MentalRise » Rants

10 Startup Steps for Hiring a Great Sales Team

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:34:56 +0000

For some of us, the products we develop and market need to be sold directly to clients via direct sales and eventually, referral building.

At the beginning of our ventures, it is imperative to personally develop a strong, benefits-based sales method for our product. But what about afterwards? We aren’t supposed to sell each and every widget ourselves, right?

Enter the Sales Team.

But wait – there are a lot of amateurs, yahoos, and slackers out there! There is a real danger that the wrong pick could:

Damage your reputation
Waste your precious seed money
Get you in legal trouble
…Impregnate your daughter?

Anything is possible! With that in mind, pay close attention to The 10 Startup Steps for Hiring a Great Sales Team

Properly define the job.: Most managers try to determine whom they want to hire rather than hiring the best fit for the job. If you profile the person whom would do a superior job, the resulting profile might define some one totally different than originally planned, filling the position based on skills, behaviors and motivators inherent to the job.
Benchmark the position.: Job Benchmarking is a definitive tool designed to take the guesswork and bias out of the hiring process. It assesses the job based on the merits of the work required by the employee and not on their perceived abilities and personality. It also eliminates comparing the new employee to others already doing the job. Hiring as hired in the past will not target super stars needed to excel and grow your business.
Re-write your ad.: Most ads ask what the candidate has done in the past, and while it might be important, it doesn’t tell you what they can do or how well they will do the job. Specifically state the outcomes you want each candidate to display while employed. Most will not apply if they feel pre-screening will not meet your requirements.
Pre-screen the applicants.: To many, this means going over the resume to qualify backgrounds, experience or education. Instead, E-mail each applicant a set of questions to weed out ones who are clearly a poor choice for the job especially if they interface with internal or external customers, and are unable to represent the company in a professional manner.
Screen the applicants.: Most companies have set pro-cedures in place to screen out prospects that do not meet the basic requirements of the job. However, pre-screening via email and a set series of questions will help to further weed out unprofessional or less than desirable candidates.
Pre-interview meeting.: Many companies have multiple employees interview prospective candidates. What they fail to do is preplan the interview process to consistently obtain the same information from each of the candidates. When possible, interviewers should also be included in the benchmarking process to ensure buy in and accountability.
Interview the Candidate.: Most managers have not been trained on how to interview a perspective new employee. When possible, companies need to hire a coach to train managers on how to interview and determine a good fit for the organization. Most interviewers make the decision to hire based on a person’s past performance and within the first five minutes of an interview. Companies need to teach how to avoid these pitfalls by reducing the hiring bias and taking the guesswork out the hiring process.
Assess the Candidate.: Talent assessments tell how closely the candidate matches a job. Many feel this part of the process should come after the interview. A well-designed talent report will help determine not only if a candidate can do the job but also how well they might do it. It will often highlight deficiencies that might detract from the individuals’ overall performance as well. Why waste more time and money interviewing a candidate requiring compromise to hire?
Post-interview meeting.: Debrief each of the interviewers on their choice of candidate(s). Interviewers need to justify choices based on the sample questions each asked and on relevant feedback and agree as a group. If you did your benchmark correctly, and you have already run a talent report, there should be a stand out candidate.
Don’t hire to just to fill a slot.: Some just want the hiring process to stop because it is taking to long and fill the position with a “body”. Managers who are willing to settle for a so-so employee are probably just so-so managers. Either you did not throw a wide enough net to capture enough good prospects or your ad writing needs improvement. It costs just as much to find a good employee as it does to find an incompetent one.

(View Full Source Article Here)

What other tips have helped you while hiring Sales Representatives?

Staying Motivated When You Least Want To

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:50:25 +0000

Every day we lose precious time to Motivation Malfunction. Little by little, it tries to sap away our precious focus, to dwell on ‘what ifs’ and ‘boo hoos’ that lurk about in the peripheral of our consciousness. This article, “Staying Motivated When It All Goes To Hell“, is a great wake up call to keep moving forward, faster than ever.

I use it as part of my “Emergency Motivation Arsenal”, in case I find myself moping about instead of pursuing my goals.

It’s easy to get motivated by an idea. A plan. A goal. We tend to get easily excited by and obsessed over these (and other) four-letter words. The thought of them is intoxicating, and when you’re caught up in the euphoria, suddenly all things seem possible. You want it bad, and you chase it with a smile on your face.

But there’s another four letter that most people don’t like to face, and that’s work.

When your goals just aren’t doing it for you, when you’re not getting excited enough to chase them anymore, something is wrong. You feel like you’re going through the motions, doing what you have to in order to chug along, and the hot idea that once dominated your thoughts has lost its luster. What used to be a driving passion becomes just another chore. You start entertaining thoughts of giving up.

Full Article: Staying Motivated When It All Goes To Hell

Obama CTO – Top Priority Idea

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:03:13 +0000

When http://www.ObamaCTO.org posed the question “Barack Obama is going to appoint the nation’s first CTO. What are the top priorities?”, it struck me as a very good time to come up with something truly useful.

There are a lot of different tasks that need tackling by the new CTO (whoever he/she/it is), but as a Security Administrator for a hosting company, my perspective is a bit different. The explosion of the web has led, of course, to the explosion of hostile code, fraud, and network attacks, with the United States leading the pack.

My Idea?

Negotiate escalation procedures between ISPs/Providers

ISPs and owners of large networks (hosting companies, colo facilities, Military networks, large corporations) should have an established method of escalating incidents between each other.

Any company with a minimum network size of ____ IPs is required to register. Only registered members can escalate between each other, ensuring that each complaint/escalation is properly formed.

Anyone reporting an incident would provide proof (logs, urls, etc) as necessary.

Depending on the reputation of the reporting entity (i.e. military vs. small ISP), automated action can be taken against the offender(s)

Volunteer organizations, corporations, and other good netizens can join the fight against botnets, spammers, and virii-laden machines.

Companies would have a responsiveness score, showing the community how quickly and seriously they respond to threats.

What do you think? Send me a twitter @MarcelChastain , and vote at http://www.obamacto.org/.

Malicious Code Injection – Sans JavaScript!

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:18:11 +0000

The fellows over at i8jesus.com have a great article on injecting malicious content into site that block javascript.

I’m looking forward to incorporating their findings into my Malware scanning methods..!
HTML/CSS Injections – Primitive Malicious Code (or, What’s the worst that could happen?)

The Last Person on the Planet to Discover Facebook

admin — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:29:49 +0000

From time to time I must admit that, as hip as I think I am, I retreat into my corner of the net, refusing to acknowledge any new trends or technologies out there. It’s even more shameful that I consider myself a web entrepreneur, hell bent on bringing the world the next awesome web service.

Apparently I’ve been ignoring Facebook, and FOR SHAME! It’s great!

Why?

No songs playing
No seizure inducing backgrounds
No autoplay videos
Intelligent contextual prompts
Consistent, fast loading css layout
Small font
Advertising is minimally invasive

That’s enough to get my vote.

Network Loops == More Work For Me

admin — Sat, 10 May 2008 02:18:09 +0000

When I think of an enjoyable, relaxing Friday night, I do not envision running around my company’s data center, tracing cables, logging into switches and routers via console trying to track down a network loop.

So, it’s 10pm now, and the problem has been resolved. Only 3 hours, too!

Network loops are particularly annoying with less-than-ideal network configurations, or networks that are using overloaded and/or aging products. We use a couple of Foundry BigIrons as our core switches, and no matter how many Foundry technicians we throw at them, they always seem to have spanning tree problems.

I’m sure many of you would have words of wisdom for me, but let’s just say that I’ll be a happier person when we move on to a more stable, modern, and solid network configuration. (Note: I’m not slighting Foundry, just our particular *use* of this Foundry equipment.

The Blog is Dead – Long Live (This) Blog!

admin — Fri, 09 May 2008 23:05:36 +0000

Many people have blogged before, but each perspective is a new angle, a new reality, a new outlook on this world. I humbly submit some of my own thoughts, theories, rants, advice and observations loose in the ether, and look forward to seeing what it returns.