Getting Personal About Business

Business Mentor

Archive for 2011

Diagnose, then Prescribe

Tuesday, May 17, 2011 by:David Zahn

Ask any salesperson or business owner about the importance of having an elevator speech (those 30 second or 1 minute descriptors of what someone does for a living capable of being delivered while one is sharing an elevator ride from the lobby up to the destination floor) and you will get nearly universal agreement about the need to have it memorized. Careful pruning and word choosing goes into doing it correctly they will maintain, and any word or thought that does not directly contribute to the outcome must be eliminated.

Purpose

Of course, therein also lies the issue with the elevator speech for some. Exactly what is the outcome being sought? What purpose does this pithy and targeted message have? Does the salesperson want to “close” the sale by the time the elevator reaches the tenth floor? Is the executive hoping to land the next account before the person s/he just met at the cocktail party finishes the finger food just jammed into his/her mouth to free up a hand to shake?

If the objective of the interaction is not clear, the chances of any of the chosen words being impactful will be no better than chance or random luck. However, unsuspecting strangers and would-be prospects are constantly being bombarded with sales pitches extolling the virtues of products and services, when their only “crime” was being polite and asking someone, “so what is it you do?”

Before prescribing, one needs to diagnose

Stop “Shoulding” on Me

We all have had the experience of meeting someone for the first time and after sharing some small detail about an interest or concern of ours, we are immediately confronted by the “expert” tellng us what we need to do, or what we should do. Of course, the unasked for advice is often unheeded as we look at the person uncomfortably and wonder, “if you don’t even know me, or what I am dealing with, how can you make a recommendation?” Or, we wonder to ourselves, “does this boob think I havene’t considered that self-evident answer?” We all long for the day when we could request that people “stop shoulding” on us with their unsolicited and inappropriate counsel.

Backwards Logic

From the person looking to make a sale, the solution is often very clear and obvious. Of course, the solution happens to be the one they are selling. So, the salesperson goes into attack mode and begins to enumerate all of the features and advantages of their product. And that is where the downward spiral picks up speed from the perspective of the prospect (who does not even know that they are a prospect. They thought they were minding their own business and attending a social function and making small talk). The features talk is very product-focused and assumes that the recepient of the message can convert that to a usage opportunity. Some more advanced techniques employed by salespeople is to convert the feature into an advantage. An advantage is when the salesperson attempts to link the product to how it may potentially help the recepient. Of course, this is too often done without ever asking the recepient of that would be something they would value or havce acknowledged as worth pursuing. It is speculative on the part of the seller to assume that the prospect would gladly seek that advantage. Yet, that may not at all be what the prospect is pursuing.

Benefits and Diagnosis

The better approach is to approach the conversation from a business needs and opportunities diagnosis viewpoint. Just like a Dr. is expected to ask questions of a patient before making a recommended presecription, so too should the salesperson ask questions and assess the issues from the perspective of the prospect. As a Dr. asks, “where does it hurt, when did it begin, what have you tried, has it felt like this before, etc.” or other questions designed to get the situation clearly identified. By talking the business issues and bringing the prospect into the dialogue interactively, the prescription will be much better aligned to the actual situation and not a perceived situation based on partial insight. The prescription will be more trusted and likely to be employed by the patient/prospect because it was created through a joint discussion and both the Dr/seller and patient/prospect participated in creating it.

The words of the elevator speech may be necessary to quickly communicate how the business owner/salesperson helps business – but the sale does not occur UNTIL the prospect participates in the dialogue.

Don’t Delete This!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by:David Zahn

Everyworkday morning there is a business ritual that occurs in every office. For some, it happens even before the first cup of coffee has been consumed. It is the official start of the day for many – the checking of emails. Unfortunately for many of the senders of the emails, it is quickly followed by the second ritual of the day – the clearing out of the emailbox of unwanted emails! One after another, the emails are deleted, often without ever being opened. To prevent that from happening, requires taking some time to think about one’s goals and objectives before creating the email piece.

Goals

There are two goals that you as the email sender likely have in mind. The first is to get the email opened and read. The second is to have the reader take an action as a result of the email. Any email that does not include some call to action (make a phone call, click on a link, visit a website, respond to a request, etc.) is an email that will rarely succeed in furthering the sales effort.

Preparation

Generic emails that are not specific, targeted, even addressed to the person by name will not be acted upon (unless being deleted is the action). It is imperative that the sender of the email do some homework ahead of time BEFORE sending the email. If the email is not relevant, it will not resonate with the receiver and will not be successful. The email must demonstrate at least a cursory understanding of the prospect’s industry, pressures, issues, or something that is a pressing problem requiring an immediate action or it will be deleted or passed over without further thought.

The Subject Line

We have always heard that we shouldn’t judge a book by the cover. And yet, that is often what happens when the subject line does not strike a chord with the reader. The subject line with some cute play on words, obscure reference, use of jargon that is not readily recognized, overly long, etc. will only serve to confuse the reader. Given how time impoverished the reader likely is, the common sift used is to look for reasons to skip, ignore, or delete the email. Therefore, use a subject line that is clear, easily interpreted, and states the purpose in as few words as possible (especially given that many emails are now being read on mobile devices). Consider if you would take time out of your morning (or whenever the email is to be read) to open the email if it was delivered uninvited to your computer.

The Body

The time the reader devotes to making a decision on whether to read the email or not is often less than three seconds. If the email does not state a purpose, contains confusing sentences, has typos, or other issues; it is far too easy for the recipient to decide to delete it rather than fight through it and try to decipher what was the intention. Asking the reader to “know what you mean” or expecting them to figure it out for you is not likely to lead to positive actions.

The content needs to be current and reflective of their situation. Do the research needed to know what the company is experiencing and integrate that insight into the email to demonstrate that you understand and have something to share that can or will help them deal with their issue. Using Google Alerts to identify recent issues and important considerations being pursued by the prospective client will help target the email to their most current issues.

Keep the email short and succinct. People do not have the time to wade through paragraphs of content. Three to five sentences is often a good target. Get the prospect to want to learn more by calling for details, clicking on a link to download a whitepaper, or register for a webinar, etc. The email is a success if it gets the prospect to take an action. It is not ideally suited to qualify a prospect and close the sale in one fell swoop.

Speak the prospect’s language – but without overuse of jargon. The email is not the time to talk about yourself or your company’s history. There has to be a “payoff” or a benefit for the reader. If it is not identifiable, it will not be acted upon.

Be aware that many email service providers will block certain images, allow for certain words to be blocked at user’s discretion. Therefore, it is a consideration as to whether to include embedded images, words like “free” or words that may have a sexual meaning as these may get blocked and put into the prospect’s SPAM folder.

Testing

Just like with any other marketing or sales approach, it is advisable to refine which messages, subject lines, signatures, or other details are leading to better (or worse) performance. The more scientific the approach, the more one can project the likelihood of success.

Tenacity

Sending a single email and hoping it lands at exactly the right time to generate business is a poor strategy. It often takes numerous exposures before the message and/or the sender become recallable to the receiver. Do not give up after the initial attempt and assume the prospect does not want to do business. It is often after the fifth or eighth email that the prospect will choose to react. Prematurely stopping the email sending will miss all of the opportunities to convert that prospect.

Mix calls with email with direct mail. By using a combination of approaches, the strength of the email will become stronger as you and your company become a larger focus for the prospect by familiarity and for being seemingly ubiquitous.

Email is an inexpensive way to reach clients, but it need not be done poorly. Follow the rules above and watch the results improve and the sales begin to increase.

A Sale Deconstructed

Thursday, May 5, 2011 by:David Zahn

Every business requires it. It is the oxygen that feeds the organization’s soul. We are talking about sales. A company without sales is a company that is destined to fail. No customers equals no business. The cause and effect is really that direct and simple. And yet, nearly every company is focused on how to improve their sales effort. In some organizations, there is more time and attention paid to that skill than to any other. In other companies, it is assumed that creating a better product or service will cover for a weak sales effort. Still other companies believe that a competent marketing effort will cure all that ails the selling endeavor and lead prospects and customers to the company.

As fundamental as it may seem, it is necessary to look at the components of a sale in order to understand where it goes wrong and what is needed to fix it. Holding a microscope to the sales effort will show the following:

Prospect/Buyer
Pain
Power
Vision
A vision
Budget

A Prospect/Buyer

Far too many companies have not done a sufficient job of targeting, segmenting, or isolating who would be the target customer for a product or service. Without recognizing the WHO of the sales effort, there will likely be a lot of false steps as efforts to reach or communicate with the prospective buyer. A product that is designed to meet the needs of a manufacturing floor supervisor would not be well positioned if advertised in McCalls magazine. Similarly, a product that is promoting healthy hair would not be likely to generate interest in a trade publication directed to Financial Planners.

Pain

The sales effort has to identify and be focused on an issue that the prospect is currently seeking to address or resolve. To continue the example above, offering a super enhanced hair conditioning product that adds luster to a bald man is not going to lead to high sales potential. The bald man is not interested in luster providing hair conditioning products in most instances. However, offer that same man with a product that saves his existing hair, adds volume and hides his thinning scalp, and the SAME product may suddenly become very desirable. The sales effort must be aligned to the issues the prospect is currently seeking to resolve in order for a sale to occur.

Power

The prospect must have the ability to make a purchase. Far too many sales efforts fail because the activity is directed at people who cannot actually make a purchase. The person who is actually going to decide what product to buy should be addressed in the sales effort or there can be no successful accomplishment of a sale.

Vision

The prospect must be able to see a way to resolve the issue through the product or service. If the offer being provided does not “fit” or “meet” the need or solve the problem being addressed, then the sale cannot move foreward. A large part of the selling effort must be on clarifying the solution’s ability to meet the prospect’s problem.

Budget

Lastly, the sale cannot happen if there is not sufficient budget available to make the purchase. Whether it is due to a business having to decide between a new computer system and repaving the parking lot, or a Mom having to decide between burgers or pork chops, the reality is that in most purchase occasions, there are limited funds that are being competed for across numerous wants and needs.

: Looking at the sales role under the microscope

The sales cycle very often stalls and companies are uncertain as to the cause. In ALL cases, it can be directly related to one or more issues not being properly addressed by one of the above components of the sales process. Return to the steps above and confirm each has been properly met; and the sales closing rate will spike up immediately. While it is easier said than done, it really is that simple (though not easy).

You Lost Me at Hello

Tuesday, April 26, 2011 by:David Zahn

This past week had my son and me criss-crossing the Northeast looking at various colleges in preparation for the application process in the early Fall. The way the schools approached the wooing of students to their campusto enroll had many parallels to business and pointed out many of the current issues confronted by both educational institutions and for-profit businesses.

Does your business earn an "A"?

Front-Line Importance

We have heard it over and over – the customer views the business through the people interacted with on each exchange. The Admissions Department at some of the schools seemed to have forgotten that caveat. At the six schools visited, two of them did not have someone available to greet prospective students upon arrival, have materials available for review and reference, or provide any kind of agenda for what the visit would include.

Viewing the campus visit from a business person’s perspective, it is incredible to think that any business owner would treat a $85K - $135K purchase (the approximate cost to attend the schools visited over four years) so cavalierly. The initial contact with the school for a tentative student is far too crucial in creating the lasting impression to be treated so haphazardly. The importance of those initial front-line contacts tainted the view of those schools and removed them from consideration.

Putting Best Foot Forward

Given that schools (or businesses) are always on the hunt for ‘new customers’ it makes sense that they would put efforts into making the best first impression they can and reinforcing that with consistent examples of their successes, models, processes, etc. What was experienced was not always that at all. Putting 17 year olds into a large auditorium and talking AT them from a lecturn for 2 hours about the history of the university is akin to torture. The number of Ipods, cell phones, and other devices that popped up were too numerous to mention. Bored does not begin to capture how many of them felt.

What confuses is that these schools all have departments of Advertising, Journalism, Communications, and Public Relations and SHOULD know better when it comes to communicating to audiences. Where was the video of students actively at work on the campus? Where was the interview with the Professor discussing how the school is the place to attend for internships, research opportunities, or future career placement? When does the active alumni appear to share how good ole’ U is the reason they succeeded? Why wasn’t the Frat President seen discussing how once you are matriculating you are part of the family, etc.?

Show, Don’t Tell

Rather than telling, there needed to be more showing. Even the tours were heavy on the chatter and not as much on the experience. Don’t just walk the customer/student through the Residence Halls, let them see the rooms, eat at the Dining facilities, play foosball, ping pong, or at minimum get them to “put themselves in the picture.” If the idea is to get the student to envision attending, why not get them to start to behave that way and help them see what they would be doing if they attended that school (or bought that product).

The idea is to manage expectations of the prospect so that they can see how easy, productive, “cool” or efficient it is to align with the school (or company). Encourage the prospect to wander around and sample the product. Being so tightly controlling of the experience of the new students (and their parents) did not serve the needs of the experience or make it easier for the student to correctly gauge whether there was a fit.

One school that has a GREAT reputation for their media studies did NOT even think to let the prospective students see the studios, observe students creating, editing, or share their experiences with the prospects. Instead, a non-expert from the Admissions Department (and someone 40 years older than the students who kept repeating how she doesn’t even own a laptop and is amazed at how the technology has changed since she was in school) walked parents and students through a very rote and mechanized tour of the buildings as if more driven by a schedule than actually answering questions or engaging students. The feeling was more like listening to a Flight Attendant going through the safety demonstration robotically than someone really trying to “sell” the school.

Who is the Buyer?

One of the schools seemed to waffle on whether the presentations were directed at students or at their parents. The bouncing back and forth between parental concerns (tuition, forms to fill out, financial aid, etc.) and student issues (minimum academic requirements, dorm choices, sports, entertainment options, etc.). A business looking to sell a product must differentiate between the user of a product, the financial buyer of the product, and the technical experts involved in the decision to purchase. Sadly, the schools failed more than they passed that exam.

Is it all about Profit?

Thursday, April 14, 2011 by:David Zahn

Ask nearly any business owner what is used to identify corporate success and the answer will be profit. Afterall, the business is referred to as a “for profit” business as opposed to anon-profit or charity. Could there be a different answer?

The Goal

It is assumed that if one is going to start or participate in a business, the objective is to create profit or wealth. Decisions are often made based on the impact of some combination of:

Revenue generation potential
Cost management
Margin
Return on Investment measures

Seemingly nothing could be more intuitive or fundamental to business than the pursuit of profit. But, some pundits recently quoted in a Harvard Business Review article questioned if it is always quite that straightforward.

Value vs. Profit

There are some business experts that feel that the overarching goal is to create value as opposed to profit and that profit is a by-product of those efforts. One such expert quoted in the article, Gerald Nanninga, argued that profit is a default measure, commenting that “It is easier to measure and reward a goal of ‘producing a profit of x’ than it is to set goals around creating value faster than costs.” His perspective is that the ease of measuring costs, margin, and profit overrides the more important focus of generating a benefit societally blinds the entrepreneur to the larger goal. Of course, there are others that are not at all apologetic about seeking profit and are very clear about where the allegiance of the entrepreneur and all employees needs to be:

Should Profit go up in Smoke?

Commentator, Deaver Brown is adamant that, ”Profit is the only legitimate goal of a corporation.” That point of view is echoed by a poster on the magazine’s website who added, “There’s nothing wrong with profit as a goal. What’s important is how you achieve it.”

The example used to bolster that point of view is the removal last year of Tony Hayward, the former executive at BP. Hayward led a very profitable company that seemed to be a “high flyer” by the measurement of profits, margin, and standard financial measures. However, his company was also the one judged most responsible for the Gulf drilling disaster and his subsequent explanations, comments, and handling of the clean-up effort led to his dismissal and painted him and BP in a most unfavorable light. Further, the reports of how the company dealt with safety issues enraged many with what was perceived as a cavalier attitude toward human life, the environment, and placing a higher importance on cutting cost corners than adhering to legal requirements.

What to Aim For – HCHP

So, if profit is not to be the overarching goal of the corporate entity, what is to replace it? Is there an inherent conflict between pursuing profit and chasing other motives? Are entrepreneurs mistaken in establishing profit as the direct target of their efforts?

The HBR article references a book authored by British Economist, John Kay, “Obliquity” that is built around the idea of a ”high commitment, high performance” (HCHP) organization. In Kay’s estimation, “business problems cannot be solved by drawing a straight line between cause and long-term effect because they are so complex, a manager’s information so incomplete, the competitive environment so complicated, analytic techniques so inadequate, and the number of things over which a manager has control so limited, that it is impossible to make the connection with any assurance.”

As Kay puts it, “The mistake is to make inferences about the relationships between outcomes and processes when we cannot observe and do not understand the processes themselves.” The argument is that those things that contribute to long-term shareholder value will be revealed and achieved by realizing intermediate goals or through some kind of overarching mission and vision that helps an organization achieve long-term shareholder value as well. Of course, it assumes that we know what those things (missions, visions, intermediate goals) are and that we have some understanding of how they contribute ultimately to shareholder value.

How it is Done

Of course, to accomplish this requires a level of insight that is harder and more qualitative in nature to manage than the more traditional quantitative measures. So, the organization must decide:

What are the intermediate goals
How will it be measured
How will it be achieved
What are the organization’s priorities
How the organization differentiates itself from others

Profit can be achieved as a byproduct of other efforts, or it can be the sole purpose of the organization’s initiative. Which approach is the right one? What do you think?

A Lost Customer

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 by:David Zahn

Connecticut has much to preen about with a beautiful shoreline, rolling verdant hills, and the state’s pride and joy – UConn sports. One thing that is not particularly strong in the state is the differentiation between grocers. If one were blindfolded and could not remove it until they were in aisle 5 of nearly any grocery store – it would take a fair amount of time or cheating before it would be apparent which store one was in.

Sure, there is the exception of Stew Leonard’s. Love it or not, the shopping experience is so vastly different there than in other grocers that it is immediately identifiable. The same cannot be said for Big Y, Stop & Shop, Shaw’s, or ShopRite. Unless the shopper looks at the store brand products on the shelf or happens to see the flyer in the shopping wagon that was left over from the previous shopper; mot of us would not be able to identify which store we were in.

The New Kid

So, it was with great excitement and a fair amount of expectation that a trip to Stamford’s newest entry into the food and household goods was made. Fairway Markets had been praised as THE place to go and the one that was finally going to turn the competitive market upside down.

New kid on the block tries, but fails.

The initial impression the store makes is impressive. Produce stacked as high as one can reach and the variety, presentation, and layout of the row up0n row of fresh fruits and vegetables invites one to browse and make purchases on impulse. From there, the prepared foods call out to the shopper. Soups, pastas, and other foods are packaged and attractively presented.

It is easy to pick up a few things that look and sound delicious, that is, until you check the prices. The euphoria of shopping with one’s eyes and one’s stomach is quickly overruled by the wallet. This is not the place to go to save money. While it resembles the environment of a Warehouse club like Costco or Sam’s, it surely is not.

Gets Worse

As someone who shops Stew Leonard’s, Whole Foods, and independent retailers, a high price does not scare me off or out of the store. However, it must be coupled with service, variety, or something that allows me to calculate how there is a justification to pay more than I would pay elsewhere. Fairway scores on this account with some of their unique offerings. The variety available to the shopper is sufficiently different than other retailers that it does provide a unique shopping adventure feeling. The branded products, the hot foods, the counter service food, etc. DO offer something that is not commonly found elsewhere and certainly not as comprehensively. Stew’s has some, Whole Foods offers some, but Fairway seems to have what they have and more. Unfortunately, they also have “less” of a very important ingredient – Customer Service.

Remember Me – the Customer

The deli counter has a selection of hams, salamis, imported meats of one kind or another that all seem to demand that the shopper try them. Signage explains many of the better options and gently prod the shopper to try. Unfortunately, it also requires dealing with the clerk behind the counter. It is there that Fairway crumbles like the bleu cheese they sell.

The line to be served at the Deli was perhaps 6 people long and like is standard at most retailers, the shopper takes a number and waits for it to be called. In the five (5) minutes it took to have my number called, there were no less than three (3) times when a shopper had an argument with an employee for an issue regarding customer service. That continued when one went to check out of the store and in the amount of time it takes for two (2) shoppers ahead of me to be checked out, I overheard another person who had NOT been at the Deli counter while I was there also complaining about how rude the service was in the store.

There is just no excuse for this. Fairway Markets has great products, is beautifully merchandised, and markets itself as a premium offering if one looks at the perimeter departments (fish, meats, prepared foods, etc.) – but treats customers as impediments and not the purpose of their efforts. As much as I wanted to like it and embrace their arrival onto the scene, I left the store with my purchase happy to have done it, seen it, experienced, it – and headed up Route 1 to never again return to the store. Stew Leonard’s, Whole Foods, and even Stop & Shop will get my business over any business that chooses to be rude to shoppers.

While this store does show that there is potential to shake things up locally, it does not ultimately deliver on the promise it has to draw me in and keep me as a shopper. Close, but not nearly good enough to shake loose my grocery money from those that may do less, but do it right.

Failure Happens – Now What?

Friday, March 18, 2011 by:David Zahn

The statistics are sobering. Start-ups have a high failure rate. According to an article written in Harvard Business Review (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6591.html) that addressed failures of start-up businesses, failure occurs between 30 and 40% of the time if it is defined as losing all assets and 90-95% of the time if defined as not receiving the expected ROI or payback on any individual or discrete project. Entrepreneurs obviously start businesses with the idea of it succeeding. Every start-up is expected to meet a market need, reach a level of performance that creates a profit within an established period of time, achieve results, and contribute income for the owner/entrepreneur. With the exception of the Broadway show’s version of “The Producers,” no business is started with the idea of failing.

Starting a business with the intention of failing is only done in Broadway shows.

And Yet

However, failure does occur and understanding why it happened and how it is used to determine the entrepreneur’s next steps is worth considering. The autopsy of the failed enterprise can provide great insight into what went wrong and how to prevent it from re0occurring in future endeavors. According to Shikhar Ghosh, a lecturer at Harvard Business School, there is much that can be learned by examining the failure.

The Reasons for Failure

•Most start-ups fail due to lack of foresight, lack of wiggle room in the business plan, bad timing, or lack of funding.
•However, counter-intuitively, large sums of funding for an unstable business model can take what would have been a small failure and turn it into a huge one.
•Ghosh maintains that running a doomed company can actually help a career, yielding experience and networking opportunities with venture capitalists and other entrepreneurs.
•Ghosh does caution that, “While failure of a business or project is a learning experience, personal lapses in ethical or moral behavior can damn a career.”

In fact, Ghosh maintains that failure is the norm and that very few companies achieve the initial projections of the founder/entrepreneur. In part, the failures are often avoidable and could have been prevented if the entrepreneur had done the due diligence of testing the base assumptions of the business plan (assuming there is a business plan created). One interesting insight that Ghosh provides is that entrepreneurs will sometimes believe that they can predict the future instead of working collaboratively with customers to create a future with them. The over-reliance on their own insights, perspectives, beliefs in technology, service models, or products can blind them to the realities of the marketplace.

Leave Room to Change

While the best of intentions and beliefs were used in creating the initial business model, plan, and organization; there should always be room to “wiggle” or modify things once the business has been launched and has had time to interact with the marketplace to pilot or test itself against competitors, engage with prospects, and operationally execute against expectations. If the business model is so rigid that it cannot be corrected “mid-stream,” the initial plan had better be right, because there is no going back and trying something new. Ghosh uses the example of Webvan to prove the point by recognizing that the company purchased warehouse space across the United States in anticipation of demand for grocery delivery service. However, once launched, they discovered that the demand was not sufficient to warrant such a high fixed cost in property costs.

The internet boom is legendary for including many venture capitalist-backed businesses that seemed to have nothing more substantial than a PowerPoint presentation of a weak idea to support it. Those businesses that had enough financial resources behind it could take the time to find a viable business model (before the money ran out). Netscape is one example of a company that floundered until it could settle on a business model that worked.

In the HBR article, Ghosh maintains that, ”The predominant cause of big failures versus small failures is too much funding,” Ghosh, further is quoted as saying “What funding does is cover up all the problems that a company has. It covers up all the mistakes, it enables the company and management to focus on things that aren’t important to the company’s success and ignore the things that are important.”

Learn From It

Well prepared business owners understand that a company may fail and that it does not have to spell the end of a career (or of a business idea). Even failed businesses yield future networking opportunities with venture capitalists and relationships with other entrepreneurs whose companies are succeeding.

Individual failures within a company can be viewed as learning experiences. but only if the executives are willing to view failure as an indicator of the need for, or as potential for improvement. For instance, if the company’s best salesperson is unable to sign a key customer, then the management ordinarily would seek to blame, chastise, or hold the salesperson accountable for the failure. However, there is another way to view it. They could recognize that if the top talent has trouble with the sell, then maybe there is something wrong with the product. Small failures can provide the raw material for improvement.

Taking the lessons of what did NOT work previously to the next assignment can be a real experience-building asset. A well understood failure can often be more illuminating in preventing a repeat than a lucky or happenstance success.

It Isn’t that Complicated

Thursday, March 10, 2011 by:David Zahn

When asked to choose between detail and complexity versus simplicity and clarity, most of us choose the route of the simple. Perhaps it is our short attention spans, our sense of being time-impoverished, or our feeling of being overwhelmed by the increasing number of tasks or commitments we all juggle in the span of teh day. Whatever the cause, we often just want to tell others to”

Cut to the chase
Get to the point
Strip out the fluff and talk brass tacks with me!

Sales is more than just a firm handshake

What is your goal?

I often speak with salespeople and sales managers and assist them in putting their business plans together. Invariably, the effort morphs into a multi-paged presentation, with numerous clauses and caveats to cover every conceivable possibility. What tends to be contained in the document is confusion, uncertainty, and inability to focus on the “what counts” factors.

What I have done is asked sales people to highlight in one sentence what it is they do/why they were hired/how they should be measured. That is it. One sentence.

What I will see is some variation on one or more of these:

“My job is to provide a comfortable lifestyle for me and my family.”
“Uncover customer needs.”
“Offer solutions to prospects and escort them through the sales cycle.”

Well, those are all good intentions, but they are not exactly why the person is in the role they are in. There role is real simple and very easily measured – increase sales.

So What?

Taking that as the mission, the sales person can then recognize that any activity that does not contribute to that outcome should be looked at with suspicion. Further, recognizing that level of clarity in one’s own role helps the sales person distill their purpose, product or service, and offer to the prospect or customer similarly.

The customer or prospect is not interested in being distracted with a presentation, has no desire to discern how to use whatever it is being sold to them, and could fill the time taken to participate in a sales call and used it productively to move their own business and interests forward. So, you had better be providing them with a real clear mental picture of what is at stake for them to take a phone call, attend a meeting, or engage with you on any level.

Surely, nearly everyone wants to make money, but that does not happen until a sale occurs. Focusing on getting the sale is the highest priority and the riches one receives may be the motivation, but it is not the goal of the transaction. Similarly, meeting a prospect’s needs, but not making a sale may be emotionally satisfying, but it will not allow a business to thrive long-term.

The “How-To”

So, if that is the goal (to increase sales), then there are two steps that wil naturally follow:

Prioritize – One will look at time, tasks, and efforts very differently. Does the current activity hinder or contribute to the desired outcome? Are the right tasks being undertaken to best accomplish the increasing of sales? Are distractions allowed to take time, energy, and efforts away from more productive tasks?
Measure – Are the actions undertaken effective? Is it a Sales Revenue Generating Activity? Very directly, does it bring the sale closer to happening, or put distance between the seller’s organization and the prospect? Is it helping to increase sales or not?

Cystallizing one’s Focus

When you identify what you are trying to accomplish in such a direct and simple way, it is like the difference in watching an HDTV vs. looking at something through a kaleidescope. It brings it all into sharp relief and it is not all about colors. Goals become easier to identify, your time becomes easier to manage, your tasks and activities are easier to prioritize, and you will be able to maximize your efforts.

As Mark Neerema commented in his blog:

As sales people you hear it all the time. You have to manage your time, be focused, work on the right things etc. Well, it doesn’t start or change by focusing on those specific things. If you just focus on say being better with your time, but you still haven’t given yourself the clarity, you might as well go skip stones in the lake. In order to make them better you must focus on what is driving them! THE driver behind your priorities, goals, and time is how clear your understanding is of what you are there to do.

Page 4 of 5« Previous 1 2 345 Next »