Newsletter Issue 164, April 2009

Sam Young Newsletter

Issue 164, April 2009

Hi guys,

The Latest Hudson Employment Survey has been released on employer confidence. Read on, below.

In these tougher times, it wouldn't hurt to think about improving your Sales Calls. 

Check Your Internet Speeds   TLAs for SMEs        Tips, Short & Hot Keys        Hot Linx

Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.

Latest Hudson Employment Survey

The latest Hudson employment survey has just been released, covering from January to April this year, on the state of the New Zealand employment market. Combining the expectations of 1,673 employers across SMLEs (<20, 20-200 and >200 employees) from 19 industry groups, Hudson recruitment and consulting professionals analysed their findings in relation to other key economic indicators such as interest rates and housing.

The Hudson report key findings were:

• Employer sentiment is more negative, with 11.3% of employers intending to reduce permanent staff levels during the next 3 months. 23.7% intend a staff decrease, 64.0% will hold their current levels, 12.4% intend to increase their permanent staff levels. 12.0% of employers in the South Island intend to reduce permanent staff
• Most affected are the manufacturing industry where sentiment dropped 16.7pp to -32.2%; construction/ property/engineering industry declined 21.8pp to -15.8%; financial services/insurance fell 12.0pp to -9.4%; and government employment down 21.0pp to - 6.3%. The IT industry declined 28.4pp, but remains positive with a net 7.8% of employers intending to up permanent staff this quarter
• Contracting/temp expectations are down, with 14.2% of employers reducing this quarter (7.9pp lower than last quarter). The South Island is down 5.8pp, with a net 11.5% of employers expecting to reduce contracting/temps.

Canterbury as a region is suffering more than other South Island regions (mainly due to the localised manufacturing downturn), with the worst hit industry throughout the South Island being tourism. However, IT, Finance and Accounting are all holding up well.

To view the full report at the Hudson website, go to http://nz.hudson.com/node.asp?kwd=the-hudson-report#aprjun2009

Sales Call Tips

Did you know that there is an optimum length of time to make all your sales calls within? I had no idea that such a beast existed, but apparently it does.

That magic number - according to a CEO Online article by Paul Archer - is 45 minutes. This is the optimum timing for making calls, as if the time is any shorter and you won't get through enough calls to be viable, and any longer and you begin to lose your edge (aka "sharpness" and "enthusiasm"). So apportion sessions of 45 minutes and focus entirely on making all those prospecting calls you need to make, without distractions.

The ratio is 8.5 "yes" responses for each 100 prospect calls by sales people. That's a lot of noes that salespeople get, and a good reason to ensure they preserve their edge by keeping those sessions to 45 minutes. But salespeople need to be aware of when the best time is to make sales calls to ensure that they get those 8.5 positive responses. That is apparently between 9 and 11am - and Tuesdays are much better than Fridays. The second cab off the rank is 7 to 8pm. The worst times are between 4 and 6pm - or after 9pm.

Those damned telemarketers and phone survey people need not interrupt our dinner preparation after all!

For more information, swing by and take a look at the following sites for some more comprehensive information:

• http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/salestechniques/article78540.html
• http://www.ceoonline.com/pages/id28752.aspx
• http://www.optimal-mgt.com/articles/Optimize%20Your%20Firm%27s%20Profitability%20with%20Modern%20Business%20Tools.htm
• http://marketing.about.com/od/salestipsandadvice/a/salescalltips.htm

Check Your Internet Speeds

Fred Langa, writing for Windows Secret's Newsletter recently said "Online throughput is a very complex thing and is affected by many factors... the basic bandwidth of your connection to your ISP ...your own hardware and software configuration... [p]lus ...every single router between you and whatever server you're trying to communicate with". Fred goes on to say that there may be as many as 30 steps between you and your ISP, slowing down data flow overall, and any one place causing a bottleneck anywhere on route.

The reason that most ISP service agreements state a maximum connection speed - an "up to [x]" connectivity promise with the proviso "actual speeds may vary" is necessary because of that inter-linking complexity.

However, there are some web tools that you can use to can test your connectivity speeds, and Fred recommends a website that has tools to "tune or tweak your network settings to ensure that you're getting all the speed your ISP has to offer".

BroadbandReports.com tools "offers speed tests to monitor your throughput as well as tweak tests and interactive guides to help you optimize your connection. The tests are a little geeky to use, but the site's free registration gives you access to advanced services, including 24/7 line-quality monitoring and/or the logging function you're interested in. A voluntary U.S. $10 'premium lifetime registration' removes ads from the site and also bumps you to the front of the testing queues, which sometimes get crowded."

To check the download speed provided by your ISP to your PC, go to http://speedchecker.org/ and run a free speed test (no tools), or go to http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest and work through the BroadbandReports.com tools.

Fred Langa's original article can be read at http://windowssecrets.com/paid/090319/#lplus0

TLAs for SMEs

Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you:

• TLA, Three Letter Acronyms (though I also dump abbreviations in this column. Acronyms have to be pronounceable as words - eg EECA, LOL, IMHO).
• IMHO, In My Humble Opinion (usually not really humble though!!)
• SMLEs, Small Medium and Large Enterprises

Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.

Tips, Short+Hot Keys

This time we are going to look at some tips for running glitch-free PowerPoint presentations:

• "Start a presentation from the first slide" F5
• "Run the next animation or advance to the next slide" Enter or Spacebar
• "Return to the previous slide" Backspace
• "End a slide show" Esc or - (hyphen)
• "Jump to the first slide" Home
• "Jump to the last slide" End
• "Jump to a particular slide" Type the slide number and press Enter
• "Go to a black screen or resume the slide show from a black screen" B
• "Go to a white screen or resume the slide show from a white screen" W

Hot Linx

In a fraction of a second, this little search tool "Everything" can locate any file or folder anywhere on your PC, including attached USB drives. Download the freeware tool Everything from http://www.voidtools.com/download.php

For your chance to tell it like it is, and get involved with New Zealand’s big issues via online surveys, go to  http://www.buzzthepeople.co.nz/Home.aspx and register.

If you want to take another look at an article you have written, copy your text, and head over to http://www.wordle.net/create, paste your text in and see what this cunning little piece of webware turns the keywords of your text into :-)

To read about the "pay what you think it is worth" web model, read this blog about Window's Secret's Newsletter at http://www.techflash.com/microsoft/Windows_Secrets_finds_formula_for_survival_Pay_what_you_want_40822717.html

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