Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

As noted a few weeks ago, we’re running a 3-stage recruitment process through which we’re seeking to find our new General Manager for Initiating, Opening and Sustaining Client Relationships (a.k.a. GM Sales and Downstream Marketing).

Through Stage 1 of the process, we’ve sifted through every application as they have arrived via various routes, and performed a multi-faceted initial screening to identify people who seem to have all three attributes:
1)  capability and
2)  keenness to deliver results for us
3)  plus the probability of a cultural fit.

We’ve seen many candidates with one (sometimes two) of these attributes, and on some occasions the possibility of all three.

Last week we kicked off Stage 2…

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As a welcome break from the more “here and now” requirements of our latest recruitment effort, I picked this book up and was suitably energised.

The Book	What we thought
“The Medici Effect - what elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation” by Frans Johansen	Useful concepts, at a deeper level than others I’ve read

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It was a great coincidence to be able to hear from David Redhill (CMO @ Deloitte Australia) on Tuesday morning at a breakfast event organised by the AMI.

After taking a few minutes to get into his groove, David proceeded to give an interesting summary of Deloitte’s journey from being described as the ‘Sick Puppy’ of the big 4 accounting firms to being a ‘Crouching Tiger’, within only a few short years.

Having been through our own transformation of sorts over the past 2 years or so, and now focused on recruiting a Master Salesperson in to build on the new foundations created by our Products Team, it was particularly interesting (and timely) for me to hear how Deloitte worked through their process – and how they have, in parallel, used marketing to effect the change.

The following is just some random thoughts triggered by the presentation this week: read more »

We’re now seeking applications from people with the capability and keenness to be our new General Manager for Initiating, Opening & Sustaining Client Relationships (a.k.a. GM Sales and downstream Marketing).

The following additional information has been previously provided:

1)  How we will be collectively measuring your success in this role.

2)  The 3-stage recruitment process we’ll be using, starting today.

We’re excited by the opportunities we’re facing over the next few years, and are keen to find someone who can, and will, help us grasp these opportunities.

If this is something that is of interest to you, we will look forward to hearing from you shortly – please email us your details to the following address:

gmsales@global-roam.com

Alternatively, if you know of someone ideally suited to assist us in this way, please do point them in our direction!

It’s now almost exactly 2 years ago since we recruited Derrick to join our team as GM for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants (3D WCW).

Since that time we have invested a huge percentage of our annual revenues in the upgrading of the capability of our Products Team – with a particular focus on our tool for energy traders, ez2viewAustralia – and our customer are happy, because of our efforts.  We’re also starting to win some new ones, as well (and back some old friends).

Now it is time for us to expand our attention to achieving a similar outcome with our Sales and downstream Marketing Team, starting with the recruitment of an equivalent General Manager.

I have recently posted about how we’ll be judging the success of our new GM for Initiating, Opening & Sustaining Client Relationships.

1)  Retrospective

The intervening 24 months have given us a good opportunity to  reflect on what we did right in the previous recruitment process, and what we could have done better – the following are some of the highlights: read more »

We first began thinking about having this person join our team about two years ago, back when we recruited Derrick to be our GM Products.

In the intervening period (whilst we were focused on upgrading the capability of our development team, and regaining some momentum in product development) we had plenty of time to think through what a Sales and Marketing team should do, when we start to hire for that team – starting (soon) with the General Manager.

Whilst we have ideas about what these activities will be, we also expect that anyone who is capable of filling the role of GM for Sales and downstream Marketing will have plenty of ideas of their own (indeed, it’s partly for this reason that we’re looking to hire them).

Hence we believe that it’s far more important to specify what success will look like for this person – and for their team, as they are hired:

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You might recall that I picked this book up recently and was reminded of the Gallup Organisation’s prognosis of what my underlying “strengths” are.

As noted already, I could not remember much about what this book actually said – so (because we’re about to begin the recruitment of our GM for Sales and downstream Marketing) I took some time to peruse the book again.

Unfortunately I was disappointed.

The Book	What we thought
“Develop your Sales Strengths – How the world’s greatest salespeople develop winning careers” by Benson Smith & Tony Rutigliano	Maybe I missed something, but it seemed a bit shallow and repetitive?

In general terms, my disappointment with this book boils down to two factors – one which might not apply to other readers (depending on what they have read beforehand):

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Again on the topic of recruitment, I was interested to see these three true job interview questions posted by George Bradt on Forbes some time ago, but more recently  bounced around my contacts on LinkedIn.

For ease of reference, the three questions are here:

Q1 =  Can you do the job?

This, George says, is all about what they call “Strengths” – whereby he references the Gallup series of books, but places equal weight on a Talent + Knowledge + Skills combination.

When reduced to a single question, it sounds quite simple – though I’m sure many have found that it’s like those board games of yesteryear that are “a minute to learn and a lifetime to master”.  I surely have.

We have, however, improved markedly in the process - and will be looking for a further improvement when we kick off our next recruitment effort, shortly. read more »

Given that we’re gearing up to recruit our Chief Revenue Officer shortly, I picked up the book “Discover your Sales Strengths” again, to see what notes I might have made when I read it a year ago.

A few loose pages fell out and surprised me – printed results from when I used the code in the book to take the “Strengths Finder” test online.

Reviewing the results now, it seemed that it might be useful to post about the five signature themes the test ascribed to me – as it would be one more data point that potential applicants might consider.

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The summer break was a good time for a bit of rest and reflection, especially given the down-and-up year we had in 2011.

Naturally for me, part of this time was spent with a couple of books borrowed from the growing office library – a couple others much harder going than this one here:

The Book	What we thought
“Great by Choice Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All” by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen	More food for thought

Having previously read “Built to Last”, “Good to Great” and “How the Mighty Fall” by Jim (and others) I was not disappointed with a few more points of insight the authors have added with this latest piece of analysis. read more »