Andraya Carson is a success in everything she does- find out more about Dray Carson

Andraya (Dray) Carson is an entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in business development, operations, sales, marketing and consulting.  She began her career as a financial advisor and quickly advanced to the position of Managing Partner for a Phoenix based, full financial planning firm, and was recognized as the top advisor each year.  Additionally, Miss Carson created and implemented training programs, documented procedures and participated in product development. She then co-founded a private equity firm where she led the Investor Relations division and the managed the firm’s operations. In 2009 Miss Carson launched Carson Connections, a boutique business development firm, and enjoys working personally with small to mid-size business owners from a variety of industries, helping them identify the possibilities of their business and find solutions to significantly improve productivity and profitability.

Currently Miss Carson is also a Business Advisor with G&A Partners, a licensed professional employer organization (PEO) founded in 1995.  Together they provide best-in-class solutions that take businesses to the next level, creating a more streamline approach to managing Human Resources, and gaining access to better benefits, stress-free payroll and administrative relief

Dray Carson: September Report Shows Hiring Up, Unemployment Down to 6-Year Low

Andraya Carson wanted to share this with all of the readers. Please feel free to reach out to Andraya (Dray Carson) with G&A Partners, to find out more about the economic climate and Human Resources related activities. Andraya Carson is one the top sales representatives and Business Development Advisors companywide for G&A Partners. 

by John Zappe on Oct 3, 2014, 11:47 AM

Propelled by strong hiring across a range of occupations and industries, September saw 248,000 new jobs added to the economy, which helped drive down unemployment to a six-year low of 5.9 percent.

The monthly jobs report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also adjusted upward its count of hiring in August and July, increasing both by a combined 69,000 jobs. August’s initial anemic 142,000 estimate, which surprised analysts and prompted worrying about a hiring pause, was upped to 180,000.
Economists predicted September’s numbers would be in the 215,000 to 220,000 range. The higher number, plus the upward revisions, says that the August slowdown — only the second time this year hiring was under 200,000 — man just have been a blip.

Service sector shows strong gains

“The slower gain initially reported for August now appears to have been simply an aberration,” said Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic and labor-market research at The Conference Board.
September’s job growth was concentrated in the service sector. Retailers and the leisure and hospitality industry added 35,300 and 33,000 jobs respectively. Grocers added 19,500 jobs, most of them marking the return to work of New England’s striking Market Basket employees. Restaurants and bars hired 20,400 new workers.

Other sectors showing hiring strength:

• Health care, up 22,600, the bulk coming from home health care and outpatient facilities;
• Employment services hired 33,600 new workers, with temp agencies accounting for 19,700;
• Professional and technical services added 21,100 positions, including jobs for architects and engineers, software developers and management and technical consultants;
• The financial sector was up 12,000 jobs, a nice gain for one of the sectors hardest hit by the recession.

Goods producers added only 29,000 jobs, with manufacturing contributing 4,000 and construction adding 16,000. Mining added 9,000.

Workforce participation at lowest level since 1978

Wages and the length of the work week changed little in September. Wage growth has been mostly stagnant this year, with hourly pay rates rising only 2 percent. The average workweek for all employees on private non-farm payrolls was 34.6 hours in September.
The BLS report also showed participation in the labor force is continuing to contract, which is a factor in bringing down the unemployment rate. September’s rate of 62.7 percent was the lowest since 1978. Even if no new jobs were being created, the unemployment rate would be decreasing since there are fewer workers employed or looking for work.

John was a newspaper reporter and editor until his geek gene lead him to launch his first website in 1994. Never a recruiter, he instead built online employment sites and sold advertising services to recruiters and employers. As VP of one large media operation, his employment revenue alone approached $2.5 million. Besides writing for ERE, John consults with digital content operations, focusing on the advertising side. And when he's not doing either, he can be found hiking in the California mountains or competing in canine agility events.

 

For compete article: http://www.tlnt.com/2014/10/03/september-report-shows-hiring-up-unemployment-down-to-6-year-low/

 

To learn more about how you can receive Human resources, workers comp, payroll and benefits assistance, contact Dray Carson-Hruby through G&A Partners at acarson@gnapartners.com

Andrya Carson: 7 Steps to successful cold calling

Hello all you sales people who hate cold calling!!! I read this article and it helped me, so I am passing it on to you!

(MoneyWatch) A reader writes:

Will you share strategies that work best when breaking the ice with new prospects over the phone? I have to make some 20-30 calls within a 2 hour period and most clients are rushed and hurried and I find myself racing to get to the point, leaving very little time to build rapport. How do I build rapport immediately in these circumstances? I am genuinely interested in building a relationship to learn as much as I can about their core issues so I can build proposals that directly address their objectives and needs. What’s the best way to engage them (in 30 seconds or less I imagine), which would cause them relax somewhat so they want to share information with you. If you would be willing to share this, I would appreciate it very much.

Absolutely.

Before we get started, though, you need to be aware that there’s a vast difference of opinion, among experts and sales pros alike, about the effectiveness of cold-calling.

Many sales experts think cold-calling is a waste of time and prefer other forms of generating leads. Others see cold-calling as a last resort, while still others see it as a mainspring of any effective sales process.

Later, I’ll discuss some of those other viewpoints. For now, let’s just get the basics down. Andrea Sittig-Rolf, author of “The Seven Keys to Effective Business-to-Business Appointment Setting” is an extremely well-known proponent of cold-calling as a lead-generation technique.

When I spoke with Andrea a couple of years ago, she observed that cold-calling is all about getting the appointment. She therefore gears the entire cold-calling process toward achieving that end. Here’s a summary of her approach:

Research a list of prospects. Before making your calls, research your prospects. Look for prospects who have a similar profile to those who have bought from the past. They’ll be easier to sell. Next to each prospect, note any of your current customers in the prospect’s industry, region, job classification, or anything else that might help you to position your offering. Don’t spend a lot of time on this, just find out enough so that you can pitch using terms that the prospect can understand.

Build your script. Once you know whom you’re going to call, focus on what you’re going to say. Write a brief script (no more than three or four sentences) that introduces who you are, what you do, and what you provide. An effective script asks for the appointment early. Please note that the purpose of the script is NOT to communicate substantive information about your offering. Instead, the purpose of the phone call is to win the right to actually sell to the prospect.

Anticipate objections. Each time one of them materializes, you’ll need to handle them appropriately… and then ask for the appointment. Most objections are common to all sales situations, so you should have little or no trouble listing them out. The trick here is to practice handling objections until the response is automatic. Note: the most important part of handling the objection is asking for the appointment.

Get positive and get calling. Attitude is everything. If your offering has value to the customer, you’re doing the prospect a favor by giving him or her the opportunity to meet with you. Therefore, have confidence in your ability to provide value. That confidence not only helps you communicate more effectively, it provides the motivation that will drive you to actually sit down and start making the cold calls.

Leave a message (if necessary). If you end up in the contact’s voice-mail system, don’t despair. Leave a very brief message based upon your calling script. However, rather than setting a time for an appointment, say that you’ll be calling back on a certain date and time, but would appreciate a callback. The next time you call, ask the admin if the contact is in. If not, tell the admin that you’ve been trying to connect with the contact and would like to know when would be a good time to call.

Handle the objections. Once you’ve got the contact on the line, execute the script. Don’t read it! Put it into your own words, with enthusiasm. In almost every case, you will get at least one, and probably more, objections. Since you’ve anticipated these objections, you should respond to them as necessary and then ask for the appointment again. If you receive more than 3 objections, it’s fair to assume that the prospect is not going to meet with you, so thank the prospect and politely end the call.

Repeat the process on a daily basis. if you’re determined to excel, commit to an hour a day attempting to achieve two appointments. If it takes fifteen minutes to get the two appointments, then you can quit early. Practice this regularly and, according to Andrea, you’ll very quickly have a calendar full of qualified prospects.

This post originally appeared on BNET.com

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc.. All Rights Reserved.

ByGEOFFREY JAMESMONEYWATCH  Originally posted on: September 20, 2012, 1:49 PM