Four Keys to Selling Like the Department Dumb-Dumb

The story is all too common. And the shock is felt by perhaps hundreds of thousands of early-career sales executives every year. After working diligently to earn top grades, assembling the perfect resume and jumping through endless hoops of interviews and references, a brilliant promising sales executive we’ll call Sam Shotwell lands his dream job with a leading company. Everything seems to be going as planned until our Sam meets his polar opposite who we will call Moose Maxwell.

Minipost: LinkedIn Endorsements - More Social - Less Data

LinkedIn Endorsements are not even six months old. In September of 2012, LinkedIn created its own version of the Facebook Like button or the Google +1 button that allowed individuals to endorse the skills of others with a single click. It seemed like a good idea. Endorsements took less thought and effort than crafting a meaningful written recommendation. But almost immediately, I noticed a serious problem. Many no-doubt well-meaning colleagues were Endorsing skills I know they had not actually observed me execute. Today, a quick scan reveals roughly half of my Endorsement points fall under this “here’s a favor - wink – maybe you could return the favor” category. LinkedIn’s idea has proved too casual for anyone to trust the data. Hopefully, LinkedIn will find a way to fix this problem. Until then, I have elected to “hide” my Endorsements and I encourage others to do likewise.