Seven Tips for Networking Through the Holidays

http://www.inc.com/resources/sales/articles/20041201/holidays.html

Don Goodman, President of About Jobs, discusses an interesting and timely aspect of the current hiring market in the sales industry.  http://www.sales-resume.com/good-sales-resume.html

Have you ever hugged a prospect or client? If so, did it help close the deal?

I ask because I came across a recent blog post discussing the pros and cons of hugging in business relationships, and how to determine when or if it’s appropriate.

At first I thought it was a joke, because I would never consider hugging a prospect or client. But as I read the post and subsequent comments more closely, it became clear that, for some people, this is a real dilemma – particularly when the line between business and friendship becomes blurred.

Maybe I’m just not touchy feely enough, or I keep too strict a separation between business and personal, but I’ve never found myself in a sales situation where I worried that a handshake was too impersonal. Nor have I ever had a client swoop in to hug me, no matter how long we’d been doing business together. I just can’t imagine being in that situation.

So I asked my LinkedIn friends for their opinion: Is there room in the sales process for hugging? Turns out, they’re just as conflicted on the subject as me!

Some, even those who admit that they are not generally gregarious say they have found themselves hugging clients.

“It’s not all the time and it’s only if the client initiates the hug,” wrote one gentleman. “But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. I guess it would depend, too, on the industry. But whether you’re happy about closing a deal or finding a job, why stifle that happiness?”

Another, however, said she has never hugged anyone in a business environment, adding that “if someone tried to hug me I’d, well, get totally freaked out. I even try to keep smiling to a minimum because it has happened that male business partners have gotten the wrong idea, so hugging is doubtless out of the question.”

We also received some very sage advice from one man who says he has hugged business contacts regularly in Africa in the Middle East, but never in Western Europe or North America where business is less personal. He also says he’s never hugged a member of the opposite sex in any country to avoid a harassment suit and a slap from his wife.

Finally, he writes that while he never has himself, “some of my friends in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe have negotiated deals naked in a sauna. Definitely no hugging allowed in this situation.”

I have to agree with him on that one.  Where do you stand on the great hugging debate?

In some encouraging economic news, an independent survey conducted on behalf of my sales and marketing recruitment firm, Naviga Business Services, found that companies are projecting at least modest revenue growth in 2009 and most are planning to expand their sales force to make that happen.

When asked how they project revenues to change in 2009 compared to 2008, more than 32% of respondents indicated that they expect an increase of between 1-10%, and nearly 11% said they expect revenues to grow by more than 20%. One-fourth expect revenues to stay the same, while 21% expect revenues to decrease.

To support revenue goals, 100% of respondents said they plan to hire sales professionals in 2009, with 75% expecting hiring to begin in the second quarter*. Customer service and engineering/development, at 22% each, were the other key positions for which companies plan to hire in 2009, followed by marketing, accounting and information technology (11% each).

Most of these positions will be in the Northeast and Southwest, which were each identified by 50% of respondents as the geographies in which they planned to hire in the coming year*.  Those regions were followed by the Southeast and Midwest (37.5% each), and 25% plan to hire for positions in the Northwest.

In the meantime, companies are taking several steps to counter the current economic conditions*. More than 46% said they were cutting non-payroll expenses to improve their financial positions. To stimulate growth, 32% said they were increasing their sales budget and 11% said they were making targeted acquisitions.  Another 32% said they were cutting payroll expenses, 25% said they are making no changes in their general plans.

When asked to describe their company’s current hiring status given the country’s economic condition, more than 28% said they were hiring in selective functions or geographic areas, and 25% said they were hiring only to replace departing employees. Layoffs had been completed or were being planned by more than 21%, and nearly 18% had instituted a hiring freeze. Just 7% indicated that they were currently hiring across the entire company.

So while things may look grim at the moment, these results tell me that we will begin to see the light at the end of what has been a dark economic tunnel within the next few months! 

* Percentages added may exceed 100% as participants could select more than one answer for this question.

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This week’s blog comes to us from Aaron Bartel of Sales Benchmark Index, a strategic advisory firm, and author of “Making The Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance.”

Before you launch a sales improvement effort it makes sense to understand what level of Best Practices your sales organization is capable of leveraging.  These levels begin at the most basic and proceed to the most involved (but also most effective) form.

In reading about the definitions of each level of best-practices benchmarking, some might be tempted to think that it seems simple. Where is the complexity found in most corporate programs? If your thoughts tend to this direction, you are not alone.

Yet most organizations are not putting energy and commitment to these areas, so even if the concept is basic, the execution is lacking.  In fact, as the goal of a best-practices sales benchmarking effort is improvement – the dogma of any particular benchmarking approach is unimportant. Best Practices Sales Benchmarking is a business practice or skill with countless forms and applications.

With that said, each of the seven levels of best-practices benchmarking is described below.

1. Learn from Past Success:  Organizations should perform the technique of success analysis. This encompasses the habit of documenting what went right as well as what went wrong on any number of corporate-specific tasks.
2. Borrow Good Ideas: Small companies tend to be especially skilled at idea importation. Starved of resources, small companies naturally develop a beg, borrow, and creatively imitate mentality that enables them to leverage others’ experience and learnings.  The important concept is that these ideas originate from outside the organization and are freely available.
3. Best in Company:  This type of benchmarking captures the follow-up activity that occurs in those companies collecting large amounts of data through CRM or other sales-related systems. Through the collection, assessment, and display of this data in various dashboard systems, sales executives can spot the best performers.
4. Industry Standard: This type of benchmarking, and the next three that follow, all require comparison of internal performance to external performance. What differs in each is the degree of excellence represented by the external sample set. In industry-standard benchmarking, the goal is to bring some aspect of the organization up to the level of the relevant peer group.
5. Industry Leadership: This type of benchmarking is not greatly different from the previous one, but it captures an element that sometimes can be missing from industry-standard benchmarking. As discussed previously in this section, the definition of a peer group for purposes of benchmarking may or may not contain companies that are directly or even indirectly competitive.
6. Best in Country: Achieving this designation may or may not have significance to the organization based on its customer base, market, and geography. Those selling to government organizations or those in relatively closed economies will value this highly.
7. World Class:  The urge to be the Babe Ruth of benchmarking is irresistible. Sales leaders particularly are always on the hunt for the Big Idea that is easily adopted and yields breakthrough results. These do exist, but they are a precious few. Most successes achieved through benchmarking are a series of modest improvements – singles, steals, bunts, and the occasional double – that, taken together, enable a sales organization to achieve world-class performance. To attain world-class status in benchmarking requires a deep and longstanding commitment, resources, patience, and a willingness to persevere through many obstacles.