Light notes for a Monday morning

Interesting Sales bites for a Monday morning!

Officeteam.com reports that women take 29 minutes on average to do personal tasks while men take 44 minutes. Are men trying to do more personal tasks at work, or do they take longer to do the same number of tasks… Does it matter? The reality is, if you did no personal tasks at work you would be able to leave the office 29-44 minutes earlier each day… or make at least 10 more sales calls each day. How are you really spending your time? Working hard? or just passing the time.

For 2007, sales rep jobs are the most difficult to fill in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, new Zealand, Ireland and Peru according to Manpower. If you have a hunger to leave your country and you are a top performing sales rep, you might find success internationally.

If you sell b2C you should know that 91% of Canadians prefer landlines over cell phones for communication.

A recent Towers Perrin study found that just 21 percent of all US employees are fully engaged (I'd love to know how they measured it). According to Julie Gebauer of Towers Perrin, the following three things matter most in engaging employees: (1) Rational understanding of the company's goals and values; (2) Emotional attachment to the organization; and (3) Willingness to go above and beyond specific job tasks.

The Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York generates $4,032 in sales per square foot, the most of any national retailer.

China accounts for 73% of the world's beer consumption.

A new poll by the Pew Research Center finds that Americans are de-linking children as the sine qua non of successful marriages. In fact, they now tell pollsters they rate "having children" as the ninth most important out of 10 markers of successful marriages.

Interbrand and Businessweek's annual survey of global brands shows that, this year, the search giant Google has been deemed the world's most improved brand.

And finally…. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 8.3 million copies in its first 24 hours on sale in the U.S., blowing away the previous one-day sales record of 6.9 million copies, set by? No, not Honesty Sells. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, of course.

Have a great sales week!

Colleen