7 Tips For Streamlining The Hiring Process

Most managers agree that hiring is one of the most important aspects of their job. It also tends to be one of their least favorite responsibilities. Ask a manager what their strategy for hiring is and most will just shrug. That's because hiring can be an exhausting process. There are papers to be filled out, rules to adhere to and even time constraints to consider.

Taking The Pain Out Of Hiring Helps Ensure A Gain In Employment.

In order for your business' hiring process to be more effective, you need to streamline it. It needs to be broken down to its essential steps so that hiring is quick and easy for everyone involved, from the manager down to the new employee.

7 Tips For Streamlining The Hiring Process:

Tip #1. Put An End To Long Delays - Just as you are scouting more than one candidate, they are scouting more than one potential employer. Like any other aspect to business, recruitment is competitive. That means there is no time for passing paperwork throughout an organization before taking any real action. Top talent won't stay available for long, so managers need to strike while the iron is hot.

Tip #2. Don't Rummage Through Résumés - Sifting through stacks of résumés from unqualified applications is a waste of time and energy. Make sure your recruiters understand the job requirements thoroughly so that every applicant they forward you at least meets the minimum requirements. This expedites the hiring process right from the get-go.

Tip #3. Improve Your Interviewing - Good interviewing is a lot like good conversation. Both require a balance of push and pull, and in the case of interviews, of formal and casual. Also, keep in mind that candidates who make good interviewees do not necessarily make good employees. We suggest crafting interviews to be multi-faceted, so you get to know the employee as a person as well as a worker.

Tip #4. Come To An Interview Prepared - Managers should never go into an interview blind, especially when dealing with top talent. Smart candidates will come equipped with both market research and competitive benchmarking with the hope it gives them an edge, so managers should conduct their own research in order to go toe-to-toe with candidates.

Tip #5. Minimize Documentation - Part of what jams up the hiring process is excessive paperwork. Sure, certain legalities need to be recorded, but a lot of this paper work is just useless and never looked at again. So why bother having it? Slimming down employment paperwork so that it is less of a hassle for managers means less of a hassle for everyone.

Tip #6. Observe What Does And Doesn't Work - In larger businesses, several managers may have hiring responsibilities. If that's the case, these managers need to be in communication with one another. They ought to swap hiring success stories in order to put together a more effective hiring strategy based on experience, instead of just theory.

Tip #7. Give Managers More Control - Many managers feel disconnected from HR, which can sometimes cause them to loose a top candidate. They claim that the offers approved by HR just aren't competitive enough. At the end of the day, hiring a new employee should be about strengthening your team, not saving as much money as possible. Hiring based on dollars and cents is never wise, so give managers better salary survey data and afford them more control over how high their offers can be.

Executive Summary: Ultimately, hiring rests on more than just a manager's shoulders. Managers, HR and recruiters need to work as a team to make the hiring process fluid and more likely to bring a new, ideal hire into the fold. This requires the process be streamlined - disassembled then reassembled so that all the fat has been trimmed off and the hiring process has been made quick, easy and painless.

What To Do After Losing A Sale

Let's say you meet with a prospect that recognizes they have a problem, have the money to address it and want to solve it. More importantly, you know you have the perfect solution for them, so you submit a proposal that meets 100% of their needs. Naturally, you feel excited about your proposal. Getting this sale would increase your personal income, your credibility in the market and help you close more business.

Then You Get The Dreaded Call.

When you answer the phone, your point of contact informs you they selected someone else for a number of reasons. After the call, you lean back in your chair and wonder why they didn't select your proposal. Moreover, as a competitive salesperson, you reflect upon what you could have done differently. Sure, you are disheartened, but the key is to learn from the experience. After all, learning from our failures is the best way to increase the likelihood of future success.

What Questions Do You Need To Ask Yourself After Losing A Sale?

You need to regard losing a sale as a lesson in life. The loss of a sale usually comes down to two issues: RISK and VALUE. Below are a number of questions designed to help address these two areas and help put things into perspective.

1. Questions That Deal With A Buyer's Risk:

• What could we have done to reduce their risk in buying from us?
• How could we have established trust, credibility and brand recognition before, during and after the initial face-to-face sales call?
• Did this company just learn of us before the initial sales call?
• What type of marketing collateral could we have used to reduce their risk in buying from us?
• Could we have improved our proposal?
• Could we have improved the selling process?
• Would it have helped to integrate other people (operations, customer service, etc.) into the sales process to build confidence in our company?
• Would it have made sense for this company to see our operation before the sales call?

2. Questions That Deal With Value To A Buyer:

• Did we solicit their help in building a proposal before we submitted pricing?
• Did we establish the cost of their problem to their business?
• Did we show them the ROI from our solution to their problem?
• Could we have asked better business and financial questions during the sales call?
• Could we have improved our marketing material?
• Did we ask them what their goals and/or expectations with buying from us were?
• Did we determine what it would mean financially if they solved this problem?
• Did we ask what they did to solve this problem prior to contacting us, and if they did anything, why they are considering an alternate solution?
• Are we offering a three-tiered pricing model (people can process up to three options - any more and it becomes complicated)?

3. Questions To Ask About Your Selling Process:

• Are we setting up a predetermined time to discuss the final proposal with its recipient?
• Are we measuring our wins and losses (proposals closed)?
• If we lose a sale, are we learning whom they chose instead of us?
• Are we quantifying our competitors' pricing via spreadsheet so we can determine the percentage difference?
• Are we measuring our close ratio (proposals sent to proposals closed) per salesperson?

Executive Summary: You can learn more about your sales process, your competition and your proposal process if you take the time to reflect on what happened before, during and after a lost sale - or after a win, too. Every engagement can be a learning experience if you explore the experience thoroughly.

6 Steps To Tackling Tough HR Conversations

If you manage people or work in HR, it is just a matter of time before you need to talk with someone about:

• Being late
• Discrimination
• Drug or alcohol use
• Flirtatious behavior
• Having an inter-office affair
• Inappropriate attire
• Leaving dirty dishes in the sink
• A messy desk
• Personal hygiene
• Excessive cell phone use (texting and talking)
• Vulgar language

6 Steps To Providing Feedback During A Tough HR Conversation:

We have put together a general guideline to help you handle talking to employees about tough HR issues. We still suggest getting a professional's advice when dealing with certain issues that arise from your business. As we said, these six steps are just meant to be a guideline.

Step #1 - Seek Permission To Give Feedback: Ask the person for permission to give them feedback at the start of a HR conversation. Opening a two-way channel between you and the employee you are speaking with helps to explore the problem from every angle.

Click here for ideas on handling tough HR conversations

Step #2 - Keep Cool, Calm And Collected: We both know that slamming someone verbally never solves anything; shouting is just a scare tactic that puts an employee on the defensive. Instead, broach the matter with a calm, level tone. The goal of a HR conversation is to help someone become aware of whatever you are trying to address and not be sidetracked by emotions.

Step #3 - Focus On The Problem: Telling someone that other coworkers have voiced complaints about their attitude and/or behavior can seem like redirection. More often than not, this only exacerbates the issue. Sometimes it even creates new ones. What matters most is the issue at hand, so focus solely on that during your conversation.

Step #4 - Keep The Discussion Uncomplicated And Simple: As mentioned in Step 3, staying focused is in everyone's best interest. Keep your conversation simple, direct and on topic - don't sidetrack the real issue at hand with any irrelevant discussion.

Step #5 - Reach An Agreement: The goal of any HR conversation is to facilitate change or improvement. That requires both parties to come to an agreement about what needs to be done and when it ought to be done by. We recommend scheduling a date to review the employee's changed attitude/behavior.

Step #6 - Follow-up: The more positive feedback you provide, the more likely someone is to change their attitude and/or behavior. It is especially useful to let them know whenever other employees take notice of the change in their attitude and/or behavior. This kind of encouragement helps ensure these changes are maintained.

Executive Summary: Navigating a tough HR conversation is never fun. However, they can be made easier by heeding the steps listed above. Doing so will help build your comfort level and provide a mental outline to follow for future HR conversations. At the end of the day, it is best to have difficult HR conversations sooner versus later, as it could avoid potential legal issues in the future.

6 Tips To Improve Your Business' Customer Service

Good customer service is an integral component to every business. No matter what kind of product you offer or what type of service you provide, you need to excel in customer service. Ultimately, your customers wield the most power over your business - more than some people care to admit. Your profits are driven based on how satisfied your customers are, and while satisfaction is determined by several factors, at its core is customer service.

Why Should You Care About Keeping Customers?

• Getting a new customer can cost 6-8 times more than keeping an existing customer.
• Existing customers have a 12% higher profit margin.
• Businesses that retain existing customers see a 9% higher growth rate.

Simply put, you need to keep customers satisfied, and that means you need strong customer service. To that end, we have prepared six tips guaranteed to improve any customer service experience.

6 Tips To Improve Your Customer Service:

1. Treat Your Employees Well - All too often, if a customer has a bad experience it is because of a disgruntled employee. Perhaps an altercation put the employee in a sour mood, or perhaps a manager reamed them out. Perhaps they just feel burnt out by their job. Whatever the case, going the distance to treat employees well increases the likelihood that they will treat customers well.
2. Encourage Your Employees To Become A Consultant - Perception can be a powerful force. When an employee feels more independent, not tethered to their supervisor, it empowers them. Encourage employees to think of themselves as consultants. This will help give them a greater sense of independence and compel them to engage customers more pleasantly.
3. Never Be All Talk And No Action - Your customer service experience should never be all talk. If you tout excellent customer service, prospects are going to expect it. If their experience does not sync up with what you promised they will walk out on you dissatisfied, meaning no new customer. Worse yet, if they express their dissatisfaction online or even to colleagues it will not only hurt your sales, but also damage your reputation.
4. Actively Gather Customer Feedback - Go beyond conducting customer surveys. Designate one or more customer service employees as morale monitors who comb the Internet looking for feedback on your company - both the good and the bad. Never wait to receive bad news. The longer you let an issue persist the more difficult it may be to remedy.
5. Make Customers Feel Important - The more one-of-a-kind a customer feels the longer they will stay engaged with your business. To accomplish this, offer them price cuts or coupons, and make every interaction feel less like a transaction and more like a conversation, a brief social moment that is uniquely theirs.
6. Reward Customer Referrals - As mentioned earlier, customers are one of the greatest weapons in your marketing arsenal. Their word of mouth recommendations hold more weight than even the most dazzling marketing campaigns. So if an existing customer introduces a new customer to you via referral, reward them with a kind gesture. Even something as simple as a thank you card can go a long way.

Summary: The first step to improving customer service is making sure you aren't all talk. That said, we recommend mystery shopping your own business to verify how well your customer service aligns with your philosophies. Second, you can improve your customer service by improving the morale of the people on the front line. Third, empower your customer service staff so they are able to engage in meaningful dialogues with customers and make the kind of decisions that keep people happy. And finally, you need to remind your staff that customers are people, and should always be approached as such - not as just another problem to deal with at the office.

10 Tips For Hiring A Salesperson For Your Company

Most sales leaders and business owners have never been formally trained on how to properly interview a salesperson. So unless you think you will be lucky enough to hire a sales superstar, it definitely helps to get an edge when making a hiring decision. Especially since, according to an article by Personnel Policy Service, Inc., "the wrong person costs you three times his or her annual salary. A $50,000 employee costs you $150,000; a $150,000 employee costs $450,000. That's for starters. There's also lost opportunity cost . . . plus lost business, potential customers and momentum. And you're back to square one, looking for a replacement."

Click here to download "How Much Does An Employee Cost?" by Joe Hadzima.

Any sales leader or business owner who has hired their share of salespeople knows how challenging it can be. That is why we have listed below 10 tips that will help you improve your interviewing effectiveness.

1. Prepare A List Of Questions In Advance - Once you know what skills are required for the position, you can prepare an extensive list of questions designed to get the candidate talking about actual selling situations they have been in - NOT hypothetical scenarios. A true story will allow you to ask follow-up questions that fully explore how well a candidate qualifies for the position.

2. Maintain Objectivity During The Interview - To interview effectively, you need to stay emotionally unattached - and not just with regards to the interviewee. One mistake many interviewers make is letting their passion for what they sell take the reins. When this happens the interviewer winds up doing all the talking. In general, emotional involvement is counter-productive to effective interviewing.

3. Know What You Are Looking For - First, you need to evaluate the position's requirements. What are the markets they will be targeting? Who are the prospects they will be targeting? What are the competitive pressures? You also need to know if this position requires traveling, or if it will be an inside or outside sales job. Put time into this and define the position as thoroughly as possible. Developing the position's profile is a crucial step.

4. Verify Their Sales History And Background - By the time you engage the candidate, they should have been prescreened by either a recruiter or your HR person so that all significant issues have been identified. Make sure someone is tasked with verifying the information listed on a candidate's résumé. According to research from the Society for Human Resource Managers 53% of people lie on their résumé in some way or another.

5. Don't Give The Candidate Too Much Information - Another mistake people make during an interview is providing a candidate with too much direction towards the kind of answer they want. If a candidate senses what you want for an answer ahead of time they will just parrot what you want to hear.

6. Challenge The Person - When talking with a candidate, consider responding to one of their answers with "I don't know if I agree with that. Can you tell me why you feel that way?" and see how they respond. Do they get defensive? Are they unable to answer the question? Or do they dodge the question by asking YOU why you disagree?

7. Take Detailed Notes - When talking with a candidate, write down notes on their résumé or a notebook. Observe and log their communication skills, physical appearance, eye contact and their ability to remember detailed parts of the interview and the job requirements. Remember, the faintest of ink outlasts the fondest of memories.

8. Always Dig A Little Deeper - If a candidate tells you that they broke all sorts of sales records, ask for details about the sales process used to achieve these numbers. Did they have to get their own leads or were leads supplied? Always dig deeper - the devil is in the details. Be sure you get the names of colleagues and management they worked with to check up on this when you call for references.

9. Practice Interviewing - As a sales leader or business owner, you should always be interviewing prospective salespeople. Even if you don't have a slot for someone, constantly interviewing allows you to maintain an up-to-date list of candidates and to practice interviewing techniques. This way you stay sharp for when you really do need to bring someone new onboard.

10. Give Each Candidate Immediate Feedback - It is in everyone's best interest for you to give candidates your honest feedback. Just be sure not to give them any inside information in the process (remember Tip #5). Providing immediate feedback requires a candidate to react on the fly, and seeing how they respond off the cuff can provide valuable insight.

Executive Summary: Interviewing a salesperson is a skill in and of itself. Many interviewees are passionate about what they sell and let that passion fuel their optimism about a person's ability to sell in the field. But when emotions blind the hiring process it can result in the wrong person being hired. Just because a person was great at one company does not make them a perfect fit for yours. Knowing this can save your business tens of thousands of dollars and avoid wasted time, energy and resources.