end work with no guarantee of a contract. About 50% of the time, I get a consulting contract, and eventually get their follow-on business, too.
Prospect companies aren't always disingenuous when they ask for a lot up front. Many times they are disorganized, have political issues, or internal disagreements about candidates and processes. But taking my approach does force them to come to the table with something in return for the time you (the candidate) spend on diagnosing their sales process. My friend and colleague Barry Mainz would refer to this approach as quid pro quo, and it's a closing technique that works just as well with prospective employers as it does for closing sales prospects on business.
It's an employer's market these days, but you'll gain a lot of respect by taking this approach, and you may get paid for your time, too. And it's is a good start to getting hired by that company. If they don't agree that you have a point, you may have what we call a "walk-away." You won't have lost anything, and will have gained some professional respect. Add this technique to your Best Management Practices playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 @ 12:09 PM
Today's post may alarm you, but hang in there, as what I'm discussing today could one day --- if it goes far enough --- affect everyone reading this post, individual sale reps as well as sales managers. The story I'm going to tell is right out of Monty Python, but it happened just last week to a great candidate that wants to be in inside sales, and has all the tools to be making six figures within a very short time. Here's a little background. Read along and see if you're as concerned for hiring practices our industry as I am:
Two weeks ago, I recommended a great candidate for an inside sales lead development position to a company whose inside sales manager I know and like. This candidate had sterling references from execs in the hospitality industry, and a history for getting repeat business out of customers that could be difficult. He's great on the phone, and he'll be a successful inside sales rep making six figures pretty soon. As an inside sales trainer for 20 years, I've got a good track record for finding talented people out of our industry and bringing them in to be successful sales reps, so this was going to be another winner (and I've had a bunch).
So I called my friend, an inside sales manager who is trying to hire a rep for a company he's just started working with, told him about the candidate, and he was enthused. He said the candidate had to talk to HR first, and the HR specialist loved my candidate after talking with him. Then the HR specialist told the candidate that he'd have to take an online personality test (they called it a "sales aptitude test." And he "failed." The test claimed he couldn't deal with challenging people (I've known the candidate for some time, and this is 180 degrees wrong.)
My pal the Telesales manager wasn't allowed to talk to the candidate, as he'd been vetted out. So the manager's opinion on the candidate was worthless, as was the HR specialist's. The opinions of all personnel in the company responsible for hiring were overridden by a testing company, obviously hired by upper-level management. Incidentally, the position was for high tech inside sales in the Silicon Valley. The testing company was located thousands of miles away, and their website indicates they specialize in testing people for a number of industries, none of them high tech.
I believe this process is potentially dangerous to our high tech telesales industry, for the following reasons:
1) If personality tests had any merit at all, we'd be giving them to elementary school kids as predictors of who's going to end up being a career criminal. Then we'd provide remedial education. Then we'd have no more violent criminals. But we know such tests aren't adequate predictors, probably to the chagrin of the multimillion dollar test industry, who wishes they could prove them effective.
2) The Inside Sales manager asked for the test to be re-evaluated, so The World's Greatest Psychologists reinterpreted his answers. Politically as well as professionally, they can't change a result, can they? If they did, it would indicate the test wasn't valid to begin with.
3) A question that most be the most disconcerting: what kind of database is storing the "failed" questionnaire of the candidate? Who has access to it? Will it be used whenever another client of the testing company has the same candidate targeting a sales position within the new company? If so, the candidate will be discarded because there will already be a personality test on record. This "test" will probably be alive in a database in perpetuity. I'm sure the testing company would deny it keeps old tests. Is that really believable?
4) If a company adopts this "personality testing" concept, why not just do away with my HR department altogether? Why would a company need HR, when their judgment is valued so little that they can't override a personnel decision made by an outsourced company using computerized test made my supposed psychological sales "experts"? Why not just vet the candidate using a personality test, then let the Legal department handle pre and post-hiring issues?
Bottom line, the candidate loses, the company loses a good candidate, and because their opinions are worthless, the Inside Sales Manager and the HR specialist lose, too.
So I'm recommending that none of you reading this post EVER take a personality test. You might "lose," so you won't get the job, and your failed test will sit in a testing company's database, ticking away like a time bomb where it can be accessed by another potential company that may be thinking of hiring you. And you may never even know this occurred, because it will be hidden from you.
You can't test adults for what it takes to be successful inside sales reps. There are simply too many important variables, and they all change radically depending on the sales situation (one example: price negotiation techniques). Desire and intrinsic motivation can't be tested for. But a good inside sales manager can figure them out pretty quickly and have a real discussion with a candidate, using his or her expertise and experience within the industry, and candidate references (read my post 20 Characteristics of a Superior Inside Salesperson if you'd like to know what I'd look for in the interview process).
So if you're a sales exec or inside sales manager, challenge anyone in your company that tries to convince you that personality tests are meaningful predictors of sales success, because you'll be acing yourself out of being able to bring in good candidates that you know will be successful, based on your expertise and telesales savvy. And if you're a rep, avoid companies that insist you take a test as part of the hiring process: you don't want your name sitting in a database somewhere, describing your "personality." And add skepticism of the "personality testing" industry to your Best Practices playbook.