Troubled part-nationalised bank, the Royal Bank of Scotland admits that it is losing salespeople and other key staff and has been paying guaranteed bonuses this year in an attempt to attract top talent. These are just some of the issues raised in a wide-ranging interview with RBS chief executive STEPHEN HESTER on Channel 4 News on 9 November.

Royal Bank of Scotland posted a pre-tax loss of Ł2.2billion for the July to September quarter with so-called ‘impairment losses’ down 30% from Ł4.7 billion the previous quarter. The bank has also written off another Ł3.3billion in bad debts and other bad investments. It says conditions remain ‘fragile’.

Channel 4 News’ reporter John Sparks talked to Hester in the light of last week’s interim figures and Tuesday’s news that revised participation in a state-backed asset insurance plan will see UK tax-payers’ holding rise to 84%.

Portsmouth Business School’s Beth Rogers reports from the Global Sales Science Institute conference.

Sales 3.0: modern sales & sales management in an interconnected world was the theme of the 3rd Global Sales Science Institute conference held this month at ESC Clermont, an FT Top 50 business school based in the capital city of the Auvergne district of France.

Jeffrey Bean asks whether trying to clone our top performers is possible or even desirable.

Research into individual performance within company sales teams of all types and sizes suggests they can, in general, be divided into three performance bands:

• the top 20% who consistently perform at 130% of target or above;
• the bottom 20% achieving at 30% of target or less; and
• the balance of 60% who are solid and put in an acceptable performance that across the group averages out at around 85% of target.

Selecting the right salesperson is one of the most important functions the sales director has to fulfil. Too often it is approached in a casual and unprofessional manner, while the consequences of recruiting the wrong candidate are costly, damaging and time consuming. Paul Sloane offers some simple techniques to help avoid that problem.

What are the two most important abilities that a salesperson needs? There has been extensive research in this area and the answers are clear: the two most critical factors for a sales person are the ability to ask questions and the ability to listen. Both of these capabilities can be tested at interview, yet most interviewers miss a golden opportunity to check for these skills.

Here are some tips to help you when you are next interviewing a candidate for a sales position in your company.

Brit Steve Odell is the first non-Swede at the helm of Volvo Car Corporation, and despite the rumours, he insists he has not been put in place by his Ford bosses to get the company ready for sale.

He believes the Volvo brand is undervalued and needs time to show just what it can do.

Sales guy

‘I am an old fashioned sales guy,’ he said at the Paris Motor Show. ‘All I want is for Volvo to have an unfair share of whatever the market is. My brief is to get Volvo back to sustainable profitability.’

Vivek Thomas on the sometimes bumpy transition from sales boss to chief executive.

The responsibilities of a managing director (MD) are ever-broadening. Whether it be overseeing a deal, managing resources, or running an operation, MDs are constantly faced with challenges from every direction. 

My experiences as a business development manager (BDM) provided me with a solid foundation to draw on when I became managing director, EMEA, at Maximizer Software. The drive, determination and mental attitude which helped me succeed as a BDM have been paramount to my career progression.

Not easy

However, this is not to say the transition was particularly easy; in fact, this could not be further from the truth. Those hoping to progress from a sales-oriented role into a board-level position must understand the advantages and pitfalls that come from having a sales background.

To survive these turbulent economic times you need to keep hold of your best salespeople, argues John Feddon. He outlines the impact of losing good salespeople and some best practices that will help you stop this from happening.

In tough economic times you need to be using the best salespeople you can find to win your fair share of orders.  This is particularly the case if one accepts that an economic downturn will mean that the competition will increase and sales opportunities will become fewer in number.

And once you find a good salesperson, think hard about what you need to do to keep them.

There’s nothing really new in sales apart from a welcome change in attitude, says editor Nick de Cent.

I’m glad I took the trouble to request a review copy and actually read Selling for Virgins, the new book which explains the thinking behind Meta-Morphose International’s approach to sales recruitment and training. That’s because the press release and even the front cover which describes the book as ‘a eureka moment!’ – there are very few eureka moments in sales – do not do justice to the hefty dose of realism and common-sense served up by authors David Baker and Lucy Ryan.

Sales managers, what exactly what do they do? Here, with the help of a few mini-case-studies – a couple of which will be very familiar from the television show the Apprentice – we provide a quick guide to what a sales management career is all about and where it might lead as you progress.

Their role is all about communication – with colleagues, customers and the team – as well as leadership, and meeting targets

Sales management is also increasingly a graduate profession, though there are plenty of opportunities for entry at all levels of academic qualification and an increasing number of vocational degree courses for employees already into their careers.

Whatever, you think of The Apprentice and the general calibre of the candidates, this year’s eventual winner Lee McQueen was seen as a generally likeable fellow with a passion for sales and self-improvement.

However, the incident where he was caught lying (albeit in a minor way) in the week 11 interviews has understandably sparked controversy.

Jackie Cobley of Accelerate counts the cost of sales team turnover.

Every organisation is responsible for attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining their greatest asset – the people; but nowhere is the success or failure of a new hire more keenly felt than in sales – where revenue figures and performance speak for themselves.

Balancing act

It’s a fact of business life that all organisations have a degree of employee turnover. However, when a sales person leaves – new or experienced – it creates a difficult balancing act in terms of managing not just workloads and staff morale, but also how to handle delicate customer relationships. Rather than risk compromising a sales situation with someone who is considered – rightly or wrongly – no longer motivated enough to do a good job, businesses often impose ‘gardening leave’ on employees who have resigned.

How do you fill the vacuum quickly before the relationship or a sale is jeopardised?

Is your sales force fit for purpose during an economic down-turn, asks Peter O’Donnell of Ergon?

When designing a new office building, the first step is to describe its intended purpose, overall shape and dimensions.

The detail of the building becomes more specific in ensuing phases but, at all times a standard language is employed, especially for detailed dimensions and engineering specifications. These building standards are required for coherency of design, to minimise error, guarantee fit and integration of components, health and safety, efficiency of build, and for ongoing maintenance and support.

Fit for purpose

You might now be asking: ‘What has an office building and the sales force got in common?’ The answer is that, if either is not fit for purpose, despite the money and effort spent, buildings will fail to deliver what is required and, in recessions, only the fittest sales organisations will survive.

Top sales talent – it’s more critical than ever, yet is it harder to find, asks Andrew Dugdale?

McKinsey & Co recently released a couple of reports that make interesting reading for many sales leaders today. In its 4th Quarter 2007 Survey of Business Executives Views on Economic and Hiring Trends, MCkinsey found that expectations of inflation have risen sharply, as have expectations that economic conditions will deteriorate over the next half year.

Nevertheless, many executives say they are going to continue to hire more staff and plan to raise investment in recruitment and training in the near term.

Given these two apparently conflicting views, it is reasonable to expect that the pressure will be focused onto the sales teams in the drive to generate larger revenues and profits than ever before. Yet this all has to be achieved in the face of a deteriorating economy.

Legislation, globalisation, competition – it’s a jungle out there. Suddenly, it seems that sales has lost its way and ‘old-skool’ training is not equipping us for the tough new business environment. It’s time to sign up for a proper sales education, says Nick de Cent as he hacks a path through the maze of sales-related NVQs, VRQs, diplomas and degrees.

Let’s face it, salespeople and formal education don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand! After all, why sit in a stuffy classroom cramming books when you could be out in the wider world of business closing deals and earning a good salary?

Obtaining an accredited qualification can help you climb the career ladder faster, but finding your way around the mass of sales qualifications is complicated. Here is our guide to what is available and how they fit into the National Qualifications Framework. Remember also that accredited qualifications may be subsidised by the government, offering a considerable saving on course fees.

Watch out for our forthcoming interview with Michael Page International regional managing director OLIVER WATSON. Meantime, here are his three tips for recruiting the best person for your team. With quality salespeople in relatively short supply, it’s vital to make the right choice.

One: obtain demonstrable proof of a salesperson’s track record.

That track record needs to be investigated; it needs to be probed and it needs to be referenced (with clients if necessary). ‘There are an awful lot of “deals” that have been done by salespeople out there that either haven’t been done or they were part of a team of ten that once did a deal, or that deal was phoned into an organisation…’ Use robust techniques to verify a track record. For instance, ask to see a candidate’s P60; one of the best ways to find out whether a person has hit a target is to see what they earned. Note that this works in certain environments; it doesn’t work for everybody.

Some of the more fundamental sales recruitment problems have their origins in our schools, says managing director of Omni Resource Management Solutions, Robert Leggett.

The fact is that the majority of sales managers, when recruiting, tend to look first and foremost at ‘hard’ factors such as degrees or school grades, work experience, literacy and numeracy skills. What GCSEs does the candidate have? What sort of work experience? Can they read and write well, and are they OK at maths?

This is normal – after all, GCSEs, degrees and other qualifications are easy to verify – they come with certificates! – and work experience can also be easily documented and checked, while basic tests for reading and numeracy are fast and simple.

Sales potential and soft skills

However, sales employers are increasingly testing candidates’ non-academic soft skills: the growth of psychometric testing in the UK illustrates this. They know how critical it is to identify the right personality traits from the start – traits that are right for business and right for sales. For too long we’ve been over-reliant on catchwords like ‘graduate-calibre’, when so many other life skills are vitally important. Unfortunately, now that organisations have fine-tuned what they’re looking for, they’re finding that there isn’t enough of the ‘right’ type of graduates out there.

In recent months, there’s been extensive press coverage of new candidates coming into the marketplace but struggling to find meaningful roles for themselves. This is certainly true in sales, and I wonder whether that’s because we’ve been investing so much time in the UK into making education a so-called ‘level playing field’ (to use a common sports metaphor). Our focus, for too long now, has been on getting young people into college, with an almost ‘university-come-what-may’ attitude. Yet, ultimately, schools and colleges are not producing the type of candidate that sales employers want to see.

Graduate recruitment and sales training specialist Pareto Law has just released its top ten list of job interview howlers, which they call interview ‘faux pas’ (how very French! – Ed).

From the graduate who only came to the interview because his mum told him to, to the hopeful who brought along his swimming medals as evidence of his potential, the list offers a useful guide to what not to say or do in an interview.

Looking to get ahead? Nobody likes boasting, but you shouldn’t be ashamed to let colleagues or prospective employers know who you are and what you bring to the table.

1 Self-promotion

Products need to be promoted – think of yourself as a product you are taking to market. Network hard.

Create a list of people to whom you can promote yourself regularly. Why not send them periodic updates of your accomplishments, articles that might interest them, notices of events they might want to attend, notes of congratulations… but don’t get too cheesy. Build a relationship and you’ll be at the forefront of their minds when a vacancy comes up.

The salesman is dead. Long live the 21st century sales professional, says ModernSelling.com’s editor Nick de Cent.

In 1949, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller wrote Death of a Salesman, relating the story of the downfall of Willy Loman, an aging salesman beginning to lose his grip on reality.

Drawn from the ‘hail fellow, well met!’ school of selling, Loman was a typical bag-carrier, relying on his native charm to make friends and influence people. He was on the road for long hours but kept closing deals.

Munir Mamujee of m2r says that taking the trouble to hone this most personal of documents is time well spent.

Ok, it’s time to rewrite your CV (curriculum vitae – latin for you life story –  Ed). You may view this as an extremely tedious and mundane task that only merits a very short amount of your time, but this attitude could seriously jeopardise your career prospects!

Recruiting and retaining excellent sales staff is a process that perplexes the most experienced of managers. Get the mix of characteristics versus skills right and you have a Godsend that will boost both your business and your reputation. Get it wrong, and you may be stuck with an expensive loose-cannon.
Joanna Sayers investigates.