Merry Dealmess

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone. May any deals you've been waiting on get closed last minute and fall into this quarter's budget.

Looking for BDMs in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane

I'm currently recruiting Senior BDMs in the software sales space, Microsoft and Oracle products, specifically ERP, CRM, BI and Document Management. Previous experience a must. Roles have uncapped commission with OTEs ranging from $260k-$360k depending on breadth and depth of experience.

Click here to see the job on LinkedIn

or

Click here to see the job on Seek

How to Write a Stand Out Sales CV

As a recruiter I read through CVs for people applying for revenue generating roles on a daily basis. It continues to astounds me how people who can put a sales pitch together for a client, can't work out what to put on their CV.

The problem is compounded with the fact that candidates often think I'm in the business of finding jobs for people. If that was the service I was providing, I would be charging for it. (n.b. in Australia it is against the law to charge someone for finding them a job. You can charge for services like CV writing, but not for submitting candidates for roles).

My job is finding the best employee I can for my client or prospect. It boggles my mind even more when I have a sales manager or director apply for a job and get annoyed that I didn't submit the CV to my client. If they were on the other side of the fence receiving a CV (and a hefty invoice) from me, they would be annoyed that the candidate had absolutely no relevant experience.

With all this in mind, I thought I would put together a little guide on how to craft a CV that sells you and your skills as the best solution to fit company's problem (i.e. the vacancy). This is not a guide for submitting CVs to Recruiters but just in general what a CV needs to contain to help win you that job.

First imagine you are putting together a brief or a marketing document for your client. What would it contain? Well a CV is very much a marketing document and the same sort of information is needed.

This is how your document should start:

• Easily accessible contact information (with multiple methods of contact) should be prominently displayed on the first page so that who ever is reading it doesn't need to flip to the end to find your number or e-mail. Also include relevant social media links (i.e. LinkedIn).
• This first part should also include your address. Often if I'm recruiting for a client in an inconvenient location, the first CVs I will look at are from people who live close by. This can't be you if you don't include your location.
• An executive summary that highlights WHY they should interview you. This is not a summary of your career history but a summary of what skills you have as compared to what they are looking for, with specific measurable indicators. E.g. "Successfully built a pipeline of worth of $2M RFPs in 6 months from a zero base" or "Currently selling IT solutions involving Global Transformation projects for MNCs with an average deal size of $20M and an annual target of $60M TCVs"
• An outline of what will be contained in the document - i.e. A list of what jobs you worked, for what company and for how long so that your entire career history can be seen at a glance.

If this takes more than one page you are making a major mistake, especially if you are applying for a job and I haven't headhunted you. The first thing I do after I open the CV of an unknown candidate is scroll down to find the last job. If I have to scroll through 3 pages of "skills" and "summaries" to get to this vital information it reflects poorly on you.

Why am I first looking at your most recent job? If you're applying to be a Mega Deals BDM and you're last job was a cashier at Coles I would be wasting my time looking at anything else. If you think I'm joking I get something like this at least once a week. As a headhunter my job is to find someone already doing the job for a competitor who wants to move companies.

Next is a question - where do you put your education? If you've recently completed an MBA it's worth showing that off. As a result put the degree you have, where you obtained it and the year you finished (or are finishing). Otherwise I would strongly recommend putting your education at the back. I've had clients specify that my candidates have a degree in the job description and yet never bring it up when the candidate I sent them comes straight from a competitor.

Now it's time for your work history - the most important part of a CV. Your last job should have the most information (unless it was a short contract or incredibly brief stint), followed by a little less for your second, less still for your third and much less for everything else. If your career spans over 15 years, you can start grouping jobs together, e.g. "10 years various entry level sales experience" followed by a list, e.g. "1986-1990 AM at IBM; 1990-1992 Senior AM at Oracle; 1992-1997 Key AM at SAP".

Your entire CV should be no longer than 3-4 pages. It is a marketing document not a proposal or an RFP. It's there to sell you and should be enough to close the employer on a meeting with you. The reason CVs tend to blow-out to 10+ pages is people spending too much time on their experience.

Each job needs to be structured in a very orderly way. Use bold, underlined or increased font size to identify the company you worked for and what role you worked. Next to these two put the dates you worked. It doesn't matter what is first, the date or the company/title but put them next to each other rather than line after line.
Underneath put a brief sentence that describes what the company does, or if it's big what divison you worked for.

e.g.--
Microsoft - Senior Account Manager - 2009-Present
Microsoft Cloud Solutions division (e.g. Office 365, Dynamics CRM & Sharepoint on the Cloud)
------

Short, easy to read and easy to find when scrolling through a page.

Now it's time for "responsibilities". I'm very torn about this because everyone in the industry should know what a BDM or AM does, there is no need to write things like "closing sales". Duties should highlight how much of the sales cycle you look after. It should show how much you cover of all of the following: make go-to-market and marketing material, prospect, identify opportunities, cold call, account plan, account manage, relationship manage, visit clients or sell on the phone, put together bids and proposals, put together RFPs and tenders, gather requirements, create pre-sales architecture, manage service delivery, up-sell existing clients & customer retention.

I think it's important to very briefly highlight which of these duties you are responsible for without going on for more than 1 or 2 sentences or bullet points.

The most important part of your time at any company is your key achievements. People trust your ability to close sales based on your past experience closing sales. So you need to list:

• Sales you've made that are significant (including the products/services sold, $ value of the deal and name of the company, if not the name at least a strong indicator, e.g. "Major Australian bank" or "Leading News organisation")
• Your YTD Sales (or pipeline)
• Your last few years results (and whether it's Financial or Calendar Years)

If you are not including these achievements on your CV you are going to lose out to people who are. Imagine you are selling a product to a client that will save them money on admin costs and you don't list HOW with specific examples and dollar values.

Even better would be showing case studies that highlight how you've helped people save money in the past. That's exactly what your career history is - a list of case studies where you were used a sales person.

As a summary this is what a good CV contains:

• Easily accessible contact information at the top of the CV
• A brief 1 page or less executive summary, including outline of work history
• A 2-3 page summary of career history
• Key achievements for each company you've worked for, which show how much revenue you are capable of billing, what products you've had experience selling and what kinds of clients you have experience selling to

Additional Tips:

• If you want to include "skills" put them at the end. For those recruiters that have massive databases and use key-word searches the computer reads the CV so it doesn't matter where the skills are. Headhunters don't care what "skills" are written on your CV, only what work you can prove you've done before.
• Don't include your hobbies, photos or any witty comments/statements
• Don't include a career statement or objective. Companies don't care what you want as an employee, they care what you can do for them.
• Don't include personal information that could be used to discriminate against you (marital status, religion, number of children, etc).
• If you're sending the CV for a particular job make sure your CV shows how you meet the key selection criteria. E.g. if you need experience winning new business in the Real Estate industry, include clients you've won in the Real Estate industry. If your CV is just going to a recruiter with no particular role in mind simply highlight your absolute best achievements.

Formatting Tips:

• Don't get too fancy with Word formatting - no columns, no text boxes, no dividers, no paragraph indenting, no tables and definitely no clip-art
• Use the [TAB] key instead of making heaps of spaces.
• Send .doc files, especially to recruiters. Don't send PDFs which can't be edited or any weird format which can't be opened. And don't send .docx files.

My final tip - if you're applying for a sales role you should be calling the recruiter. Would you land a sale from a cold lead by e-mailing them a proposal and an invoice? If you're interested in the role, pick up the phone and call, and keep trying till you get them.

Government IT Projects - Part 2

I recently wrote a post about Government IT Projects and talked about articles that came down on failed and expensive projects. And just the other day I read an article in the Herald about failed government IT projects. Schools IT scheme a 'stuff up'.

It's often the media and political opponents of the current administration that are the first to blame the government - as though the current leaders personally chose Project Managers and Vendors. In fact Government Projects in general are very prone to failure because of the nature of bureaucracy and red tape. In fact a consulting firm called Calleam Consulting has a global "Catalogue of Failure" also grouped by "Classic Mistakes" for failed government projects.

I think it's important to emphasise again - IT projects are generally prone to failure and the larger the project the more likely it is to be delivered late and over budget. In reading a recent article on Project Community Online about Mega Projects I discovered an interesting statistic - 65% of projects valued over $1B fail to meet their initial parameters often blowing out in budget and time by large amounts.

IT projects are emergent - the more parts that interact and the more people they have to interact with - the more unexpected properties emerge from the systems. It is perhaps a failure of modern day project management and IT development methodologies but there is no sure fire way to develop a solution that does what it's supposed to and at the same time estimate how much it will cost or how long it will take before it's done.

Often the sales person, deal maker or BDM who put the solution together gets the blame as the front face of the consulting firm when it is the fault of poor project management, project teams or lack of co-operation by the client. Often it's the project managers who get blamed and then sacked because the salesperson involved in the project over sold the consulting firms capabilities.

Next time you see the failure of your tax dollars to deliver an effective IT solution just remember - projects are hard to deliver. This failure should not encourage MORE oversight because it is the red tape that likely contributed to the failure. Like a commercial organisation, perhaps governments need to factor in risk in taking on any project and measure the cost-benefit or benefit-risk ratio and decide - is it worth putting the money in even if the project fails. It's also important to keep track of how many projects fail and why.

In the end the media is always going to make a big deal out of government failure and the opposition is always going to use it to win votes. But IT innovation is the way of the future. In my opinion it's worth taking the risk because the risk of getting left behind is worse.

Introduction to Sales - Part 6: Always Be Closing

A friend of mine is starting a commission only sales job and he asked me to help him with getting started. So I thought I would share my insights to him and ask for any feedback from the people out there. This series of posts will focus on an introduction to selling and how to get started from a zero base with no previous experience.

In Retail, Telesales, Inside Sales, Car Sales or any sales with a short sales cycle the Always Be Closing (ABC) mantra is king. If you don't ask every prospect for the sale every time you risk losing a sale to the next salesperson they speak to.

In a Business Development or Account Management role sales cycles are longer. For many of my candidates in enterprise IT services sales, the sales cycles can last 6 months to a year. At that level it's no longer about closing but about moving the process along and keeping all stakeholders engaged.

But at that middle level, that's where the ABC mantra can get a bit ambiguous. The idea is that you always want to close on SOMETHING. And that something needs to make progress. Closing isn't just about getting them to agree to a deal and sign a contract but about all the little things that can get  you there. Sometimes you close on the idea of keeping you in mind, or accepting marketing collateral so that they remember you next time you call.

To make this process easier, I've created a small flow chart that shows you how to close every phone call:

Connecting on LinkedIn or E-mailing brochures or marketing information should be the last resort and the client will often accept and then completely forget. The idea is that next time you call they will remember who you are if they taken even the most cursory glance at the information.

Next time you call it can be to ask a question, see if they want a free promotion or product, drop off a Christmas gift, ask for their expertise or call to just touch base. They are more likely to remember you if your last interaction involved a concession from them.

This tactic also works on getting past the gatekeeper. First ask for their help, see if they can organise a conversation between you and the required party. If they won't put you through or give you their direct line, ask if you can send a proposal to them and if they could pass it on to the required party. If they say no to that, ask if they might know anyone they can refer you to.

In essence, you can consider it a 'close' if they have agreed to any proposal from you - no matter how minor. It's called the foot in the door technique. Next time you ask for a little more and use the previous situation to build rapport.

Read Part 5 (Getting Past the Gatekeeper)

Cloud Security Reality vs The Sales Pitch

Sales people are often given the features of their product that they need to pitch to clients only to find out that the product simply can't do what is claimed. Cloud security is certainly not the first time this has ever happened, but it's just hit the media.

This article in the Herald titled "Cloud Security Evaporates in Testing" described how security firm "Pure Hacking" discovered that they could gain "'domain administrator' access over the unnamed cloud provider's network at the company's request."

"[They were] able to identify typical web 
application vulnerabilities such as cross-site scripting (code injection where malicious scripts are injected into trusted web sites), as well as 
more critical cloud security flaws, such as a lack of access controls that enables an attacker to gain unauthorised access to other users' web application accounts."

Considering how much cloud solutions have been in the media you would think this sort of study would be done *before* doing full product launches. Perhaps that's not possible and maybe this is why we need early adopters. But I'm continually surprised by the difference between actual capabilities of a product or service and what sales people are actually told. As sales people reading this, think about this - were you told to assure your clients that your cloud solutions were 100% secure? Did you have any actual evidence to back up that this was the case?

No wonder a lot of CIOs out there are sceptical about the security of new products. Ultimately though a lot of the sales people I speak to said they were aware of potential un-known security issues of public cloud and co-location. In general they have been recommending private or on-premise alternative solutions to clients who had mission critical and secure data concerns, though pointing out the obvious problem - the cost savings will not be as drastic.

What are your personal USPs?

I speak to senior BDMs on a daily basis about the possibility of making a move or about potential roles in IT sales. Many of them are selling solutions valued in the millions and often tens of millions. When I do a more formal interview I ask them all one question - "What are your USPs as a salesperson?"

Invariably I get these two from almost everyone:
 - Strong communication skills
 - Ability to build strong relationships

Let's face it, you wouldn't be selling at the level you are if those two were not your key strengths. But I wouldn't consider them UNIQUE Selling Points. I've heard USP pitches from many companies about their products and from many sales people about their abilities and everyone seems to confuse unique selling points with strengths.

Your strengths are the reason that your product or service is worth buying. Your USPs are the reason someone should buy from you instead of someone else. When it comes to your company, you should know the answer to questions like: Why should I take your $3000/day enterprise architects to run with this project, instead of someone else's $3000/day enterprise architects? Why should I take your 5 year service contract with a $5M TCV instead of your competitors?

But when a company is choosing who to hire you should be able to answer a similar question about yourself: Why would I hire you instead of someone with identical experience?

The problem comes to me all the time. A sales person thinks they are the greatest and that they can definitely sell XYZ company's solution yet they've never sold anything like it before and worse they are competing against people who have. So why on earth would they hire you? And if you are interviewing for a role you are likely competing with people who look exactly like you on paper. If the best you have to differentiate yourself is "Strong communication skills" or "Strong relationship building skills", you will lose out.

So go deeper with your answer. WHY do you build better relationships than other sales people? Why are you more likely to get facetime with a decision maker than someone else? Why are you more effective in communicating with people than other sales people? Why do you understand technical people, c-level stakeholders and internal & external stakeholders?

Here are some good answers to these questions:
"I started by career in a technical capacity, but I've also run my own successful business so I intricately understand both technical and also business critical thinking."

"My address book is filled with the phone numbers of CIOs and CEOs of multiple blue-chip companies with whom I regularly have dinner and play golf"

"I just understand how things work. When you take a reference from one of my clients they will back me up in saying that I understood their business, their needs and their pain points and that I picked all this up quickly"

Your USPs just have to be 'unique enough' that the person you're competing with for that role isn't going to have the same abilities, reach or understanding. So what are your personal USPs? Imagine you were sitting opposite Bill Gates, Larry Page, Donald Trump, Rupert Murdoch or perhaps a new up-and-coming CEO and entrepreneur. Why would they be stupid not to hire you to grow their business?

Introduction to Sales - Part 5: Getting Past the Gatekeeper

A friend of mine is starting a commission only sales job and he asked me to help him with getting started. So I thought I would share my insights to him and ask for any feedback from the people out there. This series of posts will focus on an introduction to selling and how to get started from a zero base with no previous experience.

What exactly is a gatekeeper? And how do you go about getting past one?

Ultimately the people in a business capable of buying your product or service are fairly high up the food chain. Managers and directors are either assigned budgets on which they have a discretionary spend or have the authority to approach the procurement team for purchase orders.

If you can show the value of what your selling to the right person, then they will weigh up whether or not to spend the money they have available to them on your product or service, or if it could be better utilised elsewhere.

As for CEOs and Owners, ultimately money they spend on your products is money that interferes directly with how much they earn. So they are the only people who can make very top level decisions.

As a result there is no point in selling to a receptions, secretary or assistant because no matter how good or useful your product is it won't benefit them. Yet they stand between you and a conversation with the decision maker to show them why they should buy from you. They are "the gatekeeper".

In my mind there are 5 methods for getting past the gatekeeper that should be utilised in this order:

1. Have the decision maker approach you for your services
2. Get introduced through a mutual 3rd party
3. Have the direct contact details of the decision maker
4. Have the gatekeeper help you out and position you in a positive way to the decision maker
5. Convince the gatekeeper that you're someone important, so much so that it would jeopardise their job to make you wait

1-2 are a little advanced for an introduction to sales and I'm certainly not experienced enough with them to advise anyone. They involve marketing, networking and developing a personal brand. Option 3 can be purchased, can be acquired through networking or you can use 4-5 to obtain it. Most of the time when you enter a new market 4-5 are your best options.

For a good introduction to getting around the gatekeeper try my blog-post on the Top 4 Methods I've Heard for Getting Past the Gatekeeper.


Read Part 4 (The Sales Call)

Read Part 6 (Always Be Closing)

Introduction to Sales - Part 4: The Sales Call

A friend of mine is starting a commission only sales job and he asked me to help him with getting started. So I thought I would share my insights to him and ask for any feedback from the people out there. This series of posts will focus on an introduction to selling and how to get started from a zero base with no previous experience.

So it's time to make your first call. If it's literally the first sales call you've ever made you are going to be nervous. The two things you need to keep in mind are 1) Just do it, and 2) Keep up the momentum.

By "Just do it" I mean that without thinking you pick up the phone and you dial the number and just clear your mind till the person answers. It's a bit like throwing yourself in the deep end.

By "Keep up the momentum" I mean don't stop at 1 call, or 5 calls or 10 calls. Just keep calling one straight after the other until you have no one left on the list you were given or developed during your research. Depending on the size of your market your research phase should give you up to 100 companies to call.

If your market is particularly small and there's only a few dozen then you need to really make sure each call is effective and I would suggest tapping your network to get an introduction so that it's a 'warm' call rather than a 'cold' call.

So how do you start? The conversation should flow fairly naturally and you should try solicit help from the first person you speak to. Try "Hi [Repeat Their Name], I'm hoping you can help me with something, would you be able to tell me who looks after XYZ" or "Hi [Name], would you be able to tell me who the XYZ Manager is at ABC Company?".

Here is a simple flowchart for getting a hold of the right person:

Now it's time to start selling. I recently did a LinkedIn poll which prompted a discussion about the best way to start a sales call. The general consensus was not to waste time with platitudes such as asking how they are. This is a good time to consider your "elevator pitch" from previous sessions and it should include a direct value proposition - How will your product or service help the prospect a) Make Money, b) Save Money, c) Stay Competitive, d) Remain up-to-date with legislation or emerging technologies, e) increase efficiency, f) network with similar people, g) any other major benefit of the product.

Ultimately all other benefits link into a) Make Money or b) Save Money but will need to be tweaked depending on which decision maker you are speaking to (see Part 3 - Research).

Open the call by introducing yourself - "This is Joe Blogs from XYZ". The next thing you say will depend very much on your market and you may vary it depending on who you speak to and their tone but here are potential things to follow up with:

• "I Appreciate you are very busy, so I will only take a moment of your time."
• "Have I called at a good time?" (This can come AFTER your value proposition if you can explain it in less than 5 seconds)
• "We haven't spoken before" (this let's them know that they don't have to pretend to know you"

Immediately after this you have 3 options:

• "At XYZ we provide a Super Named Product that can save your company up to 30% on administration costs." (Then pause and wait for them to ask "What is it?", "How does it work?" or "tell me about it". Sometimes they'll just say "OK" and you'll have to go on selling.)
• "Would it be alright if I asked you 3 questions to determine if my product can help increase revenue by 5%?" (assuming they say yes ask your 3 qualifying questions)
• "Would you be interested in finding out about a product that can could reduce your maintenance costs by $1M over 5 years?"

From here you want to get into a brief conversation with the client about how it works. E.g. "Our lightbulbs use innovative technology to reduce your energy bill by half each month". This is where your elevator pitch comes in.

After you've told them about the product and briefly how it works you need to close. If you're a telesales person you need to close on sending them information they can look at while you explain the product in more detail (hoping to get them to fill out an order form while you're on the phone). If you're a BDM you want the person to agree to meet with you so that you can show them how your product will achieve the benefit their looking for.

Read Part 3 (Research)