Andy Paul's Blog, page 18

674: The State of Sales Enablement with Orrin Broberg

Orrin Broberg, President and CEO of Modus and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Orrin Broberg

Modus is a B2B enterprise digital sales platform for organizing and creating compelling content to create product differentiation and close more sales.
Reps get a professional, easy-to-use mobile app. For administrators, it is a very robust content management system for organizing all kinds of media. Their niche is manufacturers with complex distribution channels.
Modus started as a mobile sales presentation company. Orrin was working with a digital media agency creating rich media presentations for medical device companies when the iPad debuted. Reps started using the iPad.
Companies asked the agency to develop an iPad app for deploying, managing and monitoring rich presentations. That was the birth of Modus. Modus has been enhanced since then.
Andy cites Tamara Schenk, who is astonished at how often the customer is not even mentioned when vendors discuss sales enablement. Effective selling requires aligning sales activities to the customer’s journey.
Orrin thinks sales enablement will divide into sub-disciplines useful for vendors. The Sales Enablement Society defines it as analyzing customer needs and how vendors can support them in buying the service.
We are getting worse at sales, the more technology we add. The problem is that reps talk to clients for only 33% of their work time. Reps need more time.
Reps deal with more information than they need and tools that fall short. Enterprise B2B sales are made in a complex process, face-to-face. Put devices down when you’re talking. Technology does not create trust.
Modus hangs onto marketing qualified leads longer, qualifying them better by points before passing them to a digital sales enablement director to continue discovery.
When a customer goes dark they may be rethinking their organization and how they are going to have to do things to accommodate what they are looking to buy.
Larger companies already have a learning management system and they want to make better use of what they have. They don’t look at Modus as an LMS. Modus integrates marketing automation with CRM.
Modus doesn’t duplicate the capabilities customers have. Modus sales enablement applies AI content management into what their customers are doing on a sales call. Orrin runs through some details of the process that save time.

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

Do salespeople really understand how people make decisions? Sales processes don’t take into account the science behind group decision-making.
Bridget points out that New Sales. Simplified. explains how group decisions are more than the sum of the individuals’ decisions. Andy points out that DiscoverOrg research shows one person’s decision drives the group decision.
We don’t fully understand collective decision-making. We know there are multiple stakeholders. We need to know what’s at the root of the group dynamic.
In Andy’s experience, if you don’t win the individual decisions, your odds of winning the overall decision are very low.
Paul Nutt’s research divides a decision into two steps. The first is a ‘go/no go’ decision about moving forward. The ‘no decision’ decision common in the pipeline is the failure to get the customer committed to that point.
After the customer decides to go forward, then they have to decide on the vendor they will use to help them go forward. If you are the driver for the customer to make a ‘go’ decision, you are in a good position to sell to them.
Bridget says this is one purpose of discovery. If the customer is not in enough ‘pain’ to make a decision, then making a presentation is wasting time. Most salespeople miss qualifying the customer on the value they will get.
Andy lays out the process he used for years in sales. He has sold over half a billion dollars in products and services. His largest sale was $100 million. What he learned was to follow a specific pattern.
What his customers needed was to identify the outcomes they wanted to achieve, and to know what the value would be to them of the vision of the product or service. Andy walked through it with his customers.
Andy knew it was worth his time to work with customers who understood the value of the decision and were committed to moving forward to make a decision. Usually, they would buy from him when they bought.
Managers are putting pressure on salespeople to get more pipeline coverage. Andy believes the more coverage you work with, the less time you have to qualify them fully. Bridget talks about Logz.io experiences.
The real challenge is to get to the level in a customer organization to talk with someone who has the authority to quantify their need, which leads to qualifying them. This takes business understanding, not a list of questions.

673: Scale Up Your Sales with Vince Beese

Vince Beese, CEO and Founder at Sales@Scale and The Revenue Exchange, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A meaningful conversation includes give-and-take and clearly defined next steps. Vince gives an example of one. There will be commitments on both sides of the discussion, both from the customer and the vendor.

 

Be strategic about your calls. Know what the logical next step should be (e.g., a demo should lead to a proposal). Setting expectations is a good beginning. Andy recommends having a plan with the desired outcome for every call.

 

Write out what you want to accomplish and have it in front of you before making a call. Every conversation is a potential closing call. Are you prepared for objections or questions? Do you know the customer’s agenda?

 

An objection is just an unanswered question. Pushback means you are getting somewhere. Questions are buying signs. Don’t be defensive! Find out the underlying question and answer it. Sometimes it is a disqualifier.

 

Two hot topics for Vince: the diminishing close rate and the diminishing quota attainment rate. Hiring more reps is not the answer. Increasing the close rate to 25% is more economical than hiring more reps that close at 20%.

 

When selling seven-figure deals, the market is smaller, so each prospect is more valued. Make sure your reps are prepared to learn a buyer’s needs and get commitments from them. Are you closing 50% of those large prospects?

 

Sales enablement focuses on content, training, and coaching but is missing the fourth leg of education. The person-to-person connection is the basis of sales, and it involves the rep pursuing their own sales education.

 

Enterprise deals are closed with face-to-face meetings. Selling is an apprenticeship. Shadow other salespeople on their sales visits. Some reps don’t learn fast enough. Vince thinks complete training programs aren’t coming back.

 

Vince has a Deal Predictor based on five questions that reveal if the sales rep really knows the deal and is honest about the deal. Vince will be back on another episode to do a deep dive on the Deal Predictor.

 

Know the value you need to deliver to each of your top five prospects on the very next call, and what you expect of the prospect in return. You need to know that about every single qualified opportunity in your pipeline.

 

When you bring your manager to a meeting, the manager brings value by listening to all parties and getting an overview. A high-value deal works best in a team-selling approach. After the meeting, regroup and debrief.

 

At night, Andy closes out thoughts in his mind before he goes to sleep. He sends himself emails, each with only a subject line that is a task or followup from these end-of-day thoughts. He reads them fresh in the a.m.

The post 673: Scale Up Your Sales with Vince Beese appeared first on Andy Paul | Learn More, Earn More.

673: Scale Up Your Sales with Vince Beese

Vince Beese, CEO and Founder at Sales@Scale and The Revenue Exchange, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A meaningful conversation includes give-and-take and clearly defined next steps. Vince gives an example of one. There will be commitments on both sides of the discussion, both from the customer and the vendor.

 

Be strategic about your calls. Know what the logical next step should be (e.g., a demo should lead to a proposal). Setting expectations is a good beginning. Andy recommends having a plan with the desired outcome for every call.

 

Write out what you want to accomplish and have it in front of you before making a call. Every conversation is a potential closing call. Are you prepared for objections or questions? Do you know the customer’s agenda?

 

An objection is just an unanswered question. Pushback means you are getting somewhere. Questions are buying signs. Don’t be defensive! Find out the underlying question and answer it. Sometimes it is a disqualifier.

 

Two hot topics for Vince: the diminishing close rate and the diminishing quota attainment rate. Hiring more reps is not the answer. Increasing the close rate to 25% is more economical than hiring more reps that close at 20%.

 

When selling seven-figure deals, the market is smaller, so each prospect is more valued. Make sure your reps are prepared to learn a buyer’s needs and get commitments from them. Are you closing 50% of those large prospects?

 

Sales enablement focuses on content, training, and coaching but is missing the fourth leg of education. The person-to-person connection is the basis of sales, and it involves the rep pursuing their own sales education.

 

Enterprise deals are closed with face-to-face meetings. Selling is an apprenticeship. Shadow other salespeople on their sales visits. Some reps don’t learn fast enough. Vince thinks complete training programs aren’t coming back.

 

Vince has a Deal Predictor based on five questions that reveal if the sales rep really knows the deal and is honest about the deal. Vince will be back on another episode to do a deep dive on the Deal Predictor.

 

Know the value you need to deliver to each of your top five prospects on the very next call, and what you expect of the prospect in return. You need to know that about every single qualified opportunity in your pipeline.

 

When you bring your manager to a meeting, the manager brings value by listening to all parties and getting an overview. A high-value deal works best in a team-selling approach. After the meeting, regroup and debrief.

 

At night, Andy closes out thoughts in his mind before he goes to sleep. He sends himself emails, each with only a subject line that is a task or followup from these end-of-day thoughts. He reads them fresh in the a.m.

672: Perfecting your process with Chris Hallberg

Chris Hallberg, author of the book The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual: Military Grade Business Execution without the Yelling and Push-ups, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The process of capturing and converting leads has changed. Inbound marketing manages the sales process by exception. Don’t wait for leads to come to you.
A mix of outbound and inbound works best. Even Hubspot uses outbound for enterprise sales. If the CEO is too involved in sales, it is a bottleneck. If the CEO neglects sales, the Sales VP may lag trends and lose growth.
Andy recommends a sales organization should review their sales process every six months, including a lost business review, talking to customers, and creating a 90-day plan. Chris says, if it works well, leave it to work.
Five-day blueprint for a deep dive: Day 1: Sales VP talks to customers for two hours. Day 2: SVP talks to lost deals for two hours. Day 3: SVP assesses reps. Day 4: SVP assesses process. Day 5: SVP creates a new 90-day plan.
Chris notes that 60% of companies don’t have a documented process. Chris asks companies how they will scale $20M sales to $50M? Usually, that’s a short conversation! So, he helps them document a process.
Documentation of process holds everyone accountable. Marketing and sales processes are different and have different objectives. Marketing makes the phone ring. Sales converts prospects into customers.
Gino Wickman says forget about the results and measure the human activities that generate the results. Chris tells what this means. Start with email tracking. Calling someone while they are looking at your email is effective.
Andy talks about the inequitable distribution of accounts among salespeople. A happy customer wants to buy more from you. It costs much less to sell to an existing client than to find a new client. Reallocate accounts.
If a rep threatens to leave, let them go. You will keep customers that are pleased with your company. No one hires a “Rolodex.” When accounts are spread out, the ‘sales unicorn’ leaving will not hurt your company.
The sales leader is to provide value to the greater good. If you can’t provide any lead to any particular salesperson, there may be an issue with that rep. Use equitable distribution of leads.
Chris helps companies with execution but it’s hard to help a company with a poor sales organization. It’s a long slog just to get back up to zero. You need the right people following the vision. Andy refers to the 5-day blueprint.
The first step to getting in shape is showing up the gym. You have to deal with the difficult issues, even when things are going well. Uncomfortable conversations are the best meetings. Dig deeper. Serve the greater good.

The post 672: Perfecting your process with Chris Hallberg appeared first on Andy Paul | Strategies to Power Growth.

672: Perfecting your process with Chris Hallberg

Chris Hallberg, author of the book The Business Sergeant’s Field Manual: Military Grade Business Execution without the Yelling and Push-ups, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The process of capturing and converting leads has changed. Inbound marketing manages the sales process by exception. Don’t wait for leads to come to you.
A mix of outbound and inbound works best. Even Hubspot uses outbound for enterprise sales. If the CEO is too involved in sales, it is a bottleneck. If the CEO neglects sales, the Sales VP may lag trends and lose growth.
Andy recommends a sales organization should review their sales process every six months, including a lost business review, talking to customers, and creating a 90-day plan. Chris says, if it works well, leave it to work.
Five-day blueprint for a deep dive: Day 1: Sales VP talks to customers for two hours. Day 2: SVP talks to lost deals for two hours. Day 3: SVP assesses reps. Day 4: SVP assesses process. Day 5: SVP creates a new 90-day plan.
Chris notes that 60% of companies don’t have a documented process. Chris asks companies how they will scale $20M sales to $50M? Usually, that’s a short conversation! So, he helps them document a process.
Documentation of process holds everyone accountable. Marketing and sales processes are different and have different objectives. Marketing makes the phone ring. Sales converts prospects into customers.
Gino Wickman says forget about the results and measure the human activities that generate the results. Chris tells what this means. Start with email tracking. Calling someone while they are looking at your email is effective.
Andy talks about the inequitable distribution of accounts among salespeople. A happy customer wants to buy more from you. It costs much less to sell to an existing client than to find a new client. Reallocate accounts.
If a rep threatens to leave, let them go. You will keep customers that are pleased with your company. No one hires a “Rolodex.” When accounts are spread out, the ‘sales unicorn’ leaving will not hurt your company.
The sales leader is to provide value to the greater good. If you can’t provide any lead to any particular salesperson, there may be an issue with that rep. Use equitable distribution of leads.
Chris helps companies with execution but it’s hard to help a company with a poor sales organization. It’s a long slog just to get back up to zero. You need the right people following the vision. Andy refers to the 5-day blueprint.
The first step to getting in shape is showing up the gym. You have to deal with the difficult issues, even when things are going well. Uncomfortable conversations are the best meetings. Dig deeper. Serve the greater good.

671: Don’t Just Read; Study to Get Smarter w/ Harvey MacKay

Harvey MacKay, author of the New York Times #1 bestsellers Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Andy took some distinct lessons that have stayed with him from Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Harvey seeks to bring value and notes that knowledge does not become power until it’s used.
All seven of Harvey’s books are NYT Bestsellers. Two of them are said by the NYT to be in the top 15 inspirational business books of the last 100 years.
Harvey suggests a person changes with experience. Study (highlight and take notes) the same classic book each year, and you will learn new information every time.
Harvey has about 20 coaches — one for each of his activities. Each coach is at the top of their field to give Harvey the best help in that subject. Harvey says that perfect practice makes perfect.
Andy objects to processes that make sales rep the same. He took the education he received and made it his own. Sales leaders are unique. You become a salesperson.
Harvey tells each audience that each of them is a salesperson. All day long they negotiate with, persuade, and influence people. A salesperson’s job is to form a relationship with a buyer and then to serve them.
Harvey asks a buyer questions from a list of 66 that allow the salesperson to humanize their prospect and build deep lasting relationships. Ask as many of the questions as is natural. Always go deep.
Andy relates an anecdote from his past. After several visits, he discerned that a buyer wanted him to ask about his grandchildren. Once Andy got personal, the buyer gave Andy the order.
Harvey says when a person with money meets a person with experience, the person with the experience ends up with the money and the person with the money ends up with the experience.
Don’t believe that customers are too busy to engage in small talk. They want it. The more that technology encroaches on interactions, the more a human touch is needed. Make it a conversation, not an interrogation.
Harvey tells of a new salesperson looking to make a very large order to a new buyer. He couldn’t answer one of the 66 questions. He wouldn’t have a good chance of making the sale. Nothing replaces face-to-face in person.
You need to know this one four-letter word: hire. Hire the right person and your business will grow through the roof.

The post 671: Don’t Just Read; Study to Get Smarter w/ Harvey MacKay appeared first on Andy Paul | Strategies to Power Growth.

671: Don’t Just Read; Study to Get Smarter w/ Harvey MacKay

Harvey MacKay, author of the New York Times #1 bestsellers Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, joins me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Andy took some distinct lessons that have stayed with him from Swim With The Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Harvey seeks to bring value and notes that knowledge does not become power until it’s used.
All seven of Harvey’s books are NYT Bestsellers. Two of them are said by the NYT to be in the top 15 inspirational business books of the last 100 years.
Harvey suggests a person changes with experience. Study (highlight and take notes) the same classic book each year, and you will learn new information every time.
Harvey has about 20 coaches — one for each of his activities. Each coach is at the top of their field to give Harvey the best help in that subject. Harvey says that perfect practice makes perfect.
Andy objects to processes that make sales rep the same. He took the education he received and made it his own. Sales leaders are unique. You become a salesperson.
Harvey tells each audience that each of them is a salesperson. All day long they negotiate with, persuade, and influence people. A salesperson’s job is to form a relationship with a buyer and then to serve them.
Harvey asks a buyer questions from a list of 66 that allow the salesperson to humanize their prospect and build deep lasting relationships. Ask as many of the questions as is natural. Always go deep.
Andy relates an anecdote from his past. After several visits, he discerned that a buyer wanted him to ask about his grandchildren. Once Andy got personal, the buyer gave Andy the order.
Harvey says when a person with money meets a person with experience, the person with the experience ends up with the money and the person with the money ends up with the experience.
Don’t believe that customers are too busy to engage in small talk. They want it. The more that technology encroaches on interactions, the more a human touch is needed. Make it a conversation, not an interrogation.
Harvey tells of a new salesperson looking to make a very large order to a new buyer. He couldn’t answer one of the 66 questions. He wouldn’t have a good chance of making the sale. Nothing replaces face-to-face in person.
You need to know this one four-letter word: hire. Hire the right person and your business will grow through the roof.

670: Building a Career on Your Terms w/ Jill Stanton | The Art of Being Interesting w/ Bridget Gleason

 

Join Andy today and stay updated on all things Accelerate! @ TheSalesHouse.com/accelerate

 

Jill Stanton, Co-Founder with her husband Josh Stanton of Screw the Nine to Five and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Jill Stanton

Jill and Josh have started multiple businesses as nomads. Their four-month-old baby genius anchors them in one location, for now. They help entrepreneurs to get more traffic, make more money, and scale their businesses.
Once you start to make money online, then you have the freedom to move on to optimizing health and building teams and relationships. Jill and Josh started their business in 2012, sacrificing time with friends for work.
Jill and Josh worked in Chiang Mai (Thailand), Malaysia, Beijing (China), Cambodia, and Vietnam. They met in Beijing. They joined a digital nomad group in Chiang Mai.
Jill and Josh moved to Toronto mainly to keep on a better schedule with their team on this side of the globe. Jill looks forward to moving back to Asia when their child is old enough to enjoy it.
Jill and Josh don’t recommend starting a business together and getting married during the same year, but that’s what they did. They divide, conquer, and stay out of each other’s lanes. Jill outlines how they divide work.
Jill and Josh are building a local/virtual team with an integrator, a community coach/customer support, tech/billing, and a graphics person, with more to come.
Jill knew she was in a movement when people started calling themselves scroupies and scramily. People want to call the shots in their own lives.
Some entrepreneurs go back to corporate sales to act as entrepreneurs, calling the shots over their territories. Staying an entrepreneur owner takes a strong tolerance for risk. Entrepreneurs don’t turn off the job at night.
A  movement ebbs and flows. You sustain it with presence, consistency, value, impact, and keeping your finger on the pulse of what people want. Jill is always asking their free group, “What do you guys want?”
They have a paid private group that gets the benefit of all the content. Jill considers her group members to be her mini-bosses. Her market segment is courses, membership sites, coaches, and content-driven brands.
90-Day Traffic is one of their programs that gives people a structure and a system to create content, host, and close with webinars, monetized through affiliate links.
They also have a system for developing community content and a procedure for promotional content, such as appearing on podcasts. Content marketing builds enormous brands.

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

The topic: What does it take for a salesperson to be interesting? It starts by being well-informed and ready to stray outside your comfort zone.
Next, be interested. Be curious. Use small talk of interest to the prospect. Be vulnerable. Show that you’re authentic. Allow people to talk about their interests. The more you know of a person the more you can connect.
Comment on things you see in the prospect’s office that reveal their interests. Follow the conversation where the prospect takes it. Connect the dots.
Andy connects with people around the world by being interested in their cities and cultures. Neither Andy nor Bridget are extroverts and they still are able to establish rapport with people they meet.
Logz.io is moving to team selling and shared quotas. This caused lots of discussions. Andy rejects candidates who are motivated primarily by money. Bridget was almost not hired for a sales job for lack of money motivation.
Sales managers sometimes pressure their salespeople to go into debt for a new car. This keeps up the financial incentive to earn. Bridget and Andy tell car ‘war stories.’
Bridget recommends watching “Blackfish.” Andy says that documentary has really hurt SeaWorld; they are trying to rebrand as an amusement park.

The post 670: Building a Career on Your Terms w/ Jill Stanton | The Art of Being Interesting w/ Bridget Gleason appeared first on Andy Paul | Strategies to Power Growth.

670: Building a Career on Your Terms w/ Jill Stanton | The Art of Being Interesting w/ Bridget Gleason

 

Join Andy today and stay updated on all things Accelerate! @ TheSalesHouse.com/accelerate

 

Jill Stanton, Co-Founder with her husband Josh Stanton of Screw the Nine to Five and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Jill Stanton

Jill and Josh have started multiple businesses as nomads. Their four-month-old baby genius anchors them in one location, for now. They help entrepreneurs to get more traffic, make more money, and scale their businesses.
Once you start to make money online, then you have the freedom to move on to optimizing health and building teams and relationships. Jill and Josh started their business in 2012, sacrificing time with friends for work.
Jill and Josh worked in Chiang Mai (Thailand), Malaysia, Beijing (China), Cambodia, and Vietnam. They met in Beijing. They joined a digital nomad group in Chiang Mai.
Jill and Josh moved to Toronto mainly to keep on a better schedule with their team on this side of the globe. Jill looks forward to moving back to Asia when their child is old enough to enjoy it.
Jill and Josh don’t recommend starting a business together and getting married during the same year, but that’s what they did. They divide, conquer, and stay out of each other’s lanes. Jill outlines how they divide work.
Jill and Josh are building a local/virtual team with an integrator, a community coach/customer support, tech/billing, and a graphics person, with more to come.
Jill knew she was in a movement when people started calling themselves scroupies and scramily. People want to call the shots in their own lives.
Some entrepreneurs go back to corporate sales to act as entrepreneurs, calling the shots over their territories. Staying an entrepreneur owner takes a strong tolerance for risk. Entrepreneurs don’t turn off the job at night.
A  movement ebbs and flows. You sustain it with presence, consistency, value, impact, and keeping your finger on the pulse of what people want. Jill is always asking their free group, “What do you guys want?”
They have a paid private group that gets the benefit of all the content. Jill considers her group members to be her mini-bosses. Her market segment is courses, membership sites, coaches, and content-driven brands.
90-Day Traffic is one of their programs that gives people a structure and a system to create content, host, and close with webinars, monetized through affiliate links.
They also have a system for developing community content and a procedure for promotional content, such as appearing on podcasts. Content marketing builds enormous brands.

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

The topic: What does it take for a salesperson to be interesting? It starts by being well-informed and ready to stray outside your comfort zone.
Next, be interested. Be curious. Use small talk of interest to the prospect. Be vulnerable. Show that you’re authentic. Allow people to talk about their interests. The more you know of a person the more you can connect.
Comment on things you see in the prospect’s office that reveal their interests. Follow the conversation where the prospect takes it. Connect the dots.
Andy connects with people around the world by being interested in their cities and cultures. Neither Andy nor Bridget are extroverts and they still are able to establish rapport with people they meet.
Logz.io is moving to team selling and shared quotas. This caused lots of discussions. Andy rejects candidates who are motivated primarily by money. Bridget was almost not hired for a sales job for lack of money motivation.
Sales managers sometimes pressure their salespeople to go into debt for a new car. This keeps up the financial incentive to earn. Bridget and Andy tell car ‘war stories.’
Bridget recommends watching “Blackfish.” Andy says that documentary has really hurt SeaWorld; they are trying to rebrand as an amusement park.

669: Stop recruiting and attract top candidates instead w/ Brad Owens | Summer Reading for Salespeople w/ Bridget Gleason.

 

Brad Owens, the self-styled Robin Hood of Hiring and host of the Small Business Hiring Podcast and Bridget Gleason, VP of Sales for Logz.io and my regular partner, join me on this episode of #Accelerate!

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

First guest: Brad Owens

Brad spent a decade as an external recruiter for Fortune 500 companies. In his company, he uses the best practices of the big guys to serve small businesses.
The best companies don’t hire — they attract. Marketing and recruiting should be working side-by-side. What about your company attracts the right kind of candidates?
People are driven to find new jobs because of the impact they might have, the potential for personal growth, the challenge, autonomy, and flexibility. A magnetic, corporate culture attracts good employees.
To screen candidates, meet them and understand who they are. Take them to lunch. Have the difficult conversations. Talk about their difficult conversations.
People need to know what working for you is like. Put information on LinkedIn about what it is like working for your company. LinkedIn has a place just for that.
Steps candidates take to investigate you: read your ad online (It should market you.); search your website to see what it’s like to work there; search your social media profiles; search Glassdoor or other company rating sites.
Make sure you are selling your job (why people would want to work there), and getting the message out. This is employer branding. Every company should be doing this.
Give candidates homework. Put in your job ad something like: We will not look at resumes for this job unless you go to our website, find a core value you identify with and tell us why. (This requires you first to spell out your core values!)
Brad does not use personality type assessments to promote a diverse workforce. Instead, he recommends more homework and conversation. Test for skills, if needed. Trainability is more important than skills.
Brad recommends attributional interviewing to check for: attitude, aptitude, adaptability, accomplishments, appreciation, and amiability. These six attributes indicate a person who will be a long-term fit for your organization.
Andy reminds companies to develop the questions, and if four people interview a candidate, have them ask the same questions in the same order, and then compare notes. The hiring manager dives deeply into the resume.
Brad’s last suggestion: Have a system. Tune the system as your results indicate.

 

Second Guest: Bridget Gleason

Bridget just came back from a great Canadian vacation/family reunion. Her time in Banff wasn’t long enough. Andy’s family reunion is in Bar Harbor Maine.
The topic is the summer reading list. Bridget’s team is reading New Sales Simplified, by Mike Weinberg. Bridget’s CMO is doing it as well. It integrates sales and marketing.
Andy just re-read by Swim with the Sharks without Being Eaten Alive, by Harvey MacKay, in preparation for interviewing him. It focuses on relationship-building. Sales reps have to fill out a long prospect questionnaire.
Andy also read Barking Up the Wrong Tree, by Eric Barker. It explains what really happens to make a person successful. Andy highlighted the book almost solid yellow. Valedictorians follow rules but business has few rules.
Bridget likes her assumptions to be challenged. Research shows salespeople who are too responsive don’t do well, but the most successful ones are more ‘givers’ than ‘takers’ or ‘matchers.’
Bridget likes Barking to the Choir, by Gregory Boyle. It is a remarkable story about gang intervention. It made Bridget challenge her own concepts of success. Success is more than revenue generation. Be in service to others.
In Barking up the Wrong Tree, Eric Barker says as little as two hours of volunteer work each week can be transformative for people who are pessimistic, fearful, or inner-directed. They can see they have an impact.
People remember story-telling. To love what you do, communicate it and find joy in it is contagious. Prospects are “pieces of cake” compared to gang members. Getting a gang member to trust you is an accomplishment.
Eric Barker stresses knowing yourself means knowing what you do well. Understand your story and your vision of yourself. If you can believe it, you can do it.
Bridget would like to spend more time and get more involved, for the next version of herself. Giving time is more than giving money.

The post 669: Stop recruiting and attract top candidates instead w/ Brad Owens | Summer Reading for Salespeople w/ Bridget Gleason. appeared first on Andy Paul | Strategies to Power Growth.