Guest Blog
By Jason Ryan Dorsey

Employers always seem to be asking me, “What in the world is Gen Y thinking when they do some of the things they do at work?” As a researcher and member of Gen Y, which I define as being born from 1977 to 1995, I think it’s important to shine a spotlight on what my generation is thinking when we show up to work (and then immediately ask for a coffee break). The more employers understand Gen Y’s perspective, the easier it is to identify the strategies and actions that can transform us into high-performing, loyal employees.

GEN Y’S TOP FIVE LIST FOR HOW WE THINK AND ACT AT WORK

1. No expectation of lifetime employment

Gen Y is the only generation in the modern workforce that has never expected to work for one employer our entire career. In practice this means that Gen Y expects to change employers throughout our lives, because it would be abnormal for us to stay with one company. This doesn’t mean Gen Y won’t or can’t stay with one employer, just that we see nothing wrong with switching employers if a job or company no longer fits us (or our sleep schedule).

Though we may not expect to be with a company for 20 years, we are willing to work extremely long hours for an employer if we feel a genuine connection to the company or its mission. At one online education company I visited, the Gen Y employees were working seven days a week, and some were taking showers in the office building in order to meet deadlines. One of the Gen Y employees told me, “That’s just what you do when your company is counting on you.”

2. A feeling of entitlement along with big expectations

The biggest complaint I get from employers of all ages — including Gen Yers who manage other Gen Yers — is that many in Gen Y feel entitled. We show up to work and act as if our boss owes us something for our presence. I know how off-putting Gen Y’s attitude can be, but before we condemn my generation as a bunch of spoiled brats (something that I find personally offensive and plan to tell my mom about) we should consider for a moment that entitlement is 100 percent a learned behavior. You are not born entitled. You have to be raised that way.

This might hit a bit close to home if your twentysomething child is still on your car insurance and carries one of your credit cards for emergency use only, which could mean a sale on cherry-flavored Pop-Tarts® at Target. In fact, many of us in Gen Y were told, “As long as you’re in college, we’ll help you out.” Seven majors and one study abroad semester later, we’re graduating with 196 credit hours and an Associate Degree — and courageously entering adulthood by returning home.

3. A hunger for instant gratification and tangible outcomes

Gen Y has come of age with almost instantaneous access to just about everything and everyone — from instant meals to instant messages. This constant immediacy has taught us to have little patience, short attention spans, and to seek ongoing progress in every aspect of our life. We hate waiting in lines at the grocery store (Can you say self checkout?) and don’t want to show our work on math problems, especially if you already told us our answer is correct. We will even walk into a fast food restaurant, see a line at the counter, and leave to go somewhere else. 

However, rather than brand us as the “instant everything” generation, my research shows we are simply outcome-driven. This observation changes the conversation, because it shows we are not about having everything now, we simply don’t see — and therefore we do not appreciate — the steps involved in creating the outcomes we want. We literally do not connect the dots or consider our plans in terms of policies and procedures — that’s an older generation’s way of approaching work. Instead, all we want to know is what you want us to do. Then get out of our way so we can get it done. In the workplace, this makes us extremely project-oriented rather than job-description focused.

4. A new relationship with technology and communication

Since Gen Y grew up during the Internet boom and mobile communication revolution, technology has become an extension of ourselves. However, older generations have a big misconception when it comes to Gen Y and technology. Older generations think that Gen Y is tech savvy. This is 100 percent not true. Gen Y is not tech savvy, we are tech dependent. Important difference. We don’t know how technology works. We just know we can’t live without it.

5. A need for ongoing feedback

When it comes to employing Gen Y, if your company only gives annual reviews, then you can change the name. Call them exit interviews, because Gen Y won’t be there. We need feedback on a much more regular schedule, ideally twice a month, but don’t confuse frequency with a major time investment. We don’t want an in-depth 360-degree performance review, complete with personality assessment. Just a five-second check-in that says you notice we exist. All we need is for you to pause outside our cubicle and say, “Jordan, I saw how you helped Mrs. Booker solve the billing problem. Good job.” That’s it. Nothing more.

TURNING THESE GEN Y CHARACTERISTICS INTO A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

As a member of Gen Y, I admit that all five of these characteristics do not initially appear as workplace strengths. However, I have seen time and again how employers have made every one of these Gen Y characteristics into a workplace advantage when Gen Y is managed correctly.

The key is to start with an understanding of our mindset, find a common ground with your company’s goals, and build on it. In fact, the breakthrough moment for many of my clients who employ Gen Y is realizing that what their Gen Y employees want in order to put forth their best effort is often less expensive and easier to give than their current employment practices. Now that is something you will want us to text our friends about — but not until our lunch break.

Jason Ryan Dorsey, author of Y-Size Your Business: How Gen Y Employees Can Save You Money and Grow Your Business is an award-winning entrepreneur and an acclaimed keynote speaker often referred to as “The Gen Y Guy”®. He has been featured as a Generation Y expert on 60 Minutes, 20/20, the Today show, and The View, as well as in Fortune magazine. For more information about the book, please visit www.JasonDorsey.com.

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My good friend Bill Brown sent an email last week asking me to remind my listeners and readers to enjoy themselves over the next two weeks of the holiday season. Bill’s advice is right on the money. This is the slowest time of year for most B2B salespeople, however, for the next two week’s you have the opportunity to reach out to your customers and prospects by phone, email , snail mail or in person with season’s greetings. At this time of year most people are in a good mood and are willing to take time out of their day to greet you. If possible, be sure to drop of treats, gifts and other goodies to your most important clients. Most importantly though take time to relax, recharge and enjoy with your family and friends

Speaking of reconnecting, Mat Houchens who is a Senior Commercial Account Specialist for Infinite Energy asks, “Jeb, what are your thoughts on holiday cards to customers, prospects, lost customers etc

Mat, I believe that any time you have the opportunity to send a card or letter to a business relationship for a positive reason you should take it.

Now aside from the political correctness issues we all face today – I’ll leave it up to you whether or not to say Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, or Happy Holidays – the most important thing about holiday cards is that they be personalized.

To make the most impact forget the preprinted labels and hand write the address. And always be sure to include a handwritten message on the inside – even if you are just signing your name. There is a huge difference in the impact of an impersonal card and a personalized card and envelope that indicates that you really care. When people believe you care they will remember you in the months to come.

I hope that you and your family have a very happy holiday season.  I’ll see you in 2010.

Jeb Blount is a leading authority on sales and sales management. He is the CEO of SalesGravy.com (the most visited sales content website on the internet) and a consultant and speaker to sales organizations worldwide. He is the author of Power Principles and 7 Rules of Outselling the Recession and publishes Sales Gravy eMagazine which has more than 80,000 subscribers. Jeb also lectures regularly at the University of Central Florida, coaches the UCF National Collegiate Sales Competition team, and serves as judge for the MIT International MBA Sales Competition. Please send sales questions to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.com. Follow Jeb on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/salesgravy Join the Sales Gravy Group on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1781348

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by Jeb Blount

Sales Professionals often have the reputation for being lone wolves who are disconnected from the team and play by their own rules. This reputation is in some ways self-inflicted because indeed there are some salespeople who operate in this manner. The super successful Sales Pros have learned that the lone wolf mentality is not effective over the long-term. Because of this they cultivate and maintain strong relationships with their internal support team. 

Sales Professionals often have the reputation for being lone wolves who are disconnected from the team and play by their own rules. This reputation is in some ways self-inflicted because indeed there are some salespeople who operate in this manner. The super successful Sales Pros have learned that the lone wolf mentality is not effective over the long-term. Because of this they cultivate and maintain strong relationships with their internal support team. 

It is rare to find a situation in business to business sales where the sales rep works alone in a vacuum, handling all aspects of the sales and customer acquisition process. The reality in modern companies, both big and small, is Sales Professionals depend on support teams, either ad hoc or structured, who assist them in almost every step of the sales process. In large, complex sales the support team can stretch across all levels of the enterprise, sometimes even involving the CEO.

There is a good reason why companies invest in support staff for their sales teams. With the market more competitive than ever, there is an increasing requirement to differentiate. Unfortunately, technology and globalization have made the gap between competing products and services much thinner leaving people driven areas like process, implementation, customer service, and creativity a place where true differentiation is possible.

The most successful B2B salespeople have learned how to leverage their support teams to close more business. They maintain ongoing strategic relationships with the people in their companies who have the resources and know how to back them up in the sales process with things like competitive research, pre-sales engineering, custom sales collateral and presentations, product research and comparison, supply chain and forecasting, team presentations, top to top meetings and executive sponsors, strategy, financing, implementation and much more. By leveraging these important resources smart Sales Professionals are able to demonstrate a level of commitment and focus to their clients that sets them apart from their competitors. By involving a diverse group of people who have specialization in key areas these Sales Professionals are able to offer more robust and relevant solutions to their prospects’ problems. And, because they delegate key tasks to their support staff they have more time to spend prospecting and selling than those salespeople who attempt to go it alone.

Because there is such a benefit to engaging the sales support team in the sales process it is hard to understand why so many salespeople fall down in this area and either negate or sub-optimize the effectiveness of their resources. In some cases where salespeople are new to a company they may not know exactly who, where or how to get these important resources working for them. If you are a sales manager it is incumbent on you to introduce your new salespeople to the sales support team and to teach them where and how to get the resources they need.

The other reasons salespeople don’t effectively leverage their support teams include the fear of asking for help, the failure to develop and maintain relationships, or the naïve belief that they can do everything on their own. If you or members of your sales team fall into these categories this is your wake up call. If you want to close more business, have happier customers, increase your selling time, and improve your income you must learn to leverage your support team.

The most important thing you can do to get your support team working for you is to start with relationships. I’ve always been appalled at salespeople who treat the support staff with indifference or worse are demanding and rude – especially with last minute requests that create disruption and inconvenience to people they need on their side. It is important to remember that the people on the support team are people just like you. They want to be respected, to do worthwhile work and to feel important and appreciated. Like you they have families, goals and dreams. Take the time to get to know the people on the sales support team individually. Find out what makes them tick. Understand how they are compensated, how they like to operate and where they have the most experience. Give them the same respect you yourself would want and be sure to thank them for the work they do. Never forget that when the deal gets done and you get the kudos and the big commission check there were others standing behind you that were not recognized. Make sure you take time to give credit where credit is due.
 

Once you get to know your support team and gain their trust and respect they will walk through walls for you. This is just the beginning though. The next step is becoming effective at organizing, motivating, and leading a diverse team with the goal of closing the sale. We will discuss this in more detail next week in part two of How to Leverage Your Sales Support Team.

Jeb Blount is a leading authority on sales and sales management. He is the CEO of SalesGravy.com (the most visited sales content website on the internet) and a consultant and speaker to sales organizations worldwide. He is the author of Power Principles and 7 Rules of Outselling the Recession and publishes Sales Gravy eMagazine which has more than 80,000 subscribers. Jeb also lectures regularly at the University of Central Florida, coaches the UCF National Collegiate Sales Competition team, and serves as judge for the MIT International MBA Sales Competition. Please send sales questions to salesguy@quickanddirtytips.com. Follow Jeb on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/salesgravy Join the Sales Gravy Group on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1781348

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by Paul McCord

Every salesperson has heard that referrals are by far the best prospecting and marketing method in existence. Yet, very few salespeople actually get very many high quality referrals.

Some manage to get a name and phone number here and there. And a few will get several. However, most of these are worthless–just names and phone numbers of people or businesses that have no interest in or need for or can’t afford the salesperson’s product or service.

Nevertheless, there are a few who have found a way to not only generate more than just a few referrals, but somehow they manage to generate enough to run very successful sales practices almost exclusively off referrals.

Do they have some great secret not everyone else knows?

Actually, in a sense, yes. They’ve learned that what everybody else does doesn’t work. In addition, they have learned ways that do work.

Let’s look at seven of the most basic things these mega-referral producers have learned:

1. Ask for referrals: Sounds stupid right? If you don’t ask, how do you expect to get them? Unfortunately, over 50% of salespeople simply never ask.

2. Ask more than once: Statistics show that if you ask for referrals twice, you’ll get twice as many as if you only ask once.

3. Really Ask: Asking means a direct request for referrals. Studies have also shown that over half of the salespeople who ask for referrals don’t really ask, they suggest. They’ll say something like “Don, if you happen to run across someone who could use my service, would you give them one of my cards?” and then they hand the client a bunch of cards—that usually go straight into the trash.

4. Let the client know who’s a good referral: Very few salespeople ever define for the client who a good referral is. They assume the client knows. Bad assumption. Clients aren’t in your business. Why should they know? You have to let them know exactly who you’re looking for.

5. Help them: Make some suggestions as to people whom they might know. If you’re selling insurance and your client builds homes, whom do you think they might know? Tons of contractors, realtors, vendors and suppliers, that’s who. Suggest some of those folks you know you’d like to be referred to—they just might know them.

6. Give them time to think: Don’t ask for referrals and stand there waiting for them. When you put your client on the spot like that, they aren’t going to come up with a ton of great referrals. Ask and then let them know exactly when you’ll get back to them to get the referrals.

7. Don’t get names and phone numbers, get introduced. A name and phone number is just a name and phone number. Get introduced to the prospect through an introduction letter or phone call.

Mega-referral producers have a detailed process they use to generate a large number of high quality referrals from every one of their clients and even prospects. They have developed a disciplined and effective procedure they use with each client that leads to a predictable end—receiving a large number of high quality referrals.

But even without learning the process they use, if you simply implement these 7 simple tips, you’ll increase both the number and quality of the referrals you receive from your clients immediately.

Paul McCord is a leading authority on prospecting, referral selling, and personal marketing. He is president of McCord and Associates, a Houston, Texas based sales training, coaching, and consulting company. His first book, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success through Client Referrals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007), is an Amazon and Barnes and Noble best-seller and is quickly becoming recognized as the authoritative work on referral selling. His second book, SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar will be released in February, 2008. He may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com or visit his sales training website at www.powerreferralselling.com

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The Holidays can have a negative impact on even the most robust sales pipelines. Already we have clients giving us the “Let’s wait until after the holidays” brush off. This mantra will be repeated time and again until after New Year’s Day. Worse than the immeadiate impact of lost sales in December is the long-term hit to the Jan/Feb/Mar pipeline. With a few simple steps and some discipline you can outsell the holidays. Check out our latest podcast and article – Outselling the Holidays: http://sales.quickanddirtytips.com/outselling-the-holidays.aspx

Here are some additional resources to help you gain the winning edge in your sales career:

Follow Sales Gravy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/salesgravy

Free eBook – Double Your Sales in 2010: http://tinyurl.com/doubleyoursales2010

Free Sales Management Tool Kit: http://tinyurl.com/yfhe57h

8 Secrets of the Worlds Most Successful Salespeople: http://tinyurl.com/y8vsa77

Selling Cheesy Products Nobody Needs But Milliions Buy: http://www.salesgravy.com/Articles/content/view/733/1/

Sales Team Meeting Agendas: http://www.salesgravy.com/shop/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=80

Selling Through A Slump – A Free Industry-by-Industry Playbook to Help You Prepare for the Recovery: http://salesgravy.tradepub.com/free/w_orac97/

Have an awesome week and please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you increase your sales.

Jeb Blount
CEO
www.SalesGravy.com
www.ReachSales.com
706-664-0810

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This weekend I was a judge at the International MBA Sales Competition on the campus of MIT in Cambridge, MA. Students from top business schools including Harvard, MIT, Wharton, Tuck, Kellogg, Stanford and even London Business School competed for top prizes sponsored by Google, Gallup, SAP and SalesGravy.com. Acting as a buyer I spent the day listening to and judging the sales skills of individuals and teams who, working through complex sales cases, sold me on their solutions.

Just like the real world of sales competitors were forced to deal with difficult questions, unpredictable outcomes, unfriendly buyers and pressure to close the deal. As in any competition, there were winners and losers however, all of the students learned valuable lessons that will follow them as they become the next generation of business leaders. One of my fellow judges pointed out that even if these students never actually work in sales they will have an appreciation for the importance of the sales profession to the long-term success of a business.

But the International MBA Sales Competition has significance that reaches far beyond the walls of these elite business schools. Along with the National Collegiate Sales Competition, which is its undergraduate sister, the International MBA Sales Competition signifies the continued acknowledgement by academia that both the soft and hard skills used in selling are critical in business and worthy of the classroom. After being ignored and treated as the red-headed-stepchild for most of the last century, Sales is finally being recognized as a professional discipline. Today a growing number of universities are adding sales specific degree tracks to their business schools. And at MIT, an institution known for innovation and technology, the 2^nd largest club on campus is the Sales Club. Seriously!

Now for those of us who make our living as salespeople or sales leaders it seems odd that business schools are just waking up to the fact that sales is a critical discipline in business. We know that in the business world there are only two groups of employees – those who sell and those who support sales. We know that being excellent in sales requires talent, discipline and a constant focus on developing and maintaining our skills. We also know that we are among the highest compensated employees in the business world. Yet sadly most of us learned what we know about sales through the school of hard knocks.

Advancing sales as a profession is among my top priorities. As one of those unfortunates who learned the hard knock way I am thrilled that business schools have begun investing in sales programs. University students getting a real education in sales prior to graduation is a huge step in the right direction – especially so at the MBA level. Even more promising is that fact that employers are beginning to take notice and are both aggressively recruiting sales students and investing in sales programs with time and money. Many of these programs now boast a “Who’s Who” of corporate sponsors.

My message for the students and faculty at these elite business schools is this: Never forget that Sales Professionals are the Elite Athletes of the Business World.   Business leaders who understand this and place focus on recruiting, training, developing and nurturing top sales talent build world class, highly profitable companies.

On behalf of the team here at Sales Gravy I want to congratulate all of the International MBA Sales Competition winners including Fan Jin of MIT who won the $2000 SalesGravy.com award. Her performance was extraordinary. Fan is living proof that the future is bright for the sales profession and the best days are still ahead of us.

To learn more about the International MBA Sales Competition please visit www.SloanSalesCompetition.com. To learn more about the National Collegiate Sales Competition please visit www.coles.kennesaw.edu/ncsc/

Jeb Blount is the CEO of SalesGravy.com and author of Power Principles and 7 Rules for outselling the Recession. His Podcasts have been downloaded more than 3 million times on iTunes.

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by Jeb Blount

Listen to the audio version of this article

We received this email from, Jen, a small business owner, “I am a freelance web designer and have been considering working with someone who can take over the sales duties so that I can concentrate on designing. What resources should I utilize to find someone to work with and what questions should I ask to make sure I find the best match for my type of work? Thanks in advance and love the show!”

Jen, I know this is not what you want to hear but I have to tell you the truth, recruiting, hiring, training, managing, and retaining a good salesperson for your business will be difficult and frustrating. The problem for most small businesses, and, for that matter, large businesses is they don’t truly grasp how complex it is to hire and nurture sales talent. In fact, it is so complex there is no way to deal with it in one or even twenty podcasts.

So instead of trying to teach a lesson I’m going to provide you with some key action steps you should complete before you start the recruiting and hiring process.

Step 1: Develop a hiring profile. A hiring profile defines the ideal candidate based on the sales role, client base, and industry and so on. This is a critical step in identifying the type of salesperson who will fit your business.

Step 2: Create your job advertisement. Using the profile develop your job advertisement. You will be competing with other businesses for the same sales talent so I suggest creating several variations so that you can test which one generates the most qualified applicants.

Step 3: Develop an interview process. Your interview process will guide you from the initial resume review, to interview questions, back ground checks, and ultimately the offer. Creating your interview questions in advance will help you remain disciplined and systematic in identifying salespeople who fit your profile.

Step 4: Determine where your will recruit. I recommend reaching out to friends, family, and other people in your network to let them know you are hiring first. I also recommend placing your job ad on SalesGravy.com in the career center. Sales Gravy is the most visited sales website on the internet and we allow you to post your first ten sales job ads for free. In full disclosure, Sales Gravy is my company, however, for those dipping their toe into the sales hiring and recruiting pool there are few resources like SalesGravy.com that provide you the chance to try before you buy.

Step 5: Develop a compensation plan. The right compensation plan will incent your new salesperson for optimal performance. It will also help you retain your best salespeople. There are few thing disheartening or expensive as losing one of your best salespeople after making an investment in recruitment, hiring and training.

Step 6: Develop activity standards and quotas. Along with your compensation plan you will need to determine what your activity standards and sales quotas will be. This will ensure that everyone is clear on what is expected. This will also provide you with a guide for managing your salespeople. Keep in mind that this is an ongoing process that will change over time as your business and market evolves.

Step 7: Create a reporting process. As with anything in business you can’t manage what you don’t measure. So you will need to create a reporting process for your sales efforts that makes it easy for your salespeople to report on their sales activity and for you to measure that against the Key Performance Indicators you developed in step 6.

Step 8: Develop an on boarding process. When you hire a salesperson you need a process to get them set up as an employee or in some cases an independent contractor; introduce them to your company, culture and history; introduce them to your performance standards and reporting, and; provide them with basic product knowledge and rate schedules.

Step 9: Develop training and sales support materials. If you want a successful sales effort, training and support are critical. As a small operation, training may be more informal than in large companies, however what is most important is that it be regular and ongoing. You will also need to provide support for your salespeople in the form of a CRM program, marketing collateral, and customer service.

Step 10: Prepare to manage and coach: Managing salespeople is different that managing other types of employees. It requires you to be a coach, mentor, motivator, and leader. There is no such thing as “set it and forget it” in sales. So be sure you are prepared to be engaged and involved with your sales team.

There are many resources available to help you with your sales recruiting, hiring, training, managing and retaining efforts. A simple search on the internet will turn these up. Here is a short list of my favorites. You can get access to the list and links on the transcript of this podcast at www.sales.quickanddirtytips.com.

Some online resources I recommend:

• You’ll find dozens of articles on hiring and managing salespeople in the resource center at www.SalesGravy.com
• There are is a tremendous library of resources for hiring and recruiting at www.ERE.net
• Join the Sales Recruiting Group on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1231317
• Visit the Sales Management Mastery blog at www.SalesManagementMastery.com
• There are some great articles at http://www.salesarchitects.net/articles.php
• You will find sales meeting agendas at http://www.MeetingToWin.com

Some books I recommend are:

Great Salespeople Aren’t Born, They’re Hired by Joseph Miller

Soar Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager by Lee Salz

Coaching Salespeople Into Champions by Keith Rosen

Top Grading For Sales by Bradford Smart and Greg Alexander

The Sales Manager’s Success Manual by Wayne Thomas

Recruiting, hiring, training, managing, and retaining salespeople are among the top challenges in business today. Fortune 500 companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in their efforts to build high-performing sales teams. For small and medium sized businesses that don’t have the resources of large companies the challenge is even more daunting. This is why it is important that you prepare in advance so when you do hire salespeople you and they hit the ground running.

Jeb Blount is CEO of www.SalesGravy.com and author of Power Principles and 7 Rules for Outselling the Recession.

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by Jeb Blount                    Listen To This Article Free on iTunes

What happens when your customers become DEVOTED customers vs. loyal or happy customers? This question is answered in a new book by Chip R. Bell and John Patterson. These two guys know something about customer relationships. Between the two of them they have written a whopping 18 books.

If you are in sales their new book Take Their Breath Away: How Imaginative Service Creates Devoted Customers should be on your reading list. The book takes a fresh approach to interacting with customers and is designed to help sales professionals, managers and business leaders develop teams that do more than give good service and instead focus on customer experience.

I believe strongly that customer experience will be the key competitive differentiator in the next iteration of our economy. As we emerge from this terrible economic crisis a new generation of customers will have expectations that are different than those of the boom years of the late nineties and the early part of this decade. Sales teams and individuals that are inventive, imaginative and create experiences for their customers that lead to devotion will be the winners in the next economy.

In Take Their Breath Away Bell and Patterson draw a clear distinction between devotion and loyalty. I love the concept of devotion.

Loyalty is logical. Loyal customers come back and buy more because they get their needs served and problems solved. Which makes sense.

Devotion on the other hand is an emotional connection to you, your brand, your company, and your products. It is visceral. Devotion tweets about you on twitter. Devotion posts blogs about you. Devotion shouts your name from the roof tops. Devotion defends you when you make a mistake. Devotion is a walking, talking advertisement. Customer devotion should be the ultimate goal of every business leader and Sales Professional.

So here are some questions for you:

What are you and your team doing right now to be sure that today’s customers don’t belong to your competitors tomorrow? How are you managing and improving your customers’ experience with you, your organization, and your product or service? What was that last truly imaginative thing you or your team did aimed at improving customer service? And finally a tough one. Are your customers devoted, loyal, or just plain bored? Look around you. Every one of your competitors is scrambling for business. They need sales. And with fewer businesses buying, the competition for the ones that are is beyond fierce. Losing customers impacts every person across your enterprise.

Your best defense and your competitive differentiator is your ability to create great experiences for your customers. I like Take Their Breath Away because it is not just another Kumbaya, feel good customer service book. There is real, actionable advice and techniques you and your team can put into place immediately. I recommend taking a chapter at a time and making it a central part of your weekly team meetings or daily huddles. And though Rome wasn’t built in a day, with regular focus on these concepts, you will find that you and your team become more engaged, imaginative, enthusiastic, and in tune with customer experience. In time you may just reach nirvana – customer devotion – and in turn a growing, profitable, fun place to work, no matter what economic conditions rage in the marketplace.

Jeb Blount is the CEO of SalesGravy.com – the most visited sales website on the internet. He is also author of Power Principles and the new audio book, 7 Rules For Outselling The Recession which is available on iTunes.

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Our mission at SalesGravy.com is advancing sales as a profession. We focus on providing resources that help sales professionals increase sales and improve their careers as well as resources for sales managers and leaders.

Today SalesGravy.com reaches more Sales Professionals and Sales Leaders than any other website on the internet. We’ve built our audience by staying steadfastly focused on our mission.

However, for the first time in our history we are taking on another issue – Healthcare reform in the United States. In our opinion the pending healthcare bill being debated in the United States Congress, if passed, will fundamentally change our country forever. Healthcare is such a large part of economy that the impact will be felt by every company, every family, and every individual. And once passed, no matter what the ultimate consequence, we will never be able to put the cat back in the bag.

The demographic of the SalesGravy.com audience is primarily college educated with the vast majority earning in excess of $70,000. You work for large companies and small companies. You are employees, independent commission only reps, managers and business owners.

Depending on your situation the healthcare bill, as it is currently written (1000+ pages), could have a negative or positive impact on you or your family. If you are an independent, commission only rep who foots the bill for your own insurance having a universal government run plan may appeal to you. On the other hand, if you have employer paid insurance with a good company you could potentially lose some of your benefits. As high income earners it is also highly likely that all of you will feel the pinch of a future tax increase to pay for the bill.

It is not our intention in this article to convince you to be for or against the healthcare bill. Our goal instead is to urge you to take action today to contact your Representatives and Senators and tell them where you stand on the Healthcare Reform Bill. Whether you feel the bill should be passed, altered or voted down is your business alone. However, because of the impact this legislation will have on the Sales Profession, your family, and future generations it is critical that you take a stand and let your stand be known to the people you elected to represent you.

Please take action today. Call and write your elected officials and let them know exactly how you feel and how you want them to vote. To find your representatives click here: http://www.congress.org

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by Jeb Blount

I often speak to recruiters and employers who are frustrated that they are not getting enough hits and/or applications from their sales job posts. I understand their frustration. It is dissapointing to go to the effort of posting a sales job advertisment and not get the results you were expecting. So this week I have a few tips that will help you improve your response rates on www.SalesGravy.com:

1) City, State, Zip Code: Many recruiters post jobs and either leave the city and zip code empty or put words like “any” or “nationwide” or “Southeast” in the place of a city name. This significantly reduces the number of hits on a job advertisment. Why? Because Job Seekers don’t search for “Nationwide” or “Any” – they search for jobs where they live or where they want to live. If you want to increase the number of hits on your sales job ad, post it in a city, state and zipcode. (It is easy to post in multiple cities on Sales Gravy using the Copy Job Feature)

2) Hype: It might feel good to use big bold letters or lots of exclamation points or all caps but it is not helping you. Job Seekers are savvy and the most talented sales pros stay clear of ads that over hype the job. Try to strike a balance between making the job interesting and keeping the post professional.

3) Headlines: The first thing a job seeker sees is your headline. Great headlines get clicks poor headlines don’t. Try to step into the job seeker’s shoes and think about what would make you want to click on a job post to learn more. My advice is to try several variations of your headline to see what works best. (Just use the Copy Job feature to change your headline without changing the post)

4) Brand: For salespeople brand is important. When your logo is on your job post it shouts “Credibility.” It is easy to add your logo to all of your posts on www.SalesGravy.com. All you need to do is login, click on Edit Profile, and upload your logo. It will then be placed on all of your posts automatically.

5) Don’t Choke Your Ads: Be careful that your ad copy isn’t so exclusive that no one applies. Sales hiring and recruitng expert, Lee Salz, has written an excellent article on this topic: http://www.salesgravy.com/Articles/content/view/78/2/

I do want to take a moment to thank you for making www.SalesGravy.com the #1 ranked Sales Job Board on the planet (source: Alexa, Quantcast, Compete). Please tell someone else about us. Word of mouth is how we grow.

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