Last month I received a surprising and pleasant call from my friends at Apex. Apex nominated me for an IPPA Sales Leader Award recognizing the sales growth of my payroll service bureau, Premier Payroll Services. If you are not familiar with the IPPA, it’s the Independent Payroll Providers Association, an industry group for hundreds of small payroll bureaus like me … Continued
Tax season is upon us. Unfortunately, so is scam season. The Internal Revenue Service recently warned of an expected surge in phishing emails involving payroll direct deposit and transfer scams as well as growing W-2 cons. All three are a form of what cyber security professionals call “business email compromise” (BEC) attacks. They work because they come disguised as emails … Continued
In just five minutes, the average person deletes nearly half – 48%, of all emails they receive in a day, often without even opening them. Turns out, the decision to click “delete” is based largely on the words in the subject lines of those emails. Mountainview, California-based productivity software firm Boomerang recently extracted data from some 5 million of its … Continued
“Sales is easy,” said no truly successful sales professional ever, especially when it comes to prospecting. In fact, in one recent survey, more than 40 percent of salespeople ranked prospecting as the single most challenging part of the sales process – more so than closing (36 percent) or qualifying (22 percent). Here’s what you should know if your payroll software … Continued
In last week’s blog post we talked about how to source, screen, and ultimately hire the right candidate, from our strategic and comprehensive guide “Hiring Sales Staff for Growth: A Tactical How-To Guide”. Great, you’ve found one, now what? How do you ‘seal the deal’ with your new winning candidate? Research indicates there are a few crucial areas to focus … Continued
On average, every corporate job opening in the US attracts 250 resumes. But only four to six of those applicants will be considered for that job. That’s where the angst begins not only for the hopeful applicants but also for the hiring professionals tasked with identifying, thoroughly vetting and successfully securing the best prospect. And the stakes are highest when … Continued
This week Apex HCM published our latest research, a two-part whitepaper on hiring in the payroll services industry along with a script and guide on how to interview salespeople. This research project produced our most in depth whitepaper we’ve ever published, over 30 pages in length! You might ask yourself, “Why the heck does Apex invest such time and resources … Continued
A top goal at our recent Apex HCM Align 2018 customer conference was to mine the minds of payroll service bureau owners and managers nationwide to learn their top challenges. This time, the answer was clear: Discussions with more than 100 SBOs revealed hiring as their primary issue. Multiple recent reports help explain the urgency that payroll firms are … Continued
If you’ve ever wondered just how important employee onboarding is, consider this: It takes an average of eight months for a new employee to become fully productive, yet 22% of staff turnover occurs in the first 45 days on the job. This is a potentially pricey issue, as the cost of losing an employee in the first year can be … Continued
Whether a tiny start up or a major multi-national corporation, your payroll service bureau’s growth potential is only as good as your weakest sales professional. To effectively and consistently outpace your competition, it’s imperative that you hire and retain a top notch payroll sales staff. To that end, here are three top factors that the best sales professionals demand in … Continued