Hi All, just thought I would share a funny incident that happened me at this event. 

While looking for a bank / pass machine at the front door, I met Brian, Bill Cullen’s off sider - We both thought we knew each other so stood around shaking hands until he asked me “where is Bill – he has a mad idea for 4 of us to fit in the boot of the new renault”.

Walking into the conference, out of the side door I spotted Bill Cullen messing about with Steve, Brian and the Breffmiester.

Ever the chancer, I walked out and offered to be their official photographer so when you see the 4 lads crammed into the boot of the new renault saloon, niall kelly took that picture:)

Since late November 2009 the IT sector has been showing signs of a slight recovery, with many IT companies feeling confident to roll out IT projects that were on hold throughout 2009.

This slight recovery we are happy to report has started a knock on effect for the IT sales professional.

We have seen an increase in the number of roles being advertised for IT sales professionals in the past 8 weeks grow by 40% compared to the last qtr in 2009.

We can only hope that this new found confidence in the It sector will create a ripple effect into other industries.

For all in sales it might be worthwhile getting over to the National Sales Forum being held at the Burlington this Wednesday, 14th April.

Backed by The Sunday Business Post it has an interesting array of speakers and looks like it will be a worthwhile event to attend.

SalesJobs.ie has no affiliation, looks like we missed out on a good sponsorship opportunity there but we are looking forward to attending.

Bill Cullen opens and Paul Lanigan of The Sandler Institute (a regular contributor to SalesJobs.ie) will be speaking on Selling in a Post Recession World.

Panal discussions, Q&A’s and some case studies.

For more information go to http://www.salesforum.ie/

There has been a definite turn in the market over the past few weeks, with many of our clients coming back to advertise sales openings. This lift of confidence will continue we hope to have a knock on effect, (we are also experiencing the same uplift on our sister job board www.ComputerJobs.ie with many new IT projects being rolled out.) 

Our advice to firms would be to act quick if you feel you may have enough going on to increase your staff. Employers over the past two years have had the luxury of being able to pick and choose but we are seeing the first suggestions of salary expectations on the increase again. 

Sales professionals currently employed will not be enticed away from secure employment unless the renumeration along with a companies reputation matches up. 

For smaller businesses we are noticing a change in the job specification offered.  Commission or Sales agent roles, popular with employers in 2009 are on the decrease. Some companies are now looking at taking on Part Time Sales Reps with a view to the role growing into a Full time role if business continues to increase.

We conducted an extensive survey late last year on the State of Sales in Ireland and have posted previously about our interesting findings.

The original question format was produced by Robert Scott of Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment in the UK and he has passed on to us a comparitive analysis of the sales industry in our respective countries.

So are we a happier sales force than across the water? Well the grass is not always greener the survey results prove. Both countries faring the same on the happy stakes.

Irish Sales professionals measure their success slightly differently to our UK sales brothers, stating peace of mind and feeling fulfilled motivates us most compared to our UK counterparts which state being respected by their peers as a main driving force.

Full survey comparitive analysis click below link

UK and Irish Sales Survey Comparisons

Over the years we have published many career articles for the Irish Sales Professional Jobseeker.

Tips on CV layout, help with your interviews, negotiating terms and career goal setting.

These articles detail the usual codes of practice used over and over again but with the challenging environment sales job seekers now find themselves in, standard techniques are not going to make you stand out above the many job seekers battling for interviews.

We are pleased to offer a new career advice service on SalesJobs.ie, partnering with Mark O’Donoghue of CVCoach.ie whose expertise is career planning for sales people and he will be on hand to answer any of your career queries.

Mark has a wealth of experience in sales recruitment and career matters, and has researched extensively on sales professional CV layouts that will make your CV stand out above the rest when applying for jobs.

To ask Mark any career queries, simply email info@salesjobs.ie with subject headline ‘Career Issues’

Or why not keep up to date on articles Mark will be submitting as our resident career expert in our monthly sales newsletter. To subscribe to our monthly newsletter email denise@salesjobs.ie with ‘Subscribe please’ in the subject headline.

Mark O’Donoghue is founder of CV Coach, a service that delivers professional CVs and one on one Interview Coaching to the Sales profession in Ireland. Mark has over twenty years experience in sales and is also the founder of Sales Appointments, a B2B sales recruitment agency.

Range of services provided:

1.        Professional CV writing

2.        Interview preparation

3.        Role Play / Power Point Presentations

For more information, check out the following:

www.linkedin.com/in/salesappointments

www.salesappointments.com

www.cvcoach.ie

www.twitter.com/cvcoach

www.twitter.com/salesvacancies

Mobile: 087 2867692

Address; Clonmel House, Forster Way, Swords, Co. Dublin.

Getting to the decision maker in companies has never been so challenging for sales professionals in the past 18 months. We speak to many sales directors every day and based from feedback it appears that in some companies the decision making has moved up the chain as companies pull in the reigns of buyers.

This is a new challenge to seasoned sales professionals who may have already established a good working relationships with a previous buyer only to find their contact no longer makes the decisions.

Read this relevant blog written By Scott Sheaffer on

7 Sales Tips for Getting To Decision Makers, there are some valid tips in here you might not have thought about.

 

When we published our sales survey results in December of 2009 a majority of Sales professionals 54% felt they did not receive enough training,  with 32% stating they did not receive a single days training in the previous 12 months.

Business owners and sales managers take note that when we analysed the top sales achievers of 2009 they had received more training days when compared to the national level.

We asked sales professionals in their opinion if they could improve their sales performance in one area what would it be and apart from ‘achieving more sales!’ increasing prospecting business generation and being more disciplined with their time were high on the list.

With this in mind we have partnered with Karen Sommerville of Call Focus and we are running two sales courses in March

Effective Sales Planning to Increase Sales in 2010

Cold Calling in a Competitive Environment

It may be coincidental but recently I have received a few phone enquiries from candidates asking about what the standard norm is for commission structures.

Although it is like asking how long a piece of string is, I try and guide them in the right direction.

Commission structures are based on a number of variable factors. Each business is structured differently depending on product, industry, base salary offered, targets and expected billings.

There is a general rule of thumb for employers when setting salaries and  targets and perhaps jobseekers can work out how fair their commission structure is based on the following formula

If a company is selling a service, the sales rep should be billing three times the rate of their take home pay. So depending on the base rate offered the commission incentive is structured around the total of target billings.

Base Salary  =   25,000

Commission = 15% of billings

Expected Targets to bill 10k per month = Annual billings of 120k = Potential Commission of €18,000  + base = OTE €43,000

If a company is selling a Product as opposed to a service then the expected billings would be six times the take home pay.

It would be interesting to do some research on this for exact data across the broad spectrum of employers to see how true these formulas are.

If anyone out there agrees with the above or disagrees, please comment, I would love to hear your feedback.

We have just published our 2010 Sales Salary Guide, results were taken from live listings posted over the past 12 months and studied comparatively to rates offered in 2008.

Looking at all salary levels advertised in 2009 we have seen on average between 5-10%  reductions across the majority of roles.  The results disclosed some interesting disparities in sales salaries offered in various industry sectors.

The Medical sector registered the highest level of sales roles advertised in any one sector. Overtaking IT roles on the site for the first time in 5 years.

We saw the demise of some roles being advertised altogether as industries collapse and companies cut back. The Sales administrator role rarely seen advertised as companies’ budgets no longer allow the luxury of sales support.

Marketing professionals have been hit badly with many sectors dropping advertising for marketing roles altogether.

Proving the laws of supply and demand still apply when we take a comparative look at both the medical/pharma & engineering sectors. Both these sectors have shown increases in the number of jobs advertised and salary levels throughout 2009. Salary increases by up to 20% seen advertised on senior roles in these sectors.

Click here to view full Salary Guide