HOW WELL DID YOU SELL YOUR BOSS TODAY ?
Sales in direct sales industry is of complex nature and requires a lot of strategizing to win the battle of wits with the client. As I interact with more and more direct sales professionals I observe a common trend – Most of the successful Sales Guys have good working relationships with their bosses.
This correlation could be because a performer is likely to have a better relationship with his/her boss; however, the other possibility is that somebody who enjoys a good enough rapport with his/her boss [that enables them to freely talk about their clients and strategize together] becomes a performer.
You need not have a great relationship with your boss, it doesn’t matter if you never went out on lunch or dinner with your boss but if you understand his/her working style then you can use your boss as an efficient tool for selling.
Selling your boss to a client is one of the most important parts of a sales pitch in joint meetings. In fact, all that one should be selling in a meeting is one's boss and leave the product selling to the boss.
In my every sales call with my bosses I always ensure that I find an opportunity to inform the client about how big a team/region my boss controls, how long he/she has been in the industry/company and which all big clients (relevant to the client) does he/she interacts with. All this information helps the client to understand the authority of my boss and act accordingly. More importantly, I end up selling my boss to a level where the client usually don’t start a discussion with the product but with a general discussion to gain something out of my boss’s experience.
Once an Insurance sales rep got an opportunity to meet President Kennedy to sell an insurance policy to him and he wanted it to be the best ever deal of his career so he requested his Director to accompany for this meeting. They just had 30 minutes… 30 minutes to introduce themselves, detail the insurance policy and convince the president. The rep initiated the meeting by introducing his Boss to the president. He went on and utilized 1o valuable minutes of the meeting to inform Mr. President about the recognition of his boss as an expert on, not only insurance matters, but also on the financial services industry in the country.
What all newspapers approach his boss for his articles on the government policies and their affect on the industry by large and how many times he has been there on the Television for panel discussions. Needless to say that President Kennedy was pleased to meet the Director. So the next 15 minutes they talked about economic affairs and how can Kennedy Govt. ensure higher growth in services. Towards the end of meeting the Director suggested President Kennedy to go for a certain policy, to which he happily agreed.
Moral of the story: Nobody sold the product here. The rep sold his boss. The boss sold his personality and knowledge and the President bought the Idea of listening to a learned man’s advice.
I always tell my team members to devote at least 2-3 minutes in the first meeting (of their boss) with the client to devote on creating a perfect launch pad for their bosses. Once a credibility is established by the team members, it is easier for one to pitch for bigger products, counter competition or negate the demand for excessive discounts from the clients.
There are a few things that, if told to clients, will help you increase the level of your boss vis-à-vis the client.
a) His/her industry experience and how he/she will be in a better position to suggest the most appropriate solution for the client organization.
b) His/her educational brackground, past organizations etc.
c) His/her authority to close a deal, offer discounts, build creative combinations etc.
However, one must be cautious while selling bosses. What is the Downside of selling your boss???
Be very careful while selling your boss to clients who only (and always) look for additional benefits /discounts. If you are selling your boss well to such clients, then you need to keep some scope for them in terms of values adds, discounts, etc. Exhausting all the possibilities before your boss meets the client may actually result in negative results and after increasing the expectations of your client, your bosses will not be able to offer them what they want to close the deal.
Avoid too much of praise as this might irritate the client. Your boss’s background/experience might not always be helpful in taking decisions for the client’s industry, therefore, don’t try to make a point just for the heck of it.
In the end, this is what I tell my team.
“I am your tool and how innovatively you use this tool will decide How good or how Bad you’ll find me…”
Cheers... Keep Selling! Keep selling your Boss !
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Samples, Free Trials and Cookieman !
They are everywhere, literally. We are so used to them that we've become oblivious of their obvious presence around us. I am talking about Samples, Free Trials.
Recently, a young sales guy reminded me of the importance of these tools in the sales process. I went to a shopping mall with my wife, and even before we could enter any shop she spotted 'Cookieman' counter, right at the entrance of the mall. She looked at me, with her eyebrows arched "Don't think we are going to buy any of those butter cookies, I am just going to taste a few." I am not allowed to eat cholesterol rich food so I had to agree to her, but I decided to stay a little away from the shop to avoid that enticing smell of freshly baked cookies.
As she approached the counter, a young sales executive bowed her "what would you be looking maa’m? Let me help you with it," well, she was answerless but she managed "err... I am not sure, give me a moment". The young man bowed again and disappeared and then was back in a jiffy, he was holding a small plate, which had a single cookie on it, with both his hands but he stopped at a distance of 2 ft. from her "This is the very special coconut cookie which is prepared from fresh dough and coconut. The only thing which is more than an hour old in this cookie is the 20 yr old recipe," he said that in a single breath. His pleasant demeanor and the pride and care with which he was holding the cookie made me interested in observing this young professional. His smile was truthful and it seems he was enjoying treating his customer.
Then, with a lot of respect, he moved one step ahead and presented that cookie to my wife, "smell it before you eat it, the smell will last as long in your mind as would the taste in your mouth," he was quick to suggest. My wife was enjoying the royal treatment; she followed the instructions. It was funny to observe as this guy looked at her with his incessant smile as she savored the cookie. And then whoosh... he disappeared again.
Before she could finish the cookie, he was back with another one. "Try this one as well. This is our signature cookie, I am sure you are going to come back again to buy this one", he chuckled and surprised my wife with the new offering, but she didn't mind having another one. Meanwhile I got a phone call and my observation was hindered. By the time I finished my conversation, she was back; and what a surprise! She was carrying 2 boxes of cookies.
I was amused, “what happened?” She made a funny face and laughed, “This guy was so insisting that I couldn’t refuse.” I tried pulling her leg, “How can a young sales guy force such a seasoned sales pro into buying something she never intended to buy?” She smiled, “I don’t know… he never asked me to buy, he just kept on offering cookies with so much delight. And then he asked which ones to pack?”, she explained as she handed over the cookies to me, “he was enjoying his job so much and gave so much of respect to his products that I couldn’t refuse.”
I felt happy and sad. Happy - to see such young lads using samples so beautifully for making a sale. Sad – to observe how most of the sales guys have forgotten this art.
Indian Pharma Industry – Best example of Direct Sales; Worst for using Free Samples.
In my 2 years exposure to pharma industry, I’ve heard about many best practices and seen many of them actually being followed. However, some of the sales practices have been distorted beyond imagination and have lost their purpose; distributing free samples to doctors is one of them.
The concept of free samples in pharma industry came in the initial days of the industry when doctors were offered free samples for trying out the new products to their patients, record the improvements, side effects etc. and accordingly prescribe the medicine or give feedback to the company. However, with a passage of time the concept of samples have gone beyond the new products, sales guys have been asking for free samples of old products (even the best selling molecules also) and companies have been offering them because it definitely results in revenue increase.
However, this additional revenue [because of samples] comes through a different channel. These samples don’t go to all the doctors, they either go to doctors who are planning to organize a health camp, to oblige them and later on to request them for more prescriptions in lieu of this favour, or they are passed on to the dealers and never reach doctors.
The second channel [samples being given to dealers] is not only unethical but illegal also; these free samples [clearly marked as free samples and not for sale] are offered to dealers free of cost if they order a specific quantity of medicines [and thus generate a false temporary demand in the primary market]. The dealers in turn sell it to retail stores in interior markets for a price, who in turn charge money from gullible villagers for these free samples. This boost in sales is a false reflection of the potential of the product and the capabilities of the sales team.
What is astonishing if that from a medical rep to a national sales manager everybody is aware of this practice and nobody thinks even twice to exercise this option to meet their sales numbers.
Another set of medical representatives are those who don’t follow the above route but routinely pass on the free samples to their doctors on their every visit, so that they are able to ask for prescriptions rightfully. This practice had led doctors to believe that giving samples is a standard [read mindless] industry practice and we’ve simply helped them to forgot the real purpose. Doctors would use samples for their acquaintances, friends, relatives, or very poor patients etc. from whom they can’t/won’t charge any money for medicines. Over years, we’ve helped these Doctors lose respect for the samples and the valuable purpose behind them.
Online Industry: Free Trials – Fast loosing the purpose.
There are 3 reasons why I always compare pharma and online business [of jobsites]
a) I’ve worked in both the industries.
b) Both are one of the best examples of direct selling organizations.
c) Pharma is a mature market in India [and hence pharma selling practices are also in shape] where as online market is in infancy [with sales systems being defined, re-defined everyday]
When online products were introduced in Indian market, the easiest way to make an entry into a client was to offer them Free Trial of the products/services. If the client liked it, they’d buy; if they didn’t they’ll give feedback which was used to improve the products [quite similar to the underlying objective of offering free samples of medicine to doctors].
It used to work! And it worked very well for online businesses. And then came the real boom in online market and along came much more organized competition from abroad, PE investors [and all the pressures related to them for higher performance]. This resulted in high pressure on technology, operations and, of course, on sales systems. Sales guys, who at times get more innovative than the tech. and marketing teams, adapted themselves [and sales process] to handle this pressure, in the natural progression of mindless selling.
Clients were offered free trials as a value add with other products, so a wonderful sales pitch from a manager accompanying an executive would be “If you decide on product X right now at ABC price, I’ll be able to offer your 4 days of product Y along with it complimentary”, and he/she will come out of the meeting very proud, “See this works well with every client, now register the sale of product Y as a free trial for this client,” the manager tells the executive and seeds a malpractice into the mind of executive. If it worked, the executive is never going to forget it and probably this practice will trickle down into his/her team as this executive grows in the organization/industry.
We have much more mature sales people than the ‘Cookieman’ sales person and these are the mature sales people therefore they have started thinking that selling online products is much more complex than selling cookies. So they’ve gone innovative and devised ways to use their power to give trials as a tool to increase revenue. This [as explained in the pharma example] results in giving a false reflection of the true potential of product and/or capabilities of the sales team/system.
A more disturbing, and quite contrary, trend is those executives who don’t want to offer free trials to clients. They don’t want to offer a trial for 2 reasons [both equally worrisome] – first, it delays the sale; and second they don’t have confidence on their products. An offer to use a free trial comes as a last resort, when even after a no. of follow-ups the client isn’t ready to buy the product. Cut to the cookieman sales guy, I don't see the 'Cookieman' passion, pride, respect while offering the sample of one’s product in most of my team members.
Like the ‘Cookieman’ sales guy, a trial shall be offered to a client with a lot of ownership and pride, with a purpose of giving him an experience of the product/service and this should be done with a lot of pleasure. One must resist using trials/samples as alternative tools to increase revenues and avoid the thought that trials delay a sale. A wholehearted Trial/sample offering to the client in the very first meeting helps build up a long lasting relation and an obligation to purchase.
Ideally, the no. of trials being given in an industry should grow at a pace of not more than 5-7% year on year in any given industry [irrespective of the growth plans of the organizations]. With the industry maturing and the products being used by more and more clients, trials shall be replaced with client testimonials, which work better than trials. Such low growth in no. of trials also suggests sensible use of trials as a selling tool for acquiring new clients by generating a pleasing pre-sales experience.
The ownership of product(s) leads to a certain body language [of sales guys] which leaves a very lasting effect on the clients. I just hope that this write-up helps sensitize some of the sales people towards the larger purpose of offering free trials and help them use it with more discretion and pride.
Recently, a young sales guy reminded me of the importance of these tools in the sales process. I went to a shopping mall with my wife, and even before we could enter any shop she spotted 'Cookieman' counter, right at the entrance of the mall. She looked at me, with her eyebrows arched "Don't think we are going to buy any of those butter cookies, I am just going to taste a few." I am not allowed to eat cholesterol rich food so I had to agree to her, but I decided to stay a little away from the shop to avoid that enticing smell of freshly baked cookies.
As she approached the counter, a young sales executive bowed her "what would you be looking maa’m? Let me help you with it," well, she was answerless but she managed "err... I am not sure, give me a moment". The young man bowed again and disappeared and then was back in a jiffy, he was holding a small plate, which had a single cookie on it, with both his hands but he stopped at a distance of 2 ft. from her "This is the very special coconut cookie which is prepared from fresh dough and coconut. The only thing which is more than an hour old in this cookie is the 20 yr old recipe," he said that in a single breath. His pleasant demeanor and the pride and care with which he was holding the cookie made me interested in observing this young professional. His smile was truthful and it seems he was enjoying treating his customer.
Then, with a lot of respect, he moved one step ahead and presented that cookie to my wife, "smell it before you eat it, the smell will last as long in your mind as would the taste in your mouth," he was quick to suggest. My wife was enjoying the royal treatment; she followed the instructions. It was funny to observe as this guy looked at her with his incessant smile as she savored the cookie. And then whoosh... he disappeared again.
Before she could finish the cookie, he was back with another one. "Try this one as well. This is our signature cookie, I am sure you are going to come back again to buy this one", he chuckled and surprised my wife with the new offering, but she didn't mind having another one. Meanwhile I got a phone call and my observation was hindered. By the time I finished my conversation, she was back; and what a surprise! She was carrying 2 boxes of cookies.
I was amused, “what happened?” She made a funny face and laughed, “This guy was so insisting that I couldn’t refuse.” I tried pulling her leg, “How can a young sales guy force such a seasoned sales pro into buying something she never intended to buy?” She smiled, “I don’t know… he never asked me to buy, he just kept on offering cookies with so much delight. And then he asked which ones to pack?”, she explained as she handed over the cookies to me, “he was enjoying his job so much and gave so much of respect to his products that I couldn’t refuse.”
I felt happy and sad. Happy - to see such young lads using samples so beautifully for making a sale. Sad – to observe how most of the sales guys have forgotten this art.
Indian Pharma Industry – Best example of Direct Sales; Worst for using Free Samples.
In my 2 years exposure to pharma industry, I’ve heard about many best practices and seen many of them actually being followed. However, some of the sales practices have been distorted beyond imagination and have lost their purpose; distributing free samples to doctors is one of them.
The concept of free samples in pharma industry came in the initial days of the industry when doctors were offered free samples for trying out the new products to their patients, record the improvements, side effects etc. and accordingly prescribe the medicine or give feedback to the company. However, with a passage of time the concept of samples have gone beyond the new products, sales guys have been asking for free samples of old products (even the best selling molecules also) and companies have been offering them because it definitely results in revenue increase.
However, this additional revenue [because of samples] comes through a different channel. These samples don’t go to all the doctors, they either go to doctors who are planning to organize a health camp, to oblige them and later on to request them for more prescriptions in lieu of this favour, or they are passed on to the dealers and never reach doctors.
The second channel [samples being given to dealers] is not only unethical but illegal also; these free samples [clearly marked as free samples and not for sale] are offered to dealers free of cost if they order a specific quantity of medicines [and thus generate a false temporary demand in the primary market]. The dealers in turn sell it to retail stores in interior markets for a price, who in turn charge money from gullible villagers for these free samples. This boost in sales is a false reflection of the potential of the product and the capabilities of the sales team.
What is astonishing if that from a medical rep to a national sales manager everybody is aware of this practice and nobody thinks even twice to exercise this option to meet their sales numbers.
Another set of medical representatives are those who don’t follow the above route but routinely pass on the free samples to their doctors on their every visit, so that they are able to ask for prescriptions rightfully. This practice had led doctors to believe that giving samples is a standard [read mindless] industry practice and we’ve simply helped them to forgot the real purpose. Doctors would use samples for their acquaintances, friends, relatives, or very poor patients etc. from whom they can’t/won’t charge any money for medicines. Over years, we’ve helped these Doctors lose respect for the samples and the valuable purpose behind them.
Online Industry: Free Trials – Fast loosing the purpose.
There are 3 reasons why I always compare pharma and online business [of jobsites]
a) I’ve worked in both the industries.
b) Both are one of the best examples of direct selling organizations.
c) Pharma is a mature market in India [and hence pharma selling practices are also in shape] where as online market is in infancy [with sales systems being defined, re-defined everyday]
When online products were introduced in Indian market, the easiest way to make an entry into a client was to offer them Free Trial of the products/services. If the client liked it, they’d buy; if they didn’t they’ll give feedback which was used to improve the products [quite similar to the underlying objective of offering free samples of medicine to doctors].
It used to work! And it worked very well for online businesses. And then came the real boom in online market and along came much more organized competition from abroad, PE investors [and all the pressures related to them for higher performance]. This resulted in high pressure on technology, operations and, of course, on sales systems. Sales guys, who at times get more innovative than the tech. and marketing teams, adapted themselves [and sales process] to handle this pressure, in the natural progression of mindless selling.
Clients were offered free trials as a value add with other products, so a wonderful sales pitch from a manager accompanying an executive would be “If you decide on product X right now at ABC price, I’ll be able to offer your 4 days of product Y along with it complimentary”, and he/she will come out of the meeting very proud, “See this works well with every client, now register the sale of product Y as a free trial for this client,” the manager tells the executive and seeds a malpractice into the mind of executive. If it worked, the executive is never going to forget it and probably this practice will trickle down into his/her team as this executive grows in the organization/industry.
We have much more mature sales people than the ‘Cookieman’ sales person and these are the mature sales people therefore they have started thinking that selling online products is much more complex than selling cookies. So they’ve gone innovative and devised ways to use their power to give trials as a tool to increase revenue. This [as explained in the pharma example] results in giving a false reflection of the true potential of product and/or capabilities of the sales team/system.
A more disturbing, and quite contrary, trend is those executives who don’t want to offer free trials to clients. They don’t want to offer a trial for 2 reasons [both equally worrisome] – first, it delays the sale; and second they don’t have confidence on their products. An offer to use a free trial comes as a last resort, when even after a no. of follow-ups the client isn’t ready to buy the product. Cut to the cookieman sales guy, I don't see the 'Cookieman' passion, pride, respect while offering the sample of one’s product in most of my team members.
Like the ‘Cookieman’ sales guy, a trial shall be offered to a client with a lot of ownership and pride, with a purpose of giving him an experience of the product/service and this should be done with a lot of pleasure. One must resist using trials/samples as alternative tools to increase revenues and avoid the thought that trials delay a sale. A wholehearted Trial/sample offering to the client in the very first meeting helps build up a long lasting relation and an obligation to purchase.
Ideally, the no. of trials being given in an industry should grow at a pace of not more than 5-7% year on year in any given industry [irrespective of the growth plans of the organizations]. With the industry maturing and the products being used by more and more clients, trials shall be replaced with client testimonials, which work better than trials. Such low growth in no. of trials also suggests sensible use of trials as a selling tool for acquiring new clients by generating a pleasing pre-sales experience.
The ownership of product(s) leads to a certain body language [of sales guys] which leaves a very lasting effect on the clients. I just hope that this write-up helps sensitize some of the sales people towards the larger purpose of offering free trials and help them use it with more discretion and pride.
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Jobsites - The New Research Tool - II
It’s been quite sometime since I wrote my first blog on how Jobsites can become a potential research tool for various professionals including sales guys, HR managers, entrepreneurs etc.
At this point in time, however, I would only like to address how sales guys and entrepreneurs can use jobsites to research and improve on their revenue from certain clients/industries.
When I was a child my sister, while reading her science book, asked me a question “Tell me where would you find Potato seeds?” I replied with all my innocence “with the farmers.” My sister and my parents laughed at my answer. Today as I’ve gained more knowledge, I know that potato has no seeds in particular and pieces of potato are sown as potato seeds. However, in all these years the validity of my answer hasn’t changed. This incidence has been narrated to all my relatives, family friends and after a wholehearted laughter they all agreed to the simple logic behind my answer.
The point I want to highlight here is that the question asked was “where” and not “what”. When I think of making a sale I need a product/service to be sold and a customer to sell to. In this blog we would look in to ways to find an answer for ‘Where to sell?’ with the help of hidden information contained in Jobsites.
The rule is simple. Somebody who is hiring many, will also require many other services. An organization which is hiring resources in large no.s would also require infrastructural services, office furniture, hospitality services, transportation, work stations, computers/laptops, printers, vending machines and what not... You don't need to cold call clients to find out potential for your products. Just check if they are hiring!!!
Log on to a jobsite and look for jobs in your city. Every jobsite has a feature where you can see 'all the jobs from a company' on a single page.
If they are hiring sales people in good numbers then they would require raw material also in good quantities. They might be looking to give a boost to sales; maybe they'll consider some advertising/branding campaign as well - time for media/PR organizations to be on a alert; maybe they’d like somebody to generate sales leads for them.
If they are hiring production people in good numbers they might be looking forward to a capacity expansion/ putting up a new plant. One of my friends working in a petrochemical company in Punjab was able to find out that one of his client was setting up a new unit and therefore he struck a deal with them for their additional demand for diesel and lubricants, even before other competitors could get the news for expansion. How did he get the lead?
He was looking for a job for himself on a jobsite and he found that his client was looking for 2-3 senior production professionals. He researched and found a business opportunity.
But what if some organization is hiring HR professionals only? Well... it may indicate 2 things
a) That the organization’s present HR structure lacks a bandwidth
This makes a perfect opportunity for HR process outsourcing firms, recruitment consultancy firms etc. to pitch for their services
b) That the organization is planning a major expansion and they are putting in systems before they could launch full-scale.
Again a bright opportunity for the firms mentioned above and for everybody else who is interested in selling any product/services they might require to support this expansion.
In a nutshell, if there is something different, than the normal pattern of hiring, in the list of jobs that you see for a company then there has to be a good reason behind it. Research it... you'll be surprised by the results.
Apart from an Organization-wise view of the opportunities, you may do a market analysis and spot business/sales opportunities.
To explain this I would like to pick the example of the SAP professionals, discussed in my previous post on this topic, where the no. of jobs for SAP functional consultants have increased by 90% within 3 months. However, the no. of resumes added on the same jobsite has increased by less than 50%.
Now if I am a training organization, I have a clear indication to run specific courses for SAP and help the industry fill in this gap. If I am a headhunter at a recruitment firm I must start mapping all the organizations with SAP professionals and then start charging a premium from my clients for closing their positions in short time.
As a sales person working with a jobsite it is time for me to approach all my clients who have SAP based profiles and suggest them innovative solutions to overcome this demand-supply inequality. These are the situations which push most of the companies to think about branding themselves as preferred employers, when they are under tremendous pressure of attracting resources from a very limited talent pool.
In my opinion the ideal way to start a research on a jobsite is to verify the market/industry trends (from other sources) on a website by making necessary job searches and establishing that the trends are reflected/not reflected on the jobsites. If they are then a sales person should move to organizational level of searches where one finds out what kind of hiring a particular client organization is engaged in. An entrepreneur on the other hand should, after verifying the trends, should do more research on the jobs/hiring scenario in the allied industry/vertically integrated industry.
Hope this article is able to add another facet to the utility of website in your professional lives, apart from uploading your resume ;)
Cheers… Keep Selling !!!
-- DK
At this point in time, however, I would only like to address how sales guys and entrepreneurs can use jobsites to research and improve on their revenue from certain clients/industries.
When I was a child my sister, while reading her science book, asked me a question “Tell me where would you find Potato seeds?” I replied with all my innocence “with the farmers.” My sister and my parents laughed at my answer. Today as I’ve gained more knowledge, I know that potato has no seeds in particular and pieces of potato are sown as potato seeds. However, in all these years the validity of my answer hasn’t changed. This incidence has been narrated to all my relatives, family friends and after a wholehearted laughter they all agreed to the simple logic behind my answer.
The point I want to highlight here is that the question asked was “where” and not “what”. When I think of making a sale I need a product/service to be sold and a customer to sell to. In this blog we would look in to ways to find an answer for ‘Where to sell?’ with the help of hidden information contained in Jobsites.
The rule is simple. Somebody who is hiring many, will also require many other services. An organization which is hiring resources in large no.s would also require infrastructural services, office furniture, hospitality services, transportation, work stations, computers/laptops, printers, vending machines and what not... You don't need to cold call clients to find out potential for your products. Just check if they are hiring!!!
Log on to a jobsite and look for jobs in your city. Every jobsite has a feature where you can see 'all the jobs from a company' on a single page.
If they are hiring sales people in good numbers then they would require raw material also in good quantities. They might be looking to give a boost to sales; maybe they'll consider some advertising/branding campaign as well - time for media/PR organizations to be on a alert; maybe they’d like somebody to generate sales leads for them.
If they are hiring production people in good numbers they might be looking forward to a capacity expansion/ putting up a new plant. One of my friends working in a petrochemical company in Punjab was able to find out that one of his client was setting up a new unit and therefore he struck a deal with them for their additional demand for diesel and lubricants, even before other competitors could get the news for expansion. How did he get the lead?
He was looking for a job for himself on a jobsite and he found that his client was looking for 2-3 senior production professionals. He researched and found a business opportunity.
But what if some organization is hiring HR professionals only? Well... it may indicate 2 things
a) That the organization’s present HR structure lacks a bandwidth
This makes a perfect opportunity for HR process outsourcing firms, recruitment consultancy firms etc. to pitch for their services
b) That the organization is planning a major expansion and they are putting in systems before they could launch full-scale.
Again a bright opportunity for the firms mentioned above and for everybody else who is interested in selling any product/services they might require to support this expansion.
In a nutshell, if there is something different, than the normal pattern of hiring, in the list of jobs that you see for a company then there has to be a good reason behind it. Research it... you'll be surprised by the results.
Apart from an Organization-wise view of the opportunities, you may do a market analysis and spot business/sales opportunities.
To explain this I would like to pick the example of the SAP professionals, discussed in my previous post on this topic, where the no. of jobs for SAP functional consultants have increased by 90% within 3 months. However, the no. of resumes added on the same jobsite has increased by less than 50%.
Now if I am a training organization, I have a clear indication to run specific courses for SAP and help the industry fill in this gap. If I am a headhunter at a recruitment firm I must start mapping all the organizations with SAP professionals and then start charging a premium from my clients for closing their positions in short time.
As a sales person working with a jobsite it is time for me to approach all my clients who have SAP based profiles and suggest them innovative solutions to overcome this demand-supply inequality. These are the situations which push most of the companies to think about branding themselves as preferred employers, when they are under tremendous pressure of attracting resources from a very limited talent pool.
In my opinion the ideal way to start a research on a jobsite is to verify the market/industry trends (from other sources) on a website by making necessary job searches and establishing that the trends are reflected/not reflected on the jobsites. If they are then a sales person should move to organizational level of searches where one finds out what kind of hiring a particular client organization is engaged in. An entrepreneur on the other hand should, after verifying the trends, should do more research on the jobs/hiring scenario in the allied industry/vertically integrated industry.
Hope this article is able to add another facet to the utility of website in your professional lives, apart from uploading your resume ;)
Cheers… Keep Selling !!!
-- DK
Sunday, 1 July 2007
Zane Safrit- New Age CEO in the Flat World !
Hi,
When i decided to blog i thought that i'll not talk about people... not even my own CEO - Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani. I used to hate blogs who used to discuss people... for a simple reason - they sounded like an image building PR exercise and i wanted to avoid it.
Then one day my perspective changed, rather, it became rational. And i owe this to Zane; Zane Safrit, CEO - Conference Calls Unlimited. I found his blogs to be very stimulating and realised that blogging has to be different than lectures on a specific subject. Zane has written a post on my blog after i included his blog on the list of my favourite blogs.
Thanks for the favour Zane !
I am, relatively, new to blogging and your blogs were quite inspiring for me to enter into this new dimension of the 'Flat World'
I am sure that there's a lot that India can offer and i can share with you when it comes to outsourcing. India is undergoing a change and this change has come much faster than expected. Our infrastructure is not in place to handle so much of load. People need to keep up with the pace but the roads are being built (even after that they wouldn't move faster than 90 miles per hour); there are not enough flights and you never get train reservations at short notice.
The biggest challenge in changing india is the pace of delivery as we need to have this much needed advantage over other developing countries. People need to co-ordinate with peers, clients, vendors in real-time.. all sitting at different locations worlwide. This calls for something radically different a new dimension of The Flat World and I won't be wrong if i may call it CT - 'Convergence Technology'. It is CT after IT, that, perhaps is the next big thing in Indian market.
An year back i read 'The World is Flat' from Thomas L Friedman on outsourcing. Mr. Friedman has beautifully explained how the world is becoming FLATTER with each passing year... how call centre agents sitting in bangalore talk to customers in Texas and talk about expected rains next morning. At that time i wondered if the distance and, thereby, delays in co-ordination will actually result in savings (for Non-IT businesses). But the world is moving at a much faster pace and the allied industries grow much faster to give conducive atmosphere to mainstream business.
Few months back, i realised that Allied businesses are the most profitable businesses of the flat world. These are businesses which serve a number of other mainstream businesses (which operate in 1 industry only) across industries and improve efficiency of a particular function. All the jobsites can be termed as allied businesses as they augment only 1 part of other businesses i.e., recruitment.
Zane's business is also an allied business which helps a number of businesses improve efficiency/pace-up/save/grow. These allied businesses have a few similarities in them
a) These are young organisations... with average age of 30-35. And these are low revenue - High profit businesses.
b) All of them have very young people sitting on the TOP.
c) These allied businesses are large (in headcounts) but nimble and quick in spotting new business opportunities.
d) Biggest of all - Most of the Allied businesses are first generation entrepreneurship ventures. Older businesses tend to stick to the old-world industries and young people working for these old businesses spot new businesses; leave jobs and start their own businesses - An allied business.
e) Allied businesses grow at a much faster pace than the mainstream businesses they serve. In a span of 5-6 years they grow bigger than most of their mid-size customers in terms of profitability.
Talking about Zane, he's the new age CEO who blogs, and blogs a lot. (this could be another commonality in CEOs of Allied businesses as Sanjeev Bikhchandani has also taken up blogging). Zane belongs to the 'Flat World' because he/his business enables businesses, people, ideas, minds converge at a single place in real time.
His thoughts on Sales, lead management, internet advertising (my fav topic) and internet economy are very appealing. It is good to know you Zane.. thanks for sharing your views through your blogs.
We'll talk more about CT 'Convergence Technology' scenario in India !!!
When i decided to blog i thought that i'll not talk about people... not even my own CEO - Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani. I used to hate blogs who used to discuss people... for a simple reason - they sounded like an image building PR exercise and i wanted to avoid it.
Then one day my perspective changed, rather, it became rational. And i owe this to Zane; Zane Safrit, CEO - Conference Calls Unlimited. I found his blogs to be very stimulating and realised that blogging has to be different than lectures on a specific subject. Zane has written a post on my blog after i included his blog on the list of my favourite blogs.
Thanks for the favour Zane !
I am, relatively, new to blogging and your blogs were quite inspiring for me to enter into this new dimension of the 'Flat World'
I am sure that there's a lot that India can offer and i can share with you when it comes to outsourcing. India is undergoing a change and this change has come much faster than expected. Our infrastructure is not in place to handle so much of load. People need to keep up with the pace but the roads are being built (even after that they wouldn't move faster than 90 miles per hour); there are not enough flights and you never get train reservations at short notice.
The biggest challenge in changing india is the pace of delivery as we need to have this much needed advantage over other developing countries. People need to co-ordinate with peers, clients, vendors in real-time.. all sitting at different locations worlwide. This calls for something radically different a new dimension of The Flat World and I won't be wrong if i may call it CT - 'Convergence Technology'. It is CT after IT, that, perhaps is the next big thing in Indian market.
An year back i read 'The World is Flat' from Thomas L Friedman on outsourcing. Mr. Friedman has beautifully explained how the world is becoming FLATTER with each passing year... how call centre agents sitting in bangalore talk to customers in Texas and talk about expected rains next morning. At that time i wondered if the distance and, thereby, delays in co-ordination will actually result in savings (for Non-IT businesses). But the world is moving at a much faster pace and the allied industries grow much faster to give conducive atmosphere to mainstream business.
Few months back, i realised that Allied businesses are the most profitable businesses of the flat world. These are businesses which serve a number of other mainstream businesses (which operate in 1 industry only) across industries and improve efficiency of a particular function. All the jobsites can be termed as allied businesses as they augment only 1 part of other businesses i.e., recruitment.
Zane's business is also an allied business which helps a number of businesses improve efficiency/pace-up/save/grow. These allied businesses have a few similarities in them
a) These are young organisations... with average age of 30-35. And these are low revenue - High profit businesses.
b) All of them have very young people sitting on the TOP.
c) These allied businesses are large (in headcounts) but nimble and quick in spotting new business opportunities.
d) Biggest of all - Most of the Allied businesses are first generation entrepreneurship ventures. Older businesses tend to stick to the old-world industries and young people working for these old businesses spot new businesses; leave jobs and start their own businesses - An allied business.
e) Allied businesses grow at a much faster pace than the mainstream businesses they serve. In a span of 5-6 years they grow bigger than most of their mid-size customers in terms of profitability.
Talking about Zane, he's the new age CEO who blogs, and blogs a lot. (this could be another commonality in CEOs of Allied businesses as Sanjeev Bikhchandani has also taken up blogging). Zane belongs to the 'Flat World' because he/his business enables businesses, people, ideas, minds converge at a single place in real time.
His thoughts on Sales, lead management, internet advertising (my fav topic) and internet economy are very appealing. It is good to know you Zane.. thanks for sharing your views through your blogs.
We'll talk more about CT 'Convergence Technology' scenario in India !!!
Sunday, 17 June 2007
Jobsites - The new Research Tool - I
Hi,
This is my first Blog so let me introduce myself. I am a Management graduate (2001 batch) with an experience into Pharma, medical devices and online jobs markets.
I've been through direct sales in pharma, a blend of direct and channel sales in Medical Devices and hard core direct sales in Naukri.com corporate sales. Though all of them might sound very different, there are a few things common in all my jobs.
First, I joined all the businesses when they were trying to create a need for their product in the market. Therefore, I always sold a concept rather than a product or service. When I entered into Vaccine business in 2001 it was just the beginning of concept, we sold the concept of vaccination to people at large and we educated Doctors/Hospitals on how to run the business of vaccines. I did the same in the medical devices market, educating the need and ROI of 1 set of critical medical devices for every bed in the hospital.
Now, in Naukri.com I educate my clients on the business of e-recruitment. The investments, savings, returns and quality & efficiencies introduced in the system is the name of the Game.
Second, I’ve always joined an organization at such a point of time or such a territory where my employers didn't have too many expectations from the markets (be it Wockhardt’s 2001 assignment of J&K, or Nepal in 2003 in or a small branch of Chandigarh for Naukri.com in 2005).
I found the lack of expectations from such locations (or in such times) to be very pressurizing. My resolve was to raise expectations of my employers and there was only one way to do it; Raise personal knowledge levels and then raise clients’ expectations from their own business.
This sounds simple but is a very complex psychological game played with facts, figures and data which the clients don’t have. Selling to educated clients in a monopolistic market is a war of wits and is often fought quite independent of selling skills. An investment in e-recruitment products happens only when the client understands the impact of these solutions on his/her own business and this is very very different than the simple desperation for Hiring resources.
And most important of all, I was selling to knowledgeable clients - Earlier Doctors and now HR Heads, and this peculiarity of my job always kept me on the edge of my seat... In fact, I have always been competing with these learned clients of mine who have much wider knowledge of their own domain.
For all the commonalities mentioned above I would now like to address the subject of this blog – “Jobsites – The New Research Tool”
I thought of starting this blog so that I can share my thoughts with professionals other than my clients and help them know how to use jobsites as a research tool also (apart from a hiring tool).
In the current Indian Scenario, especially in IT the present state of affairs is a laughable paradox. The HR managers are worried about the attrition rates in IT industry and at the same time about the hiring woes. Ideally if attrition is a generic problem in the entire industry then Hiring shouldn’t be a problem… someone’s loss will be someone else's gain. However, most of the HR managers are not able to analyze the trends in attrition and hiring till the time they actually land up in the soup.
Till then please drop in your feedbacks and comments …
-- DK
This is my first Blog so let me introduce myself. I am a Management graduate (2001 batch) with an experience into Pharma, medical devices and online jobs markets.
I've been through direct sales in pharma, a blend of direct and channel sales in Medical Devices and hard core direct sales in Naukri.com corporate sales. Though all of them might sound very different, there are a few things common in all my jobs.
First, I joined all the businesses when they were trying to create a need for their product in the market. Therefore, I always sold a concept rather than a product or service. When I entered into Vaccine business in 2001 it was just the beginning of concept, we sold the concept of vaccination to people at large and we educated Doctors/Hospitals on how to run the business of vaccines. I did the same in the medical devices market, educating the need and ROI of 1 set of critical medical devices for every bed in the hospital.
Now, in Naukri.com I educate my clients on the business of e-recruitment. The investments, savings, returns and quality & efficiencies introduced in the system is the name of the Game.
Second, I’ve always joined an organization at such a point of time or such a territory where my employers didn't have too many expectations from the markets (be it Wockhardt’s 2001 assignment of J&K, or Nepal in 2003 in or a small branch of Chandigarh for Naukri.com in 2005).
I found the lack of expectations from such locations (or in such times) to be very pressurizing. My resolve was to raise expectations of my employers and there was only one way to do it; Raise personal knowledge levels and then raise clients’ expectations from their own business.
This sounds simple but is a very complex psychological game played with facts, figures and data which the clients don’t have. Selling to educated clients in a monopolistic market is a war of wits and is often fought quite independent of selling skills. An investment in e-recruitment products happens only when the client understands the impact of these solutions on his/her own business and this is very very different than the simple desperation for Hiring resources.
And most important of all, I was selling to knowledgeable clients - Earlier Doctors and now HR Heads, and this peculiarity of my job always kept me on the edge of my seat... In fact, I have always been competing with these learned clients of mine who have much wider knowledge of their own domain.
For all the commonalities mentioned above I would now like to address the subject of this blog – “Jobsites – The New Research Tool”
I thought of starting this blog so that I can share my thoughts with professionals other than my clients and help them know how to use jobsites as a research tool also (apart from a hiring tool).
In the current Indian Scenario, especially in IT the present state of affairs is a laughable paradox. The HR managers are worried about the attrition rates in IT industry and at the same time about the hiring woes. Ideally if attrition is a generic problem in the entire industry then Hiring shouldn’t be a problem… someone’s loss will be someone else's gain. However, most of the HR managers are not able to analyze the trends in attrition and hiring till the time they actually land up in the soup.
Although this situation can be easily, and thoughtlessly, be attributed to the demand-supply gap due to rapid growth of industry, but the fact of the matter is that not all the skills sets are being head-hunted all the times. To be in control, you just need to know which skill sets are going to be the next.
IT/IS market is has many idiosyncrasies due to its project dependant nature in Indian Market. The attrition in the industry isn’t always the same across all the profiles. It is dependant on which projects are flowing in the country. The same is indicated by no. of jobs posted on various jobsites for a particular profile. A hot tip on retention – If you track the job posting trends in the jobsites, you’ll know which resources to shield (a month in advance).
A small example to elaborate this. Some 3 months back the no. of jobs related to SAP on www.naukri.com were approx. 950 (out of which SAP functional Consultant jobs were 210). However, as on date there are around 1400 Jobs related to SAP (out of which 398 are SAP functional consultant Jobs), so you know which resources to shield this month.
Another mechanism to follow the same trends is to keep a watch on the new CVs being added to the jobsite database of registered users. For example, the same SAP Functional consultant profile, the no. of new CVs added in the database of a particular jobsite, from June 06 to March 07, are 4300 approx. However, the no. of resumes added in past 2 months, for the same profile, is 2030 approx. This is a much clear indication of the trends in the job market and it is much easier to implement if you have a subscription of one of the jobsite’s resume database.
Perhaps it is high time you took your SAP consultants out of India on a pleasure/project trip… they’d love it and you’d love the fact that they are can’t be approached by competition. The cost of the trip will be less than the cost of hiring new resources ;)
Jobsites have hidden treasures of indicative data that can help you hire better people in right time, retain your star performers before its too late and for entrepreneurs a tool to spot business opportunities. This, however, calls for a lot of data digging and continuous monitoring of the leading jobsites for a considerable time. If you want to save some time then you may reach out for some job search engines like www.careerjet.com which fetch you results for a specific profile from all over the globe.
In the sequel of this blog I would like to elaborate on how HR managers can use jobsites in more innovative ways (not necessarily paid-ones) to optimize their working and how entrepreneurs may get business ideas from simply studying certain web pages. The third sequel will be on how sales guys can raise clients’ expectations from their own businesses and sell better.
Till then please drop in your feedbacks and comments …
-- DK
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