You’ve hired the right person, you’ve put them through their orientation, you’ve even found someone who will prospect and get their own appointments! Congratulations. Now what? Here are four things to get that newbie thinking about:
1. Ask questions about technology; how do they use it? what role does it play in their business? what is frustrating? what’s working or not working?

2. Once you’ve uncovered a “pain”, relax, slow down, don’t get over excited and start trying to throw solutions at the prospect. Instead, start asking probing questions. Find out what solutions they’ve attempted. Ask if any other companies have offered solutions.

3. If there is an opportunity, start talking about time frames and budgets. Here’s a hint, the prospect never has a budget or doesn’t want to tell you the budget. This is where selling comes in…help them understand why you need that number, how it speeds the delivery time to getting their pain solved, how it helps you craft the right solution that they can actually afford. If you’ve begun to build a trusting relationship, you can get this number.

4. Insist that your newbie never leave that prospect without the next meeting and an objective for that next meeting. This is crucial! Too many sales calls end with a “call me next week.” Everyone is excited and motivated until next week comes and you can’t reach your new buddy. The calls are unreturned, the emails ignored, and suddenly that hot new opportunity is reduced to nothing. Get the follow up appointment on the spot.

These are simple topics for your weekly sales meeting.  Be patient, even your seasoned vets can fall out of these habits.  Coach and counsel your newbies consistently to train the behavior.  They’ll get there.

Tags: new hire, sales, sales management, selling

Over the last 6 months I’ve learned a lot about the SMB Nation community and Harry Brelsford. I’m incredibly impressed by both! Here is a link to an article that I wrote for the magazine. It was a pleasure working with Harry on this and I appreciated the opportunity to contribute to his periodical.

Just went for a run and came home to a message from a client who’s considering buying iPhones for his staff to replace their old Palms. He mentioned that one reason was for easiers social media access. That got me thinking about how WordPress apps and here we are. It’s been challenging for me to figure out all these apps so let’s see if I can get this one right on my own!

Tags: iPhone

The thing I notice most frequently with the VARS and MSP’s (managed services providers) that I meet is that they have a hard time (if not impossible time) breaking through that $2,000,000 annual revenue mark.  After noticing this for several years I have  determined that the difference between those who do break the $2M mark and those who don’t  is simple; the existence of a sales force.  Through brute force, many owners can get their companies up to that $2M mark.  Once they commit to being a sales driven organization that $2M mark is seen only through the rear view mirror.

Once we start talking about hiring sales folks the conversation quickly turns to the horror stories of sales people from the past.  Here’s a short list of the most common mistakes my clients say they made:

1. Hiring their unemployed sales expert friend, neighbor, or relative;
2. Paying a very high base salary;
3. Not tracking sales activity;
4. Commission program too rich;
5. Getting “sold” in the interview and hiring the wrong person;
6. Not meeting regularly with their sales person.

Most of these issues can be resolved and not repeated by creating the habit of Always be Interviewing. Sifting through sales resumes and meeting with potential sales people is the only way to gain the confidence you need to say no to mediocre sales candidates. It is easy to get “sold” in an interview if you’re only interviewing a couple of times a year in order to fill an immediate vacancy.

Keep a rolling ad out in the community through all the standards channels, let the world know you need sales candidates, every person who you encounter is a potential sales person for you.

I would challenge you to interview at least 2 individuals every week. Make at least one of them a sales candidate.

Tags: hiring, interviewing, sales, sales management

Spending day with a client. Set up a couple sales interviews. First was a no show. They have been using a nice mix of sources for candidates. This particular candidate was a craigslist.com candidate. Looked interesting on paper. Did some research on the candidate and came across his Facebook page. Appears that most of his day is spent playing Farmville on Facebook. Now I understand why he was a no show! In this economy it is amazing to me that someone would blow off an interview. Perhaps our 10% unemployment rate has as much to do with the labor pool as it does with the availability of jobs?

Tags: hiring, interviewing, sales, sales management, unemployment

Thanks for stopping by.  Some good stuff will be coming shortly.  In the mean time, check out the Taylor Business Group website (http://www.taylorbusinessgroup.com).

Tags: Not Josh