Is it time for a change? Are you looking to move your talents to a new employer, but are intimidated by the interview process? Do you have any job interviews lined up in the new year, or are you having difficulty even getting one? Are you adept at the interview process but struggle when it comes to the negotiation stage? Are you looking for solid sales job interview tips?
In this episode of INSIDE Inside Sales, Darryl speaks with Richard Harris, the sought after and accomplished head of The Harris Consulting Group. Darryl and Richard discuss 5 segments of the job interview process, offering up tips and advice that can help you secure your next posting. They also reveal tips for asking the questions that are important to you, as well as how to leverage recruiters, and optimizing your LinkedIn profile. If you are even thinking about branching out, you really should check out this fantastic episode of INSIDE Inside Sales!
Not in the mood to listen? No problem, you can read the transcriptions below.
Host: Darryl Praill, VanillaSoft
Guest: Richard Harris, The Harris Consulting Group
Success Starts with the Interview
Darryl Praill: And how are you doin’ folks?
Richard Harris: This is Richard Harris.
Darryl Praill: It is another episode of–
Richard Harris: I am super happy to be here for “The Surf & Sales Podcast.”
Darryl Praill: Of Inside. Richard.
Richard Harris: What Darryl, what are you doin’?
Darryl Praill: What are you, it’s my show, man.
Richard Harris: No, no, no when you asked me to do a podcast I thought you wanted to come on “The Surf & Sales Podcast,” I’m sorry.
Darryl Praill: No it’s the “INSIDE Inside Sales” podcast, Richard.
Richard Harris: Oh shit, well no wonder Scott’s not here, oh okay all right.
Darryl Praill: It’s okay, okay so let’s do this again. How about you listen, I’ll talk, and then I’ll introduce the audience to you. And if the audience is still listening, pretend you never heard Richard. All right let’s try that.
Richard Harris: I’ll go into active listening mode now.
Darryl Praill: Okay you’re in active listening mode?
Richard Harris: Yeah.
Darryl Praill: Okay. In three, two, one. Good day folks! Welcome to another episode of “INSIDE Inside Sales.” The only show on the podcast sphere where we talk nothing but tactics, pragmatic how-to, no vision, no strategy, no nothing to do with management. It’s about how you can be a better sales person. And if you do your job, and you take the expert opinions, and advice and lessons that I bring to you every single week, with the industry’s smartest and brightest people, and that includes Richard Harris, then you too will be 1% marginally better after today, than you were before you began listening to this show. I am thrilled you are here. And I say that with all sincerity.
Darryl Praill: I will share with you that doin’ this podcast is honestly the highlight of my week, every single week. And you’re saying, “Yeah Darryl, you’re full of crap.” And that’s a fair assessment in all honesty. But it is, and I’ll tell you why. It’s because multiple reasons. One, I actually really dig I really, really dig just sharing with you guys. Just riffing and sharing. It’s like therapy. It really affirms the bond we have. So, I hope you like it and if you don’t, every little app player has got that fast forward button, I respect it, just fast forward past my ramble. My wife does that all the time. She just mutes me out somehow. So that’s the first part. The second part is I get to interview some really smart people. As you know, we talk about all different kinds of topics. Today’s topic is gonna be a fun one, and we haven’t done it before. But I wanna share, every week I like to share a little bit. So, here’s me sharing.
Darryl Praill: So, I’ve had the chance recently to do a lot of networking with a lot of let’s call it peers. Peers for lack of a better word, right. Roughly people who are more tenured, more senior like my white hair might convey. So, if you’re not tenured like me, you’re earlier in your career, then I want you to recognize from this what I’m about to share. How it doesn’t matter how far you are in your career; this is an issue that comes up over and over again. And what is it?
Darryl Praill: So, here’s the situation. I was talking to lots of fellow colleagues and they were lamenting, they were complaining, they were just you know I think they were just sharing how frustrated they were at their job. That they weren’t allowed to do certain things. That had to ask for permission even though they were hired for a certain role, in a certain mandate, when they tried to do it they weren’t allowed. And they felt handicapped. And they felt frustrated. They felt I guess not empowered, let’s go with that. And they were like you know, “How did we get here?” Here’s the worst part, the whole conversation was around, “How do we work within that work environment? “How do we succeed? “How do we achieve what we’re expected to do?” Right so sales, sales how do you do your activity? How do you do your email? How do you do your social? Yada, yada, yada and get the results you want.
Darryl Praill: Have the conversations you want. Have the demos you want, whatever it might be. Discovery calls everything else. If you’re partially handicapped. For example, many organizations would say to you social selling, “Don’t do it, irrelevant.” Others would say the phone is dead, “Don’t do it, irrelevant.” And maybe they’re right in their own instance. But the reality is we all know it’s multi-channel. And the more ways you can reach out and engage someone, the more likely you are to connect them. But you’re hamstrung you can’t do it. What do you do? And you’re frustrated right? And I said to my friends, and I said, “Colleagues, let me share “with you a bit of wisdom “I learned a long time ago. “And it’s worked out very well for me, “but I had to go through a few jobs “to figure this out.”
Darryl Praill: Before I ever took the job, I asked the questions that I needed to make sure I had answers to, to be successful. So, in my case as a marketer, and for sales it’ll be a little different, and we’re gonna get to that. As a marketer I would say, how many resources do I have? Not that I necessarily need staff, but do I have staff? Because that right away in my mind tells me what I can and cannot do. How much budget do I have? Is that budget locked in place? Is that budget mine in the beginning of the year, or will you pull that back shy of us going out of business and you need to save money? Is that my budget? What’s my hiring plan like? And then I ask questions like, What do I need to do in 90 days, 180 days, a full year from now? What will I need to have accomplished?
Darryl Praill: So, you say, “Darryl you my friend, “you were a good hire.” Help me understand who are the stakeholders who will influence my success? Do they have the same opinions and the same expectations of me that you Mr. Recruiter, Mr. HR person, Mr. CEO have of me? I ask all those questions so there’s no surprises. I get it in writing, so that if they try to change the rules, I at least have recourse. And if I don’t like the answers I move on. And that is tough to do, to move on. Trust me it is. But it’s gotta be right for you so you can succeed. And people looked at me when I shared this like they were gobsmacked. Like, “What, you asked these questions?” And I’m like, “Yeah, and that’s how I avoid “the situation you’re in now.”
Welcome Richard Harris
Darryl Praill: In other words what I’m saying to you, my friends out there in sales world, is it all comes down to the interview. Your success beyond your skills and your capabilities, beyond the products and the services that you represent, your success starts before you ever take the job. So how can I ensure you are successful? Well, I’m glad you asked. Richard Harris my friend, are you still there? Or are you on your other show now, I don’t know?
Richard Harris: You know it’s like I don’t think I’ve ever heard a wind up like that since Rachel Maddow in MSNBC last night, so.
Darryl Praill: I love Rachel Maddow, she is such a great storyteller. She inspires me, but there you go.
Richard Harris: Let’s stay out of the politics I know that’s not what we’re here for.
Darryl Praill: No but hey we can go politics, that’s fun too. It’ll certainly be more entertaining. Richard Harris folks. If you don’t know him.
Richard Harris: Hi everybody.
Darryl Praill: Richard.
Richard Harris: Yeah, I’m working from home, for those who are catching the video piece, we’re going under some construction in the house. I don’t hide behind big red curtains and stuff like that, right. I wanna know what’s behind Darryl’s big red curtain, by the way. I want the creature to come stick their head out like this, or something like that.
Darryl Praill: The wizard is behind the big red curtain. Don’t you know that?
Richard Harris: Yeah, I don’t know what’s back there.
Darryl Praill: There you go.
Richard Harris: I was thinking puppet master. But anyway so I keep it a little bit more raw and emotionally real. That’s just my shtick and my style. But I’m really excited to talk about this. This is one of my most passionate topics of interviewing. I have often said, much to my wife’s chagrin, cause she would never do it, is that if I could get paid to go on interviews to teach leaders how shitty they are in interviewing, and how bad they ask questions, and how I will put them on the spotlight, and turn it around on them, I would love to do that. That being said, I need to watch my language. I apologize, bleep that out.
Richard Harris: But that being said, I love interviewing. And I love all the parts of it. I love well how do I even get more interviews? I love how do I interview and answer their questions professionally? How do I, as Darryl was suggesting, how do I make sure that I ask the questions that are important to me, to make sure that I can set them up for success and me? Because that’s ultimately what you’re trying to figure out in the interview, right. Respectively they’re not interviewing you, you’re interviewing them. And it’s a whole lot easier in today’s job market where the unemployment rate is so low. But that’s always been my mantra going forward. I’ll stop my preamble, and Darryl give it back to you.
Darryl Praill: Alright so here’s my thought process, tell me what you think of this plan. Let’s kinda go through the whole process kinda start to finish, right. I wanna cover things like, how do we get more job interviews? What do we need to make sure we look good and feel good to anybody who are evaluating us, and considering inviting us to a job interview? When we’re at the job interview, pros and cons, tips and tricks, what do we need to do? Mindset questions, mentality. Mistakes we see leaders make from the point of view of interviewing you. And then let’s get right down to the actual part where there’s a job forth coming, a job offer, and it’s now at the negotiation stage. So kind of start to end.
Richard Harris: Yeah.
Darryl Praill: Let’s cover that, that cool with you?
Richard Harris: That’s perfect, that’s how I would do it.
How to Build a Compelling LinkedIn Profile
Darryl Praill: Okay, so let me start off. Cause I just told everybody that if they didn’t like the interview they should walk. Which for many people they’re panicking cause they’re saying, “But that’s the only interview “I got goin’ on right now. “I need to pay the bills, I need money.” So let’s start with, how do I get, for example not just one interview, how do I get lots of interviews? How do I position myself to get that?
Richard Harris: Yeah so there’s a couple of ways that you’re gonna do it. And I’m gonna hit on a couple topics. And Darryl slow me down. I wanna be conscious of time, but I wanna get this out. One is you definitely have to start with your resume and your LinkedIn profile. And I’m gonna speak to this in a sales related capacity. So other people who happen to be listening that may not be in sales, you need to twist this for your own world. But first of all, if someone ever asked me for a resume my first response is, “Really it’s 2019. “I don’t do fuckin’ resumes anymore.” Whoop there’s another bleep, sorry Darryl. Like really, don’t ask me for a resume. I will gladly give you one, but I will say, “Know what my resume says? “See my LinkedIn profile.”
Darryl Praill: Yes.
Richard Harris: And here are a couple of reasons why. One is we get stuck in this world where, “Oh my god, my resume is now three pages long. “And I can’t send, how do I cut “out all this good stuff?”” We’ll talk about cutting out the good stuff. But nobody cares how many scrolls it takes on LinkedIn. They could care less. But when they get the three-page resume, that feels old school, too much I’m not gonna read all that, I’m not gonna digest it.
Richard Harris: So, get rid of it, so that’s the first thing. In some industries if you’re a traditional salesperson, if you work for Dow Chemical and you’re gonna go and try and work for, you know another big chemical plant, you may still have to do resumes. And I will acquiesce to that. But it also sends a message to me about the kind of company I’m working with. So, one, have your resume ready.
Richard Harris: On your resume, or more specifically on your LinkedIn profile, it’s all about you and your accomplishments. Every bullet point, like if I’m VP of Sales at VanillaSoft, the very next bullet point says, 110%. The first thing is a number, it’s always a number. 110% over quota for these quarters. Seven to 15… Hired reps, or I might call like 84% increase in… New hires. Every bullet point is a number showing an increase, always. Particularly in sales because that’s all the leader cares about. And I wanna be specifically vague. I wanna say hey I hit this number, I hit this goal, I hit this milestone by an increase. But then I want them to go, “I gotta talk to Richard. “And then I’m gonna ask Richard, “how’d you do that for three quarters in a row?”
[bctt tweet=”‘On your resume, or more specifically on your LinkedIn profile, it’s all about you and your accomplishments. Every bullet point is a number showing an increase, always.’ ~ @rharris415 #InterviewTips ” username=”VanillaSoft”]
Darryl Praill: Yes, I love that part right there. That part’s huge, it’s clickbait almost.
Richard Harris: It’s total clickbait.
Darryl Praill: Yeah that’s what you want. You want them to ask the question. I’m sorry I don’t mean to interrupt you, but that is gold right there.
Richard Harris: Yeah no, I agree. I go through that. Stop taking out the buzzword, I mean stop putting in the buzzword. Stop with synergy, and cross-channel communications, and cross-department blah, blah, blah. Talk about what you accomplish because of those things. There was an 84% increase in efficiency between sales and marketing. What does that mean?
Richard Harris: Don’t put it in these words about synergy and stuff like that. Everything can be quantified. And trust me you could do the same thing if you’re an engineer, right hey. 52… The numbers 52 and it’s how many times I was the project manager, whatever it’s a number. People are always impressed by increases and numbers in the business world, period regardless. Same thing in marketing, same thing in HR, all across the board the number comes first.
Darryl Praill: All right keep going.
Richard Harris: Yeah so with regards to that in the LinkedIn profile, it is your bread and butter. I think hopefully this isn’t shocking to someone, but you know your party pic is not necessary for your LinkedIn profile. I have a belief, and I’m starting to see this, and again this could be generational, is that I love the idea of someone putting their graduation picture in their cap and gown in there profile.
Richard Harris: But it also immediately sends a message that this is somone who doesn’t have a lot of experience. Which they’re probably gonna figure out anyway. I don’t know if that’s right or wrong, it’s just something I notice, and it just could be a Richardism that I don’t like. I don’t like like that, but I also don’t wanna detract from someone who’s busted their butt all their life to get to college, to be the first kid in their family to go to college, to wanna be excited and promotive of that. There’s a balance in there and I’m not sure what it is, but it’s just a trend I’m seeing. What else do you wanna know about LinkedIn?
Darryl Praill: Well let’s back it up a second. So this is how we’re framing LinkedIn into the conversation, I guess there are two ways I can go. What are your thoughts, that was your profile, that was your claim to fame, your brag statements right. What are thoughts about the idea of using your skills? Or asking people for recommendations?
Richard Harris: I mean I think all that stuff is measurable, and I am not the LinkedIn expert when it comes to job hunting. If someone were to go say, “Hey I love Richard’s advice “what else should I do?” I’d be like, “Go Google it.”
Darryl Praill: Right.
Richard Harris: And if you’re Gen Z, go YouTube a good LinkedIn profile. In fact, I would tell Gen Xs to do that too, because we don’t know. We don’t know what it looks like and we’re terrible at creating the stuff. So, go YouTube, how to write a good LinkedIn profile. So that’s the first thing I would tell you to do. Skills and stuff, I absolutely think they matter. Definitely get recommendations I think they matter. Particularly, if you are new in the job and you don’t have a lot of experience yet, you’re gonna have to figure out a way to make experience, right.
Richard Harris: You’re gonna have to figure out how do I turn babysitting into a revenue generation machine? Which is what babysitting is, right? I generated my own revenue. Talk about built a pipeline. Talk about how you closed the business. Talk about how many kids you had to cross-functionally babysit at the same time, so that you could multitask, right? Find a way is my opinion on the LinkedIn stuff.
Sales Job Interview Tips to Land Your Next Job
Darryl Praill: Alright so is your premise then that approaching your LinkedIn layout that way, with the brag statements, and losing the buzzwords, et cetera, et cetera, and having numbers that are tangible so it acts like clickbait, that that will get you more interviews? Or is there even a step before that?
Richard Harris: That to me is the first step. You can’t start asking for interviews until you have something to show. Right you gotta have some quality. You gotta provide some quality. It’s just like sales, where you gotta give some level of quality and information to earn the right to ask for the interview. And for that for me is the first step. And it’s hard, like if you go through the job search you’re like, “Oh my god, “there’s a company I wanna comment, “I wanna send a resume to. “Oh no, my resume’s not up to date. “Oh no, my LinkedIn.” Like the first thing you have to do is update everything. Like before you start reaching out, unless you’ve got friends, then that’s a totally different ballgame. But I think that stuff has to come first.
Darryl Praill: Alright so here’s what I’m gonna throw out there for my two cents on this whole process. I’ve only been laid off once in my life. I guess technically, laid off, fired, it’s a fine line. But when it happened it was certainly unexpected. All right boom, there you go. You’re out the door. And I was, I’m like, “Holy sh.” I’m doin’ this one for you, “Holy shit.” That’s just so you feel better Richard. Holy shit.
Richard Harris: So un-Canadian.
Darryl Praill: I know that’s my Canadianship, exactly. What I do still have, you know I was the primary bread winner, yet the pressures, blah. And I didn’t see it coming so I wasn’t ready with plan B. I approached it at the time I was a VP of marketing. And I took a couple weeks. And then after about a week or so, I’m like, “Okay Praill “if you really are a marketer, “you better learn to market yourself.” And I did, you know I made a website. I made guerrilla campaigns. I identified my target audience, my ideal customer profile. And I hit the multi-channel email, phone, direct mail, bing, bing, bing, bing.
Darryl Praill: And I targeted 13 companies. I had seven interviews with CEOs. And I had four job offers in about two weeks. Now, sales exactly the same thing. If you can sell, you truly can sell, you need to sell you. You identify who you wanna work for. You identify why they should care. You identify who the hiring people are whether it’s the HR, head of sales, CFO, COO, CEO, whatever. You pitch them. This is not a wait for the leads to come to me. Otherwise you’re just another sales rep, and you don’t stand out in the crowd.
Richard Harris: Yep, so I’m gonna double down on what you just said. 100% agree from a sales perspective. And I’ve written about this on my own blog, but I’ll give you the bullet points. One you update the LinkedIn resume. Absolutely you should start commenting and liking just sales related content on LinkedIn, so that your name can start to kinda buzz around a little bit, that’s not gonna get you a job. You then find the 10 or 12 companies you wanna go after. You send the resume in. This is what I teach people to do.
Richard Harris: If I wanna go work for VanillaSoft, here’s what I’m doing. And this actually makes it easy cause you’re in sales. One I go target them, and I read about ’em, and I look at their profile, and do all that stuff. Two I go to their job application site and I upload my LinkedIn profile, and if they force me to make a resume I’ll send ’em one that says, “Check my LinkedIn profile.” Then I go to every single person in HR at VanillaSoft, and I say, “Hey so and so, I just applied to… “This opening, I’m a strong fit. “I would love to talk to the right person. “Can you point me in the right direction?” And I’ll send it to every single person in HR. I will then go to the hiring manager who I assume was in sales, it’s a VP of sales, a director of sales, whatever, and I’ll go down that line. “Hey VP of sales, I just applied to this. “I thought it’d be smart “for us to connect here on LinkedIn. “Can you point me in the direction “to get me in your funnel, “in your hiring funnel?” Go through four, five sales leaders. I might even go through a salesperson.
Richard Harris: Then here’s the part, I now pick up the phone and I call every one of those people I just LinkedIn connected with. And I leave a message, and I go, “Hey this is gonna shock “you cause I know nobody ever calls you. “You need to call and interview me.” And I promise you, you will start to get first interviews, okay. That for me is my approach for sales. And I have coached other people into marketing, into engineering to try this strategy and every one of ’em works. Every time.
Darryl Praill: This is gold what you just heard folks. That right there, nothing else today. What you just heard, that will get you the job you want in the company you want. Alright when we come back, we’re gonna go rapid fire now into the interview process, and then salary negotiation. And I mean rapid fire. So don’t go anywhere, we’ll be right back.
Richard Harris: Wait, wait, wait. Before you–
Darryl Praill: Oh! All right.
Richard Harris: I know Darryl, I don’t mean to take over your show.
Darryl Praill: You’re killin’ me, go ahead.
Leveraging Every Recruiter Perfectly
Richard Harris: That’s okay but this is gold. I wanna talk about recruiters. Leverage every recruiter you can. Absolutely. Let them be the tentacles of your octopus. They will have other places they can get you in. Don’t worry about, “Well what if I overlap or they overlap?” It’s like that’s not your problem to solve. That is the recruiter’s problem to solve. Now if you work with recruiters, and all the recruiters who are listening to this I think you’re gonna love me, when the deal doesn’t work out and the recruiter only gives you a little bit of feedback, do not keep the recruiter on the phone 30 minutes crying. They are not your shrink. Like seriously, like this is the challenge. Look you’ve gotta get over it, you move on to the next one. I’m not saying you shouldn’t feel sad. I’m not saying you got–
Darryl Praill: No, it’s a numbers game.
Richard Harris: Yeah it’s a numbers game. But they are not there to shrink you through this thing.
Darryl Praill: Eye on the prize, I agree with you. All right, I’m shuttin’ you up. Richard Harris shut up! We’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere.
Darryl Praill: Okay we’re back, rapid fire. So I’ve done everything Richard Harris just told me to do. I’ve got the call, I’m in the interview. Quick and dirty, and I mean quick and dirty. How do I approach this? Do I ask the questions? Do I let them do their song and dance? What’s my game plan going in? Go.
Richard Harris: Yep, game plan going in is that they are not interviewing you, you’re interviewing them. That doesn’t mean you walk in cocky. And that you absolutely walk in with empathy, and you’re very grateful to be there because you are grateful to be there. You want to be there, right like that’s okay. But keep it in your back pocket that they need you, more than you need them. Sometimes that’s hard to believe based on what your bills and your life is like. But ultimately the job search means they’re struggling. Always answer their questions politely, you know your pleases and your thank-yous. Then they’re gonna ask you probably one of the worst questions they could ask you which is, “Hey Richard why should “we hire you for VanillaSoft? “Or what do you like about VanillaSoft?” And I’m okay with them asking it, but it’s a really silly question. And I’m gonna tell you why. One it doesn’t mean anything; all they’re doing is to see if you did your research. So yeah do your research.
Richard Harris: Now it turns around to the, “Hey Richard, what questions “do you have for us?” These are my favorite questions to ask in an interview. “Hey Darryl, tell me about a day in the life. “Tell me about your top performers.” Absolutely ask this question, “What percentage of your team “hits quota every month or every quarter?” And you need to say, “Are you 100% sure?” Cause if it’s less than 60% or 70% you’re gonna walk into a very, very tough spot. That means their quotas are too high, in my opinion. So anyway, a good question to ask. Second question.
[bctt tweet=”Ask this on your next #SalesJob interview – ‘What percentage of your team hits quota every month or every quarter?’ And you need to say, ‘Are you 100% sure?’ ~ @rharris415 #InterviewTips ” username=”VanillaSoft”]
Darryl Praill: Okay. Second question, yes.
Richard Harris: Second question is, “Hey Darryl.” Darryl role-play this with me. “Hey Darryl if you could snap “your fingers at VanillaSoft,” for the sales team, right. “If you could snap your fingers “and three things changed tomorrow, what would you wish they could be?”
Darryl Praill: I’m sorry just wait. You’re the candidate, I’m the employer? If I could change three things of my sale team, that they actually weren’t afraid of using all the channels available to them. That they hit their activity numbers. And that they knew the product better so that they could handle objections better.
Richard Harris: Great so Darryl what’s preventing that from happening before tomorrow?
Darryl Praill: That’s a great question. We got coaching going on in sales enablement, but you know the honest truth god blah, blah, blah.
Richard Harris: Right but Darryl said it, that’s a great question. Nobody’s ever asked Darryl that question. Nobody’s ever asked that in an interview. And that’s gonna show them that you think differently, that you’re unafraid to ask the tough questions, which is what sales is about. So that’s the second question. My third question, this is the one that goes back to you know when they talk about why do you wanna work at VanillaSoft? It’s like, “Hey Darryl, “I gotta ask you a question. “And I don’t mean “to come across the wrong way but like, “why should I wanna come work for Darryl? “What are you gonna help me do?”
Darryl Praill: I love it, and love that I get asked that question I love that question.
Richard Harris: Yeah because it means you gotta sell me.
Darryl Praill: Yeah.
Richard Harris: So anyways I’m gonna stop there cause we’re on rapid fire. But those are my three best questions for an interview.
Darryl Praill: Okay so I’ve asked those questions. Now you have a back and forth. I would augment that with some of the questions I shared with you earlier in the day, about expectations, success, all that kind of stuff. So, there’s clear expectations between both parties, then you can fall back on that. And I would actually follow up in the interview to say, “Thank you so much. “Here’s what I heard you say, “you know here’s what I need “to do be successful, “thank you for your time,” whatever. But again, you show follow up. Because if you can follow up to an interview, then you can follow up on a sales call. Finally, they like you, they pitch you an offer. Now it’s negotiation time. What’s the one piece of advice you have when it comes to negotiating salary?
Richard Harris: The one piece of advice?
Darryl Praill: One piece.
Richard Harris: You can walk away at any point if you don’t like what they have.
[bctt tweet=”Remember this in your next #SalesJob interview – ‘You can walk away at any point if you don’t like what they have.’ ~ @rharris415 #InterviewTips ” username=”VanillaSoft”]
Darryl Praill: Oh!
Richard Harris: But you’re in total control.
Darryl Praill: People I don’t know if you caught that. That is the most empowering statement in the world. You’re in control, you have permission to walk away. You do not have to accept a bad deal.
Richard Harris: Yep, but you can negotiate a lot of stuff. And if you want me to give you the list of things that I tell people to negotiate, I’m happy to roll it off.
Darryl Praill: 30 seconds, what’s the list?
Richard Harris: 30, these are the things you can negotiate. You can ask for, some of them become throw aways, meaning you know you’re not gonna get ’em, but it gives them the ability to think they negotiated something with you. You can say I need to work from home so many days. I wanna be able to work remotely for the month of July from my lake house, and I’ll still accomplish X, Y and Z. I want to negotiate, absolutely you can negotiate more shares. Or if they’re not offering shares of like, asking, “Hey I need some equity in this game.” You can ask for additional vacation time. I used to be really good at saying, “Hey I know for the first year “I’m not gonna take a vacation, “and after the third year “I get my third week of vacation,” this is really old school. I tell people, “Look after one year, “I want three weeks of vacation.” If they’re unwilling to give it to me, then it tells me that they don’t understand the value of work-life balance.
Richard Harris: I will also ask them, “What have other people ever “asked you in their negotiations, “that I’m not asking you?” And now you put them on the spot, and see how good a negotiator they are. That’s my 30 seconds. Scott Leese and I do a podcast, and Darryl gave me permission, called “The Surf & Sales Podcast.” We spend 30 minutes talking about, 45 minutes talking about, how to interview better. Way more than what I was able to do with Darryl today. Same thing with negotiations, those are two of our most popular episodes. How to negotiate your salary. You could also negotiate, even as a salesperson, you can negotiate you exit out. “If this doesn’t work out, what happens?” Because the data suggests it may not work out. If you wanna go check those out, you could. Darryl said I could mention those, but now I’ll stop. Darryl, back to you.
Darryl Praill: Alright so if I wanted to go see those episodes, how do I find those episodes online?
Richard Harris: Aw dude, you’re super kind. It’s just “The Surf & Sales Podcast.” And you can find it on iTunes and Spotify, and all the other places we’re using. I think we’re using Libsyn.
Darryl Praill: Libsyn, yeah. Yeah, Libsyn’s a rock star. They’ve been doin’ it forever. All right.
Richard Harris: I just discovered this yesterday in my cool Gen X capacity, I could just say, “Hey Alexa, play ‘The Surf & Sales Podcast.'” And I thought that was the coolest thing, and then my two kids, who are nine and 11, kind of rolled their eyes at me when I showed them.
Darryl Praill: You can do that on the “INSIDE Inside Sales Show” too, and I think it’s cool as well. Folks we are outta time. Richard Harris, Harris Consulting Group, world class trainer, LinkedIn influencer, all around nice guy, straight shooter. Follow him, if you liked this reach out to him. This guy can help you. In the meantime, we are truly outta time. I am so sorry folks. But thank you Richard. Thank you, guys. Let’s do our own therapy session again, next week.
Richard Harris: Thanks Darryl. Thanks, VanillaSoft.
Darryl Praill: My name is Darryl Praill, I’m with VanillaSoft. This is the “INSIDE Inside Sales Show.” We’ll talk to you soon, bye, bye.
Richard Harris: I loved it, thank you.