Revenue Enablement for Staffing Professionals

"I've explained this to him a hundred times. Why do I have to continue to repeat myself?"

A common question we often hear from staffing industry executives is, "how do you measure the effectiveness of your sales and recruiter enablement programs in terms of return-on-investment?" Here is what we tell them.

There is great debate over the definition of sales enablement. Gartner has their definition, Forrester has their definition and many others have their own definition of sales enablement.  But we all agree that there is ...

Benjamin Franklin once said, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”  As someone who works in the field of learning and development, I tend to agree.  Training isn't something that's 'nice to have,' it's a ...

When it comes to employee training, many small businesses owners are feeling conflicted. Of course they want their workers to be enabled and equipped with the requisite skills and knowledge that make them productive, ...

Sales enablement is a strategic, collaborative discipline designed to increase predictable sales and recruiting results by providing consistent, scalable enablement services that allow recruiters, salespeople and their ...

No, this is not mind-blowing news, that the staffing industry including the sales and recruiting landscape has dramatically shifted over the past 12 few months.  A shift to virtual, remote interactions, and a host of ...

As a sales professional, your time is your most precious and valued resource. Time is the currency with which you purchase your success. The key of course is deciding where to invest your time by choosing which ...

If you follow my blog then you probably know I have put together a short series of posts on the topic of sales training ROI. My first post discussed the formula for tracking and measuring sales and recruiter training ...

In my most recent post, Understanding Metrics to Track and Measure Sales Training ROI, I discussed the importance of tracking leading indicators, lagging indicators and return on expectations (ROE) for measuring the ROI ...

For revenue leaders including sales enablement, learning and development (L&D) leaders, you know sales and recruiter training is necessary in order for your team to improve productivity and effectiveness. But ...

Sales and recruiter training is critical to attracting and retaining talent, boosting revenue and shortening ramp-up time for new hires. To remain relevant, it’s no longer good enough to simply “check the box” on ...

For as long as the sales profession has been in existence there has been a belief that sales is an art and not a science. Everyone believed (and many still do) that sales is all about the relationships and that great ...

The first thing a prospective customer or candidate notices about your organization is how well your recruiters and salespeople understand them including their role, their job function, their industry and what it is ...

Research shows that more salespeople than ever are struggling to make quota. According to a study from CSO Insights, over the past five years the number of salespeople making quota has dropped by ten percentage points ...

This SIA Staffing Index report from April 26th shows that staffing revenue grew by 14% year-over-year in March. Travel nurse staffing, allied healthcare and legal staffing led the way followed by industrial and IT ...

In 2000, Marc Benioff, then the CEO of a tiny startup that nobody had heard of paid professional actors to carry “anti-software” signs. They "picketed" in front of Siebel Systems annual user conference.  At the time ...

More and more IT staffing firms are renewing their focus on sales improvement initiatives. When IT staffing organizations invest in sales training and enroll their salespeople, they’re eager to know how their investment ...

The painful truth is, if you've been struggling to grow or your growth trajectory has the peaks and valleys of a roller coaster, it's because you're not ready to grow.  Predictable lead generation is the #1 lever to ...

I have to say, it is pretty amazing how quickly things have turned (for the better) in the just a few short months.  I speak with customers, CEO's and senior leaders of IT staffing firms every day, and they continue to ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many staffing firms to confront the brutal facts of reality; how to train a remote workforce?  And even more importantly, the ability to deliver an engaging remote and mobile learning ...

Today, more then ever, recruiters and sales professionals rely on technology to help them engage customers and candidates and improve their productivity and effectiveness.

In my my blog post Understanding Which Sales Enablement Software You Need Part One, I discussed Sales Content Management, Learning Management Software (LMS), Video Simulation Software for Skill Certification and Sales ...

With sales enablement and sales enablement software rapidly gaining traction - the number of companies with a full time dedicated sales enablement role has more then tripled since 2013. But while adoption has ...

Sales has never been an easy profession, but research shows that more salespeople than ever (including recruiters) are struggling to make quota. CSO Insights reports that over the last 5 years the average number of ...

2020 was the year of adjustment. The Covid-19 pandemic taught us that nothing is for certain and that we must be agile in order to survive and thrive. Perhaps that is why the 50+ C-level staffing industry executives I ...

According to a survey conducted by HubSpot, 65% of sales leaders who outperformed revenue targets in 2020 reported having a dedicated person or team working on sales enablement efforts instead of making it a “side gig.” ...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a fascinating area of learning for several decades now. You didn't realize AI has been around that long did you?  Dating back to the 1950s researchers have experimented with AI ...

I think the most significant challenge working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the blurred lines between balancing work life with personal life. Some of the most difficult challenges working from home ...

If you're a sales leader or sales professional working in the staffing industry (or any industry for that matter) than you are no doubt striving to position yourself as an authoritative thought leader. If you attend ...

When it comes to sales email prospecting, it's more important than ever that salespeople write clear and concise email correspondence.

If you follow my blog then you know that I’ve written plenty about sales onboarding.  One very important topic that I have not written on however that is key to making successful sales onboarding repeatable and ...

One of the most undervalued (and often unknown) formulas staffing executives miss is ramp rate.  Ramp rate is the rate at which your new hires including your sales reps and recruiters are ramping up to achieve quota ...

Poor sales onboarding is a recipe for an expensive disaster. As I have posted in the past, market leading organizations treat sales onboarding as a continuous revenue generating activity, no different than sales ...

The Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to a remote workforce has exposed the weaknesses of organizations that have relied on traditional, outdated employee training and onboarding processes including shadow training and ...

With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic we’ve already seen businesses adapting to the “new normal” by instituting systems and processes that minimize human contact.  We’ve especially seen this in the B2C world in which ...

Many staffing firms have taken a hit because of the COVID-19 pandemic. With all the changes and millions of people being furloughed, it seems as if the economy has hit the pause button. While it may be difficult to ...

As a professional recruiter, think of all the times you have to negotiate. You negotiate with your candidates over salary and benefits, vacation time, start date, you negotiate with your salespeople and account ...

Your candidate pitch can make or break your deal, so it's a good idea for recruiters to have their pitch nailed down before meeting with their account manager or customer.  I've coached thousands of recruiters and have ...

In order to properly address and overcome candidate objections, recruiters first need to understand why they occur in the first place.  To understand why candidate objections occur in the first place, you need to ...

For many recruiting professionals, the goal and expectation of the introductory candidate call is to secure a candidate submittal. For many other recruiting professionals, the goal and expectation of the introductory ...

It goes without saying that recruiting professionals have to have a killer candidate sourcing strategy in order to thrive in today’s war for talent. As we all know, recruiters need to be proactive, not reactive when it ...

Candidate sourcing is the process of finding and qualifying candidates – both passive and active candidates– who have not applied directly to your open role.  In today's hyper-competitive talent market, sourcing ...

There has been a great debate whether or not cold calling candidates remains relevant in professional recruiting.  Perhaps you have seen the articles on Google and LinkedIn that read “Cold Calling is Dead.” The ...

Good communication is crucial to recruiting success. Sounds so obvious, right?   You can’t get candidates to engage let alone make a placement without clear and consistent communication.  The ability to clearly ...

As a recruiting professional, we can no longer expect to recruit the same way we recruited 10 years ago or even 5 years ago and continue to get positive results. Too much has changed including candidate behavior and ...

We all know that Covid-19 has wrecked havoc and created economic uncertainty for businesses all across the globe.  For many sales leaders, this economic uncertainty has shaken their confidence and sewed doubt and fear. ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered two massive challenges for IT staffing sales professionals: reduced IT budgets and selling virtually.  For many staffing sales professionals, the idea of selling virtually was unheard ...

According to Psychology Today, Emotional intelligence (also known as EQ (Emotional Quotient) or EI) refers to the awareness of and ability to manage one’s emotions. It also refers to one's ability to influence another's ...

My first couple of years in sales I applied the "broadcast pitch mode" approach.   My thinking was I had to do whatever was required to get an audience with prospective customers and once there, my job was to pitch or ...

Lets face it, it’s getting really tough out there.  No, we might not (yet) meet the official definition of a recession which is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic decline, as reflected by GDP in conjunction ...

As I mentioned in part 1 of this two part blog series, many sellers are experiencing longer sales cycles and stalled deals. In fact, there are probably more stalled deals in your CRM/ATS then you realize or care to ...

Many sellers are experiencing stalled sales cycles in which customer's are delaying  decisions by days, weeks and in some cases even months.  I'm talking about deals that are sitting on the goal line.  Deals in which ...

Given the uncertain and turbulent times we're living in, I thought now would be the opportune time to remind recruiters of the correct definition and importance of candidate pipelining.  If you're an IT recruiter, now ...

Imagine what would happen if you could increase your prospect or candidate email open rate by 5X and your click-through rate by 8X? That’s a massive jump in the number of prospects or candidates reading and taking ...

Is Cold Calling Candidates Dead? There has been a great debate whether or not cold calling candidates remain relevant in professional recruiting.  Perhaps you have seen the articles on Google and LinkedIn that read ...

With the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation rapidly evolving, I wanted to share a few tips for those who are now tasked with leading a remote team of sales reps or recruiters.

The ability to clearly communicate with candidates is the foundation on which recruiting careers are built.  With today’s highly educated and highly empowered candidate, it’s paramount that recruiters possess ...

In my prior blog post, How to Read, Understand a Client Job Description, I discussed the importance of recruiters possessing a natural sense of curiosity. Having a natural sense of curiosity means having an active mind. ...

Do you recall the old marketing slogan from General Electric, “We bring good things to life.” This slogan was heard at the end of all of their commercials throughout the 80’s, 90’s and even into the early 2000’s. What ...

For many recruiting professionals, conducting candidate reference checks is a thing of the past.  Many find it to either be too difficult or too time consuming or both.  Not only that, most recruiters will tell you that ...

I know, as you read this blog topic you probably thought to yourself, "really, who in the heck does candidate reference checks these days?"  Yes, sadly, many recruiting professionals have stopped conducting references ...

As the new year quickly approaches, it's time for staffing leaders and CEO's to ensure they have the right strategy in place to scale for sales revenue growth in 2020. Scaling for growth is about replicating success ...

As the IT staffing industry continues to grow, services are increasingly commoditized by  off shore competition and low-cost, high touch providers who focus on "skill marketing." As a result, IT staffing firms are (have ...

Sales enablement is a strategic approach to uniting owners, sales leaders, sales managers, salespeople, marketing and sales operations around the common goal of equipping salespeople with the right resources to sell ...

Sales training and sales onboarding is supposed to deliver the skills and knowledge that sales reps need to perform to meet and exceed sales quota.  But if you’ve spent any time in sales, you know that sales ...

Improving sales skills is one of the reasons customers chose to work with Menemsha Group. Our sales methodology including all of our training content, playbooks and exercises is the vehicle that brings sales reps from ...

The daily routine of a selling branch manager, sales manager or recruiting manager is nothing short of chaotic.  From supporting  recruiters and sales reps on calls to completing administrative tasks and monitoring ...

Do any of these statements typify the current state of your recruiting organization?

Perhaps you've heard the management adage, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

If you're like most sales professionals then you read industry publications to stay on top of the trends, challenges and news taking place within your given industry. In our case that industry is the information ...

Like many who decide to go on a diet January 1st, sticking to that diet and exercise routine is difficult just like it is for IT staffing sales professionals adopting and mastering consultative sales skills. With so ...

Over the course of the past several months I have been doing less sales training and more "business consulting."  More to the point, clients are sharing with me their challenges in growing and scaling their business.  ...

Sales onboarding is the process in which organizations apply to integrate new sales reps into their organization and help them gain the skills, knowledge and behaviors required to perform and meet and sales quota.

Sales forecasting can play a major role in the growth and development of your staffing organization. According to research from the Aberdeen Group, companies with accurate sales forecasts are 10% more likely to grow ...

By definition, a process is a systematic series of repeatable actions or steps intended to achieve a result. When followed, these steps lead to predictable and expected outcomes. A sales process allows salespeople and ...

What sets top performing sellers apart from average sellers? Why are some salespeople more effective at closing deals or building customer loyalty over others?  And how do some reps rocket-launch their career ...

Like a lot of things in life, sales and certainly new business development is all about timing.  If you called a prospect right after they signed a deal with one of your competitors, do you think they would have much ...

One of the biggest challenges senior sales leaders face is how to onboard and train  millennial salespeople. It’s a daunting task, and an expensive one. Getting new employees up to speed can cost up to 30 percent of a ...

Hiring "A" players is not a repeatable or scalable solution for growing your business because there simply isn't enough "A" players in the marketplace. Even if you could load up on talented "A" players, they still need ...

IT staffing firms depend on their sales team to grow revenue and maintain gross profit margins.  To support them in this responsibility, they invest in designing, supporting and sustaining their overall sales enablement ...

According the 2017 State of the Industry report from the Association for Talent Development, organizations invest on average $1,273 per employee for training, learning and development.  Organizations smaller in size ...

Developing, delivering and maintaining an IT staffing sales enablement program requires strategic planning and capital in the form of sales methodology expertise, instructional design knowledge and technology.  Because ...

Many sales leaders think of sales onboarding as an additional cost that chips away at their profitability.  The reality is, faster sales onboarding is your quickest and lowest hanging fruit for generating revenue. Yes, ...

As you're probably aware, more and more educational institutions and businesses are adopting online sales training. This is largely due to the increase in affordable and easy to use technology that makes online sales ...

If you’re a sports fan than you probably already know that top professional athletes love to watch and study video footage of other top athletes. For example, NBA all-stars Kevin Durant and Steph Curry love watching old ...

If you’re trying to find the best training program for your employees, there are a few things to consider when it comes to online sales training vs. instructor-led classroom training. In this blog post I share the ...

Sales Performance International reports that new sales reps lose 84 percent of what they learn in sales training within 90 days. Trainingindustry.com says U.S. companies spend on average $5,000 per sales rep on sales ...

When your new recruiter or new sales rep walks through your door on day one you should have two objectives; make them feel welcome and part of the team, and ramp them up to quota attainment as quickly as possible. The ...

In the years since I launched Menemsha Group I have met and spoken with hundreds of IT staffing leaders including owners, COO's, CFO's and Sales VP's.  They tell me repeatedly over and over that their number one ...

Studies show that sales coaching, not training or performance management is by far the most powerful tool for improving sales performance.  Yet there are a number of obstacles that stand in the way of sales managers ...

There are sales managers who coach, mentor and develop their salespeople and there are sales managers who don't. Sales managers who fail to coach are not necessarily bad managers, but they are neglecting an amazing ...

Do you want to lead your sales team and each of your team members to achieve even greater success?  As the manager do you want to increase the value of each of your team members? Of course you do!  Sales coaching is the ...

What exactly is sales coaching and what does sales coaching entail? You hear a lot about sales coaching these days. It’s one of the key skills of the modern sales manager.  In this blog post I'm going to provide an ...

Staffing owners and CEO's face non-stop pressure to deliver above-market growth during the best of times. When the economy is weak, that demand grows even stronger. While mergers and acquisitions have the ability to ...

Market leaders, whether it be the staffing industry, manufacturing, software, financial services or any other industry all share one thing in common; their sales teams are a well oiled machine, operating in unison and ...

Having a scalable sales organization,  one that produces repeatable and sustainable revenue growth without being overly dependent on a key customer or top performer requires IT staffing firms to adopt a structured new ...

Generating quality sales leads on a consistent basis is critical to the success of any recruiter and is a key component to becoming a top performing recruiter. In this blog post I’m going to share with you three tactics ...

Over the past several years we've  been hearing how the IT staffing industry continues to become more and more commoditized.  There are a number of reasons for the staffing industry becoming commoditized including low ...

How do you sell?  Whether you know it or not, you have a sales methodology of some kind. For most sellers, they have their own preferred way of selling and typically it centers around the activities they are most ...

Research from Richardson's 2019 Selling Challenges Research Study highlights the key sales challenges that sales professionals face. They received responses from more than 300 participants. Their research not only ...

For IT staffing organizations, high recruiter and sales rep turnover isn’t just disruptive—it can be financially devastating and demoralizing. According to a DePaul University study, the average turnover cost per sales ...

“Hey there, I will be in your neighborhood next week and I just wanted to see if we could meet for a few minutes to make introductions.”

If you're like most staffing leaders than you're probably planning a skills improvement initiative for later this year or you're currently in the middle of sales and/or recruiter training program.  Or, perhaps you’re in ...

In case you haven't heard, buyer behavior has dramatically changed. Buyers are empowered and more sophisticated and, thanks to the internet, flooded with information and research overload. At the same time your buyers ...

Charisma and being an extrovert can be advantageous in sales. In fact, many people attribute sales success to personality traits rather than to skills that can be coached or taught.  Despite that, corporate America ...

They key to prospecting and creating new sales opportunities resides within the salesperson's ability to get the prospect or customer to admit pain.  Getting customers to admit that they have a business issue that needs ...

Market leaders, whether it be the staffing industry, manufacturing, software, financial services or any other industry all share one thing in common; their sales teams are a well oiled machine, operating in unison and ...

In case you haven't heard, buyer behavior has dramatically changed. Buyers are empowered and more sophisticated and, thanks to the internet, are flooded with information and research overload. At the same time your ...

What is insight selling? While it may be a new concept to you and many in the staffing industry, insight selling has been around for years and has been deployed by sales professionals in other industries including ...

Adopting a consultative sales approach is paramount for today's IT staffing sales professional.  Gallup Group reports less than half of customers believe sellers adequately address their problems. This problem stems ...

Not surprisingly, most sellers think and believe they’re consultative in their sales approach. But are they? Think about it for a second. When a customer goes MIA and you’re awaiting candidate interview feedback, do you ...

A consultative sales approach is one in which identifying and discussing the needs of the customer including their challenges and issues are the focal point of the conversation and basis for the sale.  Adopting a ...

Accelerating the customer’s hiring and buying process refers to managing all of the tasks and events that must be acted upon and the decisions that must be made by you and your customer from the time the job order is ...

Studies show that sales leaders who operate with a consistent and repeatable sales cadence outperform those who don't.  Daily huddles, and a weekly sales forecast have become commonplace for most sales teams.  As part ...

Sales quotas continue to rise year after year despite the fact that Salesforce.com's State of Sales report found that 57% of all salespeople fail to meet sales quota. To close this gap organizations are investing in ...

Accelerating your customer’s hiring and buying process refers to managing all of the tasks and events that must be acted upon and the decisions that must be made by you and your customer. The better you can understand ...

One area in which we invest a lot of time with our customers is educating them on the importance of change management and user adoption. Training, learning and development doesn’t end when the training program ...

Sales enablement has grown dramatically over the past few years. In 2013 less than 20% of companies dedicated resources specifically for sales enablement. Yet by the end of 2017, close to 60% of companies were focused ...

Don’t worry, you’re not alone if you are not familiar with the term microlearning.  It’s not a new concept, but it has been a hot topic trend that is proven to improve employee training including learner retention and ...

Our lives have become inundated with feedback. Think about all of the apps on your phone that you use to grab a ride, rent a villa, book a hotel room, make dinner reservations. They all give you the option for ...

Many sales organizations have invested more time, money and effort over the past few years training their sales managers to improve their sales coaching skills then they did in the previous twenty-five. This makes ...

Anyone who has been in sales management for any length of time knows that the key to retaining salespeople and transforming average sales performers into top performers is sales coaching. Yet the roadblocks and reasons ...

Are your sales reps conversation ready?  Before you say ‘yes’, take a minute to stop and think about it. No sales rep is perfect.  Heck, all reps struggle with executing at one or more stages of the sales process. That ...

Frequently I get asked by customers and industry colleagues, "Dan, what are the trends you're seeing in the marketplace?" "Dan, what are some of the best practices you see high growth IT staffing firms adopting?  "What ...

If you work in the sales profession than chances are you’ve heard the term sales enablement.  While it has been a hot topic, there seems to be a bit of confusion around what exactly it is and whether or not it's a short ...

Before we can start to discuss the specifics of candidate rate negotiation, six rules for recruiters to live by, I think it is important that recruiters first understand exactly what is within their control and what is ...

Preparing candidates for the client interview, the recruitment life cycle stage we're all striving to get to with all of of our candidates.  The key to a successful client-candidate interview including a recruiter's ...

Previously I discussed the keys to effectively screening and qualifying a candidate’s current situation, their technical skills and experience and how to qualify and establish pay rate/salary history.  I also shared ...

IT recruiters interested in improving their recruiting effectiveness including client job offer offer to candidate acceptance ratios-particularly with passive candidates, will want to make sure that they know how ...

Money is a funny thing in our culture.  In general people don't go around sharing with other people how much money they make or what they paid for their house or car. For most people, money is emotional.  People have ...

Once you have effectively sourced and qualified your candidate’s current situation, you can transition the candidate interview to screening and qualifying your candidate’s technical skills and experience.   Screening ...

One you have sourced your active and passive candidates it is time to begin interviewing and screening your candidates.  I think a good and natural place to begin is by qualifying your candidate’s current situation. ...

In this blog post I’m going to highlight best practices for sourcing active & passive candidates. Candidate sourcing, an early stage activity in the overall IT recruitment process, is the recruiting activity of ...

This may not be the case with you and your team of IT recruiters, but many recruiters are struggling to hit their weekly candidate submittal goal. For many staffing firms the weekly goal or standard is ten candidate ...

By far, the most important phone call or conversation that IT staffing sales professionals engage in is the candidate interview feedback call.  This is the conversation in which the salesperson speaks with the customer ...

While prospecting for new business including cold calling, objection handling and running face to face sales meetings get a ton of well deserved attention,  executing the candidate submittal call is probably the most ...

What is the definition of a qualified sales opportunity, or in the world of staffing, a qualified job order? There is no universally agreed upon answer. However, a few clarifications are needed because the concept of a ...

Until recently, salespeople could generate sales leads on their own, lead and even control their prospects through the entire sales process.  Salespeople were involved early in the customers research and diagnosis ...

I see two common mistakes with with recruiters and sales reps attempting to skill market candidates to their customers. The first mistake is they fail to understand the difference between selling and pitching.  The ...

“How many new business development sales meetings did you go on last week?" "How many new business development sales meetings do you have scheduled for this week?" "Dan, you need to schedule more sales meetings with new ...

Like most things in the life, the time, energy and effort you put into something has a direct correlation to what you get out of it. Mastering your sales skills including sales negotiation is no different. After all, ...

If just getting to the sales negotiation stage of the sales process feels like a marathon, what does it take to cross the goal line with terms and pricing that everyone agrees on? There are plenty of missteps, pitfalls ...

The mere phrase ‘cold calls’ give many salespeople a case of the cold sweats and makes the hair on the back of their neck stick up. Nonetheless, cold calling is still a very effective sales prospecting technique for ...

The end of the year is upon us.  Whether your sales team has already met their goal and is taking some much needed time off, or is working while they wrap presents to meet their quota, I've always found year-end to be ...

Imagine going to your family doctor for your regularly scheduled check up and after catching up and discussing your your holiday plans and how your kids are doing, your doctor instantly gives you a clean bill of health. ...

When a new sales new hire or new recruiter joins your staffing firm, their success is primarily dependent upon on whether or not you nail the first 30 days of sales onboarding.  As I have discussed in past blog posts, ...

Having worked with hundreds of IT staffing CEO's and business owners, I’ve heard more than my fair share of frustrations and complaints over salespeople spending too much time on the wrong activities. I'm talking about ...

In corporate America it's standard operating procedure to promote the top sales performer into management despite the fact that it's common knowledge that many of those top performers struggle with leading and managing ...

Today’s sales leader is expected to be part sales superstar who still closes deals and models the desired sales behaviors, part sales trainer, part CRM/ATS expert, part “chief problem solver,” and responsible for a ...

I've been blessed with the opportunity of working with hundreds of sales and recruiting teams from IT staffing companies across the country.  One of the most common questions I get is "Dan, how does our sales team stack ...

Every IT staffing sales organization has a sales culture.  Great ones are hard to come by because they take a long time to develop and tremendous effort to sustain.   Sales teams can have a lousy sales culture but still ...

The time lapse between your sales new hire's start date and the date in which they track to meet or exceed sales quota represents your opportunity cost to onboard a new sales rep.  A shorter ramp up time means reduced ...

As a business owner or sales and recruiter leader, the first hurdle you must overcome with your new hire on-boarding and training program is to capture and keep your learners attention.  If you bore them, you will lose ...

Having now written several hundred blogs on a variety of topics,  I decided to aggregate some of the more interesting and surprising sales statistics I've churned up over the years.  I share them with you in hopes they ...

For those of you who know me and/or have been through my sales methodology training know that I'm not an advocate for the "just checking in" follow-up call.  It really is a waste of a sales call and a wasted ...

“How’s your sales pipeline looking?” “Are you ready for the pipeline review meeting?”  “What did you add to your sales pipeline this week?” 

As a sales leader, missing your number sucks. Even worse is delivering the news to your CEO.  Talk about a quick way to kill your credibility!  Does this conversation sound familiar?

Every CEO would smile ear to ear if they could grow their business faster than the industry. A well designed go-to-market strategy is imperative to achieving this level of growth and it requires more than sales, ...

Understanding the difference between sales process and sales methodology can be confusing as they often get mixed up.  In order to maximize the effectiveness of your sales team it is important that you not only ...

If you're a fan of professional sports such as the NBA then you know 'it's  players league.'  What that means is talent wins championships and the coaches are irrelevant.  Most IT staffing firms are continuously on the ...

What does it mean to be an effective sales leader in today's ultra-competitive staffing industry with a constantly evolving talent workforce? By 2025, experts predict that millennials will make up 75 percent of the ...

Each year sales leaders are faced with the agonizing task of creating fair but challenging sales quotas.  As a sales leader or business owner, the single task of establishing sales quotas arguably wields the biggest ...

One of the many management challenges IT staffing owners face is figuring out how to compensate sales people effectively. We all know that we need to have a sales incentive compensation plan that motivates the ...

As the owner and CEO of a rapidly growing IT staffing firm you have many hats to wear but the core focus should always be on scaling the business for long-term sustainable, predictable revenue growth. That includes ...

IT Staffing sales professionals commonly run into this objection when calling on new prospects. As soon as the buyer realizes the nature of the phone call he or she says something along the lines of, "We have an ...

Operationalizing your sales team under a common sales process will help you win more deals. It will also help you win bigger deals faster and more frequently. Most staffing organizations make two fatal mistakes when it ...

I think it goes without saying that in this day and age, buyers don't want to be pitched to or feel like they're being sold to.  This old school sales approach offers zero value to the buyer. Instead, I think most sales ...

Yes, you read that correctly, these email templates will help you open doors and build relationships with new prospects. No, they will not work every single time but compared to the generic, “one size fits all” and ...

Rolling out a new sales process is not easy.  It takes a lot of planning, research, communication and flat out hard work.  Despite all there is to understanding sales process, deploying a sales process is a very ...

In my previous blog post, How to Prepare for and Open the Sales Discovery Call, I discussed the importance of the sales discovery call itself (for the sales person), and how to prepare for and open the call. Now I'm ...

In most instances, the sales discovery call is the first real conversation with the prospect, and often the most important conversation.  I would argue that the sales discovery call actually sets the tone for the entire ...

Think about how much time and energy you invest in reviewing sales metrics, sales pipeline reports, analyzing and updating your job board (assuming you have one in your office) and looking over sales forecasts in your ...

In this day and age it’s unfathomable to shop without using the internet. We research and buy products, pay our bills, book vacations, register for classes, file our taxes and download music all from the internet.  Just ...

According to an HBR article, U.S. companies spend over $70 billion annually on sales training, and an average of $1,459 per salesperson — almost 20 percent more than they spend on training workers in all other ...

According to Jill Konrath, sales calls go into voicemail 97% of the time.  Suffice it to say, sales professionals better be pretty darn good at leaving sales voicemail messages.  Heck, sales professionals have as little ...

If you have been in sales long enough, especially staffing sales, than you know there are a lot of reasons, reasons outside of our control, for which deals can blow up and fail to close. But there are other reasons, ...

Most staffing leaders would agree that leading change and driving adoption of new skills, systems, processes and methodologies is challenging. Despite the challenges however, these same leaders also know that when done ...

While most IT staffing firms saw revenue growth in 2016 not nearly as many experienced improvement in their sales effectiveness (the ability to close a high percentage of deals, shorten your sales cycle, increase quota ...

For many IT staffing firms, the annual sales kickoff meeting is the only event where the entire sales team gets together during the year. It’s an awesome opportunity and a fun opportunity to get the year off on the ...

There is a lot of buzz in the eLearning world about gamification. OK, I understand you might not be following trends and best practices for the training, learning & development industry but let me share with you how ...

“Social learning” has been a hot buzzword in the world of training, learning and development for several years yet many people still often ask what social learning is and often get the term confused.  In this post I'm ...

With more and more staffing firms recognizing the benefits of online sales training, many staffing leaders are investing in Learning Management Systems (LMS).  But selecting the best Learning Management System for your ...

In this blog post I'm going to share with you how and why you should build your sales methodology around buyer journey, qualification criteria. 

I think we all agree that selling IT staffing services and more specifically, differentiating from the competition is really, really difficult.  Fortunately I have an idea that I think can help IT staffing sales ...

A study conducted by Forrester Research tells us that sales professionals must tailor their message specifically to each unique buyer type (IT hiring manager) they interface with because corporate decision makers expect ...

Budget season is upon us which means it is time to set sales quotas and recruiter quotas.  One thing staffing leaders know for sure is quotas are going up, not down.  Sure, your team will probably gripe and give you ...

It has often been said (or at least I say it often:) that professional selling is a lot like be a detective or a journalist. What makes a good detective or journalist??  They ask questions. They ask lots of questions ...

As a staffing leader responsible for leading a team of sales reps or recruiters, getting your new hires ramped up and hitting quota as quickly as possible is one of your most important responsibilities.  The sooner they ...

For those of you who know me and/or have been through our training know how I feel about telling prospects "I'm just checking in." When sales people open conversations or leave voice mail messages like this their ...

I had the opportunity to speak at Bullhorn Engage earlier this year.  During my presentation I asked the audience, "how may of you wish your sales reps applied a more consultative sales approach to engaging prospects ...

Are your sales pipeline conversations driving results?  For most staffing companies, the answer is no. The reason?  Most staffing organizations and their sales managers mistake sales revenue forecasting with sales ...

Based in Cambridge, MA HubSpot is a high growth company providing inbound marketing software and content management tools to small and midsize business. Their growth has been impressive. Hubspot launched in 2006 with ...

One of the most important sales activities is qualifying. This is where the rubber meets the road and the sales rep has to decide if if pursuing the company, contact and/or opportunity makes sense.  The salesperson is ...

Imagine you've invested the time and resources to develop a sales process. You're supremely confident it will streamline sales activities, generate better results, and make your salespeople more productive.  You only ...

As IT staffing firms continue to achieve success and rapidly grow, they also continue to face the never ending challenge of sales onboarding and accelerating new hire ramp up time.  Hiring a new employee is ...

Rapidly on-boarding new sales reps and recruiters and getting them productive as quickly as possible is a key factor that separates top performing, high growth staffing firms from the competition. In fact, research from ...

If your staffing organization is like most then going through the first few days and weeks of your sales and recruiter on-boarding training is probably like drinking water through a firehouse. And that means your new ...

If you're not learning you're not growing and if you're not growing you're dying

Before I launched Menemsha Group and before I was promoted into management I was a sales rep selling IT staffing and consulting services. I did it for about seventeen years. That's right, I pounded the phone day in and ...

I've written consistently about the need for IT staffing firms to adopt a sales methodology to build a scalable sales organization and accelerate growth. With a sales methodology, your IT staffing firm will be able to ...

You’re fully convinced a sales methodology can help your IT staffing firm scale . You know that getting all your reps to follow the same sales methodology will drive consistent, repeatable performance. You understand it ...

There are dozens of different sales methodologies out there. Many however are “one-size-fits-all.”  They’re not customized for the product or service you sell or the industry you sell to — not to mention your ideal ...

The majority of the fastest growing IT staffing companies use a sales methodology. And the majority of those firms built their sales methodology from them the ground up . But you don’t have to do that because the hard ...

Do you know what makes you such a great salesperson? If you had to teach someone to replicate your success, could you? (If you’re not a great salesperson, think about the highest performer on your IT staffing firm’s ...

Sales and sales methodology enthusiasts like me may be guilty of sometimes letting ourselves get swept up in our enthusiasm for our topic. We might forget that the terminology we use — while necessary for explaining ...

Do any of the following characterize your IT staffing firm’s sales organization?

Wouldn’t it be great if 90 percent of your sales reps achieved their quota 100 percent of the time? The bad news is, with the approach most firms take to sales and sales training, performance like this is well out of ...

In my last post, I wrote about how most IT staffing firms make the major mistake of compensating their sales managers incorrectly, inadvertently encouraging them to focus on their own books of business, rather than ...

Who’s the best person to head up your IT staffing firm’s sales team? The obvious choice is whoever your best sales rep is. That’s what you’d think, anyway. But you’d be wrong.

For the best salespeople, sales comes naturally. They take to the whole process — from making cold calls, to meeting with prospects, to communicating a value proposition, to closing deals — like the proverbial fish to ...

There are thousands of IT staffing firms across the country, with new ones springing up every month as IT veterans leave larger firms to strike it out on their own. According to Staffing Industry Analysts, the IT ...

As the owner or sales director of an IT staffing firm, what matters more to you? That your new sales reps are out selling for you, closing deals as quickly as possible after you hire them, or that they have the skills ...

No, it's not a trick question, but it is a tricky decision.  If you're like many of our client's, you probably have a finite budget in which you can invest in sales tools and services to improve sales performance and ...

As the owner of a small IT staffing firm, you don’t have much time to waste. It’s a growing industry and a fast-moving industry, and if you’re like many of the owners I work with, you took a big risk to strike out on ...

So your IT staffing firm has decided to launch a sales transformation initiative.  Perhaps you went through a recent merger, launched a new service offering, opened a new market or are simply looking to revamp your ...

As I have mentioned in my other blog posts on the topic of consultative selling, changes in buyer behavior has created a paradigm shift in the world of sales. Simply put, the customer wishes to engage sales people much ...

With consultative selling the customer's needs are the focal point of the conversation, not the salesperson’s personal goal or agenda or his or her service offerings or their candidate.  With consultative selling the ...

Over the past 20+ years there has been a rapid shift from selling features and benefits to that of a consultative sales approach.  The biggest driver for this change has come directly from B2B buyers themselves. ...

In my blog post, A Primer on Sales Transformation for IT Staffing CEO’s & Sales Leaders I explained what sales transformation is and I highlighted some of the common business drivers that compel staffing CEO’s and ...

Transforming your staffing firm and specifically your sales organization is no small order nor is it for the faint of heart.  It requires a clear vision, executive leadership including commitment from the CEO, careful ...

If your new hire orientation is confined to asking your new hires to read an outdated three ring “company overview” binder followed by a few hours of “shadow training” than you might want to continue reading this ...

When we launch a new client project with a brand new customer we start off by spending a few days in their office so we can get to know the team, understand their processes and best practices and ultimately benchmark ...

The number # 1 job of any sales leader is to develop their people ensuring they maximize their potential and ultimately hit or exceed their sales quota.  But how do they do it In today’s competitive IT staffing market ...

Whether your chosen sport is basketball, football, baseball or hockey, the key to getting to the top of your game and perfecting it is practice. After all, practice makes perfect. We first hear this at a very young age ...

Here I present to you Fast Growing Inc, a multi-million dollar IT staffing firm.  Joe the founder and owner wants to grow by opening several new offices. However, Sam, his VP of Sales and his team struggle to capture ...

If you're a sales leader or sales professional cold calling to open new accounts, then you know how difficult it is to quickly disarm prospects, build trust and convert those cold calls into meetings. 

So, you’re looking to hire a VP of Sales for your staffing organization. The VP of Sales plays one of the most important roles in the organization because he or she is responsible for some very important assets: ...

What is that old saying from our friend Alec Baldwin, "Always Be Closing?" Yes, sales is about the art of closing.  But you know what, getting to the "closing" takes more than simply executing on a random series of ...

In my previous blog, What a VP of Sales Does in an IT Staffing Firm, I pointed out (in order of importance) the 6 most critical tasks a VP of Sales performs for an IT staffing firm.  In this post I want to share with ...

As you can probably image, being in the sales training business, I get many requests from my clients asking me for referrals when it comes to hiring sales people, especially sales leaders.  And the more that I see and ...

Last month I had the opportunity to host a workshop for the Massachusetts Staffing Association.  I covered a wide array of topics but the overarching theme was on principles for building a sustainable and scalable sales ...

In my last blog post I explained what sales triggers are and how to leverage them in your sales efforts.  As a reminder, sales trigger events are occurrences that take place within or around your customer or prospective ...

I read some very interesting research the other day and learned that the likelihood for sales people and account managers to win new business in existing accounts is between 60 and 70%.  Can you imagine closing 60-70% ...

Your key customer accounts first and foremost must be protected and second, they need to be managed to grow to their full revenue potential. Failure to do so can result in financial ruin. Sales professionals including ...

One of the things I have learned over the years is that it’s very difficult for sales reps to develop and execute account plans. There are a number of strategies and methodologies to follow but there seems to be very ...

You know what the most powerful sales management tool is to improve sales performance?  Sales training? Nope. Compensation? Nope. Reporting and business intelligence? Nope. Incentives? Nope. Performance reviews? Nope. ...

Three of the biggest and most common challenges IT staffing sales reps struggle with is 

We are paid professionals for identifying, interviewing, screening and delivering superstar candidates for our clients. We get paid handsome fees for our work. So why is it so darn difficult to turn our own internal ...

Dear Jim,

This blog is part two of a two-part blog series on account development.  You can read part one, Questions to Consider for Account Planning & Growing Existing Accounts. In this blog post, grow existing accounts with ...

One of the most common sales training requests (and sales goals of IT staffing firms) I hear from prospects and customers alike is growing existing accounts.  Let’s face it; everyone wants to grow revenue in their ...

A few years back I was attending a session at the Staffing Industry Analysts Executive Forum.  The speaker made the comment “in the staffing industry we’re too quick to hire and too slow to fire.”  That quickly struck a ...

My brother introduced me to the T.V hit series Mad Men at the conclusion of season 3. I breezed through those first three seasons via Netflix in just a few weeks and haven't looked back since! What's not to love, sales, ...

A study conducted by CSO Insights found that a group of under performing salespeople had a win rate of 41% of their FORECASTED deals.  NOT pipeline, but deals forecasted to close.  Indeed, that is under performing and a ...

For those of you who know me, I vacation on Martha's Vineyard every summer, hence the name, Menemsha Group. A couple of years ago I decided to take a kite-boarding lesson.  While it was fun and a great day on the water ...

Last week I recieved the sales email message below and felt we could all learn something from it.   My intent is certainly not to embarrass the sales person or company (which of course I have left their name out) but to ...

From my experience, most IT staffing sales reps approach cold calling with a process and language that is at best, outdated and littered with old school cold calling tactics that lead to cold calling failure.  To be ...

Year end is fast approaching.  You know what that means right?  Holiday parties?  Wrong. It’s time to start planning your sales kickoff meeting.  In this three part series Menemsha Group offers tips for selecting a ...

In my blog posted earlier this month, I shared Three Simple Tips For Sales Negotiation.  If you have not yet read that blog and sales negotiation tips 1-3, you can click here to do so.  Let me now share with you sales ...

While the hammer (the hard sell) at times may be the easiest way to go about a negotiation, it is often not the most effective.  And you can't continue to rely on the old stand by, you know the one.....the "take away."  ...

Is sales really a numbers game? I think many believe this but I certainly don't.  When I run my sales training workshops and webinars I often ask the audience, "How many of you have a clearly defined target market," or ...

Prospecting and opening new accounts are the lifeblood for the IT staffing sales professional. IT staffing firms and sales professionals are under constant pressure to open new accounts quicker and more efficiently then ...

If you are like most of my clients, you’re business is probably growing and you’re looking to add recruiters and sales professionals to your staff.  I myself have been busy interviewing sales professionals on behalf of ...

Sales pipeline management including sales forecasting accuracy and velocity has become a major challenge for IT staffing firms including sales leaders and CEO's.  Opportunities appear to be plentiful but business owners ...

Most companies I see and work with in the IT staffing industry struggle to forecast sales revenues.  In fact, many don’t even make an attempt at forecasting sales revenue.  Customers tell me they would love to be able ...

Busy is good. Busy is productive. Busy equals success…or does it? When trying to motivate your IT staffing sales team to do more and work harder, it’s normal to push them to “get busy!” But busy work and IT staffing ...

A  few weeks ago I received the best phone call any coach or mentor can receive.  I received a call from the first sales rep that I coached (as a “Menemsha sales trainer.”)  Her name is Lori, and to protect her and the ...

Sales meetings are crucial to a sales team’s success, if done properly.  They can make all the difference in the world in accelerating your new business development sales cycle.  But a poorly-run, disorganized sales ...

So many salespeople I speak with today in the IT staffing industry share with me how challenging it is cold calling into Fortune 1000 accounts and converting those cold calls into meetings.  I've come to discover that ...

Sales prospecting!  Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. In the world of sales-and more specifically-selling IT staffing and lead generation, one must always be prospecting in order to build and manage a healthy ...

Improvement of objection handling skills has been and continues to be the number one request I hear from IT staffing sales leaders regarding their business development reps. After all, if you're focused on new business ...

Getting IT decision makers on the phone these days is excruciatingly difficult.  Landing face to face meetings with those decision makers is even more difficult.  So how do top performing IT staffing and consulting ...

One challenge most IT staffing firms and their sales teams struggle with is coming up with an effective value proposition.  Most sellers mistake their value proposition with an elevator pitch which only explains what a ...

When prospective clients approach us regarding our account planning and development training programs, one of the most common requests we hear is the desire for their sales team to strategically sell and expand existing ...

If you fancy the concept of mastering consultative selling, then I probably don't need to spend too much time spouting the benefits of using consultative selling. You likely know them already:

Over the past several years we have been hearing how our industry continues to become more and more commoditized.  There are a number of reasons for this including low barriers to entry, the proliferation of the job ...

I think we can all agree that getting decision makers on the phone these days has never been more challenging.  We call them early, we call them late, and we call them at lunch and everywhere in between. Still no luck. ...

Much of the cold call training training that I provide comes in the form of video training training and coaching as well as one-on-one active coaching where I work at the desk level, "hand-in-hand" with sales reps.   We ...

I have come to discover that one of the most under-performed activities and under-valued skills in the IT recruiting industry is preparing candidates for client interviews.  When I ask sales and recruiters  how they ...

Every month I speak with dozens of sales & recruiting professionals, business owners, CEO’s and industry executives. And over the past several months I have been hearing the same thing. “We lost another candidate at ...

As an IT staffing sales professional, nothing (not much anyway) makes us cringe more than hearing the words "I’m happy with my current vendor."  Let’s face it, it’s not an easy sales objection to overcome.  And the ...

Cold calling. Love it or hate we have to do it. It’s just part of sales. It’s certainly not the only prospecting tool in our toolbox but it sure is an important one. At the end of the day you really can’t build ...

If you are like most sales professionals in the staffing industry you’re probably sick and tired and frustrated with hearing your prospects and customers tell you “we’re not hiring and we have no budget.” How does one ...