My Quotes Week Day 2 – Secret Satisfaction In Business
“The true excitement and sense of accomplishment is getting that order. The secret satisfaction is being planned, organized and ready to go to market each and every day” – Tim Mushey
My Quotes Week Day 1!
As I was reviewing some notes a while ago, I realized that I had compiled a few personal quotes. I want to share three of my favourites with you this week!
Hope you enjoy it, here is Day 1:
“When you are thrown a fastball in baseball (a good scenario) hit it out of the park. When you are thrown a curveball (some adversity), be patient and don’t swing at it. Take a breath and deal with it. When another fastball comes, hit it out of the park.”
“As you get more experienced with curveballs, you will be able to hit them out of the park too. But when you first see them, they will seem impossible to even make contact with. As you get more experienced, you will be able to succeed, in spite of whatever life and business throws your way.” – Tim Mushey
Saturday Music Memories – Pearl Jam’s Incredible Show!
The date was August 14, 1993 and I was at a music festival in my mom’s home town of Gimli, Manitoba, Canada.
Pearl Jam was still riding on the coattails of their successful debut “10”.
25,000+ jammed in to a muddy field to witness an incredible performance.
I was with some of my best friends and the weekend was excellent thanks to Pearl Jam!
They played this song for sure!
Have A Laugh Friday – Take The Insurance!
I posted this a few months ago and was EXTREMELY disappointed with the lack of views. Ha ha! I was in the car rental industry for over 2 1/2 years after university. If I had a dollar for every time this happened to me, well I would have had about $1000!
I love this clip.
Back to new Have A Laugh Fridays next week.
Have a great weekend!
Job Search Day 3 – Are You Starting To See Dollar Signs?
Hiring managers can “occasionally” overstate potential compensation packages with a sales role during the interview process. Before you have even started the job, you begin to envision how well you are going to do, even before evaluating if it is an achievable goal. I have taken it so far as envisioning how my life will be if I made that amount of money! Silly, but these thoughts can happen if you start to get ahead of yourself.
The success may well happen early on, but realistically it will take longer, possibly years to get up to that level of compensation consistently. Everyone develops in a role at different speeds, and many factors can come in to play regarding earning potential.
They are always people who thrive and over achieve quickly, but they are in the minority. A good question for the hiring manager in the interview process is,
“What are the realistic total compensation numbers (on average) in the first three years on the job?”
If you have little savings, or limited ability to pay for expenses now, you need to consider what size of salary you take, compared to potential commissions and bonuses.
I got a hard dose of reality with this type of situation in one of the roles that I accepted.
I was given a ball park idea of how the previous rep had done in the territory the year before, and it was a fantastic number! I started to see lots and lots of dollar signs! It definitely blurred my vision.
I was very confident in my abilities by that point in my career, and felt great about the role. There was a small issue that the hiring manager failed to mention. The previous rep negotiated to keep all the large accounts in the territory when he moved to another region. These accounts contributed greatly to the overall compensation.
Not only did the previous rep negotiate to keep many of the high producing accounts, the pay plan changed 4 months after I started, taking a good chunk out of the earning potential that was so desirable when I started the job. Things can change in a heartbeat, and it is best to underestimate what you will earn for the first couple of years, and decide from there if you are still comfortable taking the role.
This is especially CRITICAL when you need money right away and accept a role with 100% commission or a limited base salary.
Job Search Day 2 – Don’t Underestimate A Career Aptitude Test!
Over the years when I was interviewing for sales and sales management roles, it was not uncommon for organizations to conduct career aptitude tests as part of the screening process. Although I never enjoyed doing these test, I quickly realized that most organizations put a decent amount of weight in to the results, so I started to put more thought in to my answers.
In general, the tests would cover these categories:
Leadership
This was more typical when I was applying for sales management roles. High scores in this category would show people who were competitive and could lead others at a high level. On the flip side, a low score would describe people who were less dominant and less assertive. I have seen this line of questioning when applying for outside sales rep positions as well. Employers loved to look for future leaders, and they would typically find them within a pool of candidates applying for outside sales positions.
Emotional
High scores would go to those candidates who were calm and even-tempered. A lower score showed that you had a sense of urgency and tended to be emotionally reactive.
Social
They are testing to see what your level of social interaction is. For a sales role, I think it is obvious that you want to score as high as possible. Being talkative by nature, outgoing, and generally engaging are traits that will give high scores in this category. If you are shy and don’t like engaging in conversations, you may want to look for a different profession!
Interpersonal
They are testing how sensitive and empathetic you are. If you are not sensitive to the needs of others and are not tactful, you will score lower. You will be perceived as more forthright and direct.
Task
How rule abiding and detailed focused are you? If you are conventional and meticulous, you will score high. If you are flexible and improvising, you will score lower.
Conceptual
When I first saw this category, my initial thought was how well could you handle different concepts and be open-minded. I was not too far off. They look to how imaginative and open to change you are. If you score lower, you probably prefer more predictability.
In general career aptitude tests tended to be 20 to 30 minutes in length. They were mostly multiple choice questions. I remember there being anywhere between 100 and 175 questions with these tests over the years. After doing a couple tests, I realized that they tended to ask similar questions many ways to uncover patterns in your answers. My advice is to be as consistent as possible in your responses. If you are stumped on any one question, I would not worry about it too much.
There are no right or wrong answers, but you need to think about the characteristics and qualities that they are looking for in an outside rep.
If you are outgoing, very social, motivated to succeed, and can work under limited supervision – those are probably key attributes that they are looking for.
That will be more desirable to an organization hiring an outside sales person than if you are:
Reserved, somewhat shy, like consistent income and need regular supervision.
As I mentioned above, organizations usually will use the test results as one of several criteria for selecting a candidate. I was hired for a role once, where the company put a lot more weight in the test results than I ever would have, but it worked in my favour!
I was down to one of the last two candidates for a role, and I got the job because I did better on the test. I was very fortunate because we were equally matched candidates.
This process was more difficult than any other test that I had ever taken before. The first test was taken during my first interview, and the second test was taken during my third (and last) interview. I think they both took close to one hour, and had 225+ questions.
Those initial feelings that you get about people in the first interview, and subsequently how they handle other interviews should have as much or more weight than test results, but that is just my opinion. I will save a more detailed commentary for a future blog post!
If I was sick, distracted for some reason, or just not having a good day, I would have missed out on a 7 year career that has changed my life forever. That would have not been fair to me, my family or the company who took the other candidate because they did better on these tests.
Saturday Music Memories – Time For A Cover Song!
I stumbled across a new website recently and am really enjoying it!
http://www.CoverMeMaybe.com provides up and coming artists a forum to display their talents via covers of popular songs.
Ryan Malcolm from Low Level Flight does an excellent job of Flo Rida’s “Whistle”.
Enjoy and have an awesome Saturday!
Job Search Day 1 – Don’t By Shy, Apply. You Never Know!
I had four hours to kill last week on an airplane, so I decided to revisit old content that I had archived. I was surprised by how much information I had on job searches; all the way from getting started on a search, culminating with evaluating offers. I will save most of it for the future. Perhaps release it in eBook format!
Until then, here are three of my favourite posts that I dug up and edited. Enjoy day 1!
I absolutely love being the dark horse in the interview process. If I was not expected to get a role, I took it as a personal challenge and stepped my game up to the highest level possible. It is always fun going through the process under those circumstances. There is no pressure on the underdog; just go in and do your best. I would get this type of information by asking the recruiter who I was competing against for an opportunity. Sometimes it was better not to know, but on occasion I would ask and they would tell me.
I know for a fact that I was hired in at least one role that I had no business getting based on minimal experience in a technical field. It was down to four candidates, but I did not let the knowledge that the other candidates had solid industry experience affect my confidence in any way.
I had no pressure on me and did get the role which felt great. I impressed the toughest manager that I ever ended up working for in my career in that interview, and he gave me a shot. I have always told recruiters and/or hiring managers that all I need is the chance to impress during the interview process. Actions speak louder than words, and meeting people face to face confirms that I will shine, and am not just a bunch of credentials on paper.
Do not be afraid to apply for roles that need previous sales or industry experience. What do you have to lose? If they don’t want to meet with you, that is their choice, but at least you are giving them something to think about.
Remember, it is not uncommon for sales reps to work for several different organizations in a specific industry during their career because they have product knowledge and many business contacts. But bad habits can creep in to their day-to-day activities, and I am hearing from mangers recently that they will give more consideration to new reps entering an industry and/or sales all together. It is a breath of fresh air to bring new blood in and not “recycle” the same reps over and over.
Why is that?
New sales reps have a clean slate. They have no preconceived notions about the industry or particular customers. They are excited to have the opportunity to start in a sales role and grow with an organization. Many managers realize that they can train new employees, and teach them product knowledge, as long as they have the skill set to succeed long-term.
My most successful sales role started without industry experience or product knowledge. I was very nervous at first taking the role, but once I learned the product line and account base, it was smooth sailing from there. My tried and tested systems worked once again. I just had to “insert” the new products!
If You Want to See a Hint of Your Future…
Love this quote
If you want to see
a hint of your future,
look at the 6 people
you spend the
most
time with.
Sell, Lead, Succeed! 