Up Market |
- The S.O.S. You Should Never Answer
- Creative Job Hunting – From Marketing Ninjas to Melted Peeps
- How to Craft an Internal Communications Plan
| The S.O.S. You Should Never Answer Posted: 28 Apr 2012 08:00 AM PDT
Here's a brief example: You've been trying for the longest time to acquire Customer X when out of the blue you receive a call that your competition is unable to fulfill Customer X's order and they're in deep need of your product or service to bail them out. It's a weekend, holiday, or some other condition that makes you the only one with the ability to help. What you do next is not only important, but separates you from mediocrity. What you do next is critical for your own survival in business. Your response should have the following tone: "I would be happy to, but if I do I want your business from now on. Not some portion or 50/50 split between them and us, but all. If that's not agreeable to you, I'm sorry. I reserve my resources for my own customers so they aren't put in a position like this one. If the company you're currently doing business with can't help you, and I can… then why exactly would you stay with them?" I can hear most of you gasping from here. Many of you are telling yourselves it sounds just crazy. What about good will? What about proving ourselves by how we respond? That will tick this person off and they'll never deal with us ever! All those statements I've heard, and more. And I'm here to tell you from actual experience they're hogwash and a waste of your resources. If you rush out and bend yourself over backwards calling in favors, going the extra 100 miles to save this customer from a dilemma without getting the continuing business as a condition for your efforts, then all you've done is saved your competitor’s salesman from doing what you are about to do. And tomorrow, or next week, or next month they'll continue to get the sale. Not you. If you want to be in the business of rescuing potential customers from impending disasters when other salespeople can't there's nothing wrong with that, and much to gain. However if you have the means to provide the life raft or lifeline that will save a customer when your competition doesn't, why would you feel remiss on demanding the business when they clearly are putting a customer in distress? We are talking about business here, not charity on the high seas. Save your resources and lifeboats for your own clients so they needn't call anyone else. You've proven you'll be there when needed because they are your customers. The customer that doesn't give you the business after you saved them was never going to be a customer of yours to begin with. Photo Credit: pasma |
| Creative Job Hunting – From Marketing Ninjas to Melted Peeps Posted: 28 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT Who knew your skill with microwaving marshmallow peeps could land you the job of your dreams? Creatively presented, your quirky skills and habits can help you stand out in today’s challenging job market where rivers of resumes flow in for every position. "We're looking for someone creative," says Rachel Dotson of ZipRecruiter, an online job site. “We ask applicants: ‘Tell us about something you love and make us love it too.' The question services multiple purposes, as it allows applicants to demonstrate their personality, creativity, cultural fit, writing skills, powers of persuasion, and more," explains Dotson, who is content manager for the Los Angeles-based company. "We have a quirky company culture and there's lots of joking, so we really need someone who fits in," she adds.
Dotson says that although they use the same question for tech positions, they lend less weight to it than they do for creative positions like marketing. "For those positions we look more at their skills and portfolio and how they have put those skills to use." Amy's Ice Creams of Austin, Texas famously ran out of applications and started handing potential employees a white paper bag with instructions to bring it back within a week showing their skills. Highly creative people have done some awesome things with those bags in an effort to land the job. Likewise, Play with a Purpose forces applicants to be creative beyond just a letter and a resume. "You have to find what works for the industry you're in," says owner Sharon Fisher. The company specializes in creative events for clients around the world that are designed to motivate teams and entertain, so its four full-time and 200 on-call employees must show creativity. One applicant created a five-minute treasure hunt to help the company understand her experience and skills. Another applicant drove up in a limo with balloons and a giant check – like a Publisher's Clearinghouse winner – to announce that they had won her as their new event coordinator. Did Fisher hire her? No. She didn't have the right skills. Assuming you do have the right stuff for the job, there are countless ways to make yourself stand out. Some people, like Theresa Letman, create a video resume. "The first company I sent it to called me for an interview. Within a week, I’d landed a job with them because I was able to show them what I was capable of. Turns out it’s exactly the job I was looking for with a remarkable and intelligent team," says Letman, who is now director of acceleration for Verus Global in Littleton, Colorado.
Margot Leong went even further and created a custom slideshow in her application to Ridejoy – an innovative ridesharing website that had its origins in Burning Man 2011. "I decided to try this because I knew they would get a lot of applicants, especially since it was an awesome position which was also non-technical, so I had to convey just how much I wanted the job – and stand out from everybody else," Leong says. She thought about the position quite a bit before applying and then spent two weeks researching Ridejoy extensively, conceptualizing, and then creating the presentation. "Ridejoy was my first and only choice as a startup to work at. I believed that Ridejoy could fundamentally change the way Americans approached ridesharing … I also loved the friendliness and warmth they projected as a company," Leong says. "What sealed the deal, however, was the fact that Ridejoy ended up reciprocating with their own slideshow. Photo Credits: Peeps – flickr.com/photos/benjamingolub/ Ninja — Savannah Peterson |
| How to Craft an Internal Communications Plan Posted: 28 Apr 2012 02:00 AM PDT The challenge of internal communications is ensuring that you are relating information to your audience properly and effectively. |
This statement comes from personal experience both as a salesman and a CEO: When you're the one responsible for putting together agreements worth millions of dollars at a time, with employees and board members depending on your acumen and insight to secure these deals, true growth happens when you stop answering the distress calls of your competition. What is this distress call, you ask? “Save Our Salesman!”
One of ZipRecruiter's successful applicants wrote about microwaving marshmallow peeps with his daughter. "He went into great detail and created a great image in your mind," she says.
Savannah Peterson, manager of marketing and PR at design consultancy | You are subscribed to email updates from Upmarket To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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