Black Sales Journal

Terminations happen in all occupations.  Most of what is said here in this journal applies to more than the sales profession, but the situation of a job not working out transcends sales as an occupation.

Once a termination does happen, your future is not terminated, just the relationship with that employer.  You will be seeking gainful employment in a sales position again, and your level of comfort dealing with the termination of employment from your last employer will certainly be tested, and sometimes spotlighted.

The question is simple:  Should you hide a termination from a prospective Employer?  The Answer is simple: No!

The Truth Will Set You Free

If you have read Black Sales Journal, you will remember one of my favorite suggestions: “Always tell the truth!” The key in this situation is not to focus on it.

Terminations happen and there is nothing pleasing about them.  What you don’t want to do is to relive bitterness and the trauma of a termination while you are in an interview looking for a fresh start.  One simple reason to tell the truth is that it is easier to remember.  The other is that you need to start this new relationship off on the firm footing of the truth.  In the world of sales professionals, many have had terminations for legitimate reasons, even though they endeavored to make it work.  Terminations do happen.

This is the information age and that gives prospective employers an ability to “uncover” you previous work history cheaply and fairly easy.  Note, that finding your history does not mean that a prospective employer would be uncovering the facts and details of what happened such as what your reasons for leaving.  Any hiring manager knows that a sales job followed by a prolonged absence of several months may well denote that a job action took place.

If you have been let go from your previous job because of performance issues, you need to be prepared to discuss reasonable reasons why you parted company.

Your resume needs to match up with any job history investigation that an employer can conduct.  The prospective employer checks this information through a service, such as Equifax, or other services, and certainly with any on-line information that you might post such as LinkedIn.

Consistency eliminates questions and doubts.

What Should You Say?

There are sales jobs (and any other jobs) that just do not work out.  Your objective is to be able to tell the story in a cogent fashion.  There should be no accusations or disparaging remarks, but a clear story of why selling widgets for ABC Company in Columbus, Ohio did not work and resulted in you leaving after fifteen months.

Cover the issue of what the problem was.  Whether that was pricing, marketing support, sales support, a problematic territory, or a product that was inferior.  Do it in a professional manner, and always cite what actions you took to improve your fate.  If you do not have a solid and believable story, it may appear that you just cannot sell.

If you are a sales professional selling widgets and in your last job you were terminated because you did not meet your quota/goals, you need to own up to the fact that you were terminated.  I give below an example:

“I was let go because of not meeting the quarterly sales targets in two consecutive quarter.”  You can then give clarification of the most important issues (an example)… “I had difficulty meeting the goals as we promised delivery dates that were 4 weeks to a month longer than our other competitors.”

Places You Should Never Go!

You never want to go into an interview saying that your previous employer (or any employer you have had) is prejudice or discriminatory, even if you believe it to be true.   This is a sure way not to get a second interview and a possible hire.

The “well” will be poisoned if you make statements that allude to disparate treatment, as a prospective employer will immediately put themselves in the position of the previous employers.  Remember, they do not know you!

Instead, compliment the best aspects of the previous employer as difficult as it may seem.  If it is true a compliment such as: “There is no organization that does training like ABC Corporation”, shows your respect for the company.

Additionally, there should be no disparaging comments about your previous manager.  You are on fair ground if you cite the fact that you did not have much support, but disparaging comments are out of bounds.

Compensate For the Weak Areas

If you have been terminated for not reaching goals, you will do well to have some support from your former co-workers.  You should get letters of recommendation citing your accomplishments.

We have covered before in Black Sales Journal, that you need to fully be prepared when you go to the interview including customer testimonials and all of your sales numbers.  Don’t share proprietary information which would jeopardize your past employer’s customers or information, but do be prepared to support your effort and accomplishments.  A customer testimonial helps to illustrate your affinity for customers and the sales process but you still may have some work to do to show that you effectively prospect.  Cover all of the bases and give yourself a chance to win.

You should provide good focus on your strong points and accomplishments as well as tout your specialties.  You need to be prepared to talk about your weak points that caused you the termination.  They may not apply to the new job, and thus lose relevance, but something like door-to-door prospecting might still be a part of the job, and you need to be prepared to show how you are going to change things.

Above all, you need to walk or run the road to continuous improvement, and be prepared to enunciate this also.  Your ability to tune-up your sales career (Black Sales Journal 8/15/2001 Tuning Up Your Sales Career) may have some relevance to a prospective employer, but it is for you.

Thanks for reading, and your comments are always welcome.

Finding a job is tedious and requires a plan.  I would like to say in jest that you could go crazy looking, but there is some truth to it.

When it comes to the job hunt, you have to have a plan, and you have to stick to it.  You also will find it necessary to stay vigilant for that excellent opportunity that just might slip by if you do not recognize it.  No one wants to miss the “perfect” opportunity so I’m dedicating this post to important tips that may help your sourcing of job leads.

Instant Notice is the Best Notice

Twitter is turning into an important source of job information for all jobs, and especially for sales positions.  It is also an area that Black sales professionals do not use effectively.

One of the tips is that if you are not on Twitter, and you are searching for a sales job, you need to get with the program.  I am not saying that you need to tweet friends and associates, or follow Paris Hilton’s tweets and I am not talking about telling someone what you had for dinner on your vacation! I am saying that after you sign up, and with the understanding of a few important terms, you can follow sales positions and potential employers as they look to use social networking to find potential applicants.

Have you ever used Twitter to see what was in the job market?  Do you know how?  I did not either until I started using it to follow blogs and promote Black Sales Journal.  Some of you miss out on job offerings and some just end up getting them later.  The first notice of a job posting is often by Twitter.  It is a lightning fast broadcast which goes out using a hash tag to all who are following that hash tag.  An example of a hash tag is #sales, #NYJobs, #selling, and #chicagojobs.

A tweet is essentially a broadcast to all followers; it differs from an email because email goes directly to the selected recipient. A ‘tweet’ was once described to me as an outpouring of information, this “pouring out of information” can be to your benefit as you can receive updates about brand new opportunities as they become available.

Twitter is easy to sign up for, and easy to use.  You will need to practice with hash tags, as there is an amazing amount of information that you can come across with the correct tag.  Now if you are job hunting I would suggest that you consider a piece of software called TweetDeck (I use TweetDeckv38.1).  Here is the sales pitch… Both Twitter and Tweetdeck are FREE!  

You can follow job sources as they come from the following:

• Employers – many of them directly tweet their job openings to the public.  Increasingly employers of all types are doing this, and it is being effective for them to get a strong response.
• Job Web Sites – Many of the best job web sites are sending out tweets on the postings.  They want as many people to see these as early as they can in the process.  I would not doubt the effectiveness of this activity.
• Postings by Topic – I mentioned a few of them in the preceding paragraph.  This includes following #sales, #selling, #jobadvice, #interview, etc.  You will get all jobs, and you will have to pick out the jobs for sales professionals.
• Postings by city, region, or area – This would be exemplified by the tags such as #chicagojobs, #NYjobs, #sacramentojobs, #houstonjobs, etc.  Now this will get you all jobs, yet if you have Tweetdeck, you can follow your area, and the cities that you might consider selling in.

Get Rid of the Misconceptions

Yes, this is a way that some people spend needless time sending short inane messages back and forth.  Yes, anyone can do it from his or her cell phone, and they do to a fault.

But….this can be a powerful medium.  A broadcast blast that goes out to everyone “listening” informing him or her about the job you want.  You need to be in on the front end so that you can respond.

I described web sites that are online offering advice and also posting jobs.  If you will refer back to BlackSalesJournal 1/24/2011 5 Suggested Internet Sites for Finding That New Sales Job you will see these sites.  Note that they all are accessible by Twitter as well.

Wrap Up!

Tweetdeck is now part of twitter after having been developed separately.  You can access both Twitter and Tweetdeck by going to Twitter.com.  If you elect to try it, you may consider following Black Sales Journal’s posts on Twitter as well.  All posts are all posted onto Twitter and they will link directly to the site.  Our username is BlackSalesJrnl.

Get with the program and try some of the new tools.  As I said earlier, Twitter and TweetDeck are both available by going to Twitter.com.  You will be amazed at the activity on the screen based on what you are following.

In an upcoming post I am going to show some of the Twitter users you might want to consider following.

Your comments are welcome.