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The 5 A’s of Life For Today and Tomorrow Since You Cannot Change Yesterday to Increase Sales

Editor — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:45:04 +0000

How much of your time is spent in the Land of Sales Regrets? Do you engage in this type of weasel talk (negative self talk):

Would of?
Could of?
Should of?
Try?
Maybe?
Think?
Yeah but?

If you answered yes to any or all, then this may be part of the reason why you are having difficulty in reaching your sales targets to building your own self confidence as a top sales performer.From my own personal experiences and working with my sales training coaching clients, far too much time is wasted by focusing on things outside of their control (think yesterday). To help them and maybe this will help you as well, I encourage them to adopt these 5 As of Life for Today and Tomorrow. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Yesterday is beyond your control and only adds to the regrets you are currently carrying on your shoulders thus dragging you down not to mention your selling results. This is not where you want to be. Down and with no dollars!

The First A of Life is Appreciate. When you demonstrate gratitude, you are connecting your behaviors with your beliefs. Appreciation is a positive core value and one that is quickly noticed by your potential customers and existing clients.

Acknowledge is the Second A. From a short response such as “Thank you for asking (about my day) to promptly returning phone calls or emails when others have made the effort to connect with you is important if you wish to increase sales.

Accept becomes the Third A of Life. When individuals face reality and accept what has happened without dwelling on it, then learning happens. People make mistakes, events happen outside of our control. How quickly we accept, learn and move on will only increase our own value not to mention our piggy bank.

The Fourth A is Assess. When you invest the time to assess your talents, your daily actions, your clients, your potential clients, then you are truly using knowledge to your advantage. By not taking this action of assessment, you are indeed working much harder than smarter. Sales Training Coaching Tip: Numbers are your best friend especially in sales.

My final A of Life is Achieve. One of my personal mottos is “For if it is to be, it is up to me.” I can achieve whatever I want provided I truly want to do it. If you truly wish to increase sales, then you can achieve that goal. The greatest obstacle in selling is probably you.

So when sales targets are missed, the customers are screaming at you and you begin to wonder why did I ever enter this profession, you may wish to embrace these 5 As. Remember you cannot changed what happened yesterday, but you can learn from it to make today and tomorrow far better.

Looking to increase sales? Take this sales skills assessment that may help you do just that.

Sales Results Coach Leanne Hoagland-Smith helps you with your sales training coaching by selling yourself first so you work smarter not harder

Which Merchant Account Credit Card Machine Company is Right For Your Business?

Editor — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:43:53 +0000

By Eddie Lamb

When you own a business, you are always on the lookout for anything that can enhance your services. Most business owners are looking at the production side of their company though. If you can take a look at the payment side of your company, and you don’t see any way that your company can accept payments through credit and debit cards, you should definitely think about adding a merchant account credit card machine to your business.

This type of machine is very easy to setup and is also very simple to use. When you add one of these machines to your business, you will be in a wonderful position to increase the quantity of sales your company generates every single day. There isn’t really anything worse than having to turn away customers due to your company’s inability to accept the payment types they wish to use.

Now, with a credit processing machine, you are open to many more payment forms that can instantly increase your revenue. If you own a business that is on the go, or portable, you should consider this type of addition to your business as well. There are now credit card machines that let you process credit payments wherever you can maintain a cell phone signal. This means you can easily process credit payments, even if you are working at a new location every single day.

This type of addition can be incredibly helpful for any company, but how do you know which credit processing service you should go through for your purchase? There are many different companies that you can use, but not all of the companies offer the exact same services for the same prices.

The best company you can use for this type of service is a company that offers both the machines that are necessary for processing credit and debit cards plus the continual services required for processing individual payments. Both factors are essential when adding this type of device to your business, so you should certainly make sure you choose a company that is capable of supplying a high quality product from the start as well as high quality assistance through their ongoing services.

A very important factor that you should investigate includes the kind of fees that are applied to the purchases your customers make when they use credit. Any charges a company faces on their sales are often added on top of the fees that are charged by the credit card companies. This is a good reason why you should be sure to choose a company that charges minimal fees if possible.

You should also find a company that supplies the highest quality customer service available. If you ever need any help with your system, you are certainly going to want to have any issues you face resolved immediately. For this reason, you should definitely choose a company that offers great customer service.

Along with the type of customer service the company offers, you should also be sure that the company you work with accepts all of the major credit card types. There are many different credit card types on the market today, so you should certainly know if the merchant account credit card machine you buy can handle the most common card payment types processed in today’s economy.

A manual credit card machine is useful for those times when you might be working without Internet connection or even electricity. Utilizing merchant credit card machines is something that many merchants do in today’s world of credit card purchasing. Find out why at our free website.

Selling From the Heart and Not the Head

Editor — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:42:47 +0000

By Kellie D’Andrea

As business owners, we get into business with the best of intentions and a passion for what we want to do to earn a living and then we are faced with the reality that we must have sales in order to ring our registers and put food on our tables. And that requires us to sell. Ugg! That ugly word, selling.

Many business owners are not skilled at selling and often fear it because of the negative experiences and impressions they have in their own lives. When you ask one what selling means, you often hear words like sleazy, manipulative and cut throat. Doesn’t sound like fun does it? The truth is selling can be fun but you need to make sure you are selling from a genuine place of wanting to serve your customers versus from a place that is self-serving. Here are 7 tips on how to sell from your heart and not from your head.

Tip 1:

Remember why you went into business and the original passion you felt when you came up with the idea. There was an underserved need in your market that you felt passionately about serving. Keep this close to your heart and in your mind.

Tip 2:

Be clear on who your ideal buyer is. The type of individual you want to attract into your business that you know you can help and you really want to work with. These are the people you resonate with and can easily connect to.

Tip 3:

Take time to build a relationship with your customers and prospects. People think with logic but act with emotion so if you allow the relationship to grow and make an emotional connection, the sales will eventually come.

Tip 4:

Ask lots of questions and give your prospect an opportunity to speak. In order to find out specifically how you can serve and what your customers needs are, you need to ask questions to really uncover an area where you can offer assistance and make sure you listen, listen, listen.

Tip 5:

Come from a true place of serving your ideal market and look for solutions that you offer that help your ideal client and get them quicker to their goals. Be genuine and be authentic and rather than look for how you can close a sale, really focus on them and how you can make them better.

Tip 6:

Lead with your gifts. Offer your expertise and your knowledge willingly and for free. This will attract people who are interested in learning more information about you and provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your skills.

Tip 7:

Don’t push the close. If you make an offer of your services to a potential customer, do not chase them for a decision. If they want to work with you they will let you know and remember to continue to treat them in the same manner if they hire you or not.

©Kellie D’Andrea & Associates
Kellie D’Andrea is The Small Business Mentor and the creator of BLAST Marketing System.She teaches small businesses how to attract more customers and convert those customers into customer evangelist.Interested in learning more about the BLAST system,join her on Mondays during a FREE teleclass on Sales,Marketing and Business Strategies that work. Register here at http://kelliedandrea.com/blog/marketing-mondays/.

The Big A-Ha

Editor — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 15:41:34 +0000

By Ann Vertel

If you are in direct sales, there is a certain turning point you can make that will stand out as “The Big A-Ha.” A point where you grasp the significance of what you are doing and almost immediately become unshakable in your belief and unstoppable in your determination to get to the top.

You may have started your business with the hope of just making a little extra money and didn’t embrace it as the answer to your dreams until you had some evidence that it was going to work for you. Some of you still have not made that decision and a few of you are standing with one foot firmly planted in “business” and the other wedged in “hobby.”

Here’s how to tell if you are working a business or working a hobby. And no, it’s not coldhearted, it’s reality.

If your number one goal (the point of working your business) is to help other women and the added benefit is that you get to make money in the process, you are working a hobby.

If your number one goal is to turn a profit – to be financially successful – and the added benefit is that you get to help other women in the process, then you are working a business.

Which focus is your driving goal? Neither one of them is “right” – but you do need to recognize and be honest with yourself about which one you’re doing.

The goal of the honeybee is to make honey. As it flaps its wings, it pollinates the garden. It doesn’t focus on the pollen; it focuses on the honey and it benefits the garden in the process of making honey.

If you are a businesswoman, you realize that you could be earning a living in other ways. But you don’t. Why?

Because the really cool thing about your business is that while working to earn a living and enhance the opportunities in your life, you get to make a difference.

So stop trying to be so nice about it all and go out there and make some serious money. And if you do it in a way that honors your values, respects your faith, and enhances the lives of the women around you in the process of turning a profit, you’ve cracked the code for running the best business in the world.

Oh and if for some reason you need it, you now have permission to do so.

Now go be a millionaire!

Ann Vertel, the excellence coach, shares wit, wisdom, and resources on how to take charge of your life and everything in it. She champions women entrepreneurs of integrity, optimism, and abundance, helping them to build businesses founded on the principles of excellence. She especially loves helping women and girls build self confidence, and is known for her honest, upbeat, and grounded approach to life and business. Visit http://AnnVertel.com and register for a free copy of “How to Find Power Partners” right now!

Leveraging Customer’s Product Return Behavior For Achieving Sales Growth in 2010

Editor — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:37:19 +0000

By Brian Metzger

It is well known that patterns exist when it comes to customer behavior and product returns.
As a result, many retailers simply shy away from continuing to invest in relationships with customers that tend to send things back, such as mailing fewer catalogs. But in fact these people can be the most valuable customer base if the retailer tries to understand and influence the behavior.

Some quick facts about the impact of purchase characteristics on the product return behavior:

* Gifts from family and friends are less likely to be returned
* Holiday seasonal shopping gifts are more likely to be returned
* New product category in the existing distribution channels more likely to be returned
* Existing product category expanded to a new sales channel are less likely to be returned
* Items on sale are less likely to returned

It seems straightforward that product returns tend to be lower when shoppers bought items that were discounted. Not as well known is that returns were also lower when customers bought the same kind of products online that they normally purchased from catalogs or brick and mortar retail stores. For example, if the customer normally purchases women’s clothing from a brick-and-mortar store, then the retailer could send this customer coupons to shop online for women’s clothing. The likely result is the customer will return a smaller percentage of her online purchases.

In contrast, returns tended to be higher when shoppers bought new products from the same distribution channel. For example, the customer buy shoes from a merchant they normally used to buy outerwear. However, higher returns is not necessarily a bad thing if its accompanied by a faster growth in sales. Retailers must realize that a customer base returning only a small percentage of products, such as 5%, may not be reaching its full potential. The new mindset for the company is to maximize its profits from this customer base. The key is to focus on the customers need and introduce them to new types of products. If the customers is purchasing only men’s clothing, the manager may send him a coupon to make a purchase in the outdoor living department. While the shopper’s venture into unfamiliar territory likely results in higher returns, the merchant may have discovered another way to boost sales from returning customers.

In summary, there is an optimum return rate for each retailer. If the return rate is too low, the retailer may be missing out on potential sales. If the rate of return is too high, then the cost to the company outweighs the benefit of the increase in sales. By understanding the cause of the returns, online retailers can modify its marketing strategy to segment promotions that increase sales without an even larger increase in returns.

Dr. Brian Metzger is the founder of http://www.Highroadretail.com, a network of affiliated niche websites catering to some of the largest retail markets including copy paper, luxury home furnishings, and cosmetics. Brian blogs regularly on consumer trends, new product launches, and comparison shopping at a free consumer reports style media site.

Killing Sales Objections

Editor — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:25:15 +0000

By David A. Peterson

Those dreaded sales objections seem to hit you right when you are ready to close. As soon as you start your pitch the sales objections start “coming out of the woodwork.” How do you move past the objections? How can you keep these deal killers from creeping into your sale in the first place?

Well the short answer is… You can’t. The sales objection is here to stay. In fact it has always been here and always will be. If you happen to sell a product without any objections then those objections might start arriving to your desk right after you deliver the product. I like to call that a return.

Professional Salespeople learn how and when to deal with all objections. The goal is to kill as many of them as possible. Notice that I said “as many as possible.” That’s because not all sales objections are valid. Some are just thrown at you to knock you off your path to the close.

Again the Professional Salesperson has to uncover which objections hold real merit to their customer. Which needs to be completely covered and which needs to be ignored takes experience and a whole lot of questioning.

In terms of learning when to deal with objections my goal when conduction Web Based Sales Training classes is to teach the students to start uncovering them in your probing questions. As soon as you hear something that doesn’t sound quite right – Write it down.

Listen and write down exactly what the prospect just said. Those words will come back when you start to pitch the prospect. Listening and writing down the prospects responses is so important that I actually have note pads made up with this reminder stamped on them: “Take Notes – What did you prospect just say?”

What your prospect just said is that they have concerns. These concerns are your future objections.

While you are probing for your prospects need and wants they will undoubtedly tell you what they like or dislike about you, your product and your competitors. Typically during the probing section of the sales process the customer is doing most of the talking and it is here in this section that the real objections arise.

The goal of probing for the customers needs is not just to find the perfect product it is also to find all of the objections that may arise when you start your pitch.

Here is a tip that you should use: During that probing section the customer may prompt you to cover the objection that was just raised. My advice is to wait and gather them all up. Your best recourse is to gather them up and cover them at one time during the pitch. So when they prompt you to cover a particular objection feel free to say: “That’s interesting would you mind if we keep talking to see if there are any other items that I will have to address?”

The reason for waiting and collection all of the objections is that if you have to start defending your product by covering one objection after another then your prospect will only remember your products problems. Your prospect will not remember your solutions to those problems.

We have talked about when to uncover the objections – again we will uncover them during our time probing for needs and wants. Now that we have the objections how do we kill them?

Killing the sales objections requires some skill but luckily it is easy to learn. 1st and foremost you must know everything possible about your product and your competitor’s product. This commitment to learn the ins and outs of your business will separate you from the other sales representatives, and believe me other sales reps will be calling on your prospect.

What you need to do is arrange the objections from most important to least important. Remember this is your prospects arrangement not yours. Your price may be way to high and you think that is the deal killer but your customer may be thinking ROI or delivery may be the problem.

Don’t assume you know which objection is the most important – ASK. My students in my web based sales training always ask me “is it okay to just ask?” Of course it is, otherwise you will just beat around the bush and never figure out why the deal will not close.

So ask: “Mr. Customer here is a list that I suspect you find important to you. Can you tell me where I should start and why?”

Once you have the list in order then start knocking them out with truthful answers followed by a reason to buy that is tied back to the findings from your probing questions.

As an example: “Mr Prospect you are right my product is a bit more expensive and we can’t hit that exact delivery date. However – you told me that you needed an above average ROI and my product above all our competitors delivers exactly that. In the end isn’t that what it is all about?”

The way to kill all objections is to find reason for your customer to purchase your product. You then use those reasons to overshadow the objections.

Look at it this way… you make a beautiful, fully functional product that does exactly what the prospect needs. If that statement is true then just use the benefits of the product to kill the sales objections. State the objections then state why the benefits of your product outweigh any perceivable issue.

David A. Peterson is an independent New Hire Sales Trainer and Sales Consultant in the Atlanta, Georgia area. He has over 20+ years experience in sales, sales training and sales management. His experience covers both managing and training outside remote regional sales representatives as well as inside call center agents.

For more information on killing sales objections sign up for David’s free 1hr Web Based Sales Training on Uncovering Objections. Click here for more details: http://www.atlantasalesandconsulting.com/web_based_sales_training.htm

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_A._Peterson

5 Keys to Sales Negotiation Success

Editor — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:55:11 +0000

By Dr. Jim Anderson

How can you become a better sales negotiator? For such a simple question, there seems to be no corresponding simple answer. I guess that we all know that the best sales negotiators seem to always know what to do and when to do it. Now if there was only some way that we could pick up those same skills! I believe that the right way to reach this level of sales negotiating skill is to develop the same set of skills that the really good negotiators have. I’ve got five of them for you to learn right here…

Things That You Need To Know

Today’s modern cars are wonders of invention. However, they all seem to be so complex with wires, computers, and whatnot. Sales negotiations today are pretty much the same way: they have become much more complex in part because we all have access to so much more information.

In order to deal with the new challenges of today’s sales negotiations, you’re going to need some more tools. Here are five tools that you should have in your toolbox:

Two Ears: It’s too bad that these things don’t come with an owner’s guide. Your ears are your single best tool for determining what’s going on with the other side of the table. The best sales negotiators have the ability to listen very carefully and to then focus all of their senses on just what the other side of the table is really trying to say.
A Really Big Calendar: All too often I’ve seen sales negotiations go off track because one or more of the teams was too focused only on the short term. The best sales negotiators have the ability to see time for what it really is: the sum of the past, the present, the future, and the really far out future. If you have the ability to see time as one big continuous sliding scale and to understand where the deal that is being negotiated fits on that scale, then you’ll be able to make better decisions.
Deal Knowledge: No matter how good of a sales negotiator you are, you still cannot just show up at a negotiation, sit down, and then strike a good deal. You need to have a good understanding of what you have to offer the other side, what they have that you want, as well as the environment in which you are trying to strike a deal..
A Sense Of Humor: As we work hard to improve our sales negotiating skills, this is the one thing that we too easily overlook. It turns out that when the negotiations reach a roadblock, or when tempers flare up, having the skill that allows you to take a step back and say something that gets everyone to laugh is invaluable. Sometimes this is the only thing that can restart a negotiation.
The Christmas Spirit: Well, maybe not Christmas itself but at least the ability to both give and take at the negotiating table. If you show up thinking only about what you will be able to squeeze out of the other side of the table, you are in for a long an fruitless negotiation. Likewise, if you are too focused on keeping the other side of the table happy, then you’ll walk away feeling like you did not get a good deal.
A Risky Personality: The world that we live in contains risk. Every deal that we negotiate increases the amount of risk in our lives. If we have the type of personality that allows us to deal with this kind of risk, then we can deal with all of the uncertainty that it takes to strike a deal with the other side of the table.

What All Of This Means For YouAs they like to say in sales negotiating circles, if you’re not getting better, then you must be getting worse. This really applies to your sales negotiating skills – what have you done lately to acquire the skills that the really good negotiators have?

We’ve discussed five tools that if they aren’t already there, need to be added to your sales negotiating toolbox. Once you have mastered these skills, you’ll be ready to close more deals and close them quicker!

Dr. Jim Anderson
http://www.TheAccidentalNegotiator.com

Dr. Jim Anderson has spent over 20 successful years negotiating sales of all sizes. Dr. Anderson offers you his insights on how to develop your negotiating skills so that you can approach sales negotiations with more confidence that you’ll be able close more deals and close them faster!

Oh, and if you want to follow Dr. Anderson on Twitter, he can be found at: http://twitter.com/drjimanderson

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Jim_Anderson

Time Planning and Goal Setting For Salespeople

Editor — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:14:45 +0000

By James O Kirk

To most salespeople, time planning revolves around just buying a time planner and filling in the pages. That’s of course what your supposed to do. But it’s just a small part of the big picture. Time planning actually starts with goals. Why do I say this? Because written goals are the best way to tell what the most productive thing possible is at any given moment.

When your feeling positive and motivated, you persuade better. If you allow yourself to become just a sales machine with no time for anything else, you’ll just burn yourself out. For sure you’ll create problems in your personal relationships. And worse still your health could suffer. Besides all this, you’ll have no fun, and will start feeling sorry for yourself, and you could find your career will start to decline.

At times the most productive things you can do is to take time out for yourself, go see a movie, meet your girlfriend or boyfriend for lunch. Or my favourite, go to the gym for a workout to ensure high fitness and energy,

To be successful, you need to be a highly tuned machine that is able to function over the long haul and face rejection, the public, your competition and deadlines. You must also be able to meet all your company’s expectations and demands put on you as a salesperson. You have to be in tune and in balance, psychologically and physically and this balance starts with goals.

Get your goals and priorities in line. You know what you want and how you want to get there. Your goals are all in writing and you priorities are set. Your time planning should start at night before you go to sleep. First go though your time planner and set out the day ahead. Sort out your top five priorities for the next day. Next add any personal areas you feel you should cover, writing down the next days top five priorities shouldn’t take more than ten minutes if you do it in a quite place. Once done, forget it and go to sleep ready for the day ahead.

I enjoy writing online which I have done for four years now along with studying the Thai language and building small niche websites. Please feel free to visit my new sites here, 24 port switch and also trailer lights.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_O_Kirk

Why It’s Important to Keep a Customer File

Editor — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:13:22 +0000

By James O Kirk

Nearly every tangible product brought to the market has a limited lifespan. At one end of the spectrum, we have computer hardware and software that can have a lifespan of only six months. At the other end of the spectrum are items like Televisions and Fridge freezers that can have 20-year lifespans. No matter what the lifespan of the product is, every products got one.

The key to selling is this: the precise lifespan of your product doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know what its lifespan is. Once you know, there’s a huge opportunity for you and your business. First keep a customer file of all your sales, when you review your past customer files you’ll see that Mr. and Mrs. Smiths Freezer will need to be replaced in the near future.

Its sure to happen if its getting on in years-say ten or fifteen years old. Don’t wait for Mr. Smiths Freezer to break down and hope he comes to see you again. Get in touch with him before his freezer breaks down and let him know you have some great new products with fantastic features, space saving designs and high energy efficiency.

Chances are good that Mr. Smith knows his freezer is on its last legs and that he’s been putting off making the decision to shop. Maybe he’s been waiting for a good buy or sale to appear in the paper. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that he hasn’t acted yet and Mr. Smith already knows your the expert in freezers.

Think about Real estate agents, they know most people move every five to seven years. Therefore, real estate agents follow a plan to keep in touch with every customer in order to be the person there to handle he sale of the first home and possibly the purchase of the next.

I enjoy writing online which I have done for four years now along with studying the Thai language and building small niche websites. Please feel free to visit my new sites here, used go karts and also porsche car parts.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_O_Kirk

How To Find A Good Recruiter

Editor — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:09:52 +0000

By JoAnn Hines

Finding a recruiter that best matches your personality, professional needs, and profile can be difficult under the best of circumstances. The best time to find one is while you are employed. Locating one at this time allows you to be more particular. Building a relationship with your recruiter will take time and effort so it’s important to find the right person from the beginning. You might need to contact several recruiters before you find a good match. It is important to be discreet at this point. You don’t want the word to get out that you are “looking” or to be contacted by recruiters on the prowl for new clients.

It’s never too early to cultivate a recruiter relationship. Keep in mind that this process can be challenging when you are a new professional, and do not have a career track record. The younger/less experienced you are, the harder it will be to have a recruiter work for you.

Note: Recruiters, with the exception of “retained” search professionals, make a percentage of the offered salary. The higher the salary, the more money they make. Consequently, it pays them to place the “High Ticket” people first.

Here are six tips to get you started:

1) Find a recruiter BEFORE you need one.
Your initial contact should serve to the recruiter get to know you and you know them. Make sure that you both understand that this is a preliminary meeting so you won’t be bombarded with unwanted calls or jobs until you are actually seeking a position. If the ideal position comes along, make it clear that that it would be appropriate to contact you, but that you will notify them when you are actually looking to make a change. If the recruiter calls you constantly with “positions” that are not suitable, you need to move on. In your consultation with your recruiter you should share your talents, career plans and goals. Cover conditions such as being unable to relocate.

TIP: Don’t conduct these discussions at your present place of employment. Find a time and place where you can concentrate and give the recruiter your undivided attention. Never look for a new job on your employer’s time.

TIP: Some companies have “alert” notices installed in the computer network. If you access job board or job related sites they will know it.

2) Find a recruiter that specializes in your field or industry.
Today, recruiters are very specialized. You want one that knows your business, preferably one that has some longevity in the field. If you are active in your industry eventually you will either meet a recruiter or one will contact you. Be sure and do your homework. Check out your recruiter’s credentials. Ask colleagues if they have heard of this person (careful and discreet. You don’t want the word to get out that you are looking). When you check out your recruiter’s references, ask how long it took to be placed and what the recruiter relationship was like. Ask the recruiter to provide you with articles and information they have written or prepared. Check out the recruiter’s website. Ask for references of people they have placed.

Note: Be wary of recruiters just starting. As a temporary measure, many unemployed people hang up a recruiter shingle when they themselves become unemployed.
TIP: Here are a couple of websites to get you started http://www.findarecruiter.com or http://www.findrecruiter.com.

3) As you uncover potential “matches” send out a cover letter of introduction.
Keep your cover letter simple and to the point. Your cover letter should make the recruiter want to know more about you. Explain why they should invest time in getting to know you better. Ask to set up a telephone appointment. It’s up to you to sell the recruiter your skill set. You might include facts in your letter that are specific to your situation and may not be included in your resume.

4) Find a recruiter that you feel comfortable with and you trust.
I can’t emphasize this enough. Your recruiter must be able to work in absolute confidentiality. You MUST like working with and feel comfortable with your recruiter. If there is a “personality” conflict, move on to someone else. You are establishing a bond with your recruiter and you want them to work for you, not just submit your resume to any job opening.

Be careful about sending your resume out to recruiters while you are still employed. Your goal is to build a relationship. Be cautious. Many recruiters work on a numbers theory. If they send out so many candidate resumes eventually
one will be qualified. Most recruiters are true professionals with very high ethics. They will gladly keep you in mind for new positions that are “right up your alley” as they are uncovered. Make sure you cover your resume in depth with your recruiter. They may opt to have you rewrite it with a professional service. You may need several different versions of your resume.

TIP: Under no circumstances should a recruiter “enhance” your qualifications to fit an opening or a position they are trying to fill.

5) Cover current salary information and expectations. Make sure you set clear and concise parameters. You don’t want to waste time going on interviews that are not in line with your expectations. Remember to discuss that you expect your new job to pay more than your old one. It’s perfectly acceptable to have your recruiter seek out a better job or a promotion rather than a lateral move.

6) Find out what is the most acceptable way for the recruiter to receive your resume. They are working for you so you need to provide them your essential details in the shortest and easiest possible method. The more complicated you make it for them to receive your information the less enthusiastic they will be to read your material.

TIP: This is especially true to day were it’s a recruiters market. There are many more qualified candidates than there are recruiters to place them.

TIP: Remember to follow up once you have sent your credentials. Investigate if the transmission was clear, are there any questions, etc.

Some Cautions About Using Recruiter:

1) Recruiters will not help you change your career. They operate in the world that is familiar to them.

2) Recruiters will not accept you as a client if you are not in their area of specialization. It’s nothing personal.

3) Recruiters may not tell you it’s not a fit. Some just won’t ever call. If that’s the case, find another recruiter.

4) Executive recruiters recruit! Time is money. They are not there to entertain or listen to your life story. Don’t abuse the relationship by monopolize a recruiters time.

5) Recruiters are NOT your new best fiend. They will make money by placing you. Keep this in mind as you build your relationship.A solid relationship with a good recruiter can be a boon to your career. It used to be considered a negative career factor if you changed jobs too frequently. Now, it’s the opposite. If you haven’t changed jobs people want to know why. (They think you are unmotivated.) Your recruiter can be one of your career barometers letting you know when the market is ripe for a career change and when its not.

TIP: A good rule of thumb is to stay three years in the same position. After that, it’s time for a promotion or a new assignment. Your recruiter should be on top of industry trends too.

Caution: Don’t just make a move because three years is up. Manage your career move as part of a solid personal business plan. When the market is soft, as it is right now, consider long and hard any potential career changes. Not just the short term/immediate gain but evaluate how this move will position you for future career growth.

No matter how good the fit, time is money. The recruiter will always push those people that are marketable and profitable. Keep your skill set current and your name in the limelight. This will make you more valuable and worth the recruiter’s time.

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