Overcompensated?

Are we overpaying salespeople? The short answer is no.

A great friend of mine and I have this discussion on a regular basis. He works for a Fortune 1000 company and is sick and tired of the salespeople who make big commissions. “They aren’t that smart…  they are always out of the office goofing around… they whine about everything…” I am biased, but my question in return is always, “Then why don’t you get into sales?”

Salespeople usually have a “survivable” base income but they are in the game to make big money. They are the aggressive, persistent risk-takers that almost every business needs. There are a lot of bad salespeople who make the good and great ones even more valuable. Their territory, commission plan or even job can change at any point. So I’m not here to debate my friend’s question even if the average salesperson may be a little spoiled. My message is defending their importance.

A salesperson is easy to measure. What did they pull in that translated to net income? Was the bottom line larger or smaller than their expense? I love metrics. I would hate having to figure out the value of operations people who don’t have interaction with the client. It’s easy for all of us to see the return on salespeople. If their performance is accurately measured, an organization can see their ROI better than any other position in their company. If the numbers don’t add up then it’s time to retrain or fire.

What is the alternative? You can boost your marketing efforts, but can you offshore a salesperson? Do you want to hire untrained rookies at a lower price tag? Can technology somehow reduce your number of salespeople?

The consultative salesperson adds tremendous value to an organization and can hunt down opportunities that didn’t previously exist. Why are you worrying about paying them $200K this year? Intelligent leadership is willing to pay productive salespeople more than themselves because of their immediate return and ability to increase the overall value of the business.

• Hire the best salespeople.
• Pay them and DO NOT CAP their commission structure.
• Give the higher level salespeople leads so they can spend most of their time in front of prospects closing deals.
• Train them and retrain them. Inspire them with occasional outside help.
• Retain them by making them feel important and needed.

Hiring, training, aiding and retaining salespeople is the only answer for most businesses. I hope you are one of the smart companies that recognizes this.

It’s time to grow faster.

~Drew Schmitz

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Octopus-LLC/176668965728096

Twitter: @drew_schmitz

The Best Salesperson in America!

I’ve discovered 12 universal truths that cause some salespeople to excel and others to fail. Door to door salesmen still exist where aggressive and pushy works but the sales role in America has changed oh-so much over the last twenty years.

The best do the following to make the big money:

• They are a consultative salesperson. Don’t know what this means? It’s time to get a couple of new books.
• A good salesperson does everything asked of them and more in their first year with a company. They don’t really owe you anything but training unless you are on straight commission.
• Real salespeople know their product and services. They always have a tight elevator pitch prepared along with 10 questions. I never know who I might bump into at the grocery store on Saturday.
• They are authentic – and memorable. Take a Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment. All you need to be is a borderline extrovert and the rest of your sales personality should be customized to play to your strengths.
• Great salespeople really listen. They recognize that no one is a fantastic listener so they always aim to improve (ask your significant other!).
• They sell “peace of mind” or outright happiness (I’m serious –  look at what McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Apple and Harley Davidson do so well).
• Successful salespeople say “please”, “thank you” and “I’m sorry”.
• They go slow. There’s no rush or desperation in their sales process. They have urgency when a deal is at risk, but at the same time, they are patient with every prospect until close.
• Winners are consistent. They take days off and have a balanced life, but they always follow-up, dot the i’s and cross their t’s.
• Closers drive towards YES or NO. Yes, a great salesperson has to be aggressive. You aren’t here to please prospects, salespeople are there to sell deals. If they are the right prospect you will help them – but they have to give you something in return – a real shot at selling you something. Don’t waste time on selling the “maybe’s”. Ask for yes, qualify maybe’s and keep moving the sale along.
• They continually learn. This may be #1 on my list. It doesn’t matter where you start, it’s that a salesperson is improving regardless of age.

Lastly, the best salespeople get energy from others and really enjoy helping their prospects and customers on a daily basis. It’s a game, so have fun playing it and be damn good at it. 

Next week, I’ll turn the tables and explain what great selling organizations must do to attract and retain the best talent. Enjoy the return to the 2014 – 2015 school year!

It’s time to grow faster.

~Drew Schmitz

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Octopus-LLC/176668965728096

Twitter: @drew_schmitz

8 GREAT QUESTIONS FOR REFERENCE CHECKS

This week, I have been doing reference checks for two of my clients who are on the verge of making offers to sales management candidates. After working in this industry for over 20 years, I asked myself – “Why am I doing this? Do I still believe in reference checks?” And I answered it for the 100,000th time – “Yes!”… I believe in them if they are done right. A big part of that approach is asking the right questions.

No offense to human resources, but if you contact them, they will tell you the bare bones: dates of employment, title and role, confirmation of salary, and whether they would rehire the candidate. That’s a start, but I’m looking for a lot more information when my client is taking a risk in hiring someone… So, don’t call HR unless you are only looking for the basic information. Also, don’t call more than one co-worker, don’t call their friends and pastors and don’t call just the names they provide.

I prefer to do reference checks with former supervisors. Our method at Blue Octopus is to warm them up so they trust you enough to share more than the basic information in response to our very specific questions. On the call, be genuine, appreciative and succinct. Doesn’t every phone call go a little better when you start out asking them “How are you doing today?” or “Are you ready for the weekend?”? It may sound simple, but warming up the conversation before you start asking the questions is crucial to improving your odds of them truthfully answering all of your questions.

Here are the only questions you need to ask:

1. Did you hire the candidate? Why? Did he/she proceed to meet your original expectations of why you hired them?
2. What are the candidate’s three best qualities? How did these strengths specifically benefit your business?
3. What is one major success or highlight of the candidate’s time working with you?
4. What would the candidate’s coworkers say about him/her?
5. Did the candidate excel working independently or with a team?
6. If you could give their future manager one tip about how they could perform even better, what would it be? Can you name one area where you challenged the candidate to improve?  How did he/she respond to this?
7. Would you rehire the candidate for that same role – or is he/she better suited for a different position? Should we hire the candidate?
8. Is there anything else I should take into consideration before recommending to my client that they hire the candidate?

Obviously, you are writing their responses down during the call. Are you also listening for their pauses, breaths, cadence and volume of their responses? I’m no Jedi Knight, but I often learn a lot about their true reaction to the candidate by all the nonverbal cues in between their responses.

We also try to do a reference check with a supervisor that they didn’t provide to us. In the world of LinkedIn and other online information, it’s fairly easy to track these people down. The references they provided are probably their three favorite supervisors – maybe there’s an interesting story to be told by the boss they didn’t recommend that you contact?

The law varies from state to state, so check in with your attorney before doing your next pre-hire reference. Here in Minnesota, the law allows a prospective employer to contact a job applicant’s former employers for a professional reference. Furthermore, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, state law allows a former employer to share negative or unflattering information – and doesn’t limit the content of the former employer’s reference unless the job applicant can show that the employer provided an untrue reference or acted in a malicious manner. However, a hiring decision based on a bad reference due to discrimination might violate state law.

Believe in reference checks – and get the most out of them!

Make every day count!

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/131nqty

Twitter: @drew_schmitz

8 FREE PERSONALITY EXERCISES

The most successful people in business know themselves better than anyone in the room. Here are a few free or extremely cheap personality or behavior exercises that I would highly recommend:

DiSC Profile:

This is one of my favorites. It essentially determines your “score” in categories: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance – and then gives you an overview of the personality based on the composite score: http://www.tonyrobbins.com/ue/disc-profile-styling.php.

Learning Style:

Understand your best learning style. Is it sight, sound, touch, or movement that opens up your brain to new information? Learn your top two: http://www.personal.psu.edu/bxb11/LSI/LSI.htm.

Meyers-Briggs:

This one is a classic and I believe it’s timeless. It breaks down personalities into 16 categories and pegs your personality in one of four quadrants: Guardians, Artisans, Idealists and Rationals: http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test.

5 Love Languages:

Now this might sound corny, but I think this is a great exercise for figuring out how you relate with other people (and how they will best respond to you): http://www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/.

A quick exercise for your next team meeting:

Are you a Thinker, Catalyst, Planner, or Helper? Name your #1 and #2 and share and discuss with others inside your team. Here is a similar assessment you can take on-line for free: http://www.truecolorscareer.com/quiz.asp.

Strengths Finder 2.0:

If you still haven’t heard about this one, it’s time to spend the 20 bucks on Amazon and get on board! Tom Roth’s book contains a pass code in every NEW copy which you can use to go online and take the assessment that will determine your top 5 strengths: http://www.amazon.com/dp/159562015X/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=8045098284&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1681895941308927820&hvpone=12.81&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_ed0zidzzj_b.

Live Right for your Blood Type:

This one is pretty amazing… After reading this book by D’Adamo two years ago, I’m convinced that our blood type carries a number of preset social and personality characteristics. Here is a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Live-Right-4-Your-Type/dp/0399146733/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1379440717&sr=8-7&keywords=eat+right+for+your+blood+type.

Shape Exercise:

I wrote about this in my blog two years ago. Of the four shapes – Squiggle, Circle, Triangle or Square – pick your favorite shape quickly (don’t think about it) and then read up on this shape exercise or see my 2011 blog post: https://blueoctopusllc.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/squiggle-circle-triangle-or-square/.

Learn Myself:

The last assessments is fun and a little different from all the rest. It is 120 questions, but it only took me about 10 minutes to finish. It breaks your personality down into 5 separate categories and even compares your scores to other famous personalities (apparently Jessica Alba, Andy Rooney and I have a few things in common!): http://www.learnmyself.com/.

All of these assessments aren’t necessarily appropriate for a new hire, but use one or two for your newest employees – or have the entire team take them and compare your results. What I really like about behavioral assessments is that they don’t label us right and wrong, they simply describe why and how we think and act a certain way. Give them a try!

Make every day count!

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

Facebook: http://on.fb.me/131nqty

Twitter: @drew_schmitz

Hiring Great Sales People

I have seen many great operational businesses lose money or fail because they simply lack a good sales leader and sales team. The first step in your process improvement is hiring. So I’m going to beat you over the head regarding the importance of hiring “A” quality salespeople and how to increase your batting average.

1. If you aren’t getting a good to great performance from your salespeople now, you are missing opportunities that a good hire can uncover.

• Is your current salesperson making you money? Know your break-even point.
• How much is your salesperson positively or negatively affecting your culture?
• When he/she loses deals, do they retain a good relationship with prospects for a future sale?
• What can be gained by closing on 1-2 more deals this month with a better salesperson?

2. Hire a good salesperson – right out of the gate.  How long did it take for your previous new hire to produce?  Lessen this timeline by 25-200% with a better salesperson.

3. Recruit, interview & hire better! 

• Identify your ideal candidate and the process for finding him/her.
• Define the cultural fit – this is crucial from the onset to hiring a better sales person.
• Develop a timeline goal to hire faster. You can hire a good person in less than 2 months from start to finish IF you stick to the weekly goals.
• Turn the intangibles of hiring into candidate data that you can easily compare.
• Adopt a better screening process.
• Find a larger pool of candidates.
• Have a better assessment process – from testing to pre-interview questions to verifying background information.
• Interview better – don’t dive into the interviews unprepared, hoping to stumble into a good candidate.
• Improve the salary negotiation and actual hiring process.
• Implement  a smoother on-boarding and training process – don’t forget about this part, which is just as important as the entire interviewing process.

4. A better hire dramatically increases your retention rate. Most salespeople start making their company money after they have been there for six months. So the shorter the length of time before commissions kick in – and the longer you retain your sales people beyond that point, the more you will profit.

5. The value of those in leadership and management roles is that much more expensive if you make a poor hire. While the costs of losing a “normal” salesperson are high enough, the Center for American Progress found that the cost of losing an executive is astronomical — up to 213% of the employee’s salary.

Add it all up:  Every business has a different value invested in their salespeople – based on your product or service’s price tag, the amount of training and management time, and the employee’s compensation.  Do the rough math of all of the above.

If you could have a great salesperson working for you in 2 months, how much more could your company sell in 2013?

Make it a great day~ Drew Schmitz

@drew_schmitz

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

6 Last Steps Before Hiring

I heard an interesting story the other day. My friend, Chuck, has a friend Joe (or is Chuck the culprit? I’ll never tell…). Joe set up a fake voice mail and phone number so that he could fool employers (or creditors?) into thinking that “yes, Joe in fact worked for me and did a fabulous job”.

The reason I’m sharing this is that there continues to be a lot of falsification on resumes in order to get a job. StastisticBrain.com cited the following numbers in July, 2012:

• 53% of resumes contain falsifications
• A staggering 70% of college students would lie in order to get a job!

So assume that 3 out of 4 people are lying to you when they are interviewing for a job inside your company.

What do you do about it?

1. Dig deeper when making a hire. They want to put food on the table so I forgive a little bit of this, but you need someone who has integrity and values that won’t misrepresent your organization.
2. Do criminal background checks. For the record, I think we should hire felons. However, I don’t want my daycare hiring certain felons.
3. Reference check, reference check, and reference check. Too many employers aren’t bothering to take this step out of sheer laziness. I usually check four references and that doesn’t include their co-workers or pastor.
4. Consider hiring a third party to do a resume verification. They will not only confirm employers and dates, but dig into education and more.
5. Reconsider drug testing. If you can’t figure out they are doing serious drugs based on their interview, background, and reference checks, they aren’t going to be stupid enough to fail your drug test. http://www.wikihow.com/Pass-a-Drug-Test
6. Financial background checks? We are digging way too deep America. Spend your time and money on 1, 2, 3, & 4 above.

Make it a great day~ Drew Schmitz

@drew_schmitz

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

8 Needs of Every Salesperson

1. Direction – Creating a clear plan and goals seems simple, but many salespeople don’t do it. They are told to go “sell more stuff” and build their commission. It’s not a solid plan and can be equally unmotivating to great and poor performers alike in sales. Your goals ultimately should be connected back to the overall vision of the company.
2. Lead Generation – Whether someone else is feeding you leads or you are creating them all from scratch, most lead generation systems need improvement and focus. Where can you improve your process and qualifying?
3. A Clear Value Proposition – Asking the right open-ended questions and communicating the link to your value proposition is absolutely critical. Create a script that leans on your key differentiators — then ask the open-ended questions that lead your audience to your strengths.
4. Consistency – As important as anything in business today, we just need to sell consistently.
5. Encouragement – Confidence is vital to your sales success. Are you getting a steady dose of inspiration and reminders on how you are vital to your organization? If not, seek it out and start asking for it (see #8).
6. A Sounding Board – When a prospect throws something at you from left field or you’re just having a bad day, who do you turn to? If you don’t “vent” somewhere, it will negatively affect your future sales calls and appointments.
7. Closing Ability – Most salespeople can start a sale, get an appointment, and find qualified buyers, but the most difficult part of selling is closing. Do you understand what an ideal appointment looks like? Are you developing your closing skills every week?
8. Regular Training & Feedback – Don’t wait until the quarterly or annual review to learn what you need to work on (and what you do well). Training and feedback should happen every week and a salesperson should be measured on monthly progress.

I’d like to hear feedback from anyone who is getting all of the above within their organization – and connect it back to how it has affected your results. Care to share with me?

Make it a great day~ Drew Schmitz

@drew_schmitz

www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschmitz/

8 Ideas on What to Tweet?

People often ask me how I stick with posting and tweeting on a regular basis. How can I possibly have something to say almost every day? It comes natural to me, but I do get “Tweeter’s block” occasionally, and consult my list to come up with ideas.

8 Octopus ideas to keep it fresh:

1. Share data, a tip, or an interesting factoid
2.  Re-Tweet a news article or current story on your area of influence
3. Start a poll, ask a question or for help – to start a conversation
4.  Tell everyone about an event you attended, will attend, or are holding at your company; or share a meeting you just had with someone one on one and thank them in that post
5. Recommend a site or tool you found on-line
6.  Just say something funny (be yourself, be authentic, don’t be a Target or Best Buy logo without personality)
7. Post inspirational quotes from someone famous or something you read
8.  Remember a picture paints a thousand words

Consult my check list whenever you are wondering what to share next. You need to build it into your routine and not force it, but by just doing it for a year, I basically created my system so that using social media isn’t laborious for me.

Maintain a variety of types of tweets. If you try to pitch your product every day, people will stop listening. If you share interesting nuggets and vary your approach, people will be drawn to you if they are interested in the same topics.

Lastly, be yourself. Don’t tell us you mowed the lawn or got the groceries, but I think being yourself and being real is interesting. Tell us what is happening in your universe that 100  other people aren’t talking about that day.

Make it a great day~ Drew Schmitz

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

SOFTWARE SALES RECRUITMENT & CONSULTING

@drew_schmitz

Sales Body Language

I’m all about being genuine, but there are hundreds of subtle aspects to the sales trade that move you down the path faster to getting to the decision maker, developing a better relationship, or closing a sale. It’s more about your non-verbal cues than your verbal cues that demonstrate confidence.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite non-verbals to pay attention to when in front of a prospect or customer:

1. Don’t sit across the table – try to get the spot next to them. This may be difficult to manuever in a meeting with just one person, but usually you can grab the seat at the table so that you are only looking across the corner of the table in meeting in a conference room (don’t sit down until they are seated).
2. Your posture shouldn’t be pulled in or closed. Lift your chest and spread your shoulders out and back. Put your hands on the table with palms up when not writing or talking to show openness that you are listening.
3. Holding your hands in front of you while standing is a defensive gesture. You are trying to show open almost vulnerable postures – be relaxed and open (no one is going to punch you).
4. Do not twitch your fingers or hands while in front of a customer or prospect. Your hands should usually be ABOVE the table and seen when listening or writing. Hold a pen in your hand when you are talking or brochure / document should be your only props.
5. Don’t touch your face when talking. It is a sign you are shy or indecisive.
6. Do not cross your arms. We tend to do this more often to stay warm, but your client or prospect may take it as disagreement (see Brad Pitt in Fight Club).
7. Don’t be rigid or hunched over. You are going for a relaxed look where your shoulders are pulled back and your back is straight.
8. Hold your head and eyes up. Your neck should feel like it is exposed.
9. Don’t lick or bite your lips.
10. Do not smile or laugh excessively. I’m all for someone smiling, but if you do it too often, it can be taken as a sign of nervousness.
11. Move slower. Everything in your confidence mode is probably slower than you think. Because you are so comfortable, you aren’t startled by everything and you move slower than the other people around you.
12. Don’t blink too often. If this an issue for you, blink your eyes slower. Let your eyelids relax and let them droop a bit.
13. Don’t shift your eyes around when speaking. It’s important to maintain a steady gaze at the customer or prospect’s face.
14. Use direct eye contact, but not too much! It can look a little weird if you don’t look away. Your eyes should be on the person or people you are meeting with about two-thirds of the time optimally.
15. If you are thinking in response to a question, you will appear more confident looking directly at the person or to the side (not down).

Make it a great day~ Drew Schmitz

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

@drew_schmitz

The 5 Answers to Closing a Sale

1. Value – Why is your service or product good for your prospect? Compare your value to their needs. If you fit, the selling gets a lot easier.

2. Return on Investment – Value can be more intangible, but also isolate the time and/or money component. What is the gain or loss to their business if they purchase from you? You need to consider this from the initial conversation and determine the right measurements along with the prospect’s expected outcome(s).

3. Budget – Do they have a sufficient budget to buy from you now? Uncover this earlier by simply asking questions – don’t wait until the very end to talk money. Be comfortable talking about their budget!

4. Process – How do they make buying decisions historically? What is their decision-making process? Of course, you need to know WHO, but by asking HOW their process works, you’ll learn a lot more.

5. Climate – If you do everything promised from the onset, will the prospect buy your stuff? Just ask and repeat this question every month if you have a longer sales cycle. If you do everything right, they still might not purchase from you. It’s important to continually ask them to promise to buy if you put all the work into the deal.

Quite often, we way over complicate sales. It’s about identifying a buyer, getting an audience with them, and answering the questions above. Get these five categories answered early in the sales process and you can rule out some prospects faster – and use that time to focus on the deals that are ready to be closed.

Make every day count~ Drew Schmitz

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

@drew_schmitz

http://www.blueoctopusllc.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-Octopus-LLC/176668965728096