Archive for November, 2009

Taplow Recruiter Mandeville Is Home To The Best Recruitment Consultant

Its official, Taplow recruiter Mandeville is home to the Best Recruitment Consultant in London & The South East

Specialist Sales Recruiter Jadie Whitehead-Patey, from Burnham in Berkshire, was delighted to be awarded given the prestigious title of ‘Recruitment Consultant of the Year’ in the REC sponsored London and South East Recruitment awards this weekend. The judges unanimously voted Jadie, who works at specialist recruitment company Mandeville Recruitment, the best in her industry in Friday night’s glittering award ceremony, hosted by TV presenter Paul Ross. Jadie received the accolade due to her outstanding efforts and proactivity in seeking market opportunities, networking and proven evidence of delivering great staff for businesses time after time.

Jadie, who started at specialist recruiter Mandeville just 3 years ago with no sales or recruitment experience, is delighted that her hard work and commitment to finding talented people jobs and fulfilling businesses recruitment requirements, has been recognised in this way.

Mandeville themselves were also delighted to be nominated as finalists in three other categories, taking ‘Certificates of Merit’ accolades for both “Recruitment Team of the Year” and “Recruitment Agency of the Year” from 16 other finalists, including large national recruiters – a great amount to celebrate in a market that most people would believe is all doom and gloom.

Jadie beat off strong competition to take home the ‘Recruitment Consultant of the Year’ accolade, taking the upper hand over 12 other top performing finalists to be crowned, including regular entrants such as Aston Taylor & Spring Group. Jadie was put forward by Mandeville senior management for this award following her leading performance in the first 6 months of 2009, topping the Mandeville bill in terms of revenue and client generation.

A team of consultants and managers from Mandeville, which has its UK head office in Taplow, Berkshire, attended the final awards ceremony on Friday 13th November 2000 to find out if its hard work in the recruitment field was rewarded with the top prize. They were delighted to win both one top spot first time around and be second overall across London and South East for their agency overall, and one of their leading recruitment teams

David Riley, Mandeville’s Managing Director, said: “I am thrilled that Mandeville has yet again been rewarded as one of the top recruitment teams and agencies in London and the South East and that Jadie, who has performed fantastically for us over the past 3 years coming up the ranks from trainee to senior consultant, has lifted this prestigious award. This accolade reflects the dedication, professionalism and commitment of Jadie and the whole team throughout 2009, keeping our company performing in a tougher recruitment market than last year.

Source : Recruitment-International

To view all the current Sales Jobs which Mandeville Recruitment have on our site, go too Jobs with Mandeville Recruitment

Thursday, November 26th, 2009 Carlene
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Negotiation Skills – How to Increase Your Sales

Nearly everyday of your life you are negotiating for something, usually many times a day. And that doesn’t include the sales negotiations you participate in as your job.

Yet, despite the fact that you spend so much time in negotiations, during the big negotiations, many salespersons don’t employ the effective skill set and tactics that they use in other aspects of their lives.

For example, have you driven a car today? If so, you are negotiating decisions throughout the entire drive. Using your turn signal is a nonverbal negotiation with other drivers about where you want to turn your car. At every stop sign, you were part of a negotiation as to who should be given a turn to go ahead through the street corners.

By learning what works as a small negotiations, you can learn what works at the bigger discussions and negotiations.

There are three key steps in negotiation skills.

1. Know your sales goals -

It’s very difficult to obtain what you want if you don’t know what it is or why you want it. For example, knowing where you want to go in your car provides the focus you need to get to where you are going. And despite this basic first step and how simple it may seem, many salespersons enter into the larger negotiations without knowing what it is they want and why. Remember, the sales process begins way before you have your first conversation with the potential client.

2. Do your research -

Justifying the price for anything from a new vehicle to a corporation becomes much easier if you can show the buyer the item is worth every penny they are about to spend on it.

This means you must be responsible for the research your potential clients don’t have time to do. By doing this, you make the decision to buy your product or services easy for them. Provide them with as much information as you can to justify why the decision you want them to make is the right one. Many potential clients are waiting for a salesperson to bring them an actionable solution to their problems. Do yourself and the potential client a favor, do all the legwork ahead of time. If all they have to do is sign on the dotted line after hearing your presentation, you are more likely to get that signature.

 Article Source : Dave Vower – EzineArticles

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 Carlene
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MARKS & SPENCER NAMES NEW BOSS

Retail giant Marks & Spencer has appointed an external candidate with a strong sales and marketing track-record to be its new chief executive. Morrisons boss Marc Bolland takes on the role in the New Year at a time and on terms to be confirmed.

The 50-year-old Dutchman, who was previously chief operating officer at brewing giant Heineken, succeeds executive chairman Sir Stuart Rose, who will continue at the firm as part-time chairman.

Revival

Bolland joined Morrisons in September 2006 as chief executive and has been credited with reviving the fortunes of the Bradford-based supermarket chain following its takeover of Safeway.

The relationship between M&S and its shareholders has reportedly been under intense strain since Sir Stuart was appointed executive chairman – combining two roles in breach of corporate best practice – more than a year ago.

Beauty parade

Sir Stuart had already said he will leave the company by July 2011, fuelling speculation over the company’s succession plans. Senior managers including clothing head Kate Bostock, financial director Ian Dyson, and food division chief John Dixon were all seen as leading candidates for the job of chief executive. The company last month held its first investor day in a decade: the event was billed in the City as a ‘beauty parade’ for the internal candidates.

Track-record

Bolland was previously chief operating officer at Heineken, based in the Netherlands. He held a number of senior roles at Heineken over the last 20 years, including spells a export group director, commercial director, off- premises sales manager and brand manager.

Sir Stuart commented: ‘I am delighted that Marc is to be M&S’s next chief executive. He brings a wealth of consumer marketing experience and has made a great success of his time at Morrisons.’

Bolland was well-thought-of at Heineken. At the time of his departure from the brewers, chairman of the executive board and CEO, Jean-François van Boxmeer said: ‘In his 20 years with Heineken, Marc has made a significant contribution to the growth of the company. Over the last year in particular, Marc has established the direction and management priorities for the regional structure, which will support our future growth. He has been a great colleague, and he leaves with our thanks and genuine best wishes for his new role.’

Source : Modern Selling

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 Carlene
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Sales professionals embrace changing technology.

Of all the challenges faced by UK sales professionals, a survey has found that changing technology is considered the least difficult aspect of sales.

The sales industry is increasingly adopting ever advancing technology. The use of social networking and viral marketing in sales is becoming common place. Yet, fewer than 3% of respondents to ‘The State of Sales 2009’ are intimidated by changing technology and changing sales methods. 

The survey which was conducted by Aaron Wallis, a Sales recruitment company asked 644 sales professionals what they considered to be the most difficult aspect of the job. Of the eight possible answers, changing technology and sales methods was the least popular response by a large margin.

Women were found to be the least intimated by changing technology, with less than 1% of female respondents selecting this as the most difficult aspect of sales. This compares to 3% of men. None of the respondents who earned over 100K a year found changing technology and sales methods the most difficult aspect of the role.

Overall, getting clients to make decisions, followed by cold calling and sales admin/paperwork were cited as the 3 most difficult aspects of selling in 2009. Finding new prospects, chasing money, and meeting clients expectations were among some of the other possible answers to the question.

The survey was conducted in July this year and was live for six weeks. Respondents to the survey were from a broad age, salary and geographic range.  The full survey results are available for free download from www.survey2009.info

Rob Scott – Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 Carlene
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The Old School Ways Still Work!

Traditional sales methods are still considered the most effective, a survey has revealed.
The sales industry has been revolutionised in recent years by business potential in the digital market. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are increasingly being used for viral marketing and business generation.
It may come as a shock therefore, that a survey conducted by Aaron Wallis, a sales recruitment agency has revealed that sales professionals almost unanimously favour conventional methods of selling. When asked to rate in order of one to five which methods of sales were the most effective, 94% of sales professionals placed non-digital methods the highest, at number one.
Of the 644 respondents only 3% would consider social networking the most effective form of selling. A further 3% favour online meetings/webinars and teleconferences.
By contrast, an overwhelming 82% still believe that that the best way to make a sale is through a face to face meeting. This research may raise questions in the sales industry about whether the internet is as integral to the modern sales industry as many would have us believe.
Rob Scott, the Managing Director of Aaron Wallis has done considerable research into the use of online methods of business generation. He said: “The Internet is without doubt one of the most powerful tools available to any sales professional for research and managing contacts. However the adage ‘people buy from people’ still remains. With the advent of Twitter, Facebook and the like for business development we are on the cusp of change in the way that we develop business but this survey confirms that face-to-face selling is still the most powerful method”
Exhibitions, Telesales Networking Events, and Marketing campaigns all received a higher proportion of respondents who rated them above social networking as a method of business development.
The number of sales professionals who consider exhibitions as the most effective form of selling has in fact risen since a similar survey was conducted in 2007. Surprisingly, exhibitions have replaced telesales as the second most effective method of business development.

Rob Scott – Aaron Wallis Sales Recruitment

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 Simply Sales Jobs
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Asos blames postal strike for failing to deliver expected growth

The Royal Mail strike has thwarted sales growth at Asos, the online fashion retailer, in spite of the company making alternative delivery arrangements.

In a sign of how the strikes have eroded confidence in home shopping companies and online retailers, Asos said that the threat of a national strike by 121,000 postal workers and a series of smaller local disruptions was one of the leading factors behind dragging sales growth in Britain to 23 per cent in the seven weeks to November 15.

Booming international sales have compensated for the slowdown in growth in its domestic market. In the same seven weeks last year, total sales growth, including its international business, ran at more than 100 per cent, compared with 46 per cent this year.

About 85 per cent of online retailers believe that the threat of postal strikes discouraged customers from placing orders, according to IMRG, the online retail industry body. A third of online retailers said their revenue had declined and 60 per cent said that they had found their new carrier arrangements more efficient.

The Communication Workers Union put the postal strike on hold this month after agreeing with Royal Mail to a “period of calm” before Christmas.

Nick Robertson, chief executive of Asos, said: “All the companies we speak to will do everything they can to avoid using Royal Mail. But the reality is, customers don’t necessarily join those dots together.”

He added that the weather, rising youth unemployment and credit card debt were weighing on Asos’s customers, who are aged mainly between 18 and 24. “But we still think there is opportunity in Britain: there is much more brand awareness and we can turn the volume up with regards to marketing. And, at the end of the day, the UK accounts for 1 per cent of global internet traffic,” he said.

Asos said that it had added a further 12,700 lines, taking the total to 34,000. It reported profit of £4.4 million for the six months to September 30, up 9 per cent on the same period last year, on revenues of £96.5 million, up 47 per cent.

Shoppers in America, Denmark, France, Germany and the Republic of Ireland, spurred by the weakness of the pound, have flocked to the Asos website, despite minimal marketing. The company plans to launch country-specific sites next year. Asos shares closed unchanged yesterday at 413p. It did not pay a dividend. Asos said that it intended to reinvest cash back into the business.

Source : The Times

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 Carlene
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The last Quarter

Here is a snippet taken from Modern Selling, asking sales leaders about the dreaded last quarter, here they give us an insight to their situation :

Bob Apollo – Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners (IT)

‘According to the clients I am working with and the messages I hear from the market, it remains tough out there, but some of the projects that have been in limbo since Q4 last year are starting to come back to life.

‘Even in live projects, there remains a big gap between being chosen and getting the order. Many internal champions haven’t yet fully understood how to navigate their pet projects through a financial approvals process that has become much stricter and highly risk-averse. “Deciding to do nothing” remains a common outcome.

‘The vendors that are breaking through have mastered the art of both eliminating the perceived risk of their solution and elevating the negative consequences of doing nothing. Simply exhorting your salespeople to “selling hard” is absolutely, definitively, a losing strategy. They have to eliminate risk and facilitate the prospect’s buying process.

‘The early adopter market has shrivelled to almost nothing – not because their aren’t still some early adopter individuals out there, but because the companies they work within have become more conservative in approving new projects and new expenditure. So innovative technologies are having to work out how to “cross the chasm” (and talk business, not technology) far earlier in their company’s evolution than was necessary in the past.

‘Start-ups who haven’t mastered this are particularly hard hit, without an installed base or an established service revenue stream to fall back on. But failure is not inevitable – companies that have the discipline to focus on creating genuine customer value (rather than product marketing puffery) are winning business.’

Eduardo Launa – CEO, GTM (IT)

‘We where talking about this today, our main provider has closed fiscal year today and it was time to look back and see how we where going. I have to say that this year is going very well for our very small Spanish company.

‘The fact is that we are going to close our best year and we want to make fourth quarter even better than other years and prepare for 2010 the year in which our company will be ten years old!

‘The points we are focusing are adding new low-entry products: the market demands them and the ones in our portfolio don´t perform well at the moment and we are looking for a real partnership in the SaaS (software as a service) model. We’re also considering the mixture of our portfolio.

‘We are going to use this quarter to hire, train and evolve towards more consulting services to grow inside the customers more than we are doing at the moment.’

Kathleen Steffey – president, Naviga (US sales & marketing recruitment)

‘I’m going to have the best quarter of the year, 4th quarter 2009. Customers are starting to execute and make decisions.‘

Source : Modern Selling

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 Carlene
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Eddie Stobart secures £60 million deal

Stobart Group company, Eddie Stobart has secured a major distribution contract with Unilever, it announced on 12 November. The agreement will see the cult truckers providing ‘ambient transport solutions’ covering the majority of Unilever’s manufacturing and distribution activities in the UK.

 

Extra business

Under the new three-year contract, which creates £60 million of extra business, Eddie Stobart will undertake customer deliveries from several Unilever UK distribution centres. In addition, Eddie Stobart will also undertake deliveries into those distribution centres from Unilever’s UK manufacturing plants.

Unilever is one of the world’s most successful consumer goods companies, and its link-up with Eddie Stobart is the first time its UK arm has awarded such a significant amount of its ambient transport needs to a single provider.

Eddie Stobart says it was chosen by Unilever to deliver the contract thanks to its comprehensive transport solution, covering all modes of transport, and state-of-the-art logistics management systems.

Carbon reduction

The company also cited its efficiency and cost savings-driven business model, forward-thinking culture and ability to meet the requirements of Unilever’s carbon-reduction agenda as being central to its successful tender for the contract.

Stobart Group chief executive Andrew Tinkler said: ‘We are looking forward to building a great working partnership with Unilever by providing a unique full-service offering, combined with the best know-how in the industry. As well as delivering day-to-day efficiency benefits for Unilever through our distribution system, we believe we can help it meet and even exceed its goals in terms of carbon reduction in the process.’

Source : Modern Selling

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 Carlene
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Cautious Sainsbury’s reveals 19% profit rise

J Sainsbury, the British supermarket giant, today revealed that cost-cutting and sales growth drove interim profits up 19 per cent to £307 million.

The figure was towards the higher end of forecasts which ranged from £296 million to £308 million.

Shares in Sainsbury’s rose 3.14p to 337.9p in early trading, despite the grocer reiterating its warning that falling inflation meant growth would slow in the rest of the year.

Justin King, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, said that the group’s strategy of growing non-food products such as clothes and DVDs and opening a string of convenience stores was paying off by increasing sales. He also said that measures such as introducing self-check out machines in convenience stores and sourcing more products direct from the Far East was helping to keep costs down.

Total pre-tax profits increased from £258 million to £342 million as overall sales reached £11.1 billion, an increase of 3.7 per cent.

However, despite the surge in trading in the first half, Mr King warned: “As we enter the second half we expect the economic environment to remain challenging and market growth to slow due to reduced food price inflation.”

Like for like sales, as it revealed at its recent trading statement, rose by 5.7 per cent in the half to October 3. However, market data figures from TNS and Nielsen released yesterday showed that in the past four weeks its sales growth had slowed to 4.2 per cent. Nielsen said that Tesco’s doubled discount on its Clubcards appeared to be winning back market share from Sainsbury’s.

Mr King said: “The market share figures should be taken with a pinch of salt but they are usually directionally correct. We are still winning market share.” Sainsbury’s is rolling out a “coupon at till” scheme, offering those with Nectar cards discounts at the time they check out to all stores by the end of this month.

Mr King also said that the group would continue to expand, adding 15 per cent in new space and creating 10,000 new jobs in the two years to March 2011.

Figures due out this morning are expected to show that British unemployment has risen to 2.5 million, and there are fears that the number of young people out of work may have surged to a new high of one million.

Mr King said: “The time is right to accelerate our growth plans and in June we raised £432 million to fund faster growth in our store estate and support our circa £2 billion capital expenditure programme in the two years to 2011.”

Sainsbury’s unveiled its results as it steps up its fight against its rivals, Tesco, Asda and Wm Morrison, to win sales in the crucial Christmas period.

Mr King was bullish about Sainsbury’s prospects for Christmas he said: “Not withstanding the pressures consumers are facing, we expect them to buy great food at Christmas. We are significantly increasing our orders for things such as high husbandry meat, like our Norfolk black free range turkeys. We think Christmas will be strong on food and non-food as well, as householders are finding the pressure coming off their weekly shopping budget.”

Supermarkets are chasing the money that shoppers would have spent at collapsed stores such as Zavvi and Woolworths in previous years. This has already led to price battles in the entertainment and toy markets.

Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda have held sales on toys, cutting the prices of doll’s houses and toy soldiers in the hope of gaining the market share that was once held by Woolworths.

Tesco, Britain’s biggest supermarket, doubled the discount available through its loyalty card scheme this year to allow customers to receive their extra money-off vouchers in time for Christmas shopping.

Sainsbury’s and Morrisons also offered improved voucher schemes. Asda has not released a loyalty card, but has provided a series of non-food deals.

Sainsbury’s announced an interim dividend of 4p a share, in line with its policy to pay at 30 per cent of the previous full year dividend.

Source : The Times

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 Carlene
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Unemployment Rate Fell In September

The number of people out of work fell in September, delivering unexpected good news for the economy.

 

Official figures show that unemployment stood at 2.461 million in September – down 4,000 on the 2.465 million reported for August.

But the figure rose by 30,000 from July to September, compared to the three months from April to June, the Office for National Statistics said.

The quarterly rise in unemployment was the smallest since spring last year.

There was a small increase of 6,000 in the number of people in work to almost 29 million, the first quarterly rise since the summer of last year.

But the youth unemployment rate reached a record high of almost 20%.

The number of 16 to 24-year-olds on the dole was up by 15,000 to 943,000, giving a rate of 19.8%, a record high.

The number of 18 to 24-year-olds out of work rose by 24,000 over the three months to 746,000, a rate of 18%, the highest since 1992.

Other figures showed that the number on jobseeker’s allowance rose by 12,900 in October to 1.64 million, the 20th consecutive monthly increase, giving the worst total for 12 years.

Source : Sky News

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 Carlene
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