Biztalk Radio's Podcast

Wayne Breitbarth was a 53-year old business owner who faced one of the worst economic downturns, the recession of 2008. A friend convinced him to use LinkedIn. Knowing nothing about social media, Wayne learned how to use LinkedIn to grow his business and today, he has become one of the leading LinkedIn consultants. He has taught over 80,000 business people how to leverage LinkedIn for their businesses and careers.

The single greatest opportunity that an organization has to improve both performance and culture in one stroke lies in the hiring of a new executive—the right executive. The fresh thinking of a skilled leader has the potential to unleash innovation, empower employees, and generate wealth for the company. Similarly, a bad hire may mortally wound the organization. Jim Lobaito interviews the co-authors of Hiring Greatness, David Perry and Mark Haluska. They reveal valuable insider strategies and tactics—previously only known to a handful of elite head-hunters—to attract, recruit, and retain star executives.

Dan Erling is the author of “Match: A Systematic, Sane Process for Hiring the Right Person Every Time.” He is also President and CEO of Accountants One, a full recruiting firm recognized as one of Atlanta's Best Places to Work. If you are going to write a book about recruiting, you better have one of the best places to work. Dan talks about the trends in today’s talent war and what you can do to attract and retain top talent.

Any company leader will tell you that their employees are their most valuable asset. Yet, in the process of onboarding new employees, we often treat this valuable asset as lumps of coal. George Bradt shares with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito the proven process for accommodating, assimilating, and accelerating new employees up to speed in half the time.

An estimated one-million U.S. sales jobs will be eliminated in the next five years. The internet has allowed buyers to do most of the purchasing process on their own. This is causing companies to rethink the role the salesperson plays in customer acquisition. Tom Searcy, nationally recognized author, speaker, and foremost expert on large account salesshares, his insights on how this shift is redefining the roles of sales managers and salespeople and how to leverage new techniques to survive the shift.

Selecting whom to hire is one of the biggest responsibilities a manager has and one that has the most impact on overall company performance. At the same time, few managers are ever trained on how to effectively interview. Paul Falcone shares with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito his insights on how to make the selection process easier for you and how to get your candidates to reveal whether they are a proper fit.

Corliss McGinty, Human Resources expert and author of the book “The Good Bus: Getting the Right People on Board is Just the Beginning” discusses with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito practical leadership advice that begins with hiring smart, but also includes aligning individual goals with the organization’s purpose.

Are your hires a misfire or an “A” hire? Geoff Smart, co-author of the New York Times bestselling book “Who: The A Method for Hiring” shares with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito a simple, practical, and effective solution to what “The Economist” magazine calls “the single biggest problem in business today” – unsuccessful hiring. In the interview, Geoff covers the 4 “S’s” in hiring: Scorecard, Source, Select and Sell.

How can we move faster and remain competitive? That is one of the key questions most CEO’s are asking themselves today. In his book “The High-Speed Company,” Jason Jennings shares with you the driving forces that can create urgency and growth in your company. Drawing on years of research and based on over 11,000 interviews, Jason shares example after example of how this can be achieved.

The connection between hiring a new employee and having them be productive is your onboarding program. Do it right and they are more productive sooner. Do it wrong, you not only lose the productivity you may lose the new employee. In this podcast, John Russo shares with you 13 strategies on bridging the hiring to productive gap effectively.

Does texting, emails, meetings, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter have you a slave to the immediate and the now instead of the important? Ted Gulas from the Gulas Group talks with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito on how to increase your productivity and your team’s. Ted explains how most software you work with is forcing you to be reactive instead of proactive and how to turn that around and reach your objectives sooner.

Finding and screening for top performing employees seems to be an ongoing struggle for most managers. Martin Yate, author of "Knock’em Dead - Hiring the Best: Proven Tactics for Successful Employee Selection” discusses how to hire the best employees.

Harry S. Dent Jr. has been a frequent contributor to BizTalk and during this program, he explains why the cheap funding of oil fracking and emerging countries has created a bubble that is about to burst. As a business leader and personal investor, he shares his insights on how to weather the upcoming economic downturn.

Mike Schultz, President of Rain Group, a leading sales training and consulting firm, shares insights from new research published in his book “Insight Selling: Surprising Research on What Sales Winners do Differently.” He shares with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito the two types of insight selling, what the sales winners do and why they are so effective in today’s selling environment.

Dave Kurlan, founder of Objective Management Group talks about the challenges salespeople face selling today and how to select the ones that can execute against those challenges.

Linda Richardson started the “Consultative Selling” approach to sales. She now, takes us to the next level in selling with her book “Changing the Sales Conversation: Connect, Collaborate and Close.” For professional salespeople, whether new or a veteran, she reveals several sales-specific tools that help you engage and build value with today’s buyers.

Jim Lobaito, BizTalk Host, talks with Brent Adamson from CEB about his article in the Harvard Business Review, “Dismantling the Sales Machine.” In this program, Brent builds the business case on why leaders must dismantle the process-driven sales machine for one that is more flexible and driven by insight and judgment.

Hiring a salesperson is an investment in your company’s future revenue. How is your ROI on the salespeople you have hired? If your investment is not paying as well as you feel it should then maybe it’s time to change the way you go about investing. Lee Salz shares his insights on how to identify the right salespeople and how to protect your investments with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito.

Thanks to the internet and the wealth of information it provides, buyers are more informed and more comfortable evaluating purchasing options on their own. This has made them less dependent on traditional sources of information – including your salespeople. Keith Eades, Founder and CEO of Sales Performance International, best known for developing “Solution Selling” sales process, and Tim Sullivan, Director of Business Development at SPI, share with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito their latest research on the three competencies salespeople need in order to be effective working with today’s buyers.

Selling had become more competitive than ever. Pressures from buyers, your boss and the competitors keep you on your toes. Best-selling author Jill Konrath shares with BizTalk Host Jim Lobaito insights from her new book “Agile Selling” on how salespeople can stay on top of their game.