Monday, November 30, 2009

Xtra Effort client hiring activity; Barometer?

If Xtra Effort's world of helping small technology centric companies hire Sales, Sales Engineers, and Professional Service people (nationally) is a barometer to economic health - things are improving.

We have seen a considerable uptick in hiring demand, including expansion slots.

Recent hires and new job requirements have included:

Companies that provide software or Software-as-a-Service solutions related to fraud prevention (insurance and elsewhere), risk management-compliance, data integration, data storage, marketing campaign management, web analytics, research, and GIS.

Locations have been the Northeast, Dallas, Upper Midwest, and West Coast (75% of recent hires have been West Coast; not as present in current hiring requirements).

Clients are still insisting on candidates meeting the majority of their exact criteria, including tenure, markets, technologies, and location. There remains intolerance to considerable job change or lack of a track record of sustained performance (quota, income, implementations, POC's) success for the majority of the last four years, with the exception of forgiveness for a recent "mulligan" during the recession. A candidate's core skills, experiences, and aptitude receive marginal consideration, but are often simply the ante into the game.

The trend is exciting, lets hope it continues! {Click here for viewing of actual job openings}

Xtra Effort's challenge is to inform as many suitable candidates as possible, while politely suggesting to those not suitable to trust our knowledge of client priorities.

Mark

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Changes in Enterprise Sales: Interpretation, Ideas and Actions

Have you noticed the recent impact of the internet and market consolidation on Enterprise Sales -particularly on small technology centric companies?

We have, and wanted to summarize and interpret the impact with simple observations and examples.

Brian Geery, EVP of Quota Inc., a sales consulting firm, and I collaborated to produce an 11 minute, 10 second presentation.

How you may react:

"I know 90% of the content, but it stimulated worthwhile dialog with my team"

"I know 90% of the content, but it provides excellent context for team members who directly or indirectly support sales"
The result: you and your team give more attention to actions and ideas that you may consider to be critical.

Please click: http://www.brainshark.com/brainshark/vu/view.asp?pi=800696627

{do you need to "temporarily enable pop-ups" to see it?}

Thank you.

Mark