1. You can’t expect to be the preferred resource when applying for a job at a particular company if you don’t know what product to offer. You must listen/do research to learn VOC (voice of customer) and then address the relevance and value of your product and services. Client will be looking to solve a specific problem like fix products now flat or in decline. Grow profit. Even if your resume has a track record of success, it has little value if it has questionable relevance.
2. Providing facts and features about you does not move the relationship forward by itself. Trust and relationship are crucial to the selling process. The client will prefer someone with lesser credentials on a superficial level if that person comes highly recommended by someone the client trusts. Resumes offer too little depth or proof of connection of you to the results claimed to offset that. Single interviews don’t often solve the problem because clients are not usually trained interviewers.
3. Network with several people at a company first, send resume later. Listen 2/3, talk 1/3.
4. “Consulting” with a client you would like to work for permanently without a designated selling process may distract and pre-empt closing a deal. Similarly, offering too much information during consulting, networking, and interviewing without closing the deal encourages the client to ask for more free advice/details without committing. A gift of gab does not equal selling.
5. A direct mail piece gets a .5-2% return at best. A superficial resume sent to a portal generates similar results.
6. You are highly unlikely to get what you want from a sales meeting or interview if you don’t ask for it and specify exactly what you want and provide specific rationale for deserving it. “I want $200K salary base and $200K is justified for these reasons…” “I want the open Business Development Manager role, and I am the best candidate over other Biz Dev Mgrs with the same amount of industry experience and sales success because of these reasons…” The sales trainer John Baker says 3 reasons establishes a pattern and builds just enough intrigue to consumate the deal.

If you want more in depth training on closing deals in person whether or not you are a professional sales person, read The Asking Formula, by John Baker. He is a fun trainer for any audience.

Regardless of how far down the path to CEO you are now, getting ahead in the work world is increasingly about soft skills and demonstrating your ability to lead ideas, influence others, and be a rainmaker. Are you building those skills? Are you having the conversation with your communities to demonstrate your prowess in these areas? Is your story as convincing as it could be?

An exceptional Sales Manager can identify and nurture the competencies that are needed for every team member’s success. The Manager can articulate the processes and benchmarks required to win most sales opportunities regardless of customer issues. Like an effective Product Manager, a top Sales Manager will probe more deeply into root causes and unarticulated problems with team members and customers than other Managers. Delivering a better ROI (return on investment) for the entire team is not an accident, it is part of that Manager’s toolkit. He can predict and deliver the team’s revenue within a very small percentage.

Joe then told the corporate HR person in a phone screen a few days later he was making $72K salary and wouldn’t move for less than $80K.

The engineering firm knew his present salary was $62K because they had hired a number of other people from the same firm.

Joe then tells the HR person that, while he is willing to work in re-commissioning for while, what he really wants is GHG (greenhouse gas) and sustainability. The job title he applied for is Re-commissioning Specialist.

Comments:

1. If you are going to exaggerate your credentials, at least keep your story straight!
2. Recruiters usually tell a hiring manager the salary history and expectations of a candidate. Otherwise the recruiter would be chastened for wasting the hiring manager’s time.
3. National studies have shown 70% of resumes include an exaggeration. Hiring Managers assume they will hear exaggerations at every step of the screening process and listen for them.
4. This job seeker wasted everyone’s time. If you are serious about a company or job, do enough homework before applying to find out the company’s expectations and norms. If interested in the company but not this job, be honest.
5. Applying to a company for more than 3 different job titles is not viewed positively by most companies. The applicant is considered not focused or too hungry or too much of a commodity player.

Neither the recruiter not the engineering firm will ever work with Joe again, he has been “red-flagged.”

Have a favorite interview story? Share it with us!

Someone who has been out of a relationship or work many months may take a questionable spouse or job out of financial desperation or the need to be “wanted.”

In both marriage and work, you should do more homework about long-range goals and the cultural fit before committing. Beauty is only skin deep. One-night-stand and one interview decisions carry a lot of risk. Consider Contract-2-Hire.

The more you invest up front in preparation and strategy, the more financially secure you will be long term.

If you argue with your spouse or employer about money, your marriage or job is more likely to end in divorce.

If you are happily single, and financially independent, you pick differently. You don’t see the need to get married at all. Or you partner from choice, not need. Maybe working for yourself or staying single is the better answer, so you are connecting to several partners at the same time and spreading the risk.

The best marriages and jobs offer both partners a little flexibility or at least forgive the other a few transgressions. In the best marriages and job relationships, both parties work on keeping “engagement” or satisfaction levels high.

Regardless of present marital or work status, age, or financial need you would benefit from having long-term strategies in place. Consider where you want to be 5-10 years from now. Have a progressive strategy that selects a spouse or job for the next 1-2 years and simultaneously you start activities like networking and becoming more visible in the market to start building momentum now for the time after the divorce.

Have your own analogy to add? Please do, through a comment. The more outrageous or funny, the better.

^(a) www.census.gov