How Many Times Do You Contact Prospects Before Giving Up

How Many Times Do You Contact Prospects Before Giving Up Anyone tasked with new business development knows it can be a hard slog, albeit a rewarding one if practiced carefully and strategically. Sales people must be  great at  objection-handling, but if you cant even get a potential client or customer to talk to you in the first place then what? We all know persistence is key in winning over prospects, but when trying to set up that initial conversation, whether it be  via phone, email or social media, its hard to know when enough is enough. We asked our fabulous panel of careers, sales recruitment experts to give us some guidance on how many times you should contact prospects before giving up. Heres what they had to say: Jon Gregory Keep going forever. Stalk them until they give in, or one of you dies. However, you need to be smart about it. Think in terms of brand-building, where frequency builds familiarity and trust. Continue until the trust is established AND theyre in a position to buy. Do it by making your communications interesting and offering them benefits, not just lambasting them until they give in. @LetsFireWalk (aka Jon) is a job hunt coach at  Win-That-Job.com James Nathan Until they tell you to stop! But maybe there is a better way to contact them? Email is great for certain things, but as a communication tool it is limited. To have a real and meaningful conversation you must speak either on the phone or in person. If someone is not responding to you, it is usually because they are not interested. That means looking at other ways to contact them initially. Do you know someone who can introduce you? Could you find out where they network and be there too? Could you offer them something different that they would be interested in? Think around the problem before you reach for the keyboard or pick up the phone another time. @JamesNathan  is the Managing Director at The James Nathan Experience Lysha Holmes Prospecting is so different now because of the way we communicate before we even pick a phone up. We can look at someone on LinkedIn and find out their background. So to me, start with an initial InMail or email being very specific and introducing yourself. Say you will follow up with a call in X days. Follow up with a call. If no connection, send a follow up email suggesting that if they want to contact you, here is how. And leave it there. @LyshaHolmes is the owner of Qui Recruitment Ltd Liz Sebag-Montefiore I’d say about three times over a period of two and half weeks. But don’t give up, stay in touch with your contacts, even if it’s only once a year, to keep the door open, reach out, let them know that you are available. Usually it isn’t the case that they don’t want to talk to you, they were just busy when you made contact. Make sure you leave a positive impression. You don’t want to be a pest, one thing you can use is to ask when they would like to be contacted. @LizSM10Eighty  is a career coach at 10Eighty Rebecca Fraser This is always challenging to deem as it does depend on the industry that you work in. Generally, 3 contact attempts for anything is my rule of fun. 1 to make introduction, 2 to trigger the engagement and 3 just to see if there is any attempt at a response. The amount of time left between these attempts will definitely change depending on the industry sector you are targeting, however using your professional logic as this will always support you. @RebeccaFraserCo is a career coach John Feldmann In my opinion three is the appropriate number â€" the first to introduce yourself, the second to follow up, and the third to reaffirm your interest and persistence. Beyond that, you run the risk of annoying the prospect and coming across as a stalker, which may hurt your chances. John Feldmann  is  writer, blogger and content developer for Insperity Recruiting Services Alison Cardy More than once! People often have full inboxes and short attention spans, so always follow-up with a second touchpoint if the first one doesn’t garner a response. It’s fine to continue reaching out after that too. Just make sure the energy you put forth is friendly, respectful, helpful, and appropriate to the client you’re targeting. @CardyCareers  is a career coach and author of  Career Grease: How to Get Unstuck and Pivot Your Career Caroline Stokes Think long term relationship vs immediate transaction.  I like to think prospective clients needing us one day (maybe tomorrow, or next year), or using some of our guidance to help move their career, leadership or hiring strategy forward. We might not be hired right now, and that’s fine because we’re hiring for specialist, high-level innovation leader searches. If I’m doing my job right, my prospective clients would recommend us to other companies, or come to us when they really need us to deliver something their internal team don’t have the bandwidth to manage. It’s not about giving up, it’s about being of service when we’re needed. @theforwardco  (Caroline) is an executive headhunter coach at FORWARD Farhan Raja Never give up. Just reduce the frequency and don’t spam. Persistence has its rewards. Always ensure that the email is personalised as much as possible. @interviewology  (aka Farhan) is the founder, career communications coach at  jobinterviewology.com

Tips For Writing an Effective Resume

Tips For Writing an Effective ResumeHaving tips for writing a resume can be an important step in your career search. A resume is the first thing you will hear from a potential employer, and it is often your first impression of the company. It can greatly impact the size of your future job offer and the length of your employment.Before you begin writing your resume, make sure you know how to properly format one. It is imperative that you write it correctly or else it will be turned down for submission. With this in mind, here are a few tips for writing a resume that will get you noticed.o Use heading and sub-heading style on your resume. These styles will give your resume more structure and organization. This will make it easy for the reader to read your resume and find what they are looking for. Make sure that these styles are separated by at least two lines of type, preferably one per paragraph.o State exactly what you do for a living on your resume. Your job title should be include d on the first line and your company or position number within the first three lines. In the same vein, do not leave the position number off of the second and third lines. This will help your resume look well organized.o If you are in an entry level position, always indicate your position number on the first line. You should include your company name and a little bit of information about your responsibilities below that. Be sure to include your company name and your position number on the first three lines. While you can use the entry level number on the second and third lines, you may not want to if you want to be considered professional.o Most common mistakes resume writers make include typos on their resumes. Be sure that all of your keywords are included in your resume. Doing so will help to boost your chances of being found by a potential employer.o Always take time to proofread your resume. Many companies will notice if you have made a mistake or just not followed the rules wh en putting together your resume. So, always proofread your resume to ensure that all the important points are included. Correct any problems immediately and never just ignore them.Resumes are not easy to write and many professionals have had a hard time with this process. Keep these tips in mind and you will not have any trouble completing one. Having tips for writing a resume can be very helpful and can help you move through the application process in the most efficient manner possible.

Lessons from the drug trade, and other entrepreneurial tips

Lessons from the drug trade, and other entrepreneurial tips One of the important lessons in entrepreneurship is to figure out your goal: Do you want to run a small business forever? Grow into a multinational corporation? Or do you want to sell as fast as possible? Your business should fit your personality and your vision for your life. New York magazine profiles a drug dealer trying to find an exit strategy for his mid-size company. Which sells cocaine, of course. Believe it or not, theres a market for drug dealerships. And you can tell this guy is an overachiever in the business world because he keeps his client list on an Excel spreadsheet. Heres how he explains his plan: The rule in any business is that you dont sell your company for what it makes in a year, but for what it makes in two or three or four years, right? Well in my business, you cant do that. Someone gets arrested and boom its over. So you gotta sell it based on what you make in, like, six months. For those of you who are thinking about entrepreneurship in a less life-threatening product category, try taking Pairwises entrepreneurial personality test (scroll down the page to find it). This test tells you if you have the personality similar to other scrappy Internet company founders who Y Combinator has funded. Y Combinator typically funds young technical-type guys in college or just out of college, (although every time I write this, Y Combinator asks me to say that this is an overstatement and they actually fund a wide range of people.) If you know you are not this type even without taking the test, and you know you cant stomach the drug trade, theres still hope. Current research from the academics says that there is no one personality type for a successful entrepreneur. There are so many ways to be an entrepreneur today that you can create a business to fit your strengths.

Three Tips For Sustainable Growth In Your Business

Three Tips For Sustainable Growth In Your Business Every startup and young business has the goal of eventually increasing profits and growing. But scaling for the sake of getting bigger is dangerous and inefficient. It opens you up to new vulnerabilities and risks that aren’t necessary at your current stage of business. Smart, sustainable growth must be the focus. The Problems With Premature Scaling  â€œScaling is a good thing, as long as it’s done right,” according to Entrepreneur. “Scaling is the  result  of a startup’s growth. Too often, however, scaling is intended to  drive  a startup’s growth. That’s where we have a problem.  That  is premature scaling.” Premature scaling usually happens when one dimension of the business grows out of sync with the rest of the business operation. Patel points to research that shows premature scaling occurs in 70 percent of companies and is responsible for the failure of nearly three out every four tech startups. Premature scaling can grow out of any number of issues, but is typically tied to one of the following issues: Too much money for the phase of the startup growth cycle a business is currently in â€" causing the business to feel pressure to expand operations beyond a manageable level. Excessive bulk and fat in the organization â€" such as over hiring employees or leasing/buying real estate that’s excessive for the current growth phase. Too many customers/early adopters at an early age â€" which causes the startup team to shift focus away from innovation and towards customer service.  In the moment, scaling seems good, exciting, and healthy. But what many entrepreneurs discover on the back end is that scaling for the sake of scaling is usually premature and inefficient. Three  Tips for Sustainable Growth  The antithesis of premature scaling is sustainable growth. If you want to grow your business in a smart and efficient manner, here are a few tips and pointers to implement: Establish Autonomous Operations  One of the biggest dangers young startups face is developing too much reliance on a single individual â€" typically the founder. While you may be capable of handling a major responsibility at an early stage, it’s nearly impossible for you to scale up as the business grows. You have a finite amount of time and energy and the business will ultimately fail when you’re no longer able to match demand. It’s for this reason that you need to focus on establishing autonomous operations. Use an Outside Growth Firm  You can’t scale out of emotion. Feeling that it’s the right time to expand, grow, or enter into uncharted territory is usually a mistake. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible for you to separate your feelings from your business, which is why it’s a good idea to bring in an outside growth firm to provide objective, calculated guidance. According to NYC growth strategy firm Nonpareil, data-driven decision making is the best way forward. By removing emotions and personal feelings from the situation, you’re much more likely to make decisions that are right for the future of the company (even when they don’t feel good in the moment). Continue to Focus on Customers  If you’re finding it difficult to stop thinking about scaling, you need to shift your attention to an aspect of the business that’s unscalable. This includes learning about customers, spending time with customers, and listening to their complaints and critiques. “Focus is good, provided you’re focused on the right thing. Focusing on scaling is  not  the right thing,” Patel acknowledges. “Focusing on your customers is, by contrast, is healthy and essential.” You’ll feel like you’re wasting your time when you spend two hours answering customer emails on a Monday morning, but the reality is that you’re focusing on the present, learning about your business in a stage-specific manner, and shifting your energy away from scaling. Those are all good, sustainable actions! Don’t Rush Into Anything And Follow These Tips For Sustainable Growth  With startup growth, easy does it. You may feel the pressure to scale quickly, but most of that pressure is coming out of a selfish or immature place. Healthy businesses establish a stable foundation and then expand.

How to Promote Writing Skills on Resume

How to Promote Writing Skills on ResumeHow to promote writing skills on resume varies with the qualifications of the person applying for the same. There are certain factors which might prove to be advantageous for you to know how to make the profile as good as it can be. It is best to avoid dwelling into the negative side of the same.The person who wants to promote writing skills on resume should have good writing and spelling skills. He should not forget to read the resume properly. He should not leave out a single error. This will help him to stand apart from the crowd.The person having the writing skills on resume can also put his skills and achievements in the skills section. His writing and language skills will be praised by the employer. People, who come with the high caliber of skills can go ahead and provide the resume with professional looking writing as well as in the employment section.The person who is looking for writing skills on resume can just specify the skills that he has had in the past. This will be beneficial for him to know how to promote writing skills on resume. He can write about his previous jobs and achievements in his past jobs. A lot of people choose to highlight their employment in a particular company or organization.In this way, they can make a complete history of the same, and even highlight their previous employers and the amount of work that they have done for them. A lot of such accomplishments will help the person to know how to promote writing skills on resume. If he wants to highlight his writing skills on resume in the employment section, then he can even point out those details in the skills section.Those who are jobless and have no work experience can use the skills section to highlight their skills in the form of work experience. They can even specify what they have done for their employer. This is considered to be the best way to make a resume look professional. However, he can even mention about his skills as a freel ance writer or professional photographer.The person, who is on the right foot when it comes to writing skills can continue the same. He can even highlight the skills that he has done in the online world. Most of the people are not able to bring in an edge to their resume when it comes to writing skills. They can always highlight the Internet writing skills as well as the writing skills they have gained while working in any related area.There are many advantages of putting the writing skills in the skills section of the resume. It is advisable to use the expertise of writing professionals to turn around the resume for the person.

Why secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Why secret salaries are a baaaaaad idea - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Its a golden rule in most businesses that salaries must be kept secret. Except for a few heretics it is almost universally accepted that mayhem would ensue in the workplace if people knew what their co-workers, their managers or gasp the CEO was making. Making salaries open inside a company instead seems like a wild idea sure, but it makes a lot of sense and brings advantages for both the workplace and for its people. Read on to see why. The case against secret salaries There are three major reasons why secret salaries are silly: It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) cant be addressed directly. Theyre not secret anyway. People talk, you know. It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization Lets look at each of these. If Johnson over in production is making 1.000 more a month than I am and the CEO is making 22 times what Im making, then hopefully theres a good reason for it one that I as an employee am entitled to know and capable of understanding. So why are salaries treated as state secrets? The main reason may precisely be that theyre not currently fair and therefore making them open seems dangerous to many workplaces. Maybe Johnson is making more than me, not because he does a better job, but because he drives a harder bargain when it comes time to negotiate salaries. Or sucks up to the boss. Or has some pictures from the last christmas office party showing the VP of marketing and an intern in never mind. That doesnt seem fair, does it? We can all agree, I think, that it makes much more sense to determine salaries based on peoples value to the company. I have worked at two different companies where salaries were secret and guess what: They werent. Most people knew what most others were getting. In one company I consulted for, the IT department had even found the Excel spreadsheets HR kept the salaries in. They knew what everyone was getting. And heres the problem: If Johnsons salary is (unfairly) higher than mine, and secret, I cant complain to my manager about it because I cant admit that I know about it. When a company sets up a situation where people can see the unfairness but cant address it directly, or even discuss it openly, theyre rigging the system for maximum frustration. Companies must attempt to pay their people as fairly as possible. You might think a company should try to pay people as little as possible, but companies who subscribe to that philosophy must be prepared to steadily lose all their good employees to competitors willing to pay people what theyre worth. A company must attempt to pay each employee a fair salary, ie. one that matches the employees skills, the market average and other employees inside the company. In other words, the company itself has a vested interest in keeping salaries fair, and keeping salaries secret makes that nearly impossible. The case for open salaries Making salaries public (inside the company of course) has some major advantages: Salaries will become more fair. The system gets a chance to adjust itself. It will be easier to retain the best employees because theyre more likely to feel theyre getting a fair salary. The pressure is on the people with the high salaries to earn their keep. Everybody has to pull their weight the higher the salary, the larger the weight. I believe on a very fundamental level that openness is better than secrecy, in life and in business. Im not na?ve enough to share all information all the time, but my chosen approach is Lets make everything open by default and only make those things secret that absolutely need to be. Would I share my list of prospective clients with my competitors? Nah. Would I share it inside the company? Heck, yeah! So when I co-founded an IT company back in 1997, we decided right from the beginning to make salaries open. We even had a page on the intranet where everybody could see what everybody else got. And yes, this did cause some discussions along the lines of Hey, why am I getting less than Johnson, my work is at least as good at his. We took those discussions seriously and we either clarified the difference in salary (eg. Johnson gets more because his clients are consistently more satisfied than yours) or we adjusted the salaries to match. Semco is a Sao Paulo-based company of 3.000 people whove gone one step further: They allow employees to set their own salaries. No really, they do! This works only because all salaries are open. I could demand a high salary and get it but Id better be showing results because people are sure to be watching those who make a lot of money. Thats a business experiment only for the truly daring enterprise, but Semco has demonstrated for the rest of us that it can work. Ricardo Semler, the owner of Semco said this about the value of discussing salaries openly: Salaries are a sensitive subject, but open communication is important enough that it should be tested, even if there is a price to pay. Its at the very heart of a shared culture. If discussion of salaries is taboo, what else is off limits? The only source of power in an organization is information, and withholding, filtering, or retaining information only serves those who want to accumulate power through hoarding. Once an e-mail is not circulated, or if it is edited, then illegitimate pockets of power are created. Some people are privy to information that others dont possess. Remove those pockets, and a company removes a source of dissatisfaction, bickering, and political feuding. Ricardo Semler in his excellent book The Seven-Day Weekend You tellem Ricardo. Making salaries open opens yet another pocket of information that the power-hungry would otherwise use to consolidate their positions to the detriment of co-workers and the organization. So come on: Make salaries public. Put them on the intranet. I dare you! Why keep them a secret? There is one requirement for open salaries to work though: Employees must know what factors influence salaries. Are they based on customer satisfaction, hours worked, quality, sales figures, seniority, skills, commitment to the compay, education, etc What matters when setting salaries and what doesnt matter? If the company has not clearly stated this, comparisons are meaningless. It is of course managements responsibility to know and to publicize the factors that determine employees salaries. In our company we decided this together, and we agreed that the most important factors would be customer satisfaction and commitment to the company and that formal education and seniority didnt matter. We put this in a document on the intranet as well. I can safely say, that making salaries open was one of the best things we did for our company and it almost made salary a non-issue it was certainly nothing that caused us any frustration or troubles. So try it: Make salaries open. I double-dare you. UPDATE: This post sure generated a lot of comments. I love it! Ive posted a comment round-up here. If you liked this post, I think youll also like these: Top 5 business maxims that need to go Part I Part II The cult of overwork Being positive makes you lucky. No really! Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Why Business Cards Belong In Your Job-Search Toolbox

Why Business Cards Belong In Your Job-Search Toolbox Why Business Cards Belong In Your Job-Search Toolbox Whenever I speak to a group of job seekers the first question I ask is “How many of you have a resume?” Almost every hand goes up. Great. The second question is “How many of you have a business card?” Only a few hands go up. Not so great. Unfortunately, many job seekers, don’t realize that when used correctly business cards can be an important marketing tool. When used incorrectly, not so much. About a year ago, I attended a networking event sponsored by my local SHRM. Most of the attendees were in human resources. Not surprisingly, there were many job seekers there as well.   Smart move. There’s no better place to meet people working in HR than at an HR event. When I arrived, I spent some time chatting with a recently laid-off woman who was looking for a position in HR. As we said goodbye, I asked her for her business card. She said since she was out of work she didn’t have a “business card” per se. She then proceeded to apologetically hand me a card for the small jewelry business she was running on the side. Obviously, it had nothing to do with her job-search objectives. Big mistake. If you’re unemployed, or even if you’re not, it’s a good idea to have business cards. Business cards are essential for networking events and job fairs. First, you need to provide a way for people to contact you. Second, you need to have a way for them to remember you. Finally, if you’re currently employed you need to give people a way to contact you outside of your office. A business card doesn’t need to be expensive or flashy. A simple card with your name, title, and contact information are the only essentials. If you’re not working your title can be your target title. For example, Public Relations Director or Inside Sales Professional. If you’re targeting more than one position you might put Sales | Marketing | Business Development. In this case, just make sure that they are complimentary. You wouldn’t want to put Business Development | Event Planning | Public Relations. A blurb about what you do will help people remember you. For example, you might say “Streamlining processes to help companies eliminate inefficiencies” or “Helping mid-sized companies grow their business internationally.” In addition to helping people remember you, it provides a hint of your value proposition. What you can do for them. To provide a broader picture you might want to include a few core strengths on the back of your card. For example you might include Strategic Planning, Process Redesign, Employee Engagement, etc. Remember these should be the skills you want to use in your next position. Avoid perforated cards you print on your computer. Just like a poorly written resume, cheap cards show that you’re not willing to invest in your career. An online search will provide plenty of sources for inexpensive, professionally printed business cards. The next time you head out to a networking event or job fair make sure to bring plenty of business cards. But, don’t stop there. Tuck a few into your bag or wallet so you’ll have a few with you all the time. You never know who you will run into at the grocery store.