MANAGEMENTPurple Squirrel Problem
It’s known among recruiters as the “purple squirrel” problem: Businesses sometimes get fixated on finding the perfect job candidate, an almost mythical Ms. Right, the purple squirrel. In a New Yorker column, James Surowiecki tells the story of a manufacturing company that rejected 27,000 applications for a basic engineering job because none were the “right fit.” To be sure, a wrong hire can be very expensive. But keeping a job open for months looking for the perfect candidate is also costly in terms of cash and lost opportunities. It helps to remember purple squirrels don’t exist.
SALESLower the Bar
In its heyday, IBM was known as being the leader in the computer industry, and more generally as a selling machine — its salespeople had a reputation for being incredibly effective and smashing sales goals and records. A key part of this, according to a Business Insider report, was setting really low quotas. “They wanted the salespeople to not be intimidated to pick up the phone. They wanted the salespeople to build momentum and then overshoot their quotas and goals. This is exactly what happened.” If stretch goals haven’t proved that effective for your sales team, why not try setting the bar a lot lower this year and see what happens?
SELLINGListen Here!
With the rise of the Internet, the role of salespeople has changed from product expert to sales facilitator. But the idea of what makes a good associate seems to be stuck in the past; business owners still invariably hire gregarious, back-slapping extroverts, Daniel Pink, author of To Sell Is Human, told NPR. “We have this idea that extroverts are better salespeople. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance — that is, how many times the cash register actually rings — the correlation’s almost zero,” he says. “Why? … They’re just spending too much time talking … They don’t know when to shut up. They don’t listen very well; they’re not attuned to the other person; they sometimes can overwhelm people.” Listening is the first skill in selling.
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SALES FLOORFocus on Benefits, Not Features
A University of Kansas study has found one of the reasons people are more reckless with credit cards than cash is because they feel free to focus more on product benefits and pay less attention to costs. Similarly, ads or sales presentations that avoided product attributes and focused instead on narrative or sexual imagery and other emotional triggers led to significantly less activation of the rational thought centers, the researchers concluded. “When marketing bypasses these parts of the brain, (shoppers) are likely to make impulsive decisions,” says study author Clay Warren.
MARKETINGBenefits of CSR
Is there a quantifiable benefit from practicing corporate social responsibility? Yes, says the Reputation Institute, whose CSR RepTrak 100 Study found the main ones are that shoppers are far more willing to recommend you as a service. For example, “a five-point increase in a CSR rating would result in a 9.1% rise in the number of people who would definitely recommend a company,” it says.
