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Candidate Services
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SALES POWER TOOLS
Audible.Com
Web Site If you find yourself with a stack of reading material for work and the self-improvement and sales books are stacked in the corner, you will find the service provided by Audible.com to be useful. For a low monthly fee, you can download an audio book onto your computer and into your personal library. In addition, you can purchase additional audio recordings for a discounted fee or just wait until the next month and download your next selection. Then you can load one book onto an MP3 player that is provided at a reasonable price from Audible.com. After you finish listening to your book on the MP3 player, just erase the book from the MP3 player and copy another book from your personal Audible.com library on your desktop. Keeping this library available allows you to reload the same book at a later date back onto the MP3 player. Think of it as "books on tape without the tape and more than just books". The selection is good with a wide aray of professional books and the latest best sellers and old favorites. Speeches, radio programs, and conferences are also available to add to your personal library at low cost monthly plans. With all the action occurring on-line through your Internet connection, there are no shipping charges. In addition, you can listen on your computer without an MP3 player. The short samples of the available books give you the opportunity to 'try before you buy'. Finally, a cassette plug in is provided to enable you to play the MP3 player through your auto cassette player. You can listen to a book on MP3 while completing yard work, waiting in line, and while traveling. A 6-hour book can be listened to in pieces over a short or elongated period of time. For more
information, please link directly to audible.com below. The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People-Conversation Cards from TableTalk. For those
who have already read and appreciate the Covey book series, this card
series is a great refresher. For those who like to highlight the book
or series, the playing size cards are an abridged Cliff notes version
of the book series. The 50 cards have summary statements focusing on the
specific seven habits and a question relating to the topic discussed.
The questions inspire thought provoking contemplation on the highlighted
subject. For easy reference, each card lists the page in the book from
which the specific habit or topic is drawn. CardScan
by Corex Technologies Corporation Sales representatives in cold calling, prospecting, and trade-show activities usually collect a great deal of business cards. In addition to inputting them into their contact manager, many sales reps add them to their electronic Rolodex. CardScan is a devise that reads the information off of the business card for addition to the electronic Rolodex. The installation of CardScan went quickly with step-by-step easy to follow instructions. We found that CardScan's ability to record in multiple languages was a great feature. In addition, two-sided cards were not a problem for the device as well as the ability to pull the phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and web addresses off the business card. On the other hand, cards that were unique in their format, setup and coloring, needed some editing once scanned in. Handwritten notes were not processed into the Rolodex easily. However, overall this was an effective, timesaving tool for the sales professional. A test was conducted with 25 business cards that would provide different challenges to the scanner. 16 of the 25 cards scanned in with no editing necessary. 2 of the 25 cards were scanned in and needed 2 - 3 edits to account for their information. 7 of the 25 business cards scanned in and needed major retyping and editing. With an 80% recognition rate, we feel that this is a highly, effective and acceptable tool for the sales professional. CardScan
is made by Corex Technologies, Corporation located at 810 Memorial Drive,
Cambridge, MA. Phone 617-492-4200 Fax 617-492-6659. Interviewing
and Hiring Guide By Nova Sales This guidebook is another in a series of sales management tools. The guidebook outlines the standards for profiling a sales position, reviewing a resume, developing an interview process, and hiring the candidate of choice. "The process of setting standards and requirements for a position is the first critical step in the recruiting and hiring process." The guidebook goes on to describe six primary skill sets. The guidebook also gives a form with specific attributes to seek and the questions to ask to get the information you need from the candidate. "Resumes
do not address intangible issues such as reasons for changing jobs, relationships
with past supervisors, or motivational factors." The guidebook offers
an interview process including a phone screen and the basic steps for
conducting an interview. One important note is to, "Look for the
candidate to close for the job!" The guidebook offers some great
sample forms and helpful hints on the subject. The Interviewing and Hiring
Guide is a solid investment for sales hiring decision makers. Salesdriver.com
Web Site We asked someone not in sales to critique the salesdriver.com web site. Here's what she had to say. 'Salesdriver.com is an interesting motivational site that enables sales managers to easily create an incentive campaign without having to do all the legwork. The site allows managers to set goals for their participants and establish how many "driverdollars" participants can earn. Various templates let the sales manager choose a "contest" for participants, and participants can then choose their own icons to represent them. The site takes users step-by-step through various sales processes and enables them to earn "driverdollars" for their sales successes. The site is easy to navigate, even for a non-salesperson. The graphics are flashy and make the site interesting. The menus are easy to access. The catalogues are also easy to access and offer many choices. The company's phone number and e-mail are listed throughout the site in the event that users need help, though this is unlikely since it's such a user-friendly site. There are videos available on the site, allowing users to view demonstrations of various processes involved in sales, such as setting up an account. Another interesting option is the survey, which sales manager can send to all participants for feedback on meetings, customer service, etc. Overall, the site is a useful tool, especially for big companies who want to motivate their employees. Employees will enjoy checking their stats as well as those of their co-workers. The site is free. The client only pays when participants have earned enough driverdollars to purchase gifts from the site. 'I like
the site and give it two thumbs up.' Time
and Territory Management Guide By Nova Sales The book is more than just good reading material. It is a well-developed and user- friendly program to educate and improve time and territory management skills for professional sales representatives. The guidebook provides an easy-to-read-and-follow process to understand territory management. "Management of territory is the building block on which the success of any sales professional will be based." The guidebook provides a proper analysis of territory call cycles and weekly activity reports. It states that, "Without first creating a call cycle, there is no way to maximize time or to implement strategies for growing your business." It also states, "Sales confidence is 90% organization and 10% knowledge." Information gathering and documentation techniques are explored and explained in detail. The guidebook
comes with sample forms for call cycles, customer profiles, and weekly
activity reports. The series is a good tool for sales managers to integrate
basics in time and territory management. Its limitations include the paper
versus the computerized database model that prevails today. The guidebook
is best used for technically challenged sales representatives or as a
great training tool for entry-level sales people. The program comes in
a unique three ring binder that is easy to store and retrieve. Overall,
I believe this is a training tool worthy of consideration for sales managers
attention. Quick
Link Electronic Pen Scanner by Wizcom Technologies Ltd. The Quick Link Pen by Wizcom Technologies Ltd. can be both a powerful tool for the experienced user and a bothersome pain for the novice. An electric eye picks up normal print and converts it into useable electronic data. It also serves as a quick note taker for those professionals who lack an administrative assistant. It is also useful when you need to convert notes from a client meeting or conference into a Word document. It is a great way to keep up with the ever changing electronic note-taking medium. When scanning a document or highlighted sections, the rate of accurate recognition can be as high as 99%. New users can expect less than 99% accuracy. At first, we found it to be recognizing 60%. After some use, we were up to 75% accuracy. This is still better than rewriting and retyping all of the notes. The Windows based program that the Pen comes with, Quick Link Desktop, is relatively easy to use and is almost a self-explanatory program. This program converts the raw data that is stored in the Pen's memory and turns it into useable text. After downloading the data to Quick Link Desktop, you can save the data in two file formats for editing. The default is Standard Text (.txt) or you can choose Microsoft Word (.doc) file format. The two difficulties that we found were non-optimum accuracy and speed of recognizing the scanned text. This has since been addressed with new updates in the Version 1.57. In the August 12, 2000 update, the company has integrated interfaces for languages, increased file size transfer capabilities, and made it Netscape compatible. Future updates may include handwriting scanning as graphics and bar code recognition. This device may become a must addition to the sales professional's power toolbox. The Pen
is about the size of two highlighters taped together. It retails for about
$179 and can be ordered directly from the Wizcom website http://www.wizcom.com.
Wizcom can be reached at 888-777-0552 |
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Sales
Recruiters, Inc.
85 Stiles Road - Suite 104 - Salem, NH 03079 - (603) 894-0007 © 2009 - Sales Recruiters, Inc. - All Rights Reserved. |
This section includes the latest tools, gadgets and technological instruments that sales professionals are using to make more sales and be more effective. The summary provides a roadmap of which materials you may want to consider. Henry Glickel, president of Sales Recruiters, Inc., has personally used or evaluated the items listed below. He does not receive any compensation for these evaluations. We hope you find the reviews of interest. If you have any comments on the reviews, wish to add a power tool to the listing, or want to submit a review, feel free to e-mail Henry at