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Posts from the ‘sales advice’ Category

Nov 5

ken sundheim ceo kas

Tips for Increasing Your Odds of Career Success After College


Some Facts About the Correlation Between Future Success and Your College Education (from Warren Bennis’ Becoming a Leader)

 

1) Many of our country’s most successful people had liberal arts backgrounds.

This includes roughly 38% of Chief Executive Officers and former Presidents such as Ronald Reagan.

 

2) Fewer and fewer of our country’s Chief Executive Officers are Ivy League graduates.

 

After lecturing at multiple universities and hiring recent college graduates both for my own company and on behalf of my clients, here are some of my recommendations as to potential majors to choose, potential minors to combine with those majors, as well as majors that I would certainly avoid regardless of the school.

 

3) The Bottom Line: Do grades matter?

 

Yes. To start your career off the right way, you need to have a solid GPA on your resume. Personally, I would be hesitant to hire anybody who had a grade point average less than 3.3.

Poor grades can and will close a lot of doors. Getting good grades in college does not take a huge amount of discipline and is well worth the effort. Your major might be impressive per se, but a 3.0 or 2.8 GPA will shut the door to a major-relevant job just as quickly as a non-related degree – often, even more quickly.

 

What To Do In Order To Have a Happy, Successful, Lucrative Career

 

 

4) The Bottom Line: Does finishing college matter?

 

Absolutely. Simply stated, companies will not hire those who do not finish college. There are too many college graduates for companies to justify even considering those who did not finish.

A college degree in and of itself, of course, does not connote higher intelligence, greater competence, or even a better work ethic than those who got their diplomas. Regardless, most hiring parties use a bachelor’s degree as a (maybe arbitrary) minimum requirement.

Though, the bright side is that it is never too late to finish school and get your degree, though doing so in the current economy presents its own challenges.

However, fail to finish college and there is not much of a bright side if you want to get into while collar related work.

 

5) The Bottom Line: Best Majors and Minors

 

Despite everything above, there are some hard and fast truths about the “best” majors and minors, if you plan on going into a professional career (as opposed to being a performer or artist by profession).

- In college, your minor should be for fun, not your major. I strongly recommend against simply majoring in, in lieu of either a double major or a minor, things such as acting or photography.

With the latter, unless you are absolutely, 100% sure that you plan on making a career out of your study, all you’ll end up with is (often) heavy student debt and little to know practical business skill.

As a recruiter, I see numerous people who never go into their area of major concentration (Sociology majors who end up in executive coaching, English majors who went on to excel in advertising sales).

But a professional trajectory is harder to ramp up for those who graduate with fine arts degrees, already aware that the professional arts field isn’t for them.

Having said that, if you begin your college career as a Dance major or an Art major and decide around junior year that you aren’t cut out for the lifestyle, don’t be afraid to change majors and graduate a year late, with a few more student loans. In the long run, what might initially feel like giving up will actually lead to a bigger pay-off.

 

- I favor business as a minor. Unless you want to be in finance or accounting, there is no reason to get into advanced classes in the topic, though knowing the basics is a must if you wish to open your own business. Economics is good, but I don’t think it is as strong as basic business.

However, I would stay away from an entrepreneurship major. I just don’t think many universities formulate a very accurate picture of what it takes to open a business these days.

The main point I hope to get across is that there is no one way to a successful career right off the bat after graduation.

A Classics major with a Marketing and Entrepreneurship minor or a French major with a Business Management minor would have every possibility of success as an International Relations major with a minor in Economics.

The key is to come out of school with knowledge of how the business world works, and with a drive to never stop learning, even with your diploma nicely framed upon the wall.

 

Part 2 of Tips for Career Success After College

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Oct 30

Tips for Hiring Your 1st Sales Manager


The sales manager is arguably the most important person in the office.

The majority of CEOs would agree that if you hire the right sales manager, your business can and will flourish.

On the other hand, hire an incompetent, non-progressive thinker and you end up with turnovers, lost accounts, a poor reputation and declining market share within your industry.

Now that we have the obvious out of the way, what traits and knowledge combine to make the ideal sales manager within any organization regardless of industry?

1. Acquired knowledge about the intersections between businesses and the people who make them

Ken Sundheim: Tips for Telling Whether Your Sales Manager is Any Good

 

Sales people know one thing – sales. Sales has a negative reputation strictly for the reason that we associate the word with being swindled by somebody that can be described as a bottom feeder or a Willy Lohman type character.

More often than not, a sentence that begins with the words, “I got sold,” is going to be a negative statement as opposed to a sentence that begins with “I bought,” which carries a positive connotation.

Therefore, instead of trying to get a quick sale and think small, the most effective sales managers know what their clients think.

The best sales managers understand what their concerns are, what their company’s strengths are. Most importantly, they can teach all this to their subordinates who in turn will sell enough to have subordinates themselves one day.

2. A vision of where your company is going

The statement that leaders know exactly where the both the company and they are going is inaccurate because the leader has the ability to adjust to fluctuating markets and other variables that call for a change in business plan.

However, leaders share a vision of growth for, first and foremost, the employees, and as a result the company. A leader’s vision should start with where he or she sees the team under them in the next few years and how their gradual growth will spawn the company’s increased revenue generation.

3. The ability to recruit and increase the firm’s positive image in the marketplace

Leaders dress nicely, are well put together and create an office atmosphere where the team looks their best, has the time to stay in shape and truly cares about the aesthetics of their surroundings.

Don’t think this is crucial? Then you’re not going to make as much money. Looks and perception are absolutely huge when it comes to sales and meeting with clients.

Regardless of what the product or service is and how much it costs, people feel most comfortable purchasing from those who are in the same or similar background and monetary wealth.

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What You Need To Be A Great Sales Professional

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What Makes Some Sales Professionals Superior to Others?

Ken Sundheim

Ken Sundheim CEO KAS Placement

Oct 29

Can Your Sales Manager Properly Train Their Younger Employees?


Can Your Sales Manager Properly Train Their Younger Employees?

After hiring, training, assessing, keeping or parting with employees for nearly 5 years in all different atmospheres ranging from an apartment to start-up office, I have come to a few realizations about growing employees.

First, training and growing is difficult and can test patience and stamina, almost putting you on the brink of a burn-out.

This is primarily why many sales managers fail to so effectively, which results in company turnovers and wasted talent that probably had some great, yet untapped potential.

If you want to assess how your manager is doing or if you want to improve your own performance and relationship with your sales and business development employees, I suggest doing the following:

- Gaining Trust, Giving and Earning Respect

To properly train employees, they have to trust that you know what you are talking about, you care as to what their career aspirations are, and have a personalized stake in them succeeding at the job.

Also, you must have their respect.  This comes from a basis of leadership and presence within the office.

Contrary to popular belief, leadership has little to nothing to do with arrogance – a big hindrance to true leadership and a gateway to closeted resentment.

Ken Sundheim discusses how to tell if your sales manager is any good

- Patience

When I recruited from an apartment for 3 years, I couldn’t always be too choosy.

Young and naive, at first I would not look at my potential faults and would blame the other person if it didn’t work out.

Turns out, I was not patient enough with these interns and, then (partial was all I could afford) quasi-employees.  They would get extremely discouraged by my own discouragement and their performance would suffer.

I have learned to never expect results from younger employees right away, and subsequently I have learned that if you are not willing to be 110% patient with them and allow them to make mistakes, you might as well just fire them.

It’s doing them a favor.  Many managers have not learned to be patient and, due to them not taking accountability for their shortcomings, create a cut-throat environment where cut-throat is far from necessary and even farther from effective.

- “Autonomy Excuse” Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning and Growth

Employees, especially younger ones, need to be trained.  It is tough on the manager and often requires extra hours, but anything worthwhile in business does.

Unfortunately, many sales managers provide the absolute minimum training and continuous education in the office, citing lackluster excuses such as them being too busy.

Due to this fact, the managers hide behind what I have come to call the “Autonomy Excuse.”  If management does not want to put in the necessary hours to facilitate organized learning and growth which results in employee engagement and effectiveness, they should find another job.

Although this may sound harsh, the effects of failing to train, mentor and solve problems via on the job education is much harsher a punishment to the subordinates.

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Oct 26

What Makes Some Sales Better Than Others?


What Factors Separate the Average from the Effective Sales Professional

If business is a game,  sales professionals are right in the middle of the action, as many business transactions, regardless of the industry, involve some type of business development professional.

Therefore, sales professionals are typically responsible for how smoothly the transactions go and the amount of money derived from each lead.

This is why many executives would consider themselves above average (if not great) sales professionals while many of them were in a sales position at one point in their careers.

Determining the Great from the Average:

To determine the difference between the great and the average, we must ask ourselves as to what separates effective sales professionals from the average.

Below, you will find some factors that propel sales professionals to having a great career:

1. Ethics -

The best sales professionals have ethical standards that, regardless of their monetary condidtion, require them to uphold their own values.  For many, it is hard to trust salespeople because so many have had bad experiences with them.

In sales, just like any other facet of business or life, unethical behavior becomes a vicious cycle.  What happens?  The sales representative, due to constant beratement from dissatisified buyers thanks to their empty promises and ability to quickly collect but never deliver, begins to resent their buyers, thus justifying their behavior.

Not only do poor ethics lead to a subpar career; they lead to an unhappy one as well.

2. Mentorship and Growing Others -

This one works from both sides of the equation.  Many reasons why sales reprentatives are unhappy and leave their current position is because they feel that they are not growing at their job.   There is nobody there to mentor them.

Many sales professionals want to do right by their company, but fail to help the younger sales professionals grow and become better.  This is for a myriad of reasons ranging from being too busy to more cynical drivers such as feeling the youngster could take their job.

Regardless, giving back is part of leadership and it’s part of being a good sales representative.

3. Understanding of Business -

Sales Professionals who cannot dissect the corporate structure and attendant roles and behaviors of the people within the companies that they call their clients or prospects, are at a big disadvantage to those who have the ability to envision where each individual in a company fits in and how they, the sales rep, should tailor their sales angle accordingly.

Effective selling means being a business partner; in order to become a business partner, a sales professional must be able to have empathy for and understand their target market.

Because there are so many variables that encompass and drive the most effective sales reprensatives, three is not scratching the surface.  However, the above three differentiators prove to be some of the biggest hurdles that business development representatives either recognize or, in some cases go through an entire career without realizing why they are not where they are supposed to or wish to be.

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Oct 21

Ken Sundheim

Sales Advice I Wish I Knew When I Was 25


Pretend You Charge By The Hour Or, If You’re Good, You Can Get Taken Advantage Of

Many sales people fail to understand just how valuable their time is and because of this, many lack even average time management skills.

Even when some sales people feel that there is a 90% chance that they are not going to make the sale, they maintain a skewed glimmer of hope and still spend hours upon hours filling out long, complex RFP’s that will never see the light of a printer.

Further, the sales professional combines the empty work hours with having hour long conversations about nothing with the decision maker’s assistant thinking that they are slowly breaking into the organization from the ground-up.

As a sales professional, right off the bat, you must gauge as to whether or not the client’s company has the money. Forget about who you think that the decision-maker is and forgot about your current contact within the company.

First focus on their ability to write checks, then worry about who the main players are and whether you’re speaking to them.

Typically, there is an inverse relationship between how much the potential client discusses cutting a check and the odds of them doing so. This is a trap that many young sales professionals fall into and that sales managers should be cognizant of.

Listen to the individual and also as a sales person since you have to get to know your clients asked them their past history if they spent years and it’s huge corporate structure and hi top management you can almost always bet that that individual is in an enormous decision maker with in their organization.

When You Have A Shot At Making The Sale and When You’re Doing Free Consulting:

Another rule that sales people want to implement and constantly hold themselves is to only give consideration to RFPs from decision-makers.

Sales professionals need to start realizing that they are a free knowledge base in their industry if their teaching every inbound caller the intricacies of their industry and giving out insider information as to the inner-workings that only people who work in the vertical would know.

Every e-mail that leaves your inbox has knowledge that the buyer wants and can leverage with other vendors in order to better understand your industry and how you work your time is money. However, as a sales person.

If you know what you’re doing, your e-mails are worth a lot more than you think. Business intelligence is a big industry as good knowledge is hard to come by. As a sales professional, don’t be the one that gives the information out gratis.

Some Mental Exercises To Help You Determine Who Is A Real Decision Maker Without Asking:

A great way to tell whether you are speaking to the decision maker in any selling situation is to simply listen to the individual speak, then gauge his or her knowledge about their industry and business, in general.

Then ask yourself as to whether they are confident in themselves. They say the meek shall inherent the earth, however they will fight for 2nd place with the over-arrogant.

Beware that people who hype themselves up too much do so because their accomplishments cannot do it for them.

If you find someone that has very high knowledge and is confident (not arrogant) in their knowledge as a business professional, you can rest assure that they are a decision-maker.

Every now and again, there are exceptions and they usually come in the form of a disgruntled business expert who is stuck in a bureaucracy and, despite his or her expertise, they can’t get ahead. Then, you might know so little that you can’t tell your own kind.

Listen to the individual and, also since you should get to know the people whom you call clients, ask them their past history or simply look it up on LinkedIn.

If they spent years in a huge corporate structure as top management you can almost always bet that that individual is in an enormous decision maker with in their organization because people leave big companies many times for the increase in responsibility.

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Oct 18

Ken Sundheim

Is Your Sales Manager Any Good


Working under a competent, engaged sales manager can be rewarding both personally and fiscally.

 

On the contrary, working under a sales manager who is withdrawn, incompetent and who does not care about their subordinates’ well-being will prove to stagnate any career.

 

Either prior to taking a job or considering leaving your current sales position, here are some measurements you can use when assessing whether a particular sales manager is worth your professional time or whether they can headaches, aggravation and an unpleasant workplace.

 

1. What are the sales manager’s training methods?

 

Whether or not a sales manager is hands-on tells a lot about the person and tells even more about your future prospects working at his / her company.

 

Managers who do not train and are not committed to growing their subordinates are not worth your time as if you are not advancing in your career, what is the point of employment at the firm?

 

2. What do his / her superiors think about them?

 

What a sales manager’s bosses think about them will give you very strong insight as to what type of individual this person is.

 

Senior management of any company likes leadership. Subordinates in any company need leadership and direction.

 

Let senior management tell you if the sales manger has the ability to lead and whether they command the respect of those above them.

 

3. How good are they at selling?

 

The last thing you want as an employee is to be under a sales manager who cannot sell themselves.

 

To be a good sales coach and mentor, sales managers need to have solid business development techniques and need to be to help the sales force when they get into a jam or need additional assistance.

 

Sales managers who are not very competent at selling tend to be less secure than managers who are proven salesmen / saleswomen.

 

When you get a sales manager who is not secure in their selling methods, chances are likely that the manager will not get along with the more apt sales professionals in the group.

 

 

Do Sales Representatives Need a Base Salary

 

Oct 9

Ken Sundheim

What You Need To Be A 10 / 10 Sales Professional 




Not every sales professional born with the gift of gab becomes an all-star at business development, however just about every all-star at sales and business was born with a knack for carrying an engaging conversation with people from all walks of life.




This is not to say that someone who was not born with this skill cannot become an 8 or 9 / 10 with a great deal of practice, but in sales and people oriented jobs, the 10′s will make proportionally far more money than an 8 or 9.




When one analyzes the differences between two inherently gifted people oriented individuals who end up being a 10 and 7 in sales and business, there is one monumental differentiator:




An acquired, acute knowledge of business which turns one into a 10 while the 7 remains stagnant in his or her career never getting out of the sales pit to transition to the C-level jobs.




A 10 sales and business professional knows what makes companies money (on a macro and micro level) regardless of industry. This knowledge allows him or her to understand how each employee thinks and behaves within any given organization and can use his gift of gab to be a chameleon, alter his or her speech and gain enough trust within a company to land deals that 7′s could only image getting past the RFP stage.




To become a 10 and use your God-given people skills to make you rich, here is what you must supplement your verbal prowess with:




- Management and Leadership – this will allow you to be able to teach others your skills as well as understand C-level executives whom you are doing business with better.




- Marketing – know how to market yourself and always be interacting with your firm’s marketing team. This means, above all other things staying fit as the majority of CEOs are healthy people as 9.5/10 CEOs who come to my office are healthy, presentable men and women.




Make friends with the individuals in the marketing dept. on your way up. This will make it easier to persuade changing marketing initiatives in your favor when needed.




- Intelligent Hobbies and Rare, but Intriguing Knowledge – executives want to be around those who are well rounded and can discuss intelligent topics and who have an interesting life.




In closing:




Remember, people buy from those just like them and ignorance can’t sell to intelligence. Unfortunately for ignorance, intelligence usually has more money.

							

		

			

			
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