View the Video of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes

March 26, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Top Ten Hiring Mistakes - Hiring Errors

On our Hire and Retain Top Talent Blog, we recently posted a video of our Research Project titled The Top Ten Mistakes in Hiring. You can download a copy of the Executive Summary of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes Research Project by clicking here. The blog post with the video of the Top Ten Mistakes in Hiring can be found by clicking here.

In the video we identify which of the 5 components of our Success Factor Methodology can be used to overcome each of the Top Ten Hiring Mistakes.

We teach the Success Factor Methodology in our popular workshop “You’re NOT the Person I Hired” which is named after our best-selling book by the same title. You can download a digital version of our book on raising hiring accuracy and eliminating hiring mistakes by clicking here.

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: hiring top talent · Tagged: , ,

Finding good sales people

January 5, 2012 by · 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: , , ,

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

August 13, 2011 by · 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: , , ,

Do Sales Managers Realize They Are Making These Mistakes?

August 8, 2011 by · 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:

 

  1. 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.
  2. Your sales people learn how to listen because you listen to them.
  3. 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: , , , , ,

Candidates Just Can’t Get Any Respect

October 13, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

About Com Human Resources Blog

I came across this great post on the About.com Human Resources site. The primary point that Susan Heathfield makes is that candidate’s deserve a response, they deserve the right to know where they stand in your hiring process.

She claims and I agree 100% that the candidate you reject deserves the same courtesy of notification as the candidate to whom you are offering the job. Communication should be respectful and responsive.

In thousands of conversations with candidates, we discovered a general level of dismay, anger, and frustration with most human resource departments and hiring managers. She states”:

Among job searching candidates currently, their biggest complaint is the disrespect with which they are treated by HR offices. Unfortunately, no communication appears to be the norm.

Do you have a process, procedure, or policy to ensure that candidates are treated with respect in your hiring process – even those whom you reject?

To read the entire article regarding, click the following link:

Candidates Deserve Respectful Communication

Barry Deutsch

P.S. See the expanded version of this article on our primary HIRE and RETAIN TOP TALENT Blog

Filed Under: hiring top talent · Tagged: , , ,

Navigating around the Vistage Leadership Community Portal

April 1, 2010 by · Leave a Comment

Navigation around the Vistage Leadership Community Portal

In this blog post, I’ll describe how to navigate around to some of the key areas on our Vistage Leadership Community Portal Site.

We’ve already discussed in another blog posting the tabbed content of Best Practices. You can read about the tabbed structure of this site by CLICKING HERE.

At the top along the header you’ll see four links for “home”, “contact us”, “meet the experts”, and “why am I here?” These are links on our website that help you to navigate the site and provide additional information.

The home link returns you from any tab of information with blog feeds, such as the managing sales tab, back to the home page of the blog on best practices.

The contact us link provides you with a contact form to send a quick message back to us.

The Meet the Experts Page gives a short background on both Brad and I, and all our guest blogger experts.

The Why Am I Here Page provides a precise reason for reading the blog, using this site as your “portal” site for information, tools, tips, techniques, and discussion on hiring, retention, leadership, managing sales, and social media. You’ll also be able to see the more active Vistage Community Members who have established a very strong reputation for the quality of their unique content and blog frequently with great value and advice.

At the bottom of every page are 3 columns of information. First, is the Recent Posts column which lists the last 10 recent posts. Second, The featured posts column lists blog articles that we consider to be the best content posted on the blog (check back often since the posts in this column change frequently). Third, is a series of links to our LinkedIn Discussion Groups for Hiring and Retention, Vistage Chairs for leveraging social media to find great members, Vistage Members to build and enhance their business through social media, and Vistage Speakers/TAs to engage to market their services and engage with their clients more effectively.

On the sidebar (which only appears when you are on the home page/blog article listing), you’ll find a search box to locate information based on your search term. Below that you’ll find a list of blog articles that are specifically for managing your interaction with this portal, including how to navigate the site, the tabbed structure of content, and how to share information you find useful with other members of the Vistage Community.

Moving down the sidebar, you’ll see the ability to find articles listed by category, by series, and by tags (hot topics). Below that is a listing of the key blog posts for how to use this Portal site for information and learning.

Barry Deutsch

Filed Under: blog information · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Welcome to the Vistage Leadership Community Blog for Best Practices

March 28, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Welcome to the Vistage Leadership Community Portal

Welcome to the Vistage Leadership Community Portal


Welcome to the Vistage Leadership Community Portal

Welcome to our first blog post for the Vistage Leadership Community Blog on how to LEVERAGE the success of your people to build an exceptional organization. We’ll explore subjects including leadership, management, hiring and retaining top talent, sales management, culture and employee satisfaction/engagement.

In addition, we’ll also take the hottest area right now – social media and social networking – and share best practices in how to build and expand your business, including networking, customer satisfaction, marketing, sales, business development, engaging employees, and recruiting. This is an area of great confusion and frustration for many Vistage Chairs, Members, Speakers, and Trusted Advisors.

Leadership Portal

This leadership portal represents an extension of the work of Barry Deutsch and Brad Remillard’s decade plus interaction with Vistage Members, Chairs, Speakers and TAs. In that journey, we’ve collected a wealth of information and best practices we would like to share with the Vistage Community.

  • We’ll review some of the very best articles from exceptional bloggers on the Internet you should be aware of as you go forward in developing and building your business.
  • We’ll feature some of the very best Vistage Resources as guest bloggers, especially other speakers, chairs, members, and Trusted Advisors who have volunteered to share their expert knowledge on leadership topics focused on Vistage Community.
  • We’ll share information on this portal from our other Internet Properties, including our Blogs and LinkedIn Discussion Groups.
  • Finally, we’ll provide the feed for ALL the Vistage Community Bloggers (assuming you’ve told me you’re blogging).

We hope you find the information in this blog valuable and practical as you develop and build your groups.

Feel free to post a comment, offer a suggestion, raise a question for our experts.

Barry Deutsch

P.S.: Here are the LinkedIn Discussion Groups you might be interested in joining to participate in a more in-depth discussion:

Hire and Retain Top Talent

Leadership and Management Best Practices

Executive and Managerial Job Search

Vistage Chair ONLY Discussion Group for Leveraging Social Media and Networking

Vistage Member ONLY Discussion Group for Leveraging Social Media and Networking

Vistage Speaker/TA ONLY Discussion Group for Leveraging Social Media and Networking

While you’re here, grab the feed on the sidebar so that you can stay on top of new posts, tools, and ideas when they appear on this blog – either through a feed reader such as Google Reader or Bloglines – or by email. By subscribing to the feed, you don’t have to remember to keep coming back to the blog to stay current. We’ll also feed new postings on this portal into our LinkedIn Discussion Groups for Leadership Best Practices, Vistage Members on Leveraging Social Media, and Vistage Speakers/Trusted Advisors on Leveraging Social Media.

Filed Under: blog information · Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,