I left the world of compliance consulting for a career in incentive consulting because I was tired of management by consequence. For years, I have stood fast by the premise that there are two ways to manage employees: By the bench or by the basket If you manage your players by fear, they will do…
During a recent teambuilding and communication workshop I delivered one of my clients stated, “50% of all our obstacles to success center around team dynamics. Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In other words you can have the best plans, strategies and initiatives, however if everyone is not team oriented, working well together and getting along,…
Have you ever watched a highly functioning department accomplish a goal or objective? The secret ingredient I have noticed is that “natural leadership” is encouraged from every team member or participant. Within groups, each participant brings a unique combination of skills, talent or style to the discussion. Great groups take advantage of this uniqueness.…
One of the hiring traps many companies fall into is letting HR hire salespeople. I apologize if this blog annoys HR practitioners but the simple truth is that most (not all) HR people are unqualified to hire salespeople. What they are extremely good at is managing the hiring process and understanding the legal aspects of…
During a recent teambuilding and communication workshop I delivered one of my clients stated, “50% of all our obstacles to success center around team dynamics.” In other words you can have the best plans, strategies and initiatives, however if everyone is not team oriented, working well together and getting along, it will be difficult at…
According to an article in the Harvard Business review, 33% of all hiring decisions are decided on appearance alone. This is great for people who use this technique as all they need is a photo or video of the candidate to make their decision on.
There are a couple of situations when it makes good sense to include an interview with a sales candidate’s spouse. The first situation is when you’re seriously considering hiring a salesperson from a competitor. The salesperson may be playing you off against his current employer for a raise. Asking to include the spouse in the…
In part one I expressed my despair that companies don’t do a more thorough job of selecting salespeople. My concerns stem from my years in the sales training business where I was too often brought into a company and asked to basically train pigs to fly. They wanted to train salespeople who, at best, should…
When hiring for a position as critical as sales, I’m always surprised that companies don’t take the time to test candidates better than they do. I recognize that the HR department is ill equipped to test salespeople beyond the standard personality or temperament assessment but, even then, most seem loath to use these tools. It’s…
An article in the Harvard Business Review pointed out that 43% of hiring decisions are made within the first 4.8 minutes of the interview. Talk about the importance of a candidate creating a good first impression! If this is the case, why bother interviewing people for more than 5 minutes? The answer is because hasty…