Barry Deutsch

Finding good sales people

January 5, 2012 by Barry Deutsch · Leave a Comment

Dave Kinnear, Vistage Chair, posted a wonderful article (I’m biased of course) on his blog to one of our most popular blog articles titled “Why is it so hard to find great salespeople?”

Dave wrote this article over a year ago – and it’s just as relevant today as it was when he originally posted the article. His call to action to companies to change the way criteria is set for hiring and performance, incentives, and expectations is frustrating to read since not a lot has changed in sales hiring over the last 10 years. Most companies are still stuck in an antiquated, ancient, tribal, and traditional approach to hiring and managing a sales team that is broken.

Until the basic paradigm shifts of how to define success, how to fish in deep waters for the best sales talent, how to motivate the best performers, and how to keep the best talent changes – most companies will continue to experience mediocre results in their sales teams.

Here’s a small quote from Dave’s article:

My friends at Impact Hiring Solutions posted an article on their blog answering a question I hear a lot: “Why is it so hard to find great salespeople?” They are right it is hard, and I think we should listen to their solid understanding of how to properly hire a sales person. However, there is a trap waiting for you. It’s a pretty significant trap; and it’s this . . . . Do you know what it takes to be successful in sales in THIS market or are you going to build your success factors based on past experience. Now, I’m not talking about setting the measurable goals part of this process. You know how to determine what the top line, bottom line and profit margins need to be. I’m talking about what makes a salesperson successful in the present economy. And if you follow the Impact Hiring Solutions guidelines, how will a person demonstrate that they have achieved the success factors in other companies and in this market?

How do you define success for top performing sales professionals? Have you changed your methods of where you go to find these candidates? Have you evolved your process of what you do with these top performing sales professionals once join your company? OR we will still using the same approaches from 10-20-30 years ago?

If you would like to read Dave Kinnear’s full article on what needs to change to hire and retain top sales professionals, click the link below:

Finding Good Sales People

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: hiring top talent, sales management · Tagged: finding top talent, hiring sales professionals, hiring top talent, sales management mistakes

Do Your Customers or Clients view you as a Trusted Source?

September 1, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · Leave a Comment

I was reminded how important it is for your potential customers to view you as a trusted source of information in re-reading this blog article in my archive from the Reputation-to-Revenue Blog.

Study after study has shown that a large percentage of buying decisions (both for products and services) are being done through web searches. On these web searches, your content, reputation, references, and recommendations all surface.

Are you establishing yourself as one of the top trusted sources of information for your customers/clients?

Are you producing enough content to establish yourself as the “authority” within your niche or marketplace?

Could you honestly say that for the service you provide – you’re one of the most trusted sources of reliable, non-biased, objective information within your industry or niche?

If you’re not in the top 3, you’re leaving money on the table. Social media – places like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, and other social networking venues – now give you the opportunity to build your own brand, become your own content publisher, and market precisely to your target audience on a very cost-efficient basis.

Are you taking advantage of these new tools and sites to establish yourself as a leading producer of good quality information about the products or services (which you provide) in your niche or market?

Here’s a good case study: My partner, Brad Remillard, and I have systematically developed our reputation as being one of the top voices in hiring and retaining top talent. We generate an abundance of referrals and leads for our executive search practice, speaking engagements, and hiring process improvement consulting business. We’ve put together one of the best collections of FREE content on the web for hiring and retaining top talent. We’re laser focused in distributing that content to our target audience – CEOs of small-to-medium size businesses. We generate a tremendous number of leads and referrals simply by publishing high quality content related to finding, interviewing, assessing, and keeping great talent.

Anyone can do this. There is no barrier to entry other than the time investment required to write and publish your content. Within a very short period of time, you could become one of the most trusted sources of information for your target audience-niche market. Our blogging and social media activity comprise approximately 1 hour per day of time including writing the blog articles, distributing the articles, projects, responding to our audience/connections, and networking on-line.

The future battle for the attention of the buyers of your services or products will be increasingly fought on the field of establishing yourself as a trusted source of information. This approach applies to Chairs, Consultants, Companies, Speakers, and Sales Professionals. How are you establishing your business as the most trusted within your niche?

To read the entire article, click the link below:

Marketing as media: Are you in the top five?

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: social media · Tagged: B2B Marketing, networking for sales leads, social media for small business

Is Fear Holding You Back From Business Blogging?

August 30, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · Leave a Comment

Have you launched a corporate blog yet?

What’s holding you back?

We have a saying in our basketball program based on one of the most popular quotes ever issued by a coach: “You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

How many shots (opportunities) are you missing because you’re afraid to shoot (start blogging)?

I’m sure by now you’ve listened to, read, and seen numerous “experts” talk about social media. In all that information, I’ll bet every one of the experts has called on you to start a blog.

I read recently on the Compedium Blog an interesting statistic:

According to a recent study by Experian-Hitwise, an Internet measurement data application provider, searchers’ use of eight-word keyword phrases grew 22% in just one year. In addition, 56% of all keyword queries are now three word phrases or more. So what does this mean for corporate bloggers? The longer the phrase, the more specific the searcher intent. Long tail searchers are hand raisers and know exactly what they’re looking for. It’s up to you to show up and solve their problems. How do you do this? By blogging.

There is no doubt among marketing gurus that blogging is the most effective method to drive search engine queries about your products/services, provide differentiation through thought-leadership, and engage with your community of potential buyers, prospects, and raving fans that are interested in your products and services.

So, we’ve now established that beyond a shadow of a doubt, blogging is a great low-cost and effective marketing strategy – especially one that can drive sales leads.

What are you waiting for?

What is holding you back from taking the step of establishing a blog targeted at your customer base of individuals who make decisions on whether to purchase your products and services?

Are you waiting for your competitors to take the lead and then you’ll follow – or would you rather be the leader among your competitors?

Common fear factors in setting up a blog include:

The fear of running out of blogging ideas
The fear of looking/sounding stupid
The fear of wasting time with no immediate results
The fear of employees/blog writers releasing confidential information
The fear of not knowing where to start
The fear of the unknown: “I don’t know what to expect”

Are you letting your fears about blogging consume you? Are you over-analyzing whether it makes sense to start a blog? You could have a blog up and running within a few hours. Yes – you will make initial mistakes, errors, and you’ll have a few regrets. What’s new? Doesn’t this sound like every other idea you’ve tried for the first time?

I sometimes have to remind the girls on my basketball team to shoot the ball. Take a risk. Do something different for once. I ask them what’s the worst thing that could happen? Of course, they tell me they might miss. So do all your teammates, but they don’t let that fear of doing something – like shooting – stop them. Remember the old adage: You’ll miss a 100% of the shots you don’t take.

By not trying to blog and testing the social media waters, are you missing the opportunity to engage more fully your customer base, are you leaving sales leads on the table, and are you providing a window for your competitors to dominate your market?

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: blog information · Tagged: B2B Marketing, business blogging, social media for small business

Is Your Social Media Strategy Based on What Individuals in the Company Post On-line?

August 29, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · Leave a Comment

Carolyn Maul, writing a guest post on Kyle Lacy’s Blog, describes a number of key issues to think about in crafting an effective social media strategy.

I’m still very surprised by the number of entrepreneurial, small business, middle-market companies that have not yet crafted a strategy or evaluated the opportunity/potential to add social media to their marketing, sales, and lead generation mix. Here are a few questions I’d like to pose:

Do you think your business is the exception to the rule – that you are unique and social media cannot apply in your situation?
Have you done any type of research or benchmarking to prove/invalidate that social media might help your business?
Is the unknown of ROIs, comparable companies doing it, lack of quantitative research, questionable metrics holding you back?
Are you so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of what can be done that it is easier to just be an ostrich?
Do you lack the expertise within your company to accurately judge the potential of using social media – and you don’t trust consultants?

In my executive search practice, social media has allowed us to communicate with our target audience beyond the obnoxious direct email approach that everyone hates. Social media has allowed us to communicate in the way our clients want to receive information – do they want it as an attachment, a slide deck, on Twitter, Facebook, or through a LinkedIn Group we host. Sometimes, presenting the same message in multiple media/formats helps to reinforce your brand, credibility, and expertise/capability. Social Media has provided the opportunity for us to establish our expertise, credibility, and through leadership far above our peer community in executive search by educating, teaching, and training through social media by using podcasting, blogging, and Q&A style forums. We give away all our trade secrets on how to hire more effectively through social media. The result has been the creation of one of the more popular sites on the Internet for information on how to hire top talent. Once CEOs and other executives begin to take information, their next step is to engage with us on their particular issue, and finally asking us to help solve their problems and issues.

Just telling others you make the best product or have the best service is not enough. Today, customers want to engage slowly, learn from you, have a chance to interact, and keep peeling back layers until the feel comfortable giving you money. The old days of simply having the best sales people calling on customers is NOT enough. Today, most studies reinforce that customers/clients are very selective in whom they will buy from. The Internet has given them transparent information about you and your products/services. Are you managing this communication channel with your customers and clients or are you letting your competitors dictate the dialogue?

Forget about marketing, sales, and lead generation for a moment. Are you using social media to recruit better talent, deeply engage with your employees, and strengthen existing customer relationships by using it in customer service?

What have you done so far to start creating a social media strategy for the various elements of your business in which you can see an immediate payoff?

To read the full article, click the link below:

Crafting a Winning Social Media Strategy

Are you missing leaving “money on the table” or missing opportunities by not crafting a strong social media strategy right now and using it for sales, marketing, lead generation, customer retention, and recruiting top talent.

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: social media · Tagged: social media for small business

Introverts Love Social Media – Implication for Your Business

August 18, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · 1 Comment

Social Media levels the playing field for introverts and extroverts. Social media gives introverts an equal footing with extroverts to let their hair down, be bold, engage in active “real-time” conversation, and a let a little spontaneity shine through.

Have you noticed this introversion-to-extroversion shift occur within yourself or with those around you? Some of the most introverted “in-person” individuals suddenly blossom with social media tools. Consider the struggle to engage the employees in your company to be social media advocates or to convince them to write for your business blog. Many will shy away from this request simply due to being wired as an introvert. Now you can show them how they can shine through on-line. One of the greatest struggles in implementing social media engagement is getting employees to start tweeting or blogging about your company – now you’ve just doubled the number of participants (most studies show a 50/50 split of introverts/extroverts in the population.

Here’s a snippet from Mack Collier writing on his own blog where he describes being an in-person introvert and an on-line extrovert:

If you are an introvert that’s active in social media, do people that you meet find it difficult to believe that you are introverted? I get this often, so much so that I have on my Facebook page that I am “Online extrovert, offline introvert. It’s complicated.”

But for me, it’s much easier to be outgoing online, than it is offline. I think that’s why I love social media so much.

For example, one of the things that I hate is being in a room full of people where I don’t know anyone. I find it extremely difficult to introduce myself to anyone and talk to them, because I assume they don’t know me and don’t want to know me. It’s a terribly awkward situation for me, and if you’re an introvert you can probably relate.

To read the full article on why introverts love social media, click the link below:

Why introverts love Social Media

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: social media ·

Is the Issue of Delayed Gratification Important in Success vs. Failure?

August 13, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · Leave a Comment

Vistage Chair Mark Taylor, put forth the interesting idea that perhaps success or failure is determined by delayed gratification.

Here are a few of the comments Mark made in his blog post:

In this six minute TED talk, Joachim de Posada, author of Don’t Eat The Marshmallow Yet!: The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life, shares a telling experiment on delayed gratification — and how it can predict future success. This must see video of kids trying their hardest not to eat the marshmallow is very funny and teaches an important lesson for leaders, the key difference between success and failure is not merely hard work or superior intelligence, but the ability to delay gratification.

Mark took this idea to another level by linking emotional intelligence to delayed gratification.

Would you agree delayed gratification is important to measure? Is it a important behavior trait among your top performers.

Is measuring this possible in an interview?

Are you someone who delays gratification?

My experience of having interviewed with my partner over 250,000 candidates over 25 years and having conducted over 1000 search assignments – is that most top performers in the corporate world want immediate gratification. They have a need to see a project or task completed and want feedback on how the did immediately. They are intensely goal/target focused and have an ability to plow through obstacles, problems, roadblocks to complete projects. Can you be someone who delays gratification, yet be someone who is also execution oriented?

It’s an interesting idea to consider – although I’m not yet convinced this is the core issue of success vs. failure. In roles requiring a high degree of urgency in completion, would this potentially be a negative?

If you’re interested in reading the full article Mark posted, click the link below:

Here is the key difference between success and failure

Barry Deutsch

PS: Mark did a great job of illustrating how you can manage content for your target audience and use it as a tool to engage, promote discussion, brand yourself, and establish your thought leadership. If you’re a speaker, consultant, or sales professional, do you do this with your network on a frequent basis by leveraging social media, such as LinkedIn and Blogging? The additional lesson is that I find this interesting article that Mark wrote, quoted him, linked to his material, gave him full credit, and put my own thoughts around his blog post. This technique of sharing information with your network is called content curation – are you doing this with your most important connections?

Filed Under: culture, employee peformance, hiring top talent · Tagged: business blogging, executive coaching, hiring sales professionals, hiring top talent

Do Sales Managers Realize They Are Making These Mistakes?

August 8, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · 1 Comment

Why does Benjamin Franklin’s quote about the definition of insanity seem so appropriate for many managers – especially sales managers?

In an interesting article on the Sales Archaeologist Blog, Frank Belzer laid out his Top Ten Mistakes that he sees Sales Managers making over and over again. I’ve listed a few items from the Top Ten List below. As you look at this list – has the sales manager or executive in your organization making these same mistakes year after year?

In our executive search practice for sales leadership, we’ve noted that most replacement searches are not due to lack of competency, intellect, knowledge, or past experience. Frequently, it’s the inability to execute around basic and fundamental elements of best practices in sales management. There is no magic formula or pixie dust that separates top performing sales managers from weak sales managers.

The difference between the two groups in terms of results and outcomes is dramatic. The number one element that separates these two groups – top talent vs. weak performers – is in the execution of sales management best practices, which are nothing more than common-sense approaches to good management. As you may recall, measuring the ability to achieve flawless execution is one of the 5 Core Interview Questions in our Success Factor Methodology. Many companies make mistakes in hiring by not probing and validating at a deep level the ability to execute.

Here is the Top 3 on the Top Ten List published on the Sales Archaeologist Blog:

Your sales people learn to be consultative with your clients by your example being consultative with them. Everyone wants their sales people to be consultative but so often managers operate through ultimatums, quick commands or terse comments – not consultative.

Your sales people learn how to listen because you listen to them.

Your sales people learn how to make your prospects feel comfortable with change because you demonstrate how it is done when changes need to be made on the team.

If you would like to see the rest of the list, click the link below. Are you up for measuring your sales manager against this list?

The Top Ten Mistakes Sales Managers Don’t Even Know They Are Making

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: sales management · Tagged: employee motivation, hiring sales professionals, hiring top talent, One-to-One Coaching, sales management tips, sales team development

LinkedIn: You Can No Longer Ignore This Social Media Tool

May 18, 2011 by Barry Deutsch · 1 Comment

When LinkedIn surpassed 100 million members, the official LinkedIn Blog published an interesting set of fun statistics. All joking and funny statistics aside, LinkedIn is an extraordinary powerhouse of a site. If you’re not using it for recruiting top talent, business development, market research, prospecting for sales, lead generation and nurturing, branding, pr, and content delivery to your target market – then you’re leaving a pile of money and opportunity sitting on the table.

Here’s a couple of simple examples to illustrate how poorly most people and companies use LInkedIn:

We created a simple one-page self-assessment for executive job seekers to evaluate their LinkedIn Profile to determine whether it was effective in attracting the attention of recruiters, hr managers, and hiring executives. Over 1000 executive job seekers sent us back their completed profiles – less than 10% met a minimum standard.

In a recent survey of company hiring practices in the Vistage and TEC Community of companies in the $5-$50 million revenue size, less than 5% use LinkedIn as a proactive sourcing tool to find passive candidates.

In our Executive Search Practice for high level sales professionals and sales managers,we discovered through in-depth interviewing that less than 20% leverage LinkedIn effectively for referral networking – yet referral networking has proven to be the most viable method of generating sales for products/services which lend themselves to solution selling vs. transactional selling.

What’s wrong with this picture?

If LinkedIn is such an effective tool and resource, why do so many professionals and companies underutilize it?

Is it a training issue – most professionals and companies don’t know how to leverage LinkedIn? Then the question surfaces of why they are not getting training? Is it a unconsciously incompetent issue – we don’t what we don’t know. Is it that there is a steep learning curve and no one wants to take the time to come up the learning curve because they don’t yet buy into the value from using LinkedIn?

Help me out – I’m curious why you’re not rushing to start using this amazing tool. Even if you just use it for recruiting great talent and prospecting for ideal customers, are you still not convinced it could bring better people to your company, reduce sales costs, and improve lead generation?

Here’s a few fun statistics from LinkedIn about their membership:

1,091 profiles with chocolatier listed as a position

79+ million job transitions/changes tracked

46 profiles with beatboxer listed as a position

428%: Year-over-year membership growth rate in Brazil, one of our fastest-growing countries

Lee, Smith and Kumar have alternated over the last 8 years as the most common last name of newly registered users

951 years: duration of back-to-back 5-minute phone calls made by 100 million professionals

50%: year-over-year growth in our iPhone skill index

4 profiles with dog or cat psychologist / psychiatrist listed as a position

Some industries with the fastest year-over-year new member growth rates: Education (175%), Facilities Services (121%), and Ranching (112%)

100% of Fortune 500 companies have executives on LinkedIn

1 profile has martini whisperer listed as a position

To see all the fun statistics, click the link below:

The LinkedIn Blog – 100 Million Gumballs

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: social media · Tagged: implementing social media, linkedin discussion group, social media for small business, social networking

Finding good sales people

Is the Issue of Delayed Gratification Important in Success vs. Failure?

Do Sales Managers Realize They Are Making These Mistakes?

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