The Trouble With Great Employees

In reading that little comic on the left from OneFTE about Finding Answers it ocurred to me that the answer you're looking for is usually with that great employee that just left.

As well as full time work since I was about 16, I have worked a number of part-time and secondary jobs. With all the companies I've worked for both large and small I've seen an interesting pattern. Good employees keep getting assigned more work without getting paid any more money, and eventually leave. When they leave this workload is spread thin across the rest of the work-force with virtually zero handover.

I remember doing tech support and customer service for a telco. When I got promoted into the sales team I left behind a number of additional responsibilities. The ones I can remember were, Training new staff, Developing training material, Gathering requirements for a new CRM, Responding to complaints and escalations and Assisting with interviewing new support staff.

No single person took up more than one of those responsibilities in my wake, and some were abandoned entirely. I'm not saying I'm a "great" employee per se, because I was nothing compared to a colleague of mine. She organised all the social/'company culture' including events, birthdays, games, competitions, etc and she took on responding to complaints and escalations but was already rostering, standing in for team leaders, taking care of inwards correspondence, answering all e-mail queries and I'm certain even more.

The average staff member on the other hand simply took calls and that was the extent of their duties. We happily took on extra responsibility (for no extra money) because we were bored. Our jobs were too easy. That's why I quickly moved into sales and my other colleague left the job as soon as she finished university.

The problem with great employees is that they don't want to be doing what they are great at. They want to take on the next challenge that they can be great at. And if they get bored they get poached (by another department or another company).

That too is the problem with great sales people. They build up massive pipelines, establish strong relationships and loyal clients. And when they leave it all disappears with them.

So how do you utilise great talent, while simultaneously keeping them engaged? The first thing is that you recognise that they won't be doing that job forever. Once you realise that you can start preparing for their departure from day 1. Once they have mastered a new task they've been assigned you need to somehow retain the knowledge they've acquired. Have them record the details of the business process somewhere (company intranet, training manual, etc.).

Now with the knowledge ready to pass on and they are starting to get bored it's time to assign them another task. Once both tasks start to get burdened assign them a less great employee to assist them. The idea is that this 'assistant' will soon replace them.

This does two things : 1) it gives less skilled employees the opportunity to upskill, 2) it stops great employees from getting bored.

Now you need to speak to your stellar performers on a regular basis to find out which tasks they truly enjoy doing and let them keep working on it. You also need a career path for them. Find out what they want to do and keep giving them tasks that take them in that direction. And when it comes time to salary reviews make sure you give them a small boost proportional to the work that they are doing. And try to provide an incentive for any revenue generating work that they do.

How does this apply to sales people?

You can take advantage of this in various ways:
1) Train junior sales people by giving them exposure to great sales people
2) Give great sales people help with admin, research and non-revenue generating activity
3) Preserve the industry knowledge the sales person develops by passing it on to a junior
4) If that sales person leaves there is someone who is already intimately familiar with their pipeline who can step up
5) You can have more people in the company developing the relationships with clients, so that when the sales person leaves they don't take all their clients with them

Now all of the above things take a lot of work and many companies can't afford to have additional headcount to help with tasks that seem trivial. But I would consider it insurance. When great people leave their workload falls on other people who are not prepared for it. As these people get more to do they become stressed and unhappy with their role. Eventually even your average employees start to leave.

I've seen a small number of key resignations have massive knock-on effects for companies. To the CEO or the CFO this would probably be nothing more than a small blip in a P&L statement. But what is lost is the opportunity cost, knowledge/understanding and morale.

And when the people affected by these problems are in a revenue generating capacity it can at best stifle growth and at worst vastly reduce performance.

Are you at the "forefront" of your industry?

There's one part of the IT industry that I spend a lot of time focusing on and every client and prospect I speak to thinks they are the absolute best. On a weekly basis someone tells me "no one is doing what we're doing", "we're at the forefront of our industry", "none of our competitors have a product like ours", etc.

Plenty of my clients complain that "all [us] recruiters sound the same" and that our sales pitches are identical. Why should they use our services if we all sound the same? Based off that feedback I've tried to change my pitch. I don't use any of the standard recruitment buzzwords, I instead go straight for the jugular: "I'm talking to a great salesperson at [your competitor] who wants to make a move, would you be interested in having a chat to them?" It shows that I 1) know their industry because I know exactly what companies they compete with and 2) that I'm willing to back my services with actions (supplying a good candidate) and not empty rhetoric.

But so many of the clients that spend their time scrutinising their suppliers can't articulate why someone would want to work for them - and in particular why they would want to leave a competitor to work for them. They all think that they are revolutionising the IT industry with what they do.

I've been asked about what vendor/service provider someone should use for their business and I referred them to the company that impressed me the most as a recruiter. They weren't a client but they pitched me incredibly well and never once said that they were the best or at the forefront. If you have to say it, it's probably not true.

One of my candidates just finished a project for a major telco. They were offering a new service but as far as they could tell all the providers in the industry looked the same - even them. So they commissioned him to find out points of difference and give them a way to differentiate themselves. Theirs is by far not the best product in the market, but that shows me a great level of self-awareness. I spoke to all of their competitors to see if they were interesting in using his knowledge to help them with their go-to-market strategy. The reply was the same from all of them - they knew what they were doing. They didn't need help with their strategy as they were already miles ahead of all their competitors. No one was doing what they were doing. They just needed pure hunter BDMs to go out and win new business.

So who are you pitching to? How do you sell your business when someone sells to you? How do you sell your business to people you interview for jobs? How are you perceived in your industry? If you're the 'best' in the market, what can you say to show that, rather than say it?

Head in the Clouds - How to Find the Right Cloud Provider

The 2011 Longhaus report on Cloud in Australia is worth reading. At least for those in the industry or for those looking to find an ICT Managed Services provider. It can be purchased from Longhaus here "Australia’s Trusted Infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud Provider Market 2011".

Recently I wrote a blog post titled "Is Ninefold the Only True Cloud Provider in Australia". Since then a lot of research, marketing material and random spruiking has come my way about the cloud market in Australia, amongst which has been the Longhaus report. Of all the information I found that to be the most in-depth and honest. After all the data I was inundated with I discovered that the answer to my question is squarely - NO.

One of m biggest complaints about the cloud market is what's been dubbed "Cloud Washing". E.g. re-branding your online service as a 'cloud solution'. While this is widespread, it's not in fact as bad as it first appears, because the needs of different types of companies varied. As a special note here, I'm not talking about software solutions (e.g. Salesforce.com, Office 365, Google Apps, or any SaaS). Offering your software, with on-demand licenses and solution stored off-premise and "on the cloud" is an excellent move.

I'm talking about ITaaS. Putting your IT infrastructure "on the cloud" to avoid needing an on-premise solution and paying for how much and how long you will use it for. With that in mind I thought I would create a quick write-up to act as a guide to choosing a cloud provider. Without promoting any particular company, I will highlight the solutions suitable for each need and how they stack up against each other.

Software Development

If you want a platform to develop new technology and have it accessible on-line there are a lot of things to consider: Force.com, Google AppEngine, Microsoft Azure, etc. These PaaS solutions allow for software development on the cloud, and are a cost effective way to develop software without purchasing a full IaaS solution.

Tech Savvy Businesses or Technical Business Units

The On-Demand, Per-Hour/Week/Month, pure IaaS solution is probably best suited to a startup, a small business with a good IT person/IT team, or a technical business unit within a larger company. If you're technical enough that all you need is infrastructure and you know what you're going to do with it, then these types of services are best suited to you. These offer "true" cloud pricing models and aren't as heavy on the value added services. Good providers to consider:

• Ninefold
• Cloud Central
• BitCloud
• 6YS
• Amazon EC2/EC3

Small-Medium Business who wants a managed service

For a small business who wants a managed service there are a lot of providers out there that can offer a cloud solution. This is for people who wants more than an online portal where they can purchase cloud-computing 'space' with a credit card and be done with it. They are more interested in the Value Added Services, managed services, etc. Good providers in this space:

• Brennan IT
• ASE IT
• Applaud IT
• Melbourne IT
• Bluefire

It's also worth considering the Telcos, especially if you are also looking for Voice as a Service but you should be prepared to pay a premium (Macquarie Telecom, Telstra, Optus, TPG (through IntraPower)).

Smaller Enterprises

Smaller enterprises need to start worrying about security, data integrity and bandwidth. If they grow rapidly can their cloud provider support this growth? Do they have data centre capacity? How much support do they give and can they support multiple VAS.

• Any of the Multi-National Consultancies with a good cloud offering (CSC, IBM, Fujitsu, HP)
• Any of the major B2B Telcos (Macquarie, Telstra, Optus, Verizon, AT&T)
• Smaller infrastructure based consultancies (Brennan, Infoplex, Bluefire, NEC)

Larger Enterprises

Larger enterprises need to consider bandwidth, security, data-centre capacity, bulk user discounts, VAS, service delivery management and account management for a large number of users. At this stage the heard begins to be thinned. "On-Demand" and truly elastic solutions with short-term billing become less capable of delivering 100+ seat solutions.

• Any of the Multi-National Consultancies with a good cloud offering (CSC, IBM, Fujitsu, HP)
• Any of the major B2B Telcos (Macquarie, Telstra, Optus, Verizon, AT&T)

Large Australian Companies

For a large Australian company (Banking, Mining, Government and potentially media & entertainment) there are different concerns. They have a larger number of seats (10,000+), need dedicated account management and possibly multiple service delivery management streams.  Companies like AT&T and Verizon have had a poor track-record delivering local solutions with a lack of Australian capability. Many companies have noted they over-promise and under deliver.

Stick to Telstra, IBM and Fujitsu. Consider CSC, but their local capabilities are certainly not considered as strong as the other contenders.

MNCs - APAC Solutions

For multi-national companies it's not always wise or even possible to have a 'global' solution and often they need to consider an alternative APAC provider. With Verizon and AT&T they can combine network infrastructure, voice and data infrastructure to get a good group bundle. Many IT consultancies (Accenture, IBM, etc) use their cloud solutions for WANs, VaaS, etc and would potentially be better suited going to Telstra. But I'm not sure about Telstra's international capabilities.

For companies with their telecommunications and network infrastructure sorted I would suggest staying away from the Telcos and going with a consultancy with APAC datacentres - IBM, Fujitsu, CSC.

I would steer clear of the Off-Shoring companies - their cloud offerings have received quite poor ratings and the only reason to go with one is an attempt to substantially reduce ITC costs. We can leave the On-Shoring/Off-Shoring debate for another blog-post.

Do you have any feedback, comment or questions? Leave a comment below or contact me on LinkedIn:

http://au.linkedin.com/in/rickdzekman

Google Apps Biggest Win

In reading the article "Google convinces Spanish bank BBVA to use cloud" got me thinking about what this means for the industry.

Having run not only my own business, but also had a lot of freelance consulting work, I've used Google's "Apps" since their incarnation; from Gmail & calendar, to docs, to web tools like Analytics and even their less known tools like the App Engine. These free tools have allowed me instant access to all my information from anywhere in the world.

I've quite often kept highly confidential information on my Gmail account and in Google docs documents and not once did I think that it was possible for someone to access my data because it was on a share server. Having a solid understanding of technology I also knew that Google's advertising within Gmail was not risking my privacy and that my confidential information was safe - simply because of the one-way nature of encryption. In fact I've found a supplier for my business because of an ad that popped up when e-mail my business partner about how to solve a particular dilemma.

A lot of people think that a public cloud being 'secure' is a lot like radiation from a mobile phone. It all sounds safe, and all the studies suggest that it is, but the technology is so new. How can we really know what will happen in the long run?

Now that Google has won a 100,000+ seat account it is not only a victory for them but for the entire cloud industry. That a bank is willing to trust their data to Google, a company often chided about privacy concerns, and to boot putting their inter-office communications in the cloud, speaks a lot to the growing confidence in cloud.

The biggest concern the bank had was whether or not there was enough bandwidth to support the move. The bandwidth concern raises some interesting issues for me with regards to the NBN. Surely businesses in Australia should be the biggest group pushing for the NBN roll-out regardless of the cost. Large businesses like the big-4 banks or mining companies can afford to pay Telstra to roll-out private pipes for their networks. What about the SME's who rely on public infrastructure?

This big win from Google reminds us that technology is growing at a rapid rate and with that expansion we are losing a lot of concerns we use to have: data sovereignty, down-time access, off-line access, etc. Is our infrastructure ready to support these changes?

Who's Got the Time?

When you're pitching a new system that can improve Business Process effeciency, possibly even making certain tasks obsolete, how do you go about pitching it? Just saw this great comic from onefte.com that succinctly highlights this very dillemma:





How-to Get Found By a Recruiter On LinkedIn

Some interesting statistics for you:

Out of the last 30 candidates who's CVs I've sent to a client
 - 3 Came from job boards
 - 4 Came from Word of Mouth / Referrals
 - 8 Came from a LinekdIn job ad
 - 15 were headhunted

100% of those 15 headhunted candidates came from LinkedIn, 2/4 of the referrals were made through LinkedIn. As a result - 25/30 of the latest candidates that have been referred to my clients were because of LinkedIn.


In order to get discovered you need to make your profile discoverable. Here is a Do, Don't & Don't Forget list as a basic starting point.

DO:

• Use the "skills" feature
• Include technologies you've sold in your summary and for each company you've worked for
• Include the industry verticals you operate in in your summary and company descriptions
• Set your current location
• If you have a vanity title in your 'headline' put a real comparable title in your summary and company description. E.g. instead of "Client Director" put BDM/New Business Development in there, or for "Associate Director of Client Engagement" put BDM/New Business Development.
• Ask people for recommendations
• Join groups related to the products you sell
• Include more than 1 job you've worked so I can find you by 'past employer' as well as current
• Include contact information (e-mail & phone number)
• Show your full name
• Specify a relevant industry ("Computer Software" as opposed to "Information Technology Services")

DON'T:

• Put more than 2 roles in "current", 3 AT MOST if you run multiple businesses, even then I would advise against
• Crowd your profile with keywords repeated so many times that you jump to the top of search results - I skip past these profiles
• Put only your current job on your profile
• Hide your name or put only your last initial, and certainly don't be an 'anonymous' user
• Set your current location to just "Australia", make sure you set your CITY as well otherwise I will certainly miss you in searches
• Set your industry as your client's industry (although if your objective is using linked in for new business development in a very specific vertical I could see good reasons for doing this)
• Crowd your profile with every industry you've sold in and every technology you've ever sold. Put the skill you have the most recent experience in

DON'T FORGET

• To change your profile's "headline" when you change companies
• To change your "Company Website" when you change companies
• To include your contact information
• To include 'details' about the role you had at each company, including which technology you sold
• To add skills
• To re-arrange the order of your profile to put the most relevant information at the top (in my case, my contact details)

A lot of these are helping me identify you out of profiles that don't match what I'm looking for (specific city, company, job title) and to identify the specific skills you have that I might need (industry verticals, technologies sold).

Are you trying to change your specialisation? how about your location? what about a complete career change? LinkedIn is a great tool for doing that. Recruiters on the other hand are not. I'm in the job of headhunting - finding people who sell the same product to the same industry but are looking for more money, a bigger territory, a better product, a smaller (or bigger) company, a better boss, etc.

I can't help you become a sales person, I can't help you change industry, I can't help you change specialisation, and I can't help you do anything other than what you have experience doing. And most of the time I can't even help someone move city, let alone move country.

With that said your LinkedIn profile won't "trick" me into interviewing you. If it does I'll quickly find out I can't help you and you'll have wasted both my time and yours. It's fine to put "looking to make a move into sales", or "looking to move to the IT industry", there might be someone out there who can help you. There might even be a recruiter who's specific brief was to find someone out of the industry or not in sales. But this falls outside the realm of most headhunters. In my case I can help you make a small step up, but not a step sideways.

Goals, Money & Happiness

It's that time of year again - the time when everyone slowly starts giving up on their New Year's resolutions. I simply don't make New Year's resolutions but I do make regular goals.

My goal setting background comes from reading and listening to motivational speaker/writer Zig Ziglar. Since first hearing one of his seminars I have developed a lot of ideas about having sales oriented goals, as well as business and professional growth goals.

My key takeaway from Zig was that your goals must be specific and measurable. "I want to earn a six figure bonus this quarter", "Within 2 years I want to be a senior BDM", "I want to win a large MNC account which will generate $1M of revenue every year", etc, etc.

The next thing I learnt from Zig was that you need to identify all of the things that are preventing you from being able to achieve your goal right now. What skills, experience, items, etc don't you have that you need for that skill right now. Now based on this specific, measurable goal with identified broken down obstacles you need to identify milestones. If your goal was "lost 20kg in 6 months", you would break it down to 3kg a month and again 111grams per day and then focus on daily tasks and measuring your progress daily.

For a sales goal you can't break down "$100k of commission" into a daily task, so the best way to achieve it is to look at metrics. How many deals do you need to close and with how many companies? To close that many deals of that size how many prospects do you need to call on? To meet that many prospects how many cold calls, warm calls and networking calls will you need to make to achieve this goal? Then break that down into a daily and weekly basis.

If you have large scale, long term goals, e.g. Close a mega deal with XYZ Company by this time next year, breaking it down into small milestones is important but has a big dilemma - there are no rewards for any of your minor goals. You could spend a year trying to close that sale and for that whole year get no commission for all the conversations you had. So as well as long-term goals you need some short-term goals to keep you motivated along the way.

And that's why New Year's resolutions fail more often than not. They tend to be grandiose goals, with no clear objectives, no measurable metrics and nothing to motivate you along the way. Could you imagine starting a new BDM role and your boss gives you a phone, a laptop and a car and says "go win some big accounts". No training, no introduction to stakeholders, no metrics, no targets, no idea if you are doing a good job or not. (nb. I know a company that does operate this way and is reasonably successful but because of their culture only hire very specific kinds of people).

Now if you're reading this blog you're probably a sales person and making a ton of money, retiring early and having an indulgent lifestyle is probably a big part of your long-term goals. As a result you've probably heard the cliche "money doesn't buy happiness" and been told not to make "money making" a priority in your life. Now I know some incredibly successful and very well off people and they will all agree that money does not in fact buy happiness. But guess what? There's more to life than just being happy. Money can buy plenty of other things that make life worth living - comfort, luxury, excitement, adventure and experiences in general.

Now at a quarter of a century old I tend to seem very young to most of my clients and candidates. But I have a lot of mentors who are incredibly successful and the one thing I've learnt from them is that to be successful you need to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. Most 'accidental' and 'overnight' successes are born out of years of hard work. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu says "opportunities multiply as they are seized". But opportunity and chance favours the prepared. Luck favours those who are able to identify opportunity when it is presented and then chase after it.

The last thing that the most successful people in my life have told me is that it's important to enjoy the process of achieving your goals. You can in fact 'learn to love it'. Learn to love making those calls, learn to love doing those presentations, learn to enjoy haggling, bargaining and negotiating. Learn to enjoy closing. That's probably the best advice I've been given and I find that I often need to remind myself of it.

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)

Introduction to Sales - Part 3: Research

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 you've started in sales and you know nothing. Nothing about your product, nothing about your customers, nothing about your prospects, nothing about your competitors and nothing about your market. If you're lucky your one-week induction course covered some of this.

Unfortunately while many companies teach people how to sell and a bit about what their products they don't give them a guide to or an option for 'research'. This is quite common - "the best way to learn about your market is to make some calls". And that's true - that is literally the best way to learn about your market. But there is a good way to get a head start and make your first few calls effective - research your product, competitors, market, industry and target clients. There is such a thing as being over-prepared, and you can spend so much time researching that you never get around to making a call. But whilst your employer might throw you in the deep end, you can do some research on your own time.

First of all find out how big your competitor base is and how your industry sector is split up. Find your top 4-5 competitors on a large scale and your top 4-5 competitors in your market niche. What are their "USPs" (Unique Selling Points)? How do they separate themselves? If your biggest competitor is market ignorance what solutions are people using now that yours could compliment or replace?

Now learn about your target market. Who is the best person to speak to in each of your target companies? Is it a C-Level Exec? Is it a manager? A director? Are there external 3rd party suppliers they might use that could use your services? When you know who the target person is find out where they go to get information about your product? Are there conferences they attend? What are their biggest pain points? Where could they generate more revenue or use cost savings? Is there a list somewhere or a director of companies in your target market? Can you visit business parks or office buildings and write down details of what companies are there?

Speak to your product and services teams and find out more about your product. While you're at it speak to marketing. And then search your product online and see what people have to say about it. Find out what the best and worst features of your product are. Can you frame negative features in a good way? E.g. because it's known to fail mention how you have an outstanding technical support team. Now how do these features benefit the customer?

List the key benefits of your product as an expression of what is important to your prospect. If you are speaking to managers they need to look good to directors. If you're speaking to directors they need to look good to the C-Suite. If you're speaking to the C-Suite they need to look good to shareholders. If you're speaking to shareholders they want the business to be profitable. How does your benefit help your target person achieve their goals?

Now that you've done this research you can be prepared to answer a lot of questions from potential clients and hopefully highlight the benefits of your product to the point where they will meet with you and eventually buy from you.

Read Part 2 (Go-to-Market Strategy)

Read Part 4 (Making the Sales Call)

Government IT Projects

In reading this article "Ombudsmen Lashes Out at Inept [IT] Projects" the first thought on my mind was the typical reminder of inefficient government bureaucracy and red tape.

Then I remembered the recent failure by Harvey Norman to implement SAP for a second time. It was a Multi-Million dollar project that had to be scrapped for a second time after it had already cost the company large amounts of money.

And it occurred to me - large scale IT implementations are difficult. It doesn't matter if it's a small company, a global business or a government department; it's hard no matter what. The difficulty of the execution is simple - IT systems are emergent. Large amounts of complex parts interact with people (further complex parts) and come together to form something that is often greater than the sum of its parts. The best IT solutions are ones that have been built and then re-build from scratch or started off simple and gradually had more components added. Unfortunately for businesses that rely on IT infrastructure to do business that's just not possible.

So why does the government get so much flack for failed projects?

The question more related to this blog - how do these expectations relate to selling solutions into the government space? Often this results in long tender and bid processes with multi-faceted multi-vendor solutions required to solve horrible regulatory restrictions. Yet government tenders are often a lucrative source of income for companies large and small alike.

I think that with a truly tailor made IT solution it could be possible to streamline operations in all government departments and deliver a solution that can actually remove red tape. The big question, how do you approach such an entity with the idea of real, practical change?

Introduction to Sales - Part 2: Go-To-Market Strategy

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.

There is a good chance that if you’re new to sales you have little-to-no control over the overall sales strategy for your territory. In my opinion this is a massive shame. People who are simply given a list of clients to call or worse a copy of the yellow pages or an internet connection and told to “go get-‘em”, are in a terrible disadvantage to people given guidance and strategic direction. Sure you might be taught tactics like ‘how to close’ or ‘how to get past the gatekeeper’ or ‘offer a value proposition’, but these things mean nothing long term and don’t help with the big picture.

But even as a novice you do have control over how you’re going to go after new business. The problem is strategy takes time to implement and if you need to get quick wins on the board to avoid getting fired you might not have the time.

As a recruiter I’ve been tasked to find people who can develop a “go-to-market” strategy and then execute it. The one thing I’ve learned from this is the difference between a Salesperson and a Business Development person. It is the fine balance between long-term goals and quick wins. The things below are what I’ve learned from the people who have been successful in their industries.

The first element to strategy is “brand”. Does the company have a brand? Do you have a brand? You need to become an expert in your field, working for a company with expertise in the field, providing a value add product or service to your clients. The best way to convey that is with a consistent corporate identity. Marketing Collateral that looks the same as your website, that looks the same as your business card that looks the same as any formal documents (briefs, proposals, etc).

With your personal brand you need to have a solid LinkedIn profile, a solid bio on your company website and an ‘elevator pitch’. This great article at the Harvard Business Review covers how to have a good elevator pitch http://www.alumni.hbs.edu/careers/pitch/. This is the pitch you use when someone asks ‘what you do’ and even when you are making a sales call. My ‘Pitch’ as designed in their suggested style is: 80 words – 20 second estimated speaking time – 15 repeated words. So mine clearly needs a bit of work to be punchier and make better use of the short time I have, by not repeating myself.

Another aspect of your brand is your ‘title’. If your boss allows you to be flexible with titles consider adopting a vanity title, e.g. ‘consultant’, ‘specialist’, ‘client relationship director’, ‘associate director, client engagement’. It’s easier to call the CxO of a company if you are the “General Manager for XYZ Services at ABC Company” rather than a ‘salesperson’.

Once you have a brand, marketing material, website, etc, you need to consider how you are going to go after your market. Think about this:

• Can you afford, or is it possible to do, a ‘lead generation campaign’? This is a way of getting your name into the market place through marketing tactics that mean clients call you or willingly input their names and contact details into your company’s database (e.g. in exchange for a free sample or report)
• Are you going to target an ‘industry vertical’ and become a specialist in that industry? If you sell widgets to the automotive industry, you need to understand where automotive companies have troubles, where they bleed money, where they can use more efficiency and why your widget can help them achieve that goal.
• Are you going to identify market triggers and wait for those before making contact with a company? E.g. A power failure in a particular suburb means you could call to discuss potential power continuation devices or data back-up, or redundant phone systems, whatever the case may be.
• Are you going to do market research first to find out about the industry and use that for lead generation?
• Are you going to sell a small service or product to ‘get your foot in the door’ and then grow the account with the client later?
• How are you going to map your target market? Will you have online tools with contact information or will you make cold calls to gather your initial information? How will you group and organise prospects? Where will the data be stored?
• How are you going to get referrals? Are you going to set-up a referral scheme or is your product so good that people will want to help each other by referring you?
• What is the maximum size solution you’re capable of delivering? Will you target those clients first because it takes longer to build relationships at that level? Or will you target the smaller solutions to develop a better understanding of the market first?
• How are you going to organize long-term efforts to win prospects? Some deals can take months or years to close. How are you going to keep track of which clients you’ve called and when you should try them again?

The answers to these questions help you to develop your go-to-market strategy. This will help you work out which clients to go after and how you plan to go after them. Picking up the yellow pages or even an online database of contacts and making calls is a tactic – cold calling. What is your strategy around that tactic? Do you plan to get to know an industry sector so well that you become an expert and consultant in that industry? Do you plan to spread your personal brand as far into the market as you can so that you get referrals? Do you plan to sell big deals or small deals? If big, can you sell it? Do you have stock? Do you have the understanding?

Knowing these things before you pick-up the phone to make a call can make a world of difference over the long-term. If your employer discourages you from doing these things then do them in your own time.

Read Part 1 (Inner Game of Selling)

Read Part 3 (Research)

50 Fastest Growing Tech Companies - Deloitte Report

Deloitte released their Fast 50 report for the booming IT industry. Key note from the report:

"Our analysis of the 2011 Technology Fast 50 shows the following highlights:

• The total revenue of the index is approximately $2.2 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 2010
• Half of the top 50 companies are based in NSW, with a further 19 based in Victoria
• Privately held companies dominate the index, with 44 being privately owned and six companies being listed companies, two of which appear in our top 10
• Internet companies lead the charge, with 23 companies being involved in the Internet industry –
• the highest ever total
• Twelve companies are involved in the communications/networking industry
• Software companies follow suit, comprising 11 of the winners, down from 15 companies in the prior year
• 25 of the companies have appeared in the winners’ list in previous years
• Average three-year revenue growth rate for this year’s winners is 209%, down from 425% in 2010."

Here's a link to the full Fast 50 Report from Deloitte.

For me there are two notable companies who have appeared on the report for a few years that don't get as much press attention as they should - M2 Communications and Atlassian Corporation. Two companies with exceptional growth that are real physical companies not based entirely online. Also noteworthy is Anittel who is on the list for its second year with amazing growth of over 1000%! They are the clear winner this year on the Deloitte report and just showcase how much there is to go after in the market.

It's interesting to me that there are a lot of online businesses like iSelect and RedBalloon that are mentioned and seem to be part of a massively growing industry. Meanwhile Software company TigerSpike are the highest ranked software company at #11. Considering the likes of HP and IBM have moved to expand on their software businesses I'm surprised there aren't more Australian Software vendors on there.

In fact the Software lead seems to be coming from foreign companies specialising in BPO and BPaaS. It suggests to me that there is definitely a skills shortage in Australia in terms of strong software development talent and that this is something IT sales people can definitely take advantage of.