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Sales People: You Really Can't Sell "Anything"

This comes up a lot when we work on high level sales positions. Normally I like to source through my network, work for referrals (I am currently 7 referrals deep with some of these people) and sniff out people from competitors.

Well, last week we got a very urgent search directly from the CEO of a hardware company. I wrote the job description and because our time table is so constrained, I put it on a couple of job boards.

In a nutshell, we need a VP of sales who knows computer hardware and how to sell through retail channels. The job is here in Austin - you either need to live here or move here.

Despite the clear description of the product line and the type of sales and the level of the position, I have received over 100 resumes and not a single one of them has been qualified enough to present to our client. I have people selling everything from diesel engines to time shares to paper bags to bathroom fans and everything in between. I have called a few of them - partly out of courtesy and partly out of curiosity and one or two because I thought their resume might just be unclear.

The response I get is almost universal: "How hard can it be? I can sell anything!". Whether it is true or not, it is not a credible statement.

I realize this post is in danger of becoming a rant. I do think it is important for people looking for a job to understand how they present themselves. Telling a recruiter you can "sell anything" completely misses the point that it does not matter what you think - it matters what the hiring manager thinks. Hiring a truck sales person to sell your line of new fangled nano blade servers is paramount to career suicide.

When I talk to people who are qualified to do the work, they ask questions. They consider and they muse. Pretty soon, I start selling them (just a little). They resist. They are currently successful and a move is always risky - the wrong move could set their career back by years and cost them hundreds of thousands in lost income. Most of them take the graceful way out and refer someone. I walk away impressed and the search continues.

Talent War Tactics: Start Date Incentive (SDI)

A recruiting manager sent me a very interesting little nugget this morning. The following was part of an actual offer letter that went out to a project manager in October of last year (it worked, they started early):

In consideration of the value of starting earlier than anticipated, you will earn a $2,000 signing bonus payable within your first two months of employment, if you are able to start on or before 10/22/07.  This offer is not contingent upon that start date and is still valid for a start date as late as 11/5/07. This signing bonus is optional and only for consideration of an early start date.

I posted on the soon to be extinct custom of giving two weeks notice last year (ok, it was barely 3 weeks ago) but this is the first actual example I have been able to verify. The company that used this tactic was in a lot of pain and needed this person to start as soon as possible.

Sun Tzu was a Sissy

This looks like a silly book. I wish I had written it.  Most interesting is that the reviews are an inverse bell curve (people seem to love or hate it)-  actually most people gave it 1 star, but it sounds pretty funny. Sacred cows making the best hamburgers and all...

Was he really a sissy? Depends on your definition. The 498 concubines that he didn't kill probably have a unique perspective.

Beware of Titles

I was talking to a corporate recruiting manager the other day about some of his recent career success. In less than 2 years, he went from internal recruiter to recruiting manager to doubling the size of the department and acquiring responsibility for their HR people.

His current title is manager (for over a year now) but he reports to the VP. I asked him if he was asking for the director title and he said he thought it was a bad idea. He thought they would give it to him if he pressed the issue but he was taking the long view.

Most recruiters and many business people have seen the phenomena of individuals running a sole proprietorship and passing out business cards with "President/CEO" as the title. That is all well and good even if it seems a bit silly (favorite title on local card: "Chief Banana"), but it raises eyebrows when we see it on a resume - especially if it is sandwiched between low level positions. It says something about a persons business savvy when they do that.

The recruiting manager wanted no part of that game. Company revenues are under $20Million and he felt that a 2 year transition from recruiter to "HR Director" cheapened the title. Kind of reminded me of the Groucho Marx quote: "I would not join any club that would have me as a member". I admired his restraint and willingness to take the long view.

In your quest to attain that title, make sure you can back it up and that your career track looks legitimate. Taking a more modest or realistic title (like manager) in a small or family owned business makes you look balanced, realistic and disciplined as opposed to maniacal.

Patterns of Conflict

We are implementing Bullhorn starting this week and my morning will be consumed mostly by training.

If you are at all interested in strategy, then you must keep www.Belisarius.com on your short list. The subtitle "War, Chaos and Business" does a good job of setting the stage; at the end of the day, strategy is about successfully navigating through chaos. It is not updated frequently (every few months) but it is one of my favorite websites.

The content of the site revolves around a concept developed by USAF Col. John Boyd called "OODA", which stands for "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act" in his presentation called "Patterns of Conflict". You can see a moderately complex diagram here and read a fairly interesting article about him and the OODA loop at fastcompany.com and Robert Greene posted last year on the OODA loop specifically.

The nutshell version is that when we are in any kind of conflict from a chess game to a tennis match, basketball game, marketing campaign or an actual military engagement, we are all, both as individuals and as a group, constantly running this OODA process. The faster we can complete the loop, the faster we can respond properly to a chaotic, emergent situation. The goal is to shorten our own loops through training, awareness, trust based leadership and personal competence while lengthening our opponents loops through confusion, uncertainty, fear, surprise, lack of communication, etc.

We could probably use a good practical example here but it will have to wait. Dig into the whitepapers and books at Belisarius and I will revisit this topic in the near future.

Art of War - 5 Faults

You might want to go read chapter 8 at Sonshi real quick. Sun Tzu lists 5 character flaws that can be exploited in a general:

He who is reckless can be killed. 
Undue bravery and risk taking is the flaw of placing your personal desires for credit or excitement above the objective of victory or success. It can also indicate an inability to delegate.

He who is cowardly can be captured. 
In our time, someone who is afraid of being fired can become a prisoner of their job. Excessive indebtedness can heighten this fear and tempt you to keep your job at almost any cost. Desperation is not admirable and will not help you advance.

He who is quick tempered can be insulted.   
Taking things personally - whether it is rejection, disappointment or criticism can distract, drain and diminish you in the eyes of others. Once people know you have a chip on your shoulder, you are easily baited and manipulated.

He who is moral can be shamed.
This is not about being immoral, but about fearing the appearance of immorality and how that fear is leverage. If too much of your self concept or credibility is wrapped up in appearing moral, you are vulnerable to subtle (and overt) forms of blackmail, extortion and defamation.

He who is fond of the people can be worried.
Sometimes sacrifices must be made. Military examples abound but in business, you may have to layoff 20% of your staff to avoid a total shut down and if you are unable to prioritize the survival of the enterprise and the jobs of the many over the jobs of the few, your lack of foresight may result in total loss.

At first glance, most of these flaws have little to do with modern life. What is interesting to us is the underlying principle of vision and character. These flaws are rooted in an inability to place long term success over short term adherence to personal ideals.

There are times when it might be likely to be killed in battle.  I hope by now you have seen the movie "300" or you are at least familiar with the story. The Spartans goal was not to die for their country although they knew that was certain. Their goal was to "attack the plan" of King Xerxes so that that Athens could be warned of the impending Persian onslaught. The distinction here is that the death of the Spartan defenders was not the means or the goal of King Leonidas, but rather a consequence of his principled strategy.

These five faults are related to one of the central concepts of Art of War which is "formlessness". This concept is intentionally left vague and is the subject of much debate and discussion. My take - at least in relation to the five faults is that it is dangerous to assume a permanent and unbending stance.

It is easy to see how this can happen if you are familiar with Marcus Buckingham's concept of talent and personal strengths. Early in life, we all develop different preferred patterns for interacting with others, making sense of our world and motivating ourself to do something. Whether we orient towards a more competitive vs. cooperative style or perceive the world in concrete or abstract terms. Our preferred patterns of thinking are self reinforcing so the more we utilize our talent for including others or looking toward the future, the more we enjoy them and stronger they become.

The danger is that we use our own internal standard of what feels good and comes easily to order our values without considering the long term consequences. This may well be a modern twist on the first flaw:

When I was younger, I could argue with the wrong people (like my boss), about the wrong things and do it at the wrong times (in front of other people) to the wrong degree. I did it because I was good at it and I liked to show off, look smart and challenge the status quo. What I did not appreciate was that other people did not enjoy argument as sport and that short term joy of "winning" could have longer term consequences that impacted some of my other, more important values (like career advancement).

These days, I still like to discuss and debate, but I keep it on a leash. I consider the setting, what is at stake and if I do engage, my goal is to persuade and win others over for the purpose of realizing important, long term objectives. Being conscious of our tendencies and automatic behaviors is one of the most important aspects of knowing yourself.

Dumb people in Mensa

This is an impulse post so I will keep it brief. I just got a resume from someone that seemed reasonable on the phone - I scan through it and near the end I see:

"Member of MENSA since 1999"

This person hung up on me when I let him know that despite his education and PMP certification, spending the last 5 years selling retail electronics has not qualified him for a $120-$140k Sr. Program Manager job.

How can someone who is supposed to be so smart be so dumb?

For future reference, here are some things to leave off your resume:

1. Anything to do with knives or guns or swords (unless you are a gunsmith, etc)
2. Anything to do with video games, especially World of Warcraft (unless you design video games)
3. Political or religious affiliations (unless directly related to the job)
4. Your picture. Recruiters will tell you there is an inverse relationship between how attractive someone is and how likely they are to include a picture in their resume. The engineering profession is rife with this practice and it does not help anyone.
5. Anything related to the adult industry (yeah, you know, unless it is somehow relevant). If you were a stripper or worked in an adult book store or designed adult websites, in most cases, you should just leave that stuff off. You will not be breaking the law - I promise.
6. Don't list "President/CEO" of your own company if you had less than, say... $500,000 in revenue and especially if you were the only person. The snicker factor is just not worth the ego boost.
7. Anything that is designed to indicate that you are exceptionally smart (Mensa) or good looking (Miss County Fair 1982). It makes you look shallow.

I admit the Mensa thing set me off. It's a pet peeve because I developed a negative association about 5 years ago when I was in the book store. A man and woman in matching sweats (I recall them as sweaty, but that is probably just my bias coloring my memory) talking among themselves in that tone that people use when they want to be overheard:

"DO THEY HAVE THE NEW MENSA CALENDAR?"

"I don't see it"

"wait... what is that?"

"HEY! THEY DO HAVE THE NEW MENSA CALENDAR! I HOPE IT'S BETTER THAN LAST YEARS MENSA CALENDAR!"

And so on.

So - yes, I have a little bit of a bias. I'm human, sue me...

Why you should read 'Art of War'

Art of War is one of those classic works that everyone talks about but not many people read or truly understand. These days it is mostly talked about in the context of business as war. Well, business is not war. Business is business. War is a political tool that a nation uses to enforce its interests. Business is about the pursuit of profit.

You are going to want to read Art of War - not all at once, but take it a few pages at a time. The easiest way is to read the free and excellent translation at Sonshi.

I assume most of the people reading this are not involved in an actual war so the primary question about the usefulness of this book is: "what is my enemy?". After answering the question of "what do I want (out of life)?" this is probably the most useful question you can ask yourself.

Your enemy can be nearly anything but I would caution you from dwelling on the term. Blaming all of your problems on "enemies" might, over time, lead you to shift towards an external locus of control and begin to feel powerless to control your life. For the purpose of this discussion, an enemy represents opportunity to both learn about yourself and take tactical action to advance your strategic interests.

One of the central points of Art of War is the idea that victory is best attained by means other than direct force. Even when you have a significant advantage in size or resources, a direct attack against a well defended opponent is inefficient and uncertain; defense is much stronger than offense.

Sun Tzu writes that we take on invulnerability by defending and vulnerability by attacking. This idea cautions us to wait and watch. What is the best way to ask for a raise or try to increase your head count? It may be less a matter of technique and more about timing and perception.

In business, it can be tempting to compare competitors to an enemy nation and imagine the glory (and profit!) in defeating them. The primary difference between war and business (apart from all the violence) is that if you don't like where your business is or what it is about, you can change it. Pick a new market, sell through different channels or develop an entirely new product line. In war, you do not have the freedom to discard an unsatisfactory opponent or pick a more desirable theater should your enemy start driving tanks over your mountain range.

There are a few key points from Art of War that most people can quickly learn and apply to some part of their life. Whether it is office politics, dealing with a difficult boss, devising a new marketing strategy or dealing with unhappy customers, this book has practical guidance for dealing with conflict in our modern lives.

I will explore some of these as well as other topics in future posts:

• War is about deception
• Attack the plan
• Vulnerability and defense
• The 5 faults of a general

A good portion of this blog will be focused on strategic vision; seeing the future before it happens and delivering it in a way that dispels fear and inspires hope. That is ultimately what Art of War was designed to do - help people understand the purpose of war, remove much of the uncertainty and offer an ultimate ideal - that the greatest of all victories are won without spilling a single drop of blood.