Disruptive Logic

Reading

2009-08-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

I read nearly non-stop, easily a book every week or so. The summer is usually spent with novels on the deck in the evening, but this summer I'm re-reading business books that I liked well enough the first time to keep. It started with an overhaul of the family room in the basement and a total re-do of my home office. Both required that nearly every book in the house be sorted through and either gotten rid of or saved. As I was doing the sorting I came across a few treasures.

First, if you haven't read Steven Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, read it. Better yet, read it twice - once through from beginning to end, and the second time through work the exercises. My copy is old, somewhat tattered, is full of sticky notes, and has a lot of writing in the margins. Unlike a lot of the fluff out there on personal development, this isn't about an easy fix. It changed my outlook and helped me to recognize my true priorities. It will affect both your personal and professional lives.

Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim is another one. I read it the first time a couple of years ago, and I just finished re-reading it for the third time. In a nut shell, and without using a bunch of business terms like "value innovation", it's about how companies have defined something unique to offer to differentiate themselves from the market. What I found most interesting was tht in each case it wasn't about a new thing-a-majiggy but about offering customers what really need, and positioning utility, price, and cost. Some people that I've talked to have said that they thought it was over simplified, but I whole heartedly disagree. By keeping to the basics they've made it accessible, clear, and elegant. If you're in sales, even if you're not in a position to change corporate direction, read it with a point of view of what you as an individual have to offer that separates you from the masses. While I'm thinking about it, it could also be a unique approach for a job seeker. My daughter is in college studying business and marketing - I've made a note to get her a copy. I've also given one to a friend who is the owner of a company I used to work for.

Another oldie but goodie is The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt that is about the easiest to read business book out there. Written as a story with lessons along the way, it focuses on a struggling manufacturing manager who's about to lose his plant. Along the way we learn about the Theory of Contraints, which has become one of the primary principals in manufacturing along with lean and six sigma. It's about identifying and fixing the bottle necks. If you're not in manufacturing, don't think that you don't need to read it. You do. Bottle necks don't just happen on the plant floor - they happen in the sales office, in accounting, in management, and in the warehouse.

I've just started reading The Tipping Point for the first time, after which I think I need to go back to a novel and relax or summer will be over before I know it. I have the new Dan Brown book, The Lost Symbol, on pre-order. Should be a great read for the pool.

Resistance to Change

2009-08-05T07:47:00.001-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that people aren't really resistant to change. They are very resistant, however, to being changed. When people are a part of the process and when they're hearts and minds are in the game, they not only aren't resisistant they become champions.

Change, whether it's in your personal life or in business can be either good or bad, depending on what you make of it. When we see change as potentially threatening by nature we dig our heels in and fight it. When we look at it as an opportunity to achieve our goals, we want to move foward.

I've found that one of the best ways to be an agent of positive change is to take a collaborative approach with the team, making sure that we all know that the goals we are trying to acheive benefit us all. The beneift may be direct or indirect, depending on the role each person on the team plays, but the objective and the outcome potentials are key.

Other than outright resistance, there are a lot of reasons why people may not jump on the band wagon. The most common one I've seen isn't so much a fear of the outcome but more inertia. An object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. "I'm happy where I am". They don't recognize a need. Some of the other subtle resistors are procrastinators ("if I keep everyone occupied with something else, maybe the boss will forget"), and nesters (I've worked hard to get where I'm at, and this might be threatening in the long run").

The most dangerous are the active resisitors (assholes). They are usually either in a position where the potential implications of defiance aren't substantial to them, or they are in a high enough position to be an obstruction. It may be a long time legacy employee that no one would ever think will leave (he thinks he's irreplaceable) or the VP who will sing the praises of change to the top and silently undermine from the background. In either case the issue needs to be dealt with quickly. If not, the poison seeps through the rest of the team and the change is doomed to fail. I'm not usually an advocate of the ax, but people who actively work against the best interest of the company should be out the door quick.

A while back I wrote about solution selling. Driving change within an organization isn't all that different. The company has a whole and each person in it has defined needs. Rather than sell the change as change itself, sell it as a solution to the problems at hand. Without the individuals recognition of the need, the change will be an uphill battle. Needs are drivers of action, and action is a driver of change.

Leading from below

2009-07-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

So often we think that leadership has to be from the top down, but great leadership can come from the bottom. Alan Keith (Genentech) said that "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen." Nearly all of us serve someone higher than ourselves, and we can all lead from the bottom.

The way to lead from below is simple - make sure that the ones you serve know everything they need to know to do the right thing because they are the ones who will be deciding what you will be doing. The success of those we serve equates to our own success.

If I had Only Known

2009-07-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've been offline for a couple of weeks. Busy with projects and a big party for the 4th of July.

While we're all scratching our heads trying to figure out when this mess will end, I find myself thinking "what if we had seen it coming and had been better prepared?" Here's a few things I think we should have done sooner rather than later.

1) Pay more attention to long terms "given" costs. Look through the long term supplier contracts, renegotiate lease rates, and review service providers. Then again, there is an opportunity now to take advantage of the tough times and leverage lower prices for the long term to help us come out of this mess.

2) Go after weaker competition. We all have a tendency to take for granted that a competitor's account is the competitor's account. I hate to say it, but by all means kick the competitor when they're down. Market to their core base. It's not like there's a lot of "new business" out there in the market. The only way to grow business is to take it from the other guy.

3) Talk to the Bank and the Board. Optimize cash flow and liquidity. There will be companies that make it through by the skin of their teeth, and there will be acquisition opportunities at bargain basement prices. Know your market and your competition though - if you can get their business for free (#2 above) there's no reason to buy them out.

4) Don't spend when you don't need to. We all do it - we stretch out spending to fill the available budget with a "use it or lose it mentality". Customer events don't need to be pricey to build business. Instead of hosting a golf outing for 100, invite the key players of core customers in for a private lunch and tour of the facilities. Once account, once a week or so. Don't make it a dog and pony show - find out what their needs are and how we might be able to help. Employee events don't need to be over the top either. I worked for a company once upon a time that flew all of their sales people out to California once per quarter for three days of meetings at the corporate offices. Dinner and drinks out in the evening, and a "fun day" at the end to wrap it up. Total cost per employee was over $3500 a head. Insane. Oddly enough they nearly went out of business for a lack of profitability right about the beginning of this recession. Go figure.

5) Focus on Talent. I had a rant a month or so ago about branding as it relates to talent acquisition and retention, so I won't get into that again (at least not today). Hindsight being what it is, people were let go due to short tenures that were probably a better fit for the company in the long run than some of the employees that were kept on. Besides just using performance reviews look at ability to drive new business, generate gross profit or for operational folks to improve effectiveness and reduce operating costs. Anyone on the payrolls who isn't offering value to the bottom line should have been let go long ago. Don't take your top performers for granted, either. Whatever the state of the market there are always opportunities out there. You want their best option to be to stay with you. Also, it's always a good time to bring in the best, whether they are in the ranks of the laid off or working for the competition.

6) Optimize Optimize Optimize. I'm all for continuous improvement, kaizen, lean, and such but all too often we take for granted that it's not just about manufacturing. It's so much easier to go with the flow with a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" approach. Improve administrative processes, cut out layers that don't add value, improve forecasting, reduce energy consumption, etc. We don't need to wait for a downturn to optimize profitability.

7) Go for the Gold and Cut the Crap. Review the customer base on a regular schedule, at least once per year or more often if possible. Don't just look at revenue and GP. Look at average days to pay, overhead requirements, administrative processes, freight and delivery costs, average order value and cost per order. The most profitable accounts will not necessarily be the highest revenue generating. More of than not there will also be customers that cost more to support than they bring in. Determine which customers are bringing in the most "gold" and stop pouring efforts and resources into crap accounts.

8) Maintain a Needs List. Plan ahead. If you know you're going to need to expand the warehouse, improve plant lighting, add machinery, or upgrade the servers, it better to plan ahead. There are always deals to be had, especially in bad times when everyone is struggling to bring in business.

9) Keep a Smile on Your Face. Enough gloom and doom already. If you're always smiling people will wonder what you're up to.

Not great news, but better

2009-06-18T09:22:00.001-07:00

There may be a light at the end of the tunnel that isn't another oncoming train.

Consumer confidence index rose from 40.8 for April to to 54.9 for May

ISM (Institute for Supply Management) New Orders Index is over 50 for the first time in 17 months at 51.5 for may (April was 47.2). Their Order Backlog was at 48.0 (40.5 April) and Exports Index was also 48.0 (44.0 April)

The PMI (Purchasing Managers Index) was at 42.8 "A PMI in excess of 41.2, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy". This the the 6th month in a row that it's increased.

Unemployment is still a staggering 8.9%, or about 4.5 million people, but there are over 3 million posted jobs online. Unemployment will definitely get worse before it gets better, but there was also a 23% increase in job postings for May

Existing home sales are up 6.7% for April and non-residential construction showed an increase of 2% over last year for March.

Out of the Box Thinking

2009-06-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

I had to take one of those evil management assessment tests. We were testing the entire management team, me among them. I recognize how they can be useful but I hate feeling like a hamster in a lab. Anyhow, when my results came back there were two things that I found particularly entertaining.

First, that am apparently off the charts in being overly analytic while at the same time constantly questioning the status quo. The second, the one that I really got a kick out of, was that the reviewer noted "the subject tends to think outside the box to the extent that a person might wonder where the box went". Thank goodness I scored high on the analytics and personal responsibility or lord knows what hair brained schemes I would have come up with over the years.

Here's my take on it. To be successful in business, whatever business you're in, and at whatever level you're at, creativity is a beautiful thing. Great businesses have been built on ideas that no one in their right mind at the time would have tried. They bucked the system. Who ever thought that a couple of nerds in a garage would turn into Apple? Where would the world be without Henry Ford who paid his workers twice the prevailing wage, making his own workers able to afford the product they built and helping to create the middle class. The Wall Street Journal at the time had a conniption. Walt Disney was an animator that created the theme park.

Not everyone is destined to be an icon, least of all me. I do know, though, that being smart and creative will get me farther than those who aren't. I don't want people working with me who make decisions based solely on the numbers - I want their gut instinct to play a role. I hate performance appraisals based on score cards nearly as much as I hate arbitrary numbers based goals and "economies of scale". Entry level people often have more customer interaction than the higher-ups. I want good people, and I'll pay them more. Standardization is not always the best way to improve. Never ever ever use a call script in sales. Internal competition will not drive a team forward.

There's a great quote from Dr W. Edwards Deming that one of these days I'm going to have hanging on my wall ""It is not necessary to change, survival is not mandatory." Without creative there would be no innovation, and without innovation there's just the same old status quo. What fun would that be?

Best Practices

2009-06-06T13:40:00.000-07:00

Best Practices - not so much.

First, there's nothing as ingrained as an bad idea. You can re-brand it, re-name it, tweak the details, but it's still the same old bad idea. You learn in business school that strategic management is implemented through the use of business rules, and a business rule is a constraint on an aspect of your business. Business rules, unfortunately, are often the result of benchmarking best practices. Equally unfortunate, "though shalt benchmark and implement best practices" is often also a business rule. Clearly we need to define optimums, maintain metrics, and so forth. What get's my goat is the "constraints" part of the equation.

Second, if people are going to define a "best practice", and they will, I don't want to be the one chasing the "best". I want to be the one they're trying to catch up with. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, after all.

Just because a methodology worked for another company doesn't necessarily mean it will work for yours. A business is a microcosm of interconnected factors; culture, model, strategy, processes, operations, etc. It worked at the other company because it meshed with their overall business environment. You can implement the same strategy and tactics and not achieve the same results because the underlying and interconnected factors aren't aligned.

What made the strategy successful is often not as obvious as it may seem. Want to lead a successful basket ball team? Win a record breaking 902 NCAA career games? The most obvious thing to benchmark would be the most visible. Bobby Knight threw chairs, cussed profusely, was arrested for assault, and was accused of choking a player. Not a "best practice" to implement. What wasn't as obvious was that his programs were among the cleanest in the league and under his leadership his programs were never sanctioned for recruiting violations. What made him successful was the way he lead his teams. His plays required his players to work together, to take a disciplined approach, and to be unselfish.

Ever heard the saying "if you're not the lead dog the view never changes"? How about "Eat Shit. 100 billion flies can't be wrong"? Be creative, lead the pack, and be the best.

Assholes

2009-06-06T05:45:00.000-07:00

Admit it. The corporate world is full of assholes, bullying tactics, back stabbing, gossip, flaming emails, you name it. What really gets me is that sometimes it seems like the more of a jerk they are, the more damage they do to morale, the more they undermine those around them, the higher they rise. They seem to be respected in the corporate culture. Pardon me, but WTF!

You know exactly what I mean. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's not. Somebody makes a lunch run and brings back food for everyone except the "uncool" person. It's great when co-workers become friends, but it's deadly when friendships turn to high- school style cliques. Ever work with someone who seemed to deliberately try to keep you out of the loop? How about having a boss who was demeaning? The guy who yells in the middle of the office? You might think that this is more about women in the office than men. You'd be wrong.

In one company where I worked one of the branch offices was so rampant with the dominating clique behavior that the group was named "The Kotex Mafia". I've seen great teams completely fall apart because of the undermining behavior of one guy. I had a guy working for me once who would send a supporting email to the normal distribution list. Then he'd forward his "nice" email to a completely different distribution list blasting the management team's decisions. I've seen a very competent young lady screamed at by her boss for leaving her desk to go to the bathroom when she knew the phone might ring. Assholes. Each and every one of them.

At senior levels it can be even more damaging, although it seems to me that the higher the Asshole the more inconspicuous it can be. The good old boys (or girls). They offer to lead the team, delegate everything, and when the team succeeds take credit. When it fails they blame the delegates. To compete with each other they don't pull the usual office tactics. They're every so more clever than that. It's the other extreme. You're in a meeting and the boss says "I'm thinking about putting Joe in charge of the XYZ project" Instead of going for the throat, the Asshole says "Joe's a great guy. Solid background and a team player. Based on some of my experiences with him he wouldn't be my go-to guy to lead a team, but if you're sure he's ready...." The seed of doubt is planted. The asshole will water it and watch it grow. Joe is going nowhere and doesn't even know it.

It's all school age crap that for some reason the assholes never grew out of. The playground bully is the VP, the mean girls from the locker room run the team. They add unneeded stress, demolish moral, increase turn-over, and undermine an otherwise positive corporate culture. Even worse, it has a price. I don't care if they're the top producer in the company. Can them and get it over with. When you look at the underlying cost it doesn't matter how many millions they sell. They'll cost you more in the long run. Even more so if they are in a position of leadership where they are responsible for recruiting and hiring. They'll hire people with the same traits and the next thing you know your cushy corner office will be sitting on top of a hornets nest.

If you're the leader, you have to wonder if you're the biggest asshole of them all. You hired these people, and you're the one who has empowered their behavior. Ask yourself. How proud are you of your list of people you've squished to get where you are? Do you think that an effective way to drive change is to threaten or yell? Do you honestly think that they only reason your team is successful is you? Too many yeses here means you're an asshole. Knock it off.

The Vendor Client Relationship in Real World Situations

2009-05-28T11:19:00.001-07:00

A friend sent this to me yesterday - couldn't resisit sharing it.

Chicken Little

2009-05-27T11:45:00.000-07:00

I was talking with the CEO of a company in my industry today, and like many other conversations I’ve had over the last several months, it turned to gloom and doom. Business is down, he’s had to layoff employees, and they’re focusing on leaning inventories and cutting costs to survive. Sound familiar? When I asked him what he was doing to grow business now and what his strategy is to position the company for the recovery he only gave me more reasons why sales are down and customers aren’t buying.

Ok, so we’re having some tough times right now. The sky is not falling so get over it, already! The average recession lasts somewhere between 8 and 16 months, depending on whose numbers you go by. The current recession started sometime between either last spring or last summer, also depending on who you listen to. Watch whichever news channel you like, and nearly every day there is some expert in a bad suit saying he believes the bottom is here and we’re on our way to recovery. If it started in spring, we’re at the year mark already. Yes, I know we’ll probably lose more jobs, but unemployment is a lagging indicator. Yes, consumer confidence is in the crapper – if I was unemployed and so were a bunch of my friends and family, I wouldn’t be spending money either.

The good news is this – the banks who started this whole mess to begin with are leveling out. Back in February, just for kicks I set up a fake Google finance portfolio. I put an imaginary $1000 each into 15 major bank stocks. That $15,000 would now be worth over $27,000 in just a few months. Only one, Citigroup, is down since then. FifthThird is up over 300%. The rest are somewhere between the two. I only wish I had had the balls to put in real money – I’d be writing this from a beach instead of my office.

The banks are surviving, credit is loosening, and the market as a whole is rebounding. The loss of the big automotives will have a long term impact on manufacturing in the US, but we’ll get past it. Just like the jungle, business is survival of the fittest. They were running on flawed business models, producing less than stellar products, and unfortunately this is what it took to make the needed changes. Think of it as ripping off the band-aid. Either way there are a lot of other industrial segments that the US is great at, and that’s where we need to focus our energies and funds. Don’t invest in failing businesses, invest in growing markets.

The guy from this morning is in a business to business industry. It’s the same one I’m in so I know for a fact that there are businesses out there producing product, and they are buying products. Not as much as before, but they’re buying. Just like everyone else right now, they’re trying to keep costs down. Just like this is a great opportunity to buy stocks at cheap prices, it’s also a great time to build business. Call on your competitors’ accounts, especially the ones that you have a connection with. Show them how by going with your company instead they could reduce their costs. Not just price, but total cost. Now more than ever they’ll likely be receptive.

A closed mouth doesn’t get fed.

Solution Selling

2009-05-20T10:18:00.000-07:00

As much as people talk about solution selling, most of the sales people I come across in my still sell the product not the end result. It takes a change of mindset as much as it does a change in the sales process. Shifting from one approach to another is a major paradigm shift and it has to be led from the top down. Lip service and a new commission structure won't cut it.

Sales calls shift from a “pitch” mentality to a learning opportunity. The goal is to learn as much about the prospect as you can to determine where you can position yourself for the best outcome for both sides, not to tell them about your features and benefits. You’re asking questions to find out if what you bring to the table can help the customer solve a problem. More questions help the customer form their own decision that your solution is the one they need. It’s consultative and very customer centric. The disqualification process is a two way street instead of a shut door – because you aren’t hammering on selling the thing you’re selling, you make it clear from the get-go that you’re not expecting them to buy what they don’t need. Even when you lose a sale, it can be a win-win. You have established trust with the prospect for the next time, and you have still helped the customer by not wasting their time and money. You want them to have the right solution, and if it's yours so much the better.

Traditional sales tends to approach the customer as an challenger “overcome objections”, “win the business”, etc. Lot’s of war and sports analogies – it’s a somewhat adversarial approach. The mindset change comes when you see yourself as an ally and a resource to the customer. You’re goal is to help them achieve their goals. The analogies shift toward the warm-fuzzies; “relationship”, “value”, and so forth.

They may be buying the tooling, but they’re buying MY tooling because I’ve offered a solution to meet their goals. They’re in business to make money on the parts they produce, not in business to buy tooling. I showed them how they get more parts per tool, fewer machine changes, and so forth. It’s not about the cost of the tool at say $100 each. It’s that they have 500,000 parts to make on the machine, and it costs them $75 per hour in overhead to run it. Their old tool had to be changed every day, mine lasts a week. A change over costs them an hour in down time. It’s not about my drills, it about their operations. Do the math. They'd be nuts not to come to me for all their tooling, I'm saving them operating costs and I function as an extension of their team. I'm a trusted resource that they just so happen to spend a lot of money with. It’s just a different way of approaching things.

Instead of thinking about what you sell as an object, “I sell industrial cutting tools” think of it in terms of the end result for the customer, “I help manufacturers lower their burden rates and reduce their cost per part produced”.

Sales pros need to understand that you might get a quick fix selling the product to anyone who will buy it (whether they need it or not), but there's a long term cost for taking that approach. It takes more effort to sell to resistant customers than it does to receptive ones, and an adversarial approach damages your personal repution as well as that of your company. It's just not cost effective.

Just my 2 cents

It’s not personal? Like hell it’s not!

2009-05-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

Of course leadership in business requires the fundamentals, strategy, cash flow, execution, value, etc. Business 101. They’re all are critical to staying in business but won’t lead to breakout success. That requires passion from the leaders of the organization and enthusiasm throughout the layers of the company that customers can literally feel. It’s personal.

Whatever our market, there are competitors. To compete we have to innovate, and innovation takes passion and drive. Passion and drive are what great people and great companies are built on. It’s personal.

I want anyone working with me or for me to have the same drive that I do. I want people who love what they do, not robots that leave their emotions at the door. I want them to be creative and to innovate. I don’t just want to hire hands – I want their hearts and minds. I want their enthusiasm to literally ooze out into the marketplace. The great thing about enthusiasm is that it’s contagious – clients and customers catch it, as do partners and potential talent. Think Walt Disney.

I love to think outside the box, be creative, and to find solutions to “unsolvable” problems, and if I do say so myself, I am good at. When I come up with an idea that I know will work I’m like a kid on Christmas morning. The excitement is palpable. Whether it’s a small problem or a totally new strategy, when I solve a problem the company makes money and I gain personal satisfaction. We get paid when I’m right. I love being right and I take it very personally if I fail. I want people working with me who feel the same way. Everything we do should contribute to a passionate drive and a personal stake in the success of the business.

Not just within the company. I want customers to take it personally, too. I want them to love my company and my team. I want them to have the warm fuzzies every time they deal with us. Being successful in sales is about building relationships. Personal relationships. Think Walt Disney again.

I’m not saying we should all be milk toast, by any means. I’ve had to let people go, both as firings and lay-offs. I don’t like doing it, but its business and yes, it affects me as well as the person being let go. I don’t enjoy it. It sucks. I do it anyway. We have to make a profit. Period.

We’re all in it for the money, but we also have to recognize that the human factor touches everything we do.

Branding isn't just about sales

2009-05-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

I was helping a colleague clean up his resume last week. He’s a great sales guy, but his resume read like a dinner menu. It took some prodding, but I finally got through to him that his resume, cover letters, online presence, are a brand, just like his business is. In business your sales and marketing materials, proposals, and the way you engage customers are (or should be) a cohesive message to your prospective customers – your brand. A job search portfolio should be looked at the same way.

Over a cocktail with my sweetie last night it hit me over the head like a ton of bricks. What if we were to treat our candidate search, hiring process, and human management with the mentality of building the brand as the sales and marketing processes? These people are as critical, if not more so, than the products or services you sell. They are the face of the company. Why not treat them with the same level of regard as customer?

Employment is a two way street. You want the talent, but the talent also has to want you. We all know that first impressions are huge and that it only takes a few seconds to form an imprint that sticks. They are likely in your local market and your industry, and even if you don’t bring them on board they are likely to be a part of your network in some way.

If you want to attract the best talent, write your job ads like you do your marketing material. How do your job postings look? Are they a public version of the job description? Would you hand a new prospective customer an engineering spec sheet instead of your marketing materials? Not exactly the message you want to send, it is? It’s not hard to change with a little creativity, an open mind, and a very small budget.

Why is your company a great place to work? If you’re really feeling brave you could ask some of your longer term employees why they have stayed with you. Add a couple of quotes from their future team members. Obviously you have to include information about the position, but one short paragraph should cover it. When you’re going through the screening process you’ll have plenty to time to slap them with the minutia – save it for later. Keep in mind that there are a lot of folks out there who read job postings who aren’t looking for jobs. Personally, I do it to keep tabs on who’s doing what in my industry as do a lot of other people I know.

Concerned that you might get lambasted with tons of applicants? Why? Scanning the cover letters and resumes will weed out the riffraff, and wouldn’t you rather have a good group great candidates instead of just a few? Start with conversational phone interviews with the best of the best and work your way down the list. Other than having a great selection of talent, remember that these are likely to be people in your industry. They may not be a great fit for the position at hand, but they could for a different role. Future employee or not, the more people in your market that know and respect your company, the better.

What are applicants impressions? What do they receive when the walk away from their meeting? (In most cases it’s either a generic application form or nothing at all). Why not use your brand to draw them in? Instead of an application form, how about some of your marketing materials? Several years ago I was interviewing with a company and received a “resume” back from them with their background, key differentiators, leadership profiles, etc. Clearly it made a lasting impression on me, or I wouldn’t be bringing it up now.

You can hire a set of hands but you have to make an effort to get the hearts and minds to go with them. Back to the sales mentality, your customers have a key person that they deal with, and so should your applicants. Preferably someone who actually knows what is going on, has a pleasant nature, and is either the hiring manager or someone close to him. If you leave a great first impression in sales and have crappy follow up in sales it kills your opportunities. It’s no different here. For applicants that make it to the first interview but aren’t hired, a phone call is nice. For applicants still in the mix, an email update goes a long way to satisfy their need to know where you’re at in the process.

Congrats on now having a great new employee! Any idea of what to do with them? Don’t walk the new guy to his desk, introduce him to the new boss and walk away. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and it sucked. If you don’t already have (and actually follow) and on-boarding process, write one and use it. Include everything you need to get the new person comfortable, trained, and fully functional. A nice welcome can go a long way. Have everything ready for them on Day One. Desk clean and set up, system access, business cards, corporate contact list, and a planned schedule for the first week, etc. Introduce them to your team and designate someone on your team as a go-to guide. The guide’s job includes familiarizing them with the non-work details like where the bathrooms and coffee are, what’s a close place for a good lunch, and so on. It helps integrate them into the team in a friendly way. Whether it’s a new job or high school, being the new person isn’t fun.

Current employees need care and feeding, too. They spend a third of their lives at work and need to feel ownership and pride in what they are doing. Ongoing training and mentoring, open lines of communication, and regular formal reviews are critical. They need to know what’s going on with the company, that their role is contributing to a “greater good”, and that they are valued and respected. A company newsletter can take care of the messaging part if the content is meaningful and from senior management. A simple and sincere “thank you” or “nice job” can go a long way. For the ones that shine, make sure they are recognized for their efforts and don’t just keep cycling through the same ones. On the flip side a lack of information and recognition can have a devastating effect. Moral matters. It not only impacts productivity and revenue, it also hurts your brand in the market. People talk. Especially cranky ones.

Branding isn’t just for sales and marketing. Use it to bring in the best talent and keep them.

Open Letter To The Walking Infomercial

2009-05-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

I had a sales rep call on me the other day. If it hadn't been so entertaining to watch him make every rookie sales mistake possible, he would have been shown the door. I've worked with a lot of great sales people, both internally and as suppliers and unfortunately. I've also run into many that just didn't get it.

Dear Sales Guy:

The first call isn’t about you, your company, and certainly not the product. Not yet. It’s about the getting to know the prospect, learning what his needs are, and whether or you have a solution to offer.

Infomercials are designed to get your attention, usually involving either a fake doctor or some loud obnoxious guy, unfortunately sometimes both. You need a Wonder Widget! As if you didn’t need the first one, you can get a second one free (just pay separate shipping and handling). Don’t be a walking infomercial.

Especially at this stage your prospect is not going to tell you outright what he wants, unless it’s a lower price, and you don't want to go there. Don’t start a meeting with a prospective customer and yammer on about who you are, your company, or why they should care. Don't pull out your sales slicks. Don't spew forth with features of your product that may or may not end up being benefits. They don't give a rat's ass. You haven’t given them a reason to. You need to learn how you can solve the prospect’s needs, and have you have no idea what those might be.

Even if the prospect starts the meeting by asking what you’re offering or why he should buy from you, don’t take the bait. Don’t subject yourself to diarrhea of the mouth. Introduce yourself and your company briefly. Keep it to two or three short sentences. Ask pertinent questions to open the dialog. Then shut up and listen. Keep it conversational. Ask more questions based on the answers to the previous one. You can talk about your product, but only as it relates to his needs. Set a follow up visit, ask for a plant tour, and leave your sales literature with him when you leave.

The one who is leading the meeting is not the person doing the talking. It’s the one who’s asking the right questions and getting answers. If you're doing the talking you aren’t listening, and if you don’t listen you’re not going to learn anything. Unless you're a tv pitchman, a great pitch does not make a great salesperson. A great listener and good intuition do.