Last weekend, I had the privilege of working with members of the St. Louis Chapter of the National Sales Network, on resume building and selling your personal brand. The seminar began with a discussion of how a resume is the ultimate sales document, a “brochure” without pictures, of the job-seeker and their accomplishments. Your resume should portray an energetic, dynamic salesperson that also has a strong grasp of new technology in order to stand out from the crowd.
Our conversation moved towards registering personal domain names, setting up personal websites, and using that website as platform to consolidate all personal Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn feeds. The group was very interested in selling their personal brand by incorporating a website. My premise is to demonstrate to a prospective employer that this candidate was a “modern salesperson” who could fully utilize the technology available and to stand out from the crowd in this tough job market.
So what steps would a modern salesperson need to take to incorporate this strategy into their resume?
1.) Register your own domain name – Companies like Namecheap.com offer specials and can register a person’s proper name as a domain. For example, Ann Marie and I have www.ammayuga.com and www.elmayuga.com that point to our AMM Communications website.
2.) Sign up for LinkedIn – This is the primary social network for businesspeople and a logical place to start. You can obtain a widget to display on your personal web page.
3.) Sign up for Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo etc. – Even if you don’t intend to use these networks immediately, sign up anyway so that you can secure the username you desire. With thousands of people signing up everyday, the opportunity to pick the exact username you want grows slimmer. Incorporate these widgets into your web page.
4.) Consider making a professional YouTube video – YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, so potential employers/clients may query your name on both sites. People buy from people they know like and trust, so what better way than to give a quick “elevator speech” about your accomplishments?
5.) Incorporate your website address into your paper resume – LinkedIn also serves as an online resume and there is an area to list your website, Twitter feed, and blog.
I cannot stress this enough: “Salespeople need to keep their resumes updated!” Every quarter that you exceed your quota, every award that you win, class that you attend etc. needs to be on your resume. Remember that you are selling your personal brand. After you have updated your resume, you also need to also update LinkedIn. Give yourself a little public relations as well and let ev
eryone know through Twitter and Facebook, because Google is getting better at indexing those posts.
eryone know through Twitter and Facebook, because Google is getting better at indexing those posts.
Incorporate these steps into your sales approach and you’ll be ahead of the pack!
Founded in 2008, AMM Communications is a St. Louis-based public relations and marketing firm that provides public relations, marketing, crisis communication, social media and sales management training for small- and mid-sized financial institutions, professional service firms and manufacturing companies. For more information, please navigate to www.ammcommunications.com or call 314.485.9499.
Absolutely Ed! However, for some, aggregating all of your social media into a place where a potential employer can see it may not be a good idea for some — there can be some pretty disparaging stuff on those profiles.I feel sorry for those that are in there early teens and immature and leaving permanent digital fingerprints on the web that they may not want others to see in 5 or 6 years.
Russ – Excellent points! I find it amazing what people post to social media sites without bothering to consider the consequences. To you point, anything that you ever posted to the web is stored on a server somewhere. Ann Marie and I like to say, "Never post anything to the web that you wouldn't want your mother to see!"
Absolutely Ed! However, for some, aggregating all of your social media into a place where a potential employer can see it may not be a good idea for some — there can be some pretty disparaging stuff on those profiles.I feel sorry for those that are in there early teens and immature and leaving permanent digital fingerprints on the web that they may not want others to see in 5 or 6 years.
+1
sometimes Sales Management takes a lot of effort and skill.-`”
Sales Management is very essential in making your business succeed, every part of a business should be managed carefully.-,,
sales management can be tricky at times and you need to practice it often**,
sales management also requires that you have a good public image and you are charismatic on your employees and customers.”*
every sales manager and store owner should have a training in sales management ‘:`