Gatekeeper is the Person to watch out for!

Secretary, personal assistant, office manager, receptionist, gate-keeper.  Call them by any name they all do the same function. Regulate the flow of information and visitors to the decision maker in the organization. It is their responsibility to see that the decision maker is unfettered and free to concentrate on his/her work. To make sure the decision maker's valuable time isn't taken up by needless interruptions. Gatekeepers are a necessary evil in everyday business.

Getting past the gatekeeper can be challenging but not impossible.

First you must pre-qualify the information that you already have regarding the decision maker (name, title).

Ask the assistant "who is the person handling the insurance matters for the company". Or. " Who is in charge of the specific services/product you are providing (insurance, graphics, Printing)? The person who answers the phone will probably be able to tell you who the decision maker is even if they don't allow you to speak with him/her.

So let's say for example that you are calling Mr. Ravi Sharma  at Ratan Body Shop. But instead of getting Ravi, you get his assistant. His assistant's job like any good assistant is to govern which calls require Ravi's immediate attention and which will receive a phone call at a later date.

Here is an example of what a conversation might sound like.

Salesman : Hello, is Mr. Ravi in?

Gatekeeper : Who is this?

Salesman : This is Paramjit Singh calling for ALL-IN Insurance Services. I'm trying to reach the person in charge of accepting proposals for the employee Insurance policies for thecompany. I was told that it was Mr. Ravi.

Gatekeeper : Yes, Mr. Ravi is the person who handles the insurance but he is tied up right now can I take a message?

Salesman : Can I make an appointment at a later date?

Gatekeeper : Yes Can you make it at 1000 hours on the next Friday.

Salesman  : Sure I will thank you

There are some points worth considering here.

First, always try to get the Gatekeeper on your side. You don't get anywhere by making an enemy out of the person who probably has as much info on the company as the owner/Managing Director.

Second, be straight forward with the Gatekeeper . If you are coy or evasive with him/her, the assistant will pick up on it. You want this person on your side so be direct and simply tell him/her the purpose of the call.

Third always ask for the decision maker’s E-mail ID.  If you get a particularly Gatekeeper on the phone, the chance that the decision maker will in fact receive an unbiased message from you decreases. So be sure to leave a message.

Next, be sure to send some information to the decision maker which helps to insure that they know who you are and what you can do for them. If you still haven't received a return phone call from the prospect then you may want to send a voice or e-mail to his attention. 

If you don't have an e-mail for the prospect from the Gatekeeper then be sure to go on-line to the company's website. There may be a link to the person's e-mail address or fax number.

Potato in the organization!

Let us remember that in the modern dog eat dog world the competition is severe and cut throat. Some famous companies get thousands of bio-data in the course of a single day. So one has to consciously work to make one's bio-data as attractive as possible.

It is relevant to mention an example here. Knowing that many people are applying for a coveted job an applicant applying for a post in a famous advertising agency sent a potato as his bio-data saying very crispy "I want to be a potato in your organization". 

 

 He was called to the interview and he was asked as to what he means by that outrageous statement. The candidate replied" Sure sir, A potato is a very versatile vegetable, it can be used in any dish, it can be used to enrich any dish and it gives lots of energy. So like a potato you will find me very versatile and I would fit into any department and I would be very versatile". Needless to say he got the job.

Recruitment and Selection of Sales personnel (Part 3)

The external sources of recruitment include

• Walk in applications or so-called unsolicited applications

• Employment agencies or placement companies

• Sales people calling on the company

• Employees of customers

• Sales executive clubs

• Sales force of non-competing companies

• Sales forces of competing companies

• Educational institutions or campus placements

• Students doing apprentices and summer projects in the organization.

• Indirect recruitment which includes using media like radio, television and the print media

• Some companies also use reciting brochures which are mailed to reputed educational institutions, recruiting career counselors and agents

Advantages of external recruitment include a large pool of applicants can be attracted, best candidates can be chosen, fresh blood and new initiatives can be brought into the organization. But looking at the disadvantages external recruitment is costly and very time consuming and some times unwanted people may get into the company.

Selection follows recruitment and might consist of simple one step system consisting of nothing more than an informal personal interview to complex multiple mechanisms. A selection system is a set of successful screens. At any of the screens an applicant may be drooped from further considerations. Some of the steps of the selection process include

• Application blank is the first step where the candidates have to resubmit their application in a standard format in their own handwriting. This is required for standardization of the applications and also to get a sample of the candidate’s handwriting that can be used for a graphology test. Graphology test is test of handwriting that can reveal traits that the candidate might want to hide desperately. This will be followed by a preliminary interview where very basic communication skills and presentation skills of the candidate will be tested.

• Written tests are used as a process of elimination. In written test aptitude, oral, theoretical and comprehension skills will be tested.

• Psychological profiling has become popular lately. In psychological profiling tests will be conducted where the personality and traits of a person will be revealed.

• Group discussions are used when there is a large pool of candidates. Candidates are given a topic, which they are supposed to discuss for a short period of time. Candidates are tested for their communication skills, leadership skills and team management skills.

• Formal interview/s further can be further classified into

• Interview with the immediate boss/supervisor: The immediate supervisor will test suitability of the candidate to do the job

• Product Interview: In Product based interview the candidates technical knowledge will be tested

• Patterned interview: In patterned interview all the candidates are asked the same set of questions. Patterned interviews are good for comparisons.

• Stress interview: In stress interview the candidate is deliberately put under a stressful situation and seen how he would react and overcome the stressful situation.

• Group interview: In Group interviews a group of interviewers ask a series of questions. The candidate is tested whether he has the ability to multi-task that is able to think in many directions at the same time.

• References, credit and police check: The next stage is reference check whether the details given in the biodata are checked to find out if they are genuine or not. Reference check will be followed by a credit check and now a day’s companies’ even resort to a police check.

• Physical Examination: In the era of litigations and consumer courts, companies take no chances. They make the candidates undergo a medical check to find about the candidate’s health status. Needless to say only candidates in prime health conditions will be considered

• Offer is the most crucial part of the selection. If the candidate passes all the above stages he would be given an offer letter. The candidate has the liberty to either accept an offer or reject it.

• On acceptance of an offer by the successful candidate an appointment order will be issued by the company specifying the terms of employment and the last date of joining of duty. With this the process of recruitment and selection process ends.

Recruitment and Selection of Sales personnel (Part 2)

The qualities that are needed to be a good sales person are

• A sales person should be a good problem solver. That is solving the problems faced by the customers.

• He should be a good listener

• He should be an active learner. That is learning on his feet.

• He should possess persistence and should be ready to wok for long periods of time. That too when results are not too apparent or forth coming

• He should be a good net worker that is should have an ability to develop and maintain healthy and beneficial contacts.

• He should posses excellent product knowledge

• He should posses Empathy that is should be able to put himself into the shoes of the customers. In other words he should have the ability to understand the customer by thinking like a customer.

There are definite advantages of choosing selling as a career. The advantages being

• No formal degree/s are needed to be a sales person

• Only smartness, presentability and good communication skills are needed

• Indian economy opening up and fields like information, communication, entertainment, retail and insurance require a large number of sales people

• There is a possibility to earn very high incomes, as incentives given are huge and very attractive.

• Sales men enjoy flexible working hours

Along with the above advantages selling has some disadvantages. The disadvantages being

• Sales men have untimely working hours

• Sales people might have to travel for long periods of time

• Time can be wasted in waiting to meet customers

• Sales men have to work alone

• There is unending pressure of meeting deadlines and targets

• Often sales men meet customers who rudely reject them and their products

Recruitment of Sales people: Recruitment is the process of attracting a large number of potential applicants to apply for the job that has to be filled up. Infact the success of the selection process depends on the quality of the recruitment process. In other words if the recruitment process is successful it will attract a large number of applicants to apply. Once a large number of applicants apply for the job it is easy to filter and pick up the ideal candidates through the selection process.

The sources of recruitment for an organization can be classified as internal sources and external sources. The internal sources of recruitment include:

• Acquaintances and friends of the employees of the company. This method is often called as employee referrals

• Recommendations from senior company executives.

• Internal transfers

• Internal promotions.

The advantages of internal sources of recruitment are loyalty can be maintained and rewarded, only people known and recommended will be considered and some amount of secrecy can be maintained. But internal source of recruitment also has some disadvantages: it leads to inbreeding, new ideas and fresh blood is not given a chance to flourish and it can lead to complacency among the existing employees, as there is no sense of competition

Recruitment and Selection of Sales personnel (Part 1)

Marketing Management: Marketing management is the analysis, planning, implementation and control of activities designed to create, develop and maintain beneficial exchanges with the prospective customers to achieve organizational objectives.

The marketing mix of a company can be classified as 4 Ps that is Product, Price, Promotion and placement. That is Product talks about the physical entity that satisfies the need or a want. Price is all about the value that has to be exchanged to procure the product. Promotion is the communication about the product or the service and placement is how the product reaches the customer.

Promotion: The third P that is Promotions is all about communicating with the customers to influence them toward buying/creating a favorable impression/reminding about his/her products and services.

Generally companies deploy the following promotion mix to achieve their promotional objectives. The promotion mix that a company usually follows is

• Advertising
• Sales promotion

• Publicity/public relations

• And Personal selling

Personal selling is the face-to-face interaction between the customer and the seller. In personal selling the seller’s employee popularly referred to as sales person or sales man explains about the product face to face that is by being present in front of the customer.

Personal selling provides lots of advantages like

• As interaction is face-to-face doubts can be clarified immediately.
• Presentation can be customized that is tuned to the needs of the customer

• Instant feedback can be taken from the customers

At the same time personal selling has some disadvantages:

• Personal selling is not possible when the buyers are very large in number

• Personal selling will not work for low cost products

• One sales people can only service a limited number of customers per day. So personal selling tends to be very costly.

Sales Management: Sales management can be defined as the recruitment, selection, training, motivation, supervision, and evaluating the sales force so that individual, organizational and customer objectives are met.

Importance Of sales people in management include

• Launching the products into existing market/new market

• Salesmen increase the sales volume and profit

• Salesmen work as the eyes and the ears of the company. For a customer the sales person is the company

• Salesmen are the creators of demand

• Salesman educates and guides the consumers

• Salesmen give customers them satisfaction by providing them the exact product or a service that is needed.

• Sales management Increases employment opportunity

General all types are sales people are clubbed together and called as salesmen. But a clear classification exists. Sales people can be classified as

Order takers: Most common of all. Order takers wait behind counters and passively accept the orders placed by customers. Examples being salesmen people serving in retail shops, sweet meat shops etc.

Mobile sales persons: Commonly seen everywhere. Mobile sales people travel in small 3 wheeler autos and tempos (small luggage carrying three wheeler vehicle). They drive up to shops and stores and persuade shopkeepers to buy their products

Counter sales people: Same as order takers but are more skilled and perform sales activities like demonstration, persuasion, negotiations and objection handling. Examples being sales people in textile and gold shops.

Product sales people: tend to be skilled and possess high level of product knowledge. Product sales people usually are graduates with good communication skills. Examples being salespeople in electronic shops.

Technical Sales people:  are very highly skilled. Usually come from the same field as the customer. They have high level of product knowledge. They are good problem solvers. Examples being sales people who sell equipment and machinery to industrial customers.

Missionary sales people: Are so called because they do not sell directly and use the indirect method. They sell the concept or idea to the opinion leaders who then market their products to the customers. Examples being medical representatives who counsel the doctors who in turn prescribe the products to the patients.

Services sales people: These are sales people who sell services and not products. Examples include all sellers from the fields of insurance, banking, real estate and other service fields.

Specialized sales people: Are so specialized that they sell in huge groups. For example Boeing and Airbus companies have huge teams of sales people who sell their products directly to kings, emperors, prime ministers, presidents and to aviation ministers.