LiveWorld Transcripts

Hot Jobs presents

Gerhard Gschwandter, "Selling Power" Magazine Publisher
Discusses the Current Job Market

May 31, 2000

"Selling Power" Magazine Publisher, Gerhard Gschwandter, discusses in an online interview, issues concerning getting a job, starting a career, the current job market, and the Internet.

Page 1 of 7

Hotjobs.com: Welcome to Hotjobs.com's bi-weekly event! We're glad you're here, because that means you're ready to take control of your career. Tonight we'll be talking to Selling Power magazine publisher Gerhard Gschwandtner about the sales industry, how it's changed, and what job opportunities exist in the current sales economy. Welcome, Gerhard!

Gerhard Gschwandtner: Hello to everyone!

MsBelievin: What do you believe is the best preparation we could have as a job seeker in today's market?

Gerhard Gschwandtner: The best preparation is to be flexible and ready for anything, if you want to succeed in sales.

Chance: Should enrolling in things such as training courses, and work experience, help at all to find work?

Gerhard Gschwandtner: Absolutely! I feel it is very important to have the strategy about your job search and you should be very clear what sales job you want to get into, and you should be very clear as to what industry you want to serve in.

Lynda: Has their been many changes in the guidelines for sales and selling in the industry?

Gerhard Gschwandtner: In the last 15 years there have been three major changes that changed the way sales people sell. One is sales force automation. Sales force automation can be very disruptive and can be at the same time very beneficial to salespeople, depending on how they use automation. Current studies say that over 70 percent of sales force sales automation fails to deliver the desired results. The second big change is information and knowledge management. Salespeople need to find information faster and need to become customer-knowledge experts and industry-knowledge experts, and have more product and application knowledge than every before. And the third big challenge is that sales people are often unaware how the shift in a company strategy impacts the sales position. A number of people have been caught by surprise, like the stockbrokers that ended up losing their jobs because the sales process has shifted from the person-to-person relationship to the Internet.

Jess: Are there limits for women as salespeople? What can I do to keep up with male peers in the industry and excel?

Gerhard Gschwandtner: In most industries there is no difference in compensation between men and women at the salesperson level. There is a lot of equality on the salesperson level, but not at the higher levels of sales management. Every year Selling Power magazine publishes the top 500 sales organizations in America, and rank them by the number of salespeople they employ. Those 500 companies employ 16 million sales people. However, only 20 percent of those 500 companies have a female Vice-President of Sales.

Page 1 of 7