The Recruiting Animal

How To Sell

Before the advent of department stores, small retailers used their front windows in a straightforward manner to put their goods on display. The big department store windows were different. They were used to put on a display meant to charm and amaze.

Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, was a window dressers and founded the National Association of Window Trimmers. "Even the male mind, naturally obtuse upon such matters, is forced to marvel at the beauty of the display," he said.

What's the lesson here? Sell the sizzle not the steak. The plain goods are not as emotionally compelling as the context in which they are presented.

That's why some recruiting firms rent fancy offices in downtown towers. But how can theatrics make a job seem magical when the person you are presenting it to understands it quite well? Doesn't familiarity with something that is probably not a dramatic change, rule out big dreams?

Reference: Froma Harrop

Against Hard Selling

The last time I was in Macy's to test-drive a sofa, four different sales gnats came buzzing around me in search of a commission.

Fire the hard-sellers, lower the price of the sofa by $200 and you've got IKEA, where most items can simply be picked up and rolled out the door. At the entrance there is a sign: "No one will bother you."

-- Kyle Smith via Matt Welch

How to Overcome Skepticism

Source: Brian Clark

We aren't suckers. We aren't gullible rubes. We have been subjected to so much advertising that we have been trained, properly, to be skeptical. We know that we shouldn't simply believe.

So how does a poor recruiter get through to this kind of sophisticate? You have to prove somehow that you know what you're up to and that you're not out to bamboozle anyone.

What does that mean? That you have to build a relationship first. Before you do business you have to get them to trust you. It takes time but you'll have many opportunities to make deals after you've convinced someone that you do deliver the goods.

This makes tutorial marketing on a blog a smart way to present yourself online.

A free introduction to your subject starts the relationship and your regular blog postings keep it going. And eventually, you’ll turn some readers into candidates or clients and get some referrals.

The ongoing value of an ongoing relationship is much greater than what you get by asking for someone's business as soon as you say hello. Old-school closing techniques just make people see you as a social predator who disrespects them and only wants to push them around.

Irresistable Offers

A blogger wants her readers to subscribe, bookmark the site, make comments, respond to surveys and use the info supplied.

But how do you get people to act? You make them an offer. An offer is a conditional promise. "If you do this, you'll get this." How do you make an offer they can't refuse? Offer something they want.

Domino’s pizza was not, apparently, the greatest but who could refuse delivery in 30 minutes or free? The guarantee had explosive power.

Online, offers must be fast to read and so clear that they can be understood in no time at all. The first thing to remember though is that if you don't make offers people don't act.

Source: Copyblogger

Dreaming in Technicolor

When Obama was spending time, at the beginning of the campaign, discussing policy, he was euthanizing his campaign. There is no policy wonking when he is speaking to the tens of thousands in rallies that make lesser candidates green the envy. -- Charles Adler, National Post

The moral of this story: dreams inspire, technical discussions don't. Recruiters are often advised to sell the sizzle when they present a job to a potential candidate. But, in fact, what are their dreams made of but opportunties to use their technical expertise.

How To Be Persuasive

Focus on dramatic consequences.

Your bait has to be dramatic to create a decision to bite.

1. list every element (feature) of your offering
2. ask what benefit each feature offers
3. translate each benefit into dramatic consequences that are emotionally compelling

Example:
1. For instance, a job offers free parking.
2. That saves you ten dollars a day.
3. No one is going to be excited about earning ten dollars more a day but three thousand a year might be compelling.

1. Free parking is the feature
2. Ten dollars a day is the bland benefit
3. Three thousand per year is the dramatic consequence

To get dramatic consequences you have to package your message correctly. Otherwise your benefits are bland. Bland Benefits are real but they aren't dramatic enough to drive action.

Use the Forehead Test to decide if your benefits are dramatic and compelling. Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night, slap your forehead and say, "Gee, I want that!" Only dramatic consequences will qualify.

Source: Copyblogger

Selling Internally

When I recruit people my client or project manager often wants to know if a candidate has had strong experience selling her ideas within a firm. The importance of selling risk-laden ideas to the major internal stakeholders of an organization is demonstrated in W's need to sell The Surge to the military after the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended retreat.

The existence of a plausible alternative was not enough. Two tasks remained before him before bucking the consensus. The first was the organizational challenge of persuading the military chiefs the alternative plan was correct -- a sales job. -- The Belmont Club

The military, in Bush's view, has to be treated with special deference and tact. "One of the most important jobs of a commander in chief, and particularly in a time of war, is to be thoughtful and sensitive about the U.S. military," he said. Bush believes in persuading the military to embrace his policies rather than simply imposing them. -- Weekly Standard

It would appear, as well, that the identities of the salesmen were key factors in the success of the sale: the president and Robert Gates.

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Intuitive Leaders Understand Intuitive Markets

Ordinary people look for facts to help them make decisions. Visionary CEO's make intuitive decisions and then back them up with facts.

Following an intuitive leader is scary because there is little logical support for their decisions. To work with them, you have to believe that their hunches are well-informed.

And, this confidence is based, in part, on the knowledge that great business people are, generally, intuitive. This is what allows them to understand the buying decisions of their market -- which are also intuitive.

Buying decisions are not based on logical deductions from facts so it takes someone who doesn't operate that way to be sensitive to the factors that influence them.

Source: Trenchwars.

Those Who Can't Do Should Teach

The second-rate salesperson should be a manager says Wendell Williams.

A top salesperson is a child, a bottomless pit of craving for ego-validation from sales and public recognition for her victories. She operates on instinct like an animal and will say anything necessary to get her prey.

She doesn't care too much about product knowledge because facts are not the main basis of her sales. And, someone who acts without conscious thought cannot teach anyone else to do what she does.

The second-rate salesman, on the other hand, wants to help his client. He doesn't tell the client what to do, he doesn't pitch; he asks a lot of questions and uses product knowledge to help the client make a well-informed decision.

This consultant-type sales person does not have a ravenous hunger so his priority is solving customers' problems, not persuading them to buy. And, he isn't a natural so he has to think about what he does and, because of that, can explain it to someone else. Also, being less of an egotist, he can enjoy letting his students shine.