Selling a Salary or Shift

I hate losing to the competition. Especially when I've invested in a recruit that I believe will be a good fit for our organization. Then the salary discussion starts. It always amazes me how someone will sell out for less than $1.

Since adding sales to my role at the company I've learned that you should start selling value early on in the sales cycle. Especially if you know your product will likely cost more once the demonstrations are all done. If we lose a sale or a good job candidate it is likely that the competition has done a better job at selling the value of the opportunity better than I did.

How do you sell value? What is the candidate looking for? Did you ask them what is their ideal situation? Did you get to know them well enough to understand what type of work/life balance they need? Do you managers know how to sell an opportunity?

I've found that most managers let the candidates have it the moment they get them in the door. All I have is night shift. We will put you on the list and perhaps in a year or less you'll get your day job. Have you thought about having someone from the night shift involved in the interview process? How about someone who recently transferred to days from nights. You need to talk to your managers about the value of the night shift and how to sell it more effectively.

Offer your night shift training on how to transition to night shift. There are materials for that on the internet. Most of your night shift employees are daytime people waiting to get off nights. If you can give them the tools and skills to handle nights physically, mentally and socially you may not have to fill as many night jobs as you think.