Posted on August 31st, 2010 by Dave Stein
TweetThe skills and traits for success in a sales management position overlap but are very different for success in a direct selling role. That means that if that salesrep, no matter how well they have performed, does not possess the specific skills and traits required for success in that management job, they are likely going to [...]
Filed under: Hiring, Leadership, Research | 6 Comments »
Posted on May 24th, 2010 by Dave Stein
TweetRecently sales consultant, trainer, and coach Richard Lane interviewed me for his podcast series. The subject of this edition is, “What makes the Perfect Salesperson?” I was primed for this interview, having taken teams of sales leaders and CEOs through discussions on this subject in Ireland during April. I told them that any time and [...]
Filed under: Hiring | 1 Comment »
Posted on March 22nd, 2010 by Dave Stein
TweetA friend pointed me to an interview with Guy Kawasaki that was published in the New York Times this morning. Kawasaki makes some terrific points about hiring. Here’s one: Q. How do you hire? A. The most important thing is that you hire people who complement you and are better than you in specific areas. [...]
Filed under: Hiring | 5 Comments »
Posted on January 11th, 2010 by Dave Stein
TweetMy blog and website stats during 2009 showed that interviews with sales thought leaders and experts were especially popular in both blog post and podcast formats. I’ve learned a lot from these interviews while providing an opportunity for the interviewees to get broader exposure. In the past, I’ve generally limited my interviews to CEOs and [...]
Filed under: Hiring, Interview, Sales Training Companies | 5 Comments »
Posted on December 16th, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetBack in October I delivered the keynote at SMT‘s conference. I shared with the audience ESR’s list of 12 obstacles that must be overcome for sales training to begin to have the degree of impact that a few the leading sales training companies are having with every client. Sales training is most often reactive. We [...]
Filed under: Hiring, Measurement, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0, Sales Training Companies, sales process | 5 Comments »
Posted on December 9th, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetI’ve been down with Swine Flu. First I thought it would just kind of breeze by… an H¾ N¾ kind-of-thing. But I did get the full rendition—H1N1 all the way. I’ve been in bed, taking care of minor things here and there, but can’t really focus my brain on a few challenging projects on my [...]
Filed under: Book Recommendation, Hiring, Sales Strategy | 4 Comments »
Posted on November 23rd, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetMis-hiring isn’t the root of all sales ills, but it sure continues to run like hell for first place. We’re amazed here at how many companies we speak with have no formalized hiring process. No profiles. No pre-determined, structured interview questions. No training for interviewers. No simulations. No assessment tools. No reference checks. No background [...]
Filed under: Hiring | 6 Comments »
Posted on November 9th, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetFor those of you who read Part 1 of this series and asked for more, thanks for your feedback, and here it is. Sales trainers and sales training firms have a big challenge over the next year: many customer training budgets have shrunk or been eliminated entirely; the trainers’ own revenues are significantly down—there has [...]
Filed under: Buyers, Economy, Hiring, Measurement, Methodology, Sales Training Companies, Technology, coaching, sales process | 9 Comments »
Posted on October 23rd, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetI was on a phone call this morning with the CEO of a client company who was describing how he had just rejected a candidate for a critical sales leadership position, which would based in a remote location. Although this company doesn’t employ as formal a hiring process as ESR recommends, they are on the [...]
Filed under: Hiring | 7 Comments »
Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Dave Stein
TweetYou may remember I wrote a post a while back about a terrific eBook Tom Searcy had published about RFPs. We’ve been recommending the book to clients. Last week Tom wrote a post on his blog about interview questions for sales people. Tom has the right idea here. His questions are on target. So are [...]
Filed under: Hiring, sales process | No Comments »
