2009 November | A Sales Guy

Do You Believe Your Employees?

Do you believe your employees, when they tell you they are going to miss their number because the customer has slashed budgets? Do you believe them when they exceed quota because they beat out the existing provider because they screwed up not because your product was better? Do you believe them when they tell you they are losing market share due to new competitors entering the market? Do you believe them when they say they are going to exceed plan? Do you believe them when they say the customer is unhappy. Do you believe your employees when they tell you what is happening in the field?

You should AND you shouldn’t.

Employees are on the front line. They are talking to the customer. They are sitting next to the competitors. They are in the battle.

Like most soldiers, they will exaggerate what they see. Employees will also be extremely accurate. They know what is going on and should be seen as scouts or as an early warning system.

Getting reality from employees is the leaders job. Leaders need to dig. They need to push for more information, look for evidence, and challenge assumptions.

If your employees are telling you your losing market share you need listen. If they are telling you everything is great, you need to listen.

It’s not what employees are saying. It’s what YOU get from what they are saying and the best leaders get to the truth.

Do you believe your employees? You should AND you shouldn’t.

November 30, 2009 | Filed under: Leadership,Personal Development,Sales Leadership | View Comments |

Ideas Aren’t Democratic

Idea’s come from everywhere. The good usually come from those who are not the experts or who push the limits. RIM and Apple are good examples. Why is it the mobile carriers didn’t design and create the two best mobile devices available?

Really good ideas are different. They usually don’t conform to what we know. It’s their lack of continuity with traditional thought that makes them good. It’s also what makes them difficult to stick.

When most of us get a great idea, we look for concurrence, we look for agreement and if we don’t get it, we move on. We measure an idea on the vote of others. If no one thinks it’s a good ideas we pack it in.

The problem is, great ideas aren’t democratic. Great ideas aren’t dependent on what others think. Great ideas depend on their premise and execution.

Great ideas in big companies almost always die, because not only do they require support from a bunch of people, it has to be the right people. They make ideas democratic.

Just because your idea isn’t getting the votes, doesn’t mean its not a good idea. Idea’s aren’t democratic. Don’t let the naysayers kick your idea to the curb.

Ideas only need one vote, yours. The rest is gravy. Spend less time on what other people think and more time worrying about execution.

November 28, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance,Entrepreneur,Random | View Comments |

What are You Focused On?

What are you focused on?

Are you focused on quota, your commission check, the incompetence in product, you’re pipeline, you’re customers capital expense budget, the pissy email from your boss, the lack of snow on the mountain, the missed project time-line, that the Holiday’s are only a month away or that your neighbor painted his house purple?

What controls your focus throughout the day? Are you focused on the things you can control or the things you can’t.

Stop and focus on what you’re focused on. Are you focused on the right things. Are you focused on the things you control, that are most important to you? Are you focused on the things that will make you successful or everything else? It’s the everything else that ruins your day.

Laser Focus get’s things done. Laser focus on the wrong things gets the wrong things done.

Are you focused on the right things?

November 27, 2009 | Filed under: Personal Development,Random,Uncategorized | View Comments |

Props to my Gang!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, Turkey w/Dressing on the Side

Turkey w/Dressing on the Side, HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I’ve been blogging for 8 months and have enjoyed every minute of it. What has made it so much fun is all of you. It’s the conversations, the tweets and the community that has made this blog a place I look forward to being every day. Thanks for all you’ve taught me. Thanks for spreading a sales guy love and thanks for the conversations.

I want to give some specific love to this crew of folks. Your support has not gone unnoticed.

David Brock – Partners In Excellence Blog
Fred Wilson – AVC
Leslie Poston – Uptown Uncorked
Paul Dunnay – Buzz Marketing for Technology
Dave Svet – Spurspectives
Skip Anderson – Selling to Consumers
Liza Sperling – People and Communication Online & Off
Jerry Kennedy – Motivation 101

. . . and to my Sales Posse

Tibor Shanto Sell Better Blog
Shane Gibson Closing Bigger
Steve Rosen Steve Rosen Blog
Doyle Slayton SalesBlogCast
Tony Johnson Biz Money Matter
Cindy King Cindy King
S. Anthony Iannarino The Sales Blog
Alen Majer Alen Mejer Blog
Bill Rice Better Closer

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Enjoy the Turkey!

November 26, 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized | View Comments |

When Is Enough, Enough?

College football and sales follow a similar track. In most cases they end their year at the same time. And like sales, the end of the year is the time of reckoning, when everyone asks how many games did you win? A lot of coaches jobs are in real jeopardy this year, most notably Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis and my alma mater University of Colorado’s, Dan Hawkins.

How do you decide when it’s time to send a coach packing? Is it their record that year, or several years? Do you take into consideration other factors, such as schedule strength or years as the head coach? When is it time to kick your coach to the curb?

Letting go a sales person is a similar challenge. How do you decide to let go of a sales person?

Some organizations give sales people one quarter and if they’re not performing, they’re out. Others give a year. Some make the decision on a person by person basis. Determining when it’s time move on is a critical decision of sales leaders.

For me it starts with the circumstances. I want to know what the market is doing. Is it shrinking or growing? I want to understand the track record of the rep. Have they consistently made their number in the past? However the biggest factor for me is their plan and their execution. I pay close attention to what the rep or manager is doing and how they are doing it. I know months in advance if a rep is going to make it, because I will see it in the decisions they make. I watch how they develop their account and sales plans. I focus on their strategy, initiatives and tactics. I evaluate their environmental assessments. I monitor their contingency plans and how they respond to unforeseen changes. I focus more on what they are doing to get results, not just the results.

Determining when enough is enough, is an ongoing process. I will normally know long before the end of the year. Making your number is being deliberate. It’s about execution, and planning. All of which can be observed long before the results are in.

If you’re waiting till the end of the year to decide when enough is enough, you’ve waited too long. The signs are present long before the results are in. You just have to be looking.

November 25, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance,Hiring/Firing,Sales Leadership | View Comments |

Who Needs Data, I Already Know

Yesterday my New England Patriots beat up the NY Jets. Thank God, because it put to rest all the noise around Bill Belichick’s 4th and 2 decision. During the Colts game last week, Bill Belichick went for it on 4th and 2 from his own 28 yard line, leading by only 6 points. The attempt failed. The Colts took over from their 28 yard line and scored 4 plays later. The Pats lost.

Did Bill make a bad decision?

Data and the facts are an interesting thing. We love their objectivity. We hate it when it doesn’t fit our own interpretation of things. The Monday morning quarterbacking of Belichick’s decision last week is the perfect example. Most fans, and observers, say it was a STUPID move that cost the Patriots the game.

I say, let’s look at the data, courtesy of an I-Phone camera, ESPN and a Cal Berkley Economics Professor. (I took these pictures of an ESPN story explaining the math behind the decision)

According to a Cal Berkley Economics Professor, if the Patriots had punted the ball, their chances of winning was 70%.

By going for it on 4th and 2, their chances of converting was 60%

By not converting, they had a 49% chance of stopping Manning and the Colts from scoring.

When you finish tabulating the math and combine the probability of stopping Manning on a failed attempt with the probability of making the first down, against punting and stopping Manning from scoring, the decision with the HIGHEST probability of winning was going for it, with a 79% chance of winning vs a 70% chance of winning by punting.

Bill made the right call, regardless of the end result.

The problem with data is far too often it doesn’t fit with the simplicity of our noggins. We can’t think that complex. We need to dumb things down so we can make sense of them. By punting the ball, everything that happens after, to our little brains, is unrelated to the decision to punt. Win or lose, the end result isn’t connected to the punt decision. However, when Bill chose to go for it, by not making it, everything after that decision was a direct result of going for it an not making it. Our head tells us that the safest bet, the best decision to win the game is to punt the ball. But that’s not true. It was to go for it.

Do you always listen to the data? Or, do you listen to the data when it fits your noggins interpretation of things. Cause that’s the easy and what most people do.

Data is phenomenal, it tells you exactly what you need to know. The problem is it doesn’t tell you exactly what you want to hear and that is the problem for most people. They don’t like hearing something different from what they already know or want to be true.

How do you read the data?

November 23, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance,Random,What I Think! | View Comments |

How Long Before Someone Dies on Twitter

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace, Blogging, and more have us all sharing more and more information. We’re sharing what we had for dinner, what we think about our job, who we’re dating and more.

Soon someone diagnosed with a terminal illness will share their experience dying on Twitter, using it to share the emotional journey? I can see the #hashtag being something like #withdignity, or #noregrets. I imagine the person Tweeting their treatment experiences, their thoughts and emotions around family and friends and to some extent their inner thoughts about what it’s like to know you are going to die.

Dr. Randy Pausch author of the Last Lecture shared his experience of being faced with a terminal illness. His Last Lecture gained instant internet popularity and his appearance on Oprah launched him into a world wide celebrity. His experience reminded us all how valuable life is and helped us all focus on what we have, not what we don’t. It’s not inconceivable to think people would be drawn to a Twitter version of this.

A recent study said Twitter and other social media users could “become ‘indifferent to human suffering’ because they never get time to reflect and fully experience emotions about other people’s feelings.” I’m not so sure. Under the right circumstances,I think it just may have the opposite effect.

Dying has traditionally been a private thing. The death journey is usually experienced for the first time in adulthood when a parent begins to suffer from old age. Death as a journey has traditionally been something we have avoided and therefore something we rarely have the opportunity to learn from.

Death is inevitable. Experiencing death in a positive way could re-shape our perspectives on life. It could have tremendous impact on the decisions we make and how we treat each other.

Millions of people’s lives were affected by Dr. Paush tragedy. Someone is going to die on Twitter someday and it may actually be a special thing.

Someone will also get Married, Divorced, Have a Baby, and more all on Twitter and we will all be the better for it.

UPDATE: via Twitter “@geechee_girl several people have already died on twitter, visibly and painfully, after suffering cancer, etc” She also let me know that @pistachio built her following by sharing every bit of her divorce. It’s going to be interesting to see more of this with even greater traction.

November 22, 2009 | Filed under: Web 2.0/Social Networking,What I Think! | View Comments |

What’s #TheBestSkiResort in North America and Why?

Ski Magazine’s October edition announced the top 50 Ski Resorts in North America. Deer Valley Utah was number one, Whistler Blackcomb was number two and Vail was number 3.

Almost 7000 Ski Magazine subscribers participated in the survey. Seven thousand people doesn’t seem like a lot to me. Skiing is over a 10 Billion dollar a year industry. There are millions of skier visits each year. Yet, only seven thousand people determine North Americas Top 50 resorts.

I’m surprised companies still do surveys. At least I’m surprised they still do them in the old traditional way. Is there a way to get to bigger audiences via Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Media outlets to gauge peoples opinions? I think there is.

I thought I’d try a hashtag #TheBestSkiResort to get the conversation going. It’s a simple question. What’s the best ski resort in North America and why?

Twitter your thoughts and follow along. I’ll report back what I find. Maybe we’ll find something to share with Ski Magazine.

November 21, 2009 | Filed under: Random,Uncategorized | View Comments |

Customer Service Is More Than People

I know every person and company believes in customer service. I don’t doubt it for a second. The problem is most of us try to fix it with people. We talk about customer engagement, belittling companies for having indignant and unruly employees. Most think of customer service in terms of people; how quickly a person picks up the phone, how quickly a person can solve a problem, how many people are manning the lanes at the grocery store. Customer service is all too often seen as how people interact or react to a situation.

The problem is most customer service wins or loses based on the processes or systems that support the people. If you want better customer service, look at how you run the business. What processes can be fixed to make the experience with your company better. Do you make it easy for your employees to provide customer service? What are your ordering processes like? How easy is it for a customer to make a return? What’s it take to address a problem with an invoice? What happens when an order is lost or doesn’t meet expectations?

It doesn’t matter how hard your people try, how fast they move, or how big their smile is. If your processes suck, if the systems are whacked, there will be no customer service.

People won’t make you a customer service company. They will only keep you from being a crappy service company and that’s not the goal.

Look beyond the people.

November 21, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance,Customer Service | View Comments |

Where Was Sales?

Where was sales at Defrag last week? There were some great presentations on Business Intelligence, social boundaries and monitoring, real time streams and search vs discovery. There were some great presenters. It was an all web cast of folks; Stowe Boyd, Fred Wilson, Chris Sacca, Howard Lindzon, and Brad Feld. But, sales was no where to be found.

The booths were plenty, with most if not all being Enterprise 2.0 companies. I like to think of Enterprise 2.0 companies, as companies that sell Web 2.0 or social media products and services to other companies. Unlike the Twitters of the world, Enterprise 2.0 companies have to sell. In the enterprise world, IT departments defend their turf with abandon. Procurement will squeeze every dime they can out of you. Legal will extend the sales cycle by months until you capitulate on the word commit over “best effort”. Being successful in the Enterprise 2.0 is very different than Web 2.0; yet there was no sales, marketing or business development tracts on the Defrag agenda.

I think this was a big mistake. Most of these companies have been started by techies; really smart engineers who have little experience or knowledge on how to navigate a corporate sale. They’ve created innovative products, that in many cases the companies they are selling to are completely unaware they exist never mind understand their value. This lack of understanding of Enterprise 2.0 by most companies makes demand creation a requirement for a Enterprise 2.0 to be successful.

Enterprise 2.0 demands a strong, effective sales team, and sales process. They need to learn to engage the complex buying cycles of large companies. They need to learn account management as well as the transactional sale. The need to be able to create demand, where demand doesn’t exist.

Defrag, Enterpirse 2.0 conference and other conferences would do well by offering marketing, sales and business development. They should bring in folks like Paul Dunay author Facebook Marketing for Dummies, or Jill Konrath author of Selling to Big Companies. They need to provide more insight and information on the challenges of sales and marketing to driving revenue. It’s too critical to this budding business not to.

Enterprise 2.0 companies can’t make it without sales. These tracts will be packed, because the companies that figure it out first will win.

And everyone wants to win!

November 19, 2009 | Filed under: Business Performance,Enterprise 2.0,The Chase,Web 2.0/Social Networking,What I Think! | View Comments |