Job Seekers would be smart to invest some time in honing their interview skills. 

We see way too many candidates fail to move forward in the interview process, when they are fully qualified for the job.

It is important to remember that there are indeed 2 components to acing an interview....ensuring that the person interviewing you understands that you possess the technical skills and experience required for the role, and equally important, that your 'soft skills', ie personality, would work well within the corporate culture.

PRACTICE answering basic questions with someone, role playing so that you are truly comfortable responding to basic questions in a concise, clear manner.

The phone interview  is typically the very first step in the interview process. Check out this 'cheat sheet' for easy to implement practices that should help you refine your interviewing skills.      

Just a few of the powerful reminders that our military leaders embody that can and should translate into corporate America leadership principals...

Simple but powerful stuff and widely applicable to everyday life:

• Win the trust, respect, and affection of your troops (employees). And don’t mistake popularity for affection.
• There is a critical difference between making a mistake in seeking to carry out an intent (this is okay and can fixed through training) vs. a lack of effort or discipline, which is unforgivable.
• : “We whip our enemies and then we welcome them.”
• Apply Einstein’s wisdom which he paraphrased: “If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving the problem.”

Who better to learn the art of getting people to trust you, than someone whose very life depended on cultivating that skill?

Fascinating article by a former CIA agent, that breaks down the very fundamentals on how to build trust.

Trustworthiness is consistently shown to be the most important factor when making buying decisions, and cultivating that ability  will serve you well, in all aspects of life.  

Fascinating article that explores a recent study that found that in order to create quota busting teams, conscious efforts count more than intrinsic, natural characteristics.

That is great news for everyone, since it essentially says that you can indeed LEARN to be a good sales manager ,and you can in fact learn to model characteristics or mind-sets that result in high performing teams.  

ISC has been a leader for management sales consultants since 1999.

We welcome a call if you have any management hiring needs. 888-866-7276. 

ISC has been recruiting top performing software sales professionals since 1999. 

I hope you enjoy this article regarding software sales trends for 2017.

For all of your software sales recruiting needs, please feel free to reach out to us, we love what we do and would love to give you exceptional talent for your software sales team. 

WWW.ISCJOBS.COM

Excellent article with solid advice on everything from dining with Clients, arranging calls, etc. Some of these tips will surprise and enlighten you, well worth the read!

I have always believed that there is a real science, some may call it magic, involved in building  the perfect team. Every single person has innate characteristics, intrinsic motivators that drive their behavior.  

A natural result of putting a group of human beings together, all with different strengths and weaknesses,  is to encounter some tension between personality types.

Rather than letting that tension be a negative, take a few minutes to read this brilliant article, which provides solid suggestions and precise verbiage on building bridges between different personality types, with the goal of bringing out the best in everyone.   

Is there any surprise in learning that people with high emotional intelligence (EQ) consistently rank the highest in terms of negotiating ability? 

We all negotiate on a daily basis for things that we want, or need. There are few endeavors that will provide more immediate rewards than investing in increasing your negotiating skills. Enjoy this insightful article from Harvard Business Review that delves into the specif traits  of highly successful negotiators, and most importantly, how to cultivate them.   

A career in sales should entail an ongoing quest to perfect your selling skills. A true sales person is always  hungry to perfect their craft, and to add to their skill set. Here is a terrific list of 13 quality podcasts that you can easily plug into at your convenience, to learn some valuable selling skills. 

Yet another terrific article by Melonie Dodaro. Six smart things to do to create an on-line  presence that conveys professionalism and positions you as a leader within your industry.

In this day  and age, hardly a business transaction goes by without the buyer googling the potential service provider. What they see will have a direct impact on weather they choose to do business with you.  

Terrific article on how to deal with poorly performing employees. Being able to coach an under performing employee , with the end result being to have them motivated to improve and ultimately seeing better results, is the name of the game.

Check out these fantastic suggestions on holding your team accountable, turning coaching sessions into opportunities to inspire and to help them ( and you)  achieve your stated goals. 

Inspect what you expect . 

Patience with poor performance eventually becomes permission to perform poorly.

We all know that that statement is true, in ALL aspects of life.

Here are valuable ways to overcome natural anxieties in addressing issues and spin it into a positive conversation. 

We always encourage our Clients to take advantage of some of the amazing personality testing options available these days, which allows you to consciously match your best employees characteristics, while also veering away from your worst hires.

With that said, even the best of these tools still cannot definitively warn you away from toxic employees, who range from true sociopaths to your every day negative, 'energy vampires'.

The impetus than falls on the hiring manager, to learn some good questions to ask during the interview process, which will shed light on your prospective employees innate characteristics. Take a quick read to learn 7 excellent questions that should help determine if you are sitting across from someone that will increase the enthusiasm and activity levels for your team, or suck them dry.

For all of your hiring needs, please consider International Search Consultants. A leader in executive recruiting since 1999,  we  introduce exceptional candidates to our clients for critical fill roles. International Search Consultants 

Powerful article that highlights what makes great managers. 

Do you know the 3 most important requirements of leveraged mentoring? 

If you cannot easily rattle off the 3 most important things that you can do to help your team, chances are,  you are not doing them. 

Take a  minute to read this insightful article, and see your teams end results increase.

Doing something a long time does not necessarily make you better than someone that is just starting.

The only way to improve a skill set is to intentionally target specific behaviors, and consciously strive to improve them.

I recently read that the average person rises to their highest level of competency within 18 months of working in a specific job, and then stagnates there.

It is only the top 10% of any given team that will continually push themselves to try out new methodologies, sign up for additional training,  and push themselves to continually improve. 

A good question to ask yourself, is what do you know now,  that you did not know at the 18 month mark in your current position? 

If you want to be in the top 10% of your peers, make a point to continually  push yourself to learn new skills, and then work to implement them. 

When one of the leading authorities on sales training says that you have a  50/50 shot at 'getting it right' when hiring sales managers, that can be a pretty sobering statement.

It certainly makes sense to do everything possible to increase those odds, by tilting the playing field in your favor.

Here are 5 easy things to implement in your interview process to  increase your odds of hiring the right sales manager.

For all of your sales management recruiting needs, please feel free to reach out to ISC. We have been providing top-notch sales managers to our Clients interview tables since 1999. 

https://iscjobs.com/sales-management-recruiter/

Driving a quota busting sales team requires constant coaching, holding them accountable for achieving stated goals, and inspecting what you expect.

And above all else, good sales managers are their team's cheerleader , inspiring them to push onward.

Enjoy these motivational quotes that are sure to add an extra  zip in your teams calls.

And for all of your sales recruiting needs, feel free to reach out to ISC Sales Recruiters. We have been providing award winning sales professionals to our Clients since 1999 and would love to help you fill that  all important sales or sales management role. ISC Sales Recruiters 

A wise sales trainer once told me that you can always find the answers, provided you ask the right questions.  

Becoming proficient with qualifying questions, that you can easily add to your conversation, is a vital sales tool that will put you miles ahead of your competition.

In fact, I would say if there was one single factor that determined if someone was going to be an okay sales person or a superstar sales pro, it would be their ability to ask qualifying questions and then LISTEN to the answers, for indeed these answers are the most important piece of information your prospect can give to you.  

It seems that I get calls daily from vendors that dive immediately into their pitch, without ever taking the time to ask me what I  WANT..or more specifically, what I NEED

What is the one thing that I desire above all else when it comes to telecom services, payroll services, etc. etc.?  On the rare occasion that someone actually does ask me my favorite question, they earn the most valuable thing that I have to offer...my time,  to share my unique set of circumstances, and then my attention in listening to their proposed solution.    

Take the time to read and commit to memory this list of 100 sales questions that will help you qualify your prospects needs, pinpoint their pain points, and then enable you to come to the rescue with your solution.  

In sales, we all talk about the art of overcoming objections.

This short post suggests changing your perspective from aiming to 'overcome objections' to the theory that ultimately, only the prospect can overcome an objection, not the salesperson.

Learn how to 'reverse the direction of the conversation ' so that you can uncover the true concerns and ultimate pain points of your potential client. Only then can you honestly say if you can offer a viable solution, and address how your unique solution can help your targeted audience.

This strategy takes practice. Read on to learn how to get started, and specific verbiage in learning how to re-position the dialog when a prospect presents an objection to moving forward.

This one is worth printing!

75 brilliant tips to increase your selling skills.

Check out this quick read to learn important facts such as ...50% of targets open emails on their phone, and if your subject line has more than 7 words, it will not show up...take 2 minutes and then print this one out...you will find yourself constantly referring to it, I know I do.  

Fantastic article that highlights the wisdom of flipping roles between a sales person and the potential customer. By switching things up and rather than immediately going into your sales pitch, by first insisting on qualifying the buyer, in order to verify that you truly understand their pain points and can honestly deliver a solution, puts you miles ahead of your competition. 

We all know that sales is ultimately a numerically predictable endeavor.

The key to achieving sales success is to figuring out the metrics associated with your particular sales cycle, and then holding your sales team accountable for hitting the specific numbers needed to achieve your stated goals.

No one can be surprised if they do not hit their sales goals, if they failed to hit their numbers at the onset of the funnel.

The key is breaking down the numbers needed at each step of the process. How many initial calls does a sales person need to make in order to gain a face to face meeting? How many live meetings does it typically take to close a deal? 

This is a fantastic article that highlights very specifically how to measure your sales processes from the initial list of targets to the final step.       

Weather you are in sales or are an engineer, an important part of your career trajectory is always going to include meeting new people. Becoming aware of very specific behaviors that emotionally intelligent people consistently do within the first 5 minutes of meeting someone, can make a tremendous difference on weather a new contact walks away from you with a positive, or negative first impression.