The power of personas for recruiting

Posted on June 11, 2013 by pvakili

What if you had a deep understanding of what drove candidates, what moved them, how they’d fit in at your company and what they were really looking for … before they ever set foot in the door? No crystal ball required. Personas can get you there.

Regularly used by marketers, personas predict the behaviors, attitudes and motivations of a group of people. Because they share certain traits, the members of these groups tend to make similar decisions. Sourcers and recruiters can leverage these likenesses to speed up the hiring process, inform candidate decisions and generally make themselves look smart.

A new article on ZoomInsights looks at how recruiters can benefit from creating personas. It also introduces the process of creating them.

Posted in Recruiting, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

A drinking game you should play at work

Posted on June 10, 2013 by pvakili

How often, during sales calls, do you use internal jargon that is not part of your prospects’ vocabularies? Probably much more than you realize, which is why Factor 8 president and sales expert Lauren Bailey recommends playing a drinking game at work. Really! Except in this game, you’ll drink non-alcoholic beverages (you are at work, after all).

Lauren writes about the Factor 8 Drinking Game in a new ZoomInsights article. It involves coming up with a list of jargon that you should avoid and then taking a drink and keeping score every time someone in your department says one of those words or phrases to a customer. At the end of the week, the rep with the most tallies buys real drinks for the rest of the team at happy hour.

Check out Lauren’s article and then try the drinking game with your team. It could really help you find out how often you are speaking your own language when you should be using your customer’s. Plus, you’ll be well-hydrated!

Posted in Sales | Leave a comment

How to improve engagement with preference data

Posted on June 10, 2013 by pvakili

A key to good marketing — and also perhaps the hardest part to get right — is knowing what your customers want and figuring out how to give it to them. As a marketer, it’s your job to learn everything you can about your target audience, to make sure your message is reaching the right people at the right time. One of the factors that make understanding your audience so tricky is that they don’t always clearly voice their preferences.

A new ZoomInsights article explains that valuable preference information is available, if you know how to get it. The article provides helpful advice from digital evangelist Sundeep Kapur, including the differences between stated, observed and implied customer preferences and how to use that information to your advantage. Check it out.

Posted in Marketing | Leave a comment