Hire the right salespeople

Most companies spend more on hiring in sales than they do in any other part of the organization. With an average annual turnover rate of 25- 30pc and direct replacement costs ranging from $75,000 to $300,000, there’s a big opportunity for improvement. Here are a few places to start:

— Focus on behaviours. A primary cause of turnover is poor job fit. Consider ramping up assessment tools, simulations and interviewing techniques to help identify the right people. Or, try temporary positions to assess people on the job before offering a full-time position.

— Be clear about the relevant ‘experience’ needed. Make sure that a candidate’s previous experience really aligns with your own market, geography, culture, customer groups and technologies.

— Conduct ongoing talent assessments. Salespeople need to constantly adapt their own skills to changing markets and buyer motivations, and managers need to vigilantly track those skills.

(Adapted from “The best ways to hire salespeople,” by Frank V. Cespedes and Daniel Weinfurter)

Make learning harder

When information is at our fingertips, and attention spans are shorter than ever, it’s no wonder that people expect learning to be easy, too. But research shows that real learning — the kind that embeds knowledge and skills in long-term memory — is never simple. In fact, easy in (little effort to temporarily retain the lesson) typically results in hard out (difficulty in retrieving it when you need it). To help you and your team strengthen mental storage, interweave tasks and materials instead of focusing on just one for a big block of time; allow people to make mistakes and learn from them; require people to interpret new material in light of what they already know; and use testing as a mode of instruction rather than evaluation.

This kind of active learning is important in on-boarding programmes, during mergers and acquisitions and for transferring expertise.

(“Why organizations need to make larning hard,” by Dorothy Leonard)

Business travel and your productivity

Many professionals spend a lot of time traveling. But work doesn’t stop just because you’re in transit. Here’s how to accomplish more from the road:

— Engage in professional development by listening to podcasts.

— Use airport lounges to make short phone calls. Keep a ‘to-call’ list, so you can cluster calls and bang them out in a row.

— Download necessary files to your computer ahead of time, in case you have spotty Wi-Fi. A lack of Internet access might actually help you focus on the work you need to get done.

— Set aside some travel time for ‘strategic renewal’ — do some pleasure reading or take a nap. Taking some downtime from work will enable you to be sharper when you get back down to business.

(Adapted from “How to use your travel time productively,” by Dorie Clark)

Timer for tough decision

We spend a lot of time and energy each day making choices — some minor, and some serious. But it’s possible to handle decisions of all kinds more efficiently. One strategy is to use a timer for the most difficult and unpredictable decisions.

Some decisions are so complicated that you may never come to a conclusion that feels exactly right. So, set a specific amount of time, and when time’s up: make your best choice and move forward. It helps if you can make the decision smaller, with minimal investment, to test it. But if you can’t, then just make the decision. The time you save by not deliberating pointlessly will pay massive dividends in productivity.

(Adapted from “3 timeless rules for making tough Ddcisions,” by Peter Bregman)

3 types of meetings

In order to have fewer, more purposeful meetings, there are a few types that we all need to stop having — pronto. The worst offenders include:

— Convenience meetings: When managers have information to disseminate to a large group, they often get everyone in a room together. But this usually disrupts work, and wastes time. Next time, circulate a memo, or have several one-on-one conversations.

— Formality meetings: These meetings are called as a matter of tradition or habit. If you have to go looking for items to add to an agenda, you probably don’t need the meeting anymore.

— Social meetings: Some meetings are called under the guise of collaboration or alignment, when it’s really connection that we’re after. While that’s a laudable goal, meetings are a pretty lousy way to foster it. Instead, invite people to a team-building activity, retreat or a party. But make it optional.

(Adapted from “Stop calling every conversation a meeting,” by Al Pittampalli)

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, February 8th, 2016