For the briefest moment, New Economy inmates were running the
talent ward of the asylum. Managers scrambled to attract and retain
talent, whispering sweet nothings of stock options, fat salaries
and jeans five days a week. Those days now seem to be a
short-but-sweet chapter from some antiquated history tome, and
we're all questioning the reliability of our recent memories
like that poor guy from the movie Memento.
Entrepreneurs, while not immune to the necessity of
belt-tightening, are forward-thinking enough to see the upside to a
prodigal labor market. If you're accustomed to running lean,
you may be well-positioned to leverage current circumstances by
bringing in top-tier sales talent. At a time when chasing every
lead is crucial, your reaction to adversity shouldn't be
huddling in the fetal position under your desk.
"You can't grow if you aren't selling," says
Betsy Buckley, president of sales coaching company What Matters? in
St. Paul, Minnesota. Buckley, who caters to business executives
wanting to improve their speaking and leadership skills, thinks
it's a great time for entrepreneurs to hire sales
professionals. You can take advantage of the sting felt by the many
downsized workers who are getting axed from large corporations.
"They want to work for business owners, not big organizations
where they'll just get lost again," Buckley explains. Pick
the right talent, and your new salesperson will pay for himself or
herself many times over. After all, Buckley points out, because
your ability to make sales is the "engine that drives
growth," salespeople are "pay-for-themselves-type
expenditures."
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Employment expert Paul Falcone, author of The Hiring and Firing Question and Answer
Book (AMACOM Books), shares Buckley's view that a
recession could be an ideal time for you to hire new talent.
"Hiring in a recession goes against business logic at first
glance," Falcone admits. "Payroll is the largest
expenditure on a company's P&L, so when revenues sink,
costs have to be cut to maintain equilibrium." However, he
notes, if you're fortunate enough to be in an industry that
could potentially benefit from the current economic conditions
(like pharmaceuticals, security firms or aerospace manufacturing,
for example), then aggressively adding to your staff may be the
right move. "If you can add to revenues, then there's no
need to cut costs," he explains. "Companies that perform
well in down markets, like outplacement firms, hire salespeople in
recessions all the time." Even if your company isn't one
of the few directly benefiting from the slowed economy, hiring new
salespeople may still be a good way to boost revenues. If your
entire industry is in a cold cycle (like the type mortgage bankers
see when interest rates are soaring), then hiring salespeople may
not be wise. But unless you're in that extreme scenario,
beefing up your revenue generators during a recession may make
perfect sense.
It's understandable if you're nervous about taking on
new hires right now, but Falcone says it's important to stay
the course. You can boost your odds, he says, by hiring proven
performers. "Sales skills are transferable," he explains,
"but hiring ex-stockbrokers to become auto sales executives or
headhunters makes for lower-probability hires." After all,
it's one thing to learn the nuances and terminology of a new
line of business; it's another thing for new hires to face this
pressure combined with expectations that they immediately meet
sales goals.
Kimberly L. McCall is president of McCall Media &
Marketing (www.marketingangel.com), a business communications
company in Freeport, Maine.
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