David Brock reminds us that social media is changing the way our customers buy and the way in which we engage our customers.  Before customers even see us for the first time, they have a great deal of information—not necessarily knowledge—about our company, our products, and our competition.  He is often asked, “How should sales professionals be engaging in social media?”

The short answer is, “I’m not sure”—but every sales person must be gaining familiarity and leveraging social media.  Social media and social selling is changing everything we do, the pace varies by industry, but every sales person must get familiar with how the world of engaging customers is changing.

The most powerful way sales people can be using social media is to listen—listen to the market, listen to customers, listen to competition, even listen to their own company…

For related stories on b-to-b sales and marketing trends, visit Follow the Lead on a regular basis.

When it comes to managing the sales territory, some b-to-b organizations are better than others, said Lee Salz, president of Sales Architects. Forward-thinking companies tend to provide their sales reps with specific characteristics of their ideal client and how to get the most out of existing accounts with regard to upselling and cross-selling.
Then there are those managers who give sales reps “a piece of land or a vertical, and say. ‘Go sell,’” Salz said. This approach may work for some reps, but in today’s hyper-competitive sales environment – with budgets increasingly finite – sales people need guidance to help them pursue the right opportunities at the right time.
“Territory management is a synonym for time management,” Salz added. “Time is a sales person’s most precious resource. Rather than take a shotgun approach and pursue every account, the best approach is the sharpshooter approach where you focus on your target and develop a strategy for pursuit.” Salz shared a few tips on how sales reps can be more strategic with their territory, which, in turn, should save precious time.
• Create a detailed profile of the ideal client, such as size of the prospect, purchasing circumstance, buying style, etc. “If you don’t have an ideal client profile you end up chasing the wrong opportunities,” Salz said.
• Identify opportunities in your client profile that best match the profile. It’s crucial for sellers “to look in their own backyard” at existing customers for upsell and cross-selling opportunities.” When a complete solution has not been sold, not only is revenue lost, but also you are exposed to a competitor that positions the comprehensive offering.
• Craft a needs analysis process that is designed to separate prospects from suspects. The goal is to identify synergies between the ideal client profile and the suspect, with the goal of creating a prospect. Here are some baseline questions to consider during needs analysis:

• Do they have a budget in place for your offering?
• Are they under contract for an extended period of time?
• Is this person the right prospect to engage to begin the process?
• What are the identified challenges that are being experienced?
• Do you have a solution that better meets their needs?

By Kaitlin Madden, CareerBuilder.com Writer – Original post

Talking about how much you earn is kind of like talking about how much you weigh. Both are uncomfortable subjects, so you might not always be 100 percent honest about either.  (Who hasn’t shaved 10 pounds off their physique or upped their salary by a few thousand dollars when hanging with their rich and skinny friends?) Most of the time, these little white lies are no big deal — it’s not as if your friends are going to ask you get on a scale to verify your  weight.

However, while telling an occasional fib in daily conversation may be a minor offense, lying about your salary history on a job application can be a serious transgression.

“Unlike many soft skills, salaries are finite, concrete numbers that can be verified through things like a W2, 1099 [or] tax return,” says Paul Peterson, national talent resource manager for Grant Thornton, a management consulting firm. That means that if you lie about your salary history on your résumé, there’s a good chance that your potential employer will find out. “If someone goes to extremes to embellish a salary prior to getting the job, one has to ask, ‘What will they embellish when they are actually performing the job?’” Peterson  says.

Though it’s true that not all employers conduct background checks or delve as deep as checking a candidate’s W2 forms, salary information can easily be verified through your references — which most employers do check.

“Salary is one of the very few things that former employers are often willing to reveal in a reference check,” says Barry Maher, author of “Filling the Glass: The Skeptic’s Guide to Positive Thinking in Business.” “Even if they won’t give the exact amount, a question like, ‘If I placed his salary range with you in the area of $100,000 would I be in the ballpark?’ usually yields the information.”

Bottom line? “Lying about anything as part of a job search strategy is not a good idea,” says Elaine Varelas, managing partner at Keystone Partners, a recruitment firm. “Starting a relationship with a company based on false pretenses may not hurt you in the short term, but chances are you will be exposed.”

Yet what about job seekers who think they were underpaid at their last job? Should they continue to settle for less money than they think they’re worth, just to avoid embellishing their salary history?

Not necessarily, say our experts. There are plenty of ways to get the salary you deserve without lying on a job application.

Here, they offer three ways to broach the subject of salary increase with a potential employer:

1. “If you’re looking to make a significant jump in salary, my advice to people is to convince the potential employer why you are worth what you are seeking and, where possible, quantify that number,” Peterson says. 

2. “It’s perfectly acceptable to say something like ‘I’m making $80,000 now. And though my present employer would certainly agree that I’m worth more, the simple fact is …’  then give the reason, [whether it be] a salary freeze, budget constraints, tough times in that industry, whatever.  [Then continue with] ‘Since the industry standard for someone with my skills and experience is $120,000, that’s one of the reasons I’m looking to move on,’” Maher says.

3. “When you are asked about compensation, you can say: ‘I was making in the mid-$70s, which included a 20 percent performance bonus, which I always got, and a very comprehensive benefits package.’ Then ask, ‘What is the compensation range for this position?’ Using this technique allows you flexibility and gets the employer to share compensation data. Be prepared to negotiate only after an offer has been made,” Varelas advises.

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

If you were to ask most executives for one thing that they would like their sales force to do better, you would likely get one of two answers:
1. Close
2. Prospect
Nothing wrong with those two choices – or is there? 

While salespeople can get better at closing, closing is an outcome, and with the exception of real estate and banking, not really an event. When we evaluate sales forces and look at their ability to close, they may possess some of the strengths and skills that are part of the Sales Core Competency called Closing, but  most of those attributes are used prior to, not during, closing time. The ability to close depends on the following 20 variables (in no particular order) that a salesperson brings to the table – or not…

A question was raised in one of my LinkedIn groups recently that got me and other members thinking about the tactics used by hiring managers during the interview process. The question: If you were interviewing for a sales job and the sales manager said “sell me this pen,” how would you respond?

The feedback from the group was varied. Some offered recommended responses to the actual question. Others thought it was a good question. Still others were indignant that such a question would be asked by today’s interviewers.

For my part, I am on the side of the detractors. This is a question I would never ask when screening candidates. In fact, if a client indicates to me that they want this question asked, I would push back to find out what they hope to determine by doing so. Nine times out of 10, they want to hear the candidate’s response – not gain a better understanding of skills and selling abilities.

To ascertain that, a more effective approach is a request: “Walk me through the steps you would take to sell our product.”

However, more than one respondent disagreed with me. Many felt that this simple question separates candidates into two groups: Those who do nothing but blindly pitch and those who take the time to understand their prospect’s buying motives so they can properly qualify and direct the sales process.

“This is one of the most basic of interview questions for sales reps, and the answer reveals so much about your previous training, your understanding of the sales process, and ultimately about what kind of sales rep you are,” said one respondent.

Conversely, many were appalled by the idea of asking such a question for multiple reasons. Noted one respondent: “I would be taken back by that request. It is a red flag, old school and shows the inexperience of the interviewer…Furthermore I would want to end the interview as politely and tactfully as possible.”

To me, asking candidates to sell a pen is similar to wearing a clown suit during an interview to see if they can keep a straight face in front of a client or prospect. It’s a setup rather than a true evaluation of skills, especially since the days of hardcore, transactional “burn and churn” selling are long gone.

1) Exhibit genuine interest in finding out and understanding your prospect’s inner motivations. This isn’t manipulation. Let him know that you’re working to find out what he wants and needs.

2) Establish trust. When working on the first step, your prospect will begin to notice something unique about you. You’re not trying to “technique” him. You truly want to help. Trust begins to develop naturally.

3) Apply your product/service to the point where it meets your prospect’s needs and desires. Never try to fight his inner motivations. Your reasons for selling are often different from the reasons he’s buying. But who’s holding the credit card?

4) Appeal to the emotions behind those motivators you’ve discovered. Again, this is not manipulation. As sophisticated as we modern folk are, making a purchase is still a visceral experience. Just ask anyone who believes in “retail therapy.”

5) Give “reasons why.” Help him explain his irrational decision-making process with rational reasons why he’s making an intelligent choice. He has to be able to explain the purchase to his wife when he gets home…

6) Maintain credibility. At this point, he’s selling himself. It is essential to maintain integrity throughout your interaction. Don’t give any reason for him to doubt your intentions. Your intentions are honest, right?

7) Let the decision be his. Perhaps Jeffery Gittomer said it best: “People hate to be sold, but they love to buy.” Pressure tactics are destructive more often than they are helpful, especially when you’d like to build an on-going relationship.

• Many salespeople were trained to look at selling as a battle. Salesman versus potential customer. There really is a better way. Once you understand how conversion takes place in the mind of a prospect, you’ll see that working together is the easiest, most profitable and most rewarding way to sell.
• Your customer needs what you have to offer. Why do you keep bringing weapons (i.e. sales techniques) to convince him?

About the Author:  Donnie Bryant is a copywriter located near Chicago, IL  If you’re looking for someone who can make your web copy more compelling, Donnie can be reached at DonnieBryant.com

Stress is the trash of modern life – we all generate it but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life. ~Terri Guillemets
Post written by Jeremy J. Ulmer.

• Identify Your Work Stress. Before you can eliminate or reduce stress, you must know what you are dealing with. Write down all the stresses that you deal with on a daily and weekly basis. Then create a top 10 list of all the things that cause you stress and determine which items you can eliminate from your list.
• Shorten Your Scheduled Meetings. Consider cutting many of your 60 minute meetings to 30 minutes and your 30 minute meetings to 15. With a shorter time frame to work in, you will be forced to be more productive. 
• Stop Procrastinating. Allowing work to pile up will stress you out. Plan time to get things done and off your desk. 
• Get Organized. Disorganization can cause a significant amount of workplace stress. Block time to get things organized.
• Always Be On Time. Being late will cause a lot of stress at work or in your life. Learn the habit of being early, and this type of stress will disappear. 
• Stop Trying To Control Everything. Trying to control situations and people does not work. In fact, when we are in the state of trying to control, it just creates more stress at work and in our lives. Learn to let go of situations that are out of your control. The only thing you can control is yourself.
• Stop Multitasking. Doing multiple tasks at the same time might seem productive, but in reality it slows us down from completing tasks, reduces the quality of work, and creates stress. Learn to single-task and get more done. 
• Cut Out Negative People. You know who they are. They can drag you down and create more stress. Surround yourself with other positive minded people and you will feel less stress. 
• Simplify Your Work. Look for ways to make your tasks more streamlined and simple. 
• Give Back & Help Others. Whether you volunteer for a charity or just make an effort to be more compassionate to those around you, you will notice it lowers your own stress levels. Try it out for a day and see how you feel. 
• Take Mini Breaks. Studies have show that concentration levels decrease 25 to 30 minutes into a task. If you don’t take any breaks, your focus and productivity will drop. Plan and enjoy mini-breaks during your work day.
• Exercise! This is hands down #1 in my book and it works like magic. Exercise reduces stress and helps prevent it. Also, a healthier and fitter person is better equipped to handle stress. The key here is to be consistent and make working out a habit, just like brushing your teeth. If this article was helpful for you, please share it below, thank you! Want to take your sales results to the next level? Check out our sales coaching programs, sales seminars, and sales coaching seminars or contact us to learn more about how we can help you or your organization.

Hiring pros share the faux pas they find in real resumes, including wacky e-mail addresses, defunct phone numbers and cookie-cutter templates.
Original Post By Lisa Vaas, The Ladders

No offense, thebigcheese@domain.com, but if nobody has told you yet, we’re telling you now: That e-mail address is not making you look particularly professional.
Unprofessional e-mail addresses are just one way of sending hiring managers the wrong message. If you want to be taken seriously when you apply for jobs, you need to put some polish on your resume, your cover letter and everything contained therein. Hiring professionals repeatedly run across these red flags that scream “unprofessional.” A number of recruiters and HR managers shared with The Ladders common errors from their own professional experiences.
1. Random/cute/shared e-mail accounts

E-mail accounts are free. There’s no reason not to sign up for your own. Yet many mid-career professionals share an e-mail account with a significant other or the entire family, generating addresses such as dickandjane@domain.com or thesmiths@domain.com..Also stay away from cutesy addresses. After all, butterfliesaremyfriend2010@domain.com, you can always share your admiration of Lepidoptera with colleagues after you’ve been hired. Ditto for offensive, flirtatious or sexual e-mail addresses.
Think we’re exaggerating? These are actual e-mail accounts cited by Jillian Zavitz, who’s responsible for hiring as the programs manager for TalktoCanada.com, an online English language-training course based in Canada. (We’ve changed the domain names to protect the innocent.)
Instead, adopt an address that incorporates the name you use professionally on your resume and cover letter.

2. Failure to proofread

Deidre Pannazzo, executive director at Inspired Resumes, said it’s “amazing” how many people submit resumes that contain “numerous typos and misspellings.” Even better than spell check, she said, is to have a friend review the document for you.
“Make sure your dates are consistent, and that you don’t confuse your story with overlapping time lines,” she said. (For an in-depth look at how to tackle proofreading your resume, click here.)

3. Bikini pictures

Resume experts advise against attaching pictures or any image files to a resume. They can “choke” an applicant tracking system (ATS), the software that automatically scans and parses resumes. (Click here for an in-depth look at how your resume is handled by technology after you press submit.) In addition, hiring professionals warn against giving anyone a reason to prejudge and form a negative opinion based on your appearance. Indeed, some HR departments will immediately discard resumes with photos to avoid any possible accusations of discrimination on this basis.
But still applicants send photos. Most troublesome of all, said Zavitz, are the beach shots. “(No) pictures where you are in a bikini at the beach (real story, and it wasn’t a flattering picture either) or at a New Year’s party with your friends (obviously drunk). Not cool.”
Career Advice from The Ladders
• Apply and Network in One Step
• In a Google World, Prepare to Be Investigated
• The 24-Step Modern Resume
• Resume Numbers Game
 
4. Unprofessional voicemail

If your resume is strong enough to convince the recruiter or hiring manager to reach for the telephone, be sure what he finds at the other end of the line represents you in the best light – that means your voicemail or whoever might answer the phone.
Marlane Perry, managing director of the Executive Search Division of Magill Associates, said she is unimpressed when a phone number on a resume leads her to an unprofessional recorded voicemail or a conversation with a third party who can’t be trusted to take a message. “If you don’t trust your roommates to answer the phone and take a decent message, then only list your cell phone,” she said.

5. Lazy words, ‛etc.’

Perry said that use of “etc.” on a resume is a sign of laziness: The job seeker obviously “can’t even take the time to list out all of [his] duties.” She has seen the error on both junior- and executive-level resumes. Another no-no is saying “same as above” anywhere on a resume. “If you had similar job functions at your last two jobs, summarize the responsibilities and then bullet out some of your accomplishments,” she suggested.

6. Cookie-cutter resumes

Samantha Goldberg is a celebrity event designer and TV personality who’s always looking for employees for administrative duties or to help plan an event. She said she often reviews resumes and cover letters that aren’t even vaguely customized for her business.
“It’s more like ‛Mad Libs’ — they just fill in our name as they send them off!” she said. “Just once, I would love to have them describe me on the cover letter instead of saying that they respect my career status and have been following my career.”
On many occasions, Goldberg said, she specifically lists a prerequisite of at least three years’ experience with planning events that does not include friends, family or applicants’ own weddings. “They obviously don’t read my prerequisites and send an e-mail stating that even though they haven’t orchestrated events for anyone they have always been told they should be in the industry if I would just give them a chance.”
 

7. Everything but the kitchen sink

“I don’t care, nor have time, to read about your life story,” Zavitz said. “If you can’t whittle your resume down to a page or two at max, I will not read it. If it’s not related [to the job or your work history], don’t include it.”

8-13 ad infinitum…

Larry Lambeth, president of Employment Screening Services Inc., which helps companies review job applicants, offered a laundry list of professional gaffes he’s seen on resumes and job applications:
• Listing a spouse as a reference
• Not spelling out the name of an employer or school (“LSU” instead of “Louisiana State University” or “ZDE” instead of “Ziff Davis Enterprise”)
• Not providing a city or state for an employer or school
• Omitting the area code from a phone number for a reference or employer
• Providing only a first name for a supervisor or reference
• Including phone numbers that are no longer in service for references or employers

Lisa Vaas covers resume writing techniques and the technology behind the job search for The Ladders.

Brian Bieler, The Sales Operator offers this advice: If you want to sell more, tell more tales. A good sales story stimulates the mind and engages people to conversation. If you are selling and people are not tuned to what you are saying, it’s almost impossible to move them to action. Executives and world-class sellers tell stories to get people involved.
Stories are not more important than features and benefits; they help emphasize points and create feelings. Combining data and left-brain logic with emotional right-brain stories is a powerful and professional way to make dramatic sales points. Executives, politicians and professionals tell stories to start people thinking and make important points.
What sells people is how they see benefits working for them. Storytelling engages people in their own minds, emotions and imagery. Although decisions are largely formed with logic, data and information, decisions are mostly made with right-brain subjective emotions. Storytelling is a strategic sophisticated sales tool. We know that people are going to forget data and information but are unlikely to forget a good story.

Review by Gary Summy
Director of Sales Development
Trane Commercial Systems 

I read 10 Steps to Successful Teams (ASTD Press, 2009), which addresses this exact topic. Author Renie McClay brings a lot of practical sales and account team experience to this book, having been in various sales, sales management, sales effectiveness, and training roles throughout her career. Here are her 10 steps:

Step 1: Form the team. The team makeup is perhaps the process’ single most important step. If the team doesn’t possess the right skills and drive to accomplish the goals, the team will be painful and often unsuccessful. The right leader can either help or hinder the process.

Step 2: Clarify roles. If team member roles are not clear, one of two things will happen. The team will be either inefficient because time is wasted on duplicity of effort for given tasks or ineffective because crucial tasks won’t be done at all. It’s critical upfront to clarify who is responsible for what.

Step 3: Encourage communication. Healthy, effective communication builds trust. Giving positive, constructive feedback helps keep things on track and eliminates errors. Managing conflict assists a team to focus on the goal rather than interpersonal or interdepartmental dynamics that can slow down things and deteriorate the team’s morale.

Step 4: Build strong relationships. People getting to know each other will be one of the most important parts of building team morale. Your team is not a collection of robots, and engaging on both the business and personal level builds trust and commitment. Build those solid relationships and an environment of trust so people can focus on the work to be done.

Step 5: Follow processes and track progress. Building processes and tracking progress helps teams take advantage of efficiencies and replicate success. It also helps to keep stakeholders informed and the entire team current on tasks, results and what needs to happen next.

Step 6: Assess the team. Ideally everyone needs to be aware of his strengths, then support fellow team members’ development areas. No one possesses every skill and all knowledge, so self-awareness coupled with strong leader assessment is helpful to ensure progress, growth and success.

Step 7: Develop creativity and innovation. Teams can accomplish tasks, but it is energizing to develop creative solutions. Creativity and innovation may save time and money internally and deliver differentiated value to the account. Teams can be innovative about the end-product or how the team operates. A mix of left- and right-brain thinking is very powerful in the team environment.

Step 8: Create effective virtual teams. Working remotely and participating virtually on a team is often challenging and part of any team’s reality. Connecting without personal contact can make it harder to build trust and learn to rely on team members. Leveraging media and technology and working at the people skills can help smooth this out.

Step 9: Solve problems. All teams face problems. Perhaps a team’s single most important quality is to see how the team works through them. Following steps one to eight puts you in a position to identify and solve the real problems and not just symptoms.

Step 10: Reward and celebrate. Many teams do not celebrate victories. Many organizations do not properly reward team successes. There are ways to reward teams that do not cost much and even some that cost nothing.

The book includes tips for all the roles on team. While there is a lot of content out there on leading teams, and that is certainly an element of McClay’s book, her focus is on the entire team. All the team members, not just the leader, have responsibility for a smooth-running, productive team. McClay writes, “Make sure you are part of the solution, not part of the problem.” She consistently offers ideas and suggestions that ensure that common sense is top of mind for everyone on the team. She reminds us, “A team is often a place where people develop a reputation. Make your reputation as someone who can be relied on to get tasks done—completely and on time.” There is an assessment chapter I recommend to all. One self-assessment exists for team members and one for team leaders. The chapter helps show strengths and improvement areas. This is a good exercise for new or established teams. (You can see this for yourself at http://tinyurl.com/ykyqeew.)

For many employees, delivering value requires working effectively with others in multiple team environments. This book will help position your team – or any team – to ensure that timelines are met, objectives are achieved and value is delivered.