Everybody sells something. Most of us in Human Resources think; it is the work of sales to sell. We often forget that in HR, we are selling the most difficult commodity to sell, "Ourselves". As Head of HR, we got to sell ourselves to the shareholders (representing employee), sell ourselves to employees (representing shareholders & our colleagues in management), sell ourselves to our direct reports to enlist them for the projects and committing to a excruciating deadlines.
A HR head we has multiple hats and in all of them he has to sell, yet most of us run away from this concept and the word. We think selling is a lowly job, well the US presidential candidates sell themselves to the public and if that is not the hottest job of the world, then which is? For the hottest job of the world, the candidates go to great lengths to sell and sell hard.
HR has to learn the art of selling and who else but our dear friends in Sales can help us learn it. We got to see them and learn from them in their natural surroundings, we should accompany them on sales calls, work with them when they are selling targets to their teams (be cautious when they oversell the same and learn to avoid all the silly mistakes they make while doing this). In turn barter your HR skills especially the ones about managing people with them, everybody wins at the end of the day.
Once you have learnt this beautiful art, you sell the Sales job to Sales employees, that to me is the Master Stroke. I remember in my last assignment I had to sell a Sales job with decreasing compensation to sales employees (if you joined at INR100 by the 3rd year your salary would be INR50), I greatly enjoyed it. It gave me a challenge which had never been encountered in India and we ran that model of compensation for 4 years in the company before stopping it. In those 4 years, I hired roughly 450 sales employees where by their fixed salary used to get swapped by variable and get reduced by 50% over a period of 3 years. It too guts to join such a job and such a company. I admire their courage and their self confidence to be in such a situation.
The toughest job in HR is to attract and select the perfect candidate for the job and we all know that their is no perfect candidate just like their is no perfect spouse...but we all believe that there is. Often enough it is HR who has to sell to the candidate the company, sell to the manager the candidate and in the end sell the best offer to the candidate to join. Still under the illusion that 'Selling' is not his job.
Great HR heads are selling all the time; their company to the candidate, their proposals to board, their company and the manager to the exiting employee, themselves to anyone who attends the numerous training programs they run themselves.
Selling is inherent to HR, whether you like it or not........Learn to Sell.
The joke with my friends in Sales is that it is the HR person who sells you your job in a company, so who is to say who is better salesman!!
A HR head we has multiple hats and in all of them he has to sell, yet most of us run away from this concept and the word. We think selling is a lowly job, well the US presidential candidates sell themselves to the public and if that is not the hottest job of the world, then which is? For the hottest job of the world, the candidates go to great lengths to sell and sell hard.
HR has to learn the art of selling and who else but our dear friends in Sales can help us learn it. We got to see them and learn from them in their natural surroundings, we should accompany them on sales calls, work with them when they are selling targets to their teams (be cautious when they oversell the same and learn to avoid all the silly mistakes they make while doing this). In turn barter your HR skills especially the ones about managing people with them, everybody wins at the end of the day.
Once you have learnt this beautiful art, you sell the Sales job to Sales employees, that to me is the Master Stroke. I remember in my last assignment I had to sell a Sales job with decreasing compensation to sales employees (if you joined at INR100 by the 3rd year your salary would be INR50), I greatly enjoyed it. It gave me a challenge which had never been encountered in India and we ran that model of compensation for 4 years in the company before stopping it. In those 4 years, I hired roughly 450 sales employees where by their fixed salary used to get swapped by variable and get reduced by 50% over a period of 3 years. It too guts to join such a job and such a company. I admire their courage and their self confidence to be in such a situation.
The toughest job in HR is to attract and select the perfect candidate for the job and we all know that their is no perfect candidate just like their is no perfect spouse...but we all believe that there is. Often enough it is HR who has to sell to the candidate the company, sell to the manager the candidate and in the end sell the best offer to the candidate to join. Still under the illusion that 'Selling' is not his job.
Great HR heads are selling all the time; their company to the candidate, their proposals to board, their company and the manager to the exiting employee, themselves to anyone who attends the numerous training programs they run themselves.
Selling is inherent to HR, whether you like it or not........Learn to Sell.
The joke with my friends in Sales is that it is the HR person who sells you your job in a company, so who is to say who is better salesman!!
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