Jill Konrath author of the best selling book; Selling to Big Companies has another book coming out called SNAP Selling.

I am honored that Jill has given me the opportunity to read it before it launchs at the end of the month.

Jill is a great story in herself. She started her career at Xerox and rose to great heights before starting her own business. Crushing it, failing and starting all over, crushing it again, Jill brings unique, timely ideas to the proverbiale selling table.

Rather than wait until I finish the book to share my thoughts with this community, I’m going to share them as I go along. There is some good stuff in this book. I didn’t want to wait.

Jill’s premise is simple. The sales world is changing and if you don’t recognize these changes. You’re in trouble.

The most material change observed by Jill is our customers are completely over worked. They are buried.

This is illustrated brilliantly in her first chapter; A Candid Letter from Your Customer.

“Dear Seller

I only have a few minutes, but I understand you’re interested in selling me something. As far as I’m concerned, that’s being pretty self-serving.

The truth is, you have no idea what my life is like. You may think you do, but you don’t–and you need to if you’re going to get my business.

I got to the office early this morning so I could have some uninterrupted time to work on a project–something I cant seem to squeeze into the normal business day.

By 9 a.m. all my good intentions were dashed when my boss asked me to drop everything in order to put together a headcount reduction plan. Revenue slumped last quarter and we need to cut costs.

Then, Engineering informed me that our new product won’t be available for the upcoming tradeshow. Sales will go balistic when they hear this. That’s the last thing I need to have happen.

Get the picture? Welcome to my world of everyday chaos where, hard as I try to make progress, I keep slipping further behind. Right now, I have at least 59 hours of work piled on my desk. I have no ideas when I’ll get it all done.

Did I mention email? I get over 150 each day. Then, add to that at least 30 phone calls from sellers just like you who’d “loved to meet with me.”

In short, I have way too much to do, ever-increasing expectations, impossible deadlines, and constant interruptions from people wanting my attention.

Time is my most prescious commodity and I protect it all costs. I live with the staus quo as long as I can–even if I’m not happy with it. Why? Because change creates more work and eats up my time.

Which gets us back to you. In your well-intentioned but misguided attempts to turn me into a customer, you fail woefully to capture and keep my attention. Let me be blunt. I don’t care about your product, service or solution.

I quickly scan your emails or letters looking for self-promotional talk that glorifies your offering or your company. The minute it jumps out at me, your gone. Zapped from my inbox or tossed in the the trashcan. Say it in your voicemail message and I delete you immediately. Delete, delete, delete.

When you spend and entire meeting blathering about your unique methododogies, great technology and or extraordinary service, my mind wanders to important tasks that need to get done. Sure, I occasionally check for messages. But you would too if you were in my position.

I’m not always like this. Occasiionally a savvy seller captures my attention, entices me to meet, shows me why I should change and then makes it easy for me to work with them.

What are they doing? They’re completely focused on my business and the impact they can have on it. That’s what I care about–not their pitch.

If you focus on helping me achieve my objectives, I’ll listen to you all day long. But you can’t rope me in with the good stuff, then slip back into that trash talk. If so, you’re gonzo.

Make sense? I hope so, because I’m late for a meeting and while I’ve been writing this, the phones been ringing off the hook.

Best regards,

Your Customer”

This letter got my attention. Did it get yours? It should.

Great way to jolt us to pay attention Jill. We’re listening!

Excerpted from SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business With Today’s Frazzled Customers by Jill Konrath, Portfolio 2010

We all have blind spots, without recognition they cause us problems. As sales people, entrepreneurs, leaders, innovators, and more it is critical to be aware. Without awareness we are setting ourselves up.

Carol Tarvis Quote:

–Our innate biases are, as two legal scholars put it. “like optical illusions” in two important respects — they lead us to wrong conclusions from data, and their apparent rightness persists even when we have been shown the trick.” We cannot avoid our psychological blind spots, but if we are unaware of them we may become unwittingly reckless, crossing ethical lines and making foolish decisions.–

I just down loaded Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) to my Kindle. It’s about cognitive dissonance theory and how we (people) will defend our position even in the face of compelling contrary evidence in order to protect our perceptions of self.

I am enjoying it so far. I see many areas where cognitive dissonance afflicts sales, sales leaders and entrepreneurs. This passage sums it up well:

The brain is design with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting delusion that we, personally, do not have any. In a sense, dissonance theory is a theory of blind spots — of how and why people unintentionally blind themselves so that they fail to notice vital events and information that might make them question their behavior or their convictions. Along with the confirmation bias, the brain comes packaged with other self-serving habits that allow us to justify our own perceptions and beliefs as being accurate, realistic, and unbiased. Social psychologist Lee Ross calls this phenomenon “naive realism,” the inescapable conviction that we perceive objects and events clearly, “as they really are.” We assume that other reasonable people see things the same way we do. If they disagree with us, they obviously aren’t seeing clearly. Naive realism creates a logical labyrinth because it presupposes two things: One, people who are open-minded and fair ought to agree with a reasonable opinion. And two, any opinion I hold must be reasonable; if it weren’t, I wouldn’t hold it. Therefore, if I can just get my opponents to sit down here and listen to me, so I can tell them how things really are, they will agree with me. And if they don’t it must be because they are biased.

How many times do you see entreprenuers or sales people convince themselves of things. Clinging to the idea they are right, flying in the face of contrary data? This book is going to be fun. I will share passages and quotes along the way. I look forward to your thoughts and some good dialog.

I absolutely love this.

Seth Godin quote from Tribes:

“A thermostat is far more valuable than a thermometer.

The thermometer reveals that something is broken. The thermometer is an indicator, our canary in the coal mine. Thermometers tell us when we’re spending too much or gaining market share or not answering the phone quickly enough. Organizations are filled with human thermometers. They can criticize or point out or just whine.

The thermostat, on the other hand, manages to change the environment in sync with the outside world. Every organization needs at least one thermostat. These are the leaders who can create change in response to the outside world, and do it consistently over time.”

I see thermometers everywhere. It’s easy to be a thermometer. There is little risk. Thermostats are different. They are measured on their output. How they can change the environment around them. Like themometers, they can tell you what’s wrong, but unlike thermometers, they then actually do something about it.

Are you a thermometer or a thermostat. The world needs more thermostats.

I’m reading Tribes on my fairly new Kindle. I love to say that.

Tribes is Seth Godin’s newest book on leading communities. Tribes are communities of people with shared interests. One my favorite parts so far is the idea of improving tribes.

Improving Tribes:

“. . . it takes only two things to turn a group of people into a tribe:

A narrative that tells a story about who we are and the future we’re trying to build

A connection between and among the leader and the tribe

Something to do – the fewer limits, the better

Too often organizations fail to do anything but the third.”

Seth is spot on here. Most organizations spend their time on the third, but with out as few limits as possible. Most formal tribes, or organizations like the companies we work for give the tribe plenty of things to do, and they come with plenty of limits. Traditional tribes are fraught with rules and limitations. The play not to lose, not to win.

Growth and shareholder value are the key drivers to business. Seth’s first two suggestions will bring more shareholder value and growth than over emphasizing the third. Employees or Tribes thrive in striving toward a vision. Their motivation comes from accomplishment and progress. Organizations need to do more of this. Also, tribe or organizational leaders need to engage with the tribe. They need to be connected with their organization. The traditional hierarchy not only divides organizations, it can cause tribes to splinter and competing agendas are created. Competing agendas will destroy a an organization in record time.

Achievement comes with leadership, not dictation. I think Seth got this part right. Only if more organizations/tribes could recognize this. They might achieve more of their goals.

Does your organization practice all three?

Do you remember Malcolm Gladwells book, The Tipping Point? It was written almost 10 years ago. Amazingly prophetic. Written before Social Networks and the term “Viral” was ubiquitous, Gladwell gave us the roadmap on how ideas, trends and messages spread like “viruses” do.

Social Media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 have taken this idea to a new level. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Blogs, and the rest are high-powered engines accelerating Tipping Points.

In Gladwells world, I’ve come to realize I’m a ConnectSalesman. Gladwell says there are 3 types of people critical to a Tipping Point;

1) Connectors – People who move well between different types of people, groups or social casts. Connectors link the world. They have an uncanny knack of connecting different people from different social environments. Connectors will mix with CEO’s, SkateRats and Professors, they have no cultural or ideological boundaries.

2) Mavens-People who are “informational specialists”. Mavens collect information and live for sharing it. Mavens are “information brokers sharing and bartering what they know”

3) Salesmen – Salesman are the “persuaders”, charismatic negotiators who can persuade others.

In the Web2.0/Enterprise 2.0 world I’m a ConnectSalesman. I connect and I persuade. It’s a fun place to be.

As a ConnetSalesman I rely on all of you for my information. I trust and rely on you Mavens. Without Maven’s information Connectors and Salesmen are useless.

Social media is driving a fundamental change in our culture and I am having fun being a part of the process. What are you; a Maven, A Connector, a Salesmen or better yet: a MaveConnector?

With all that enters our lives, it’s easy to get sidetracked. Disruptions are thrown at us everyday. I thought Monday Morning Leadership’s concept of a the “Learning Zone”, was a good one to keep us on track.

“For you to be the very best, you cannot allow yourself to become complacent in your comfort zone. You need to be reaching for improvement. To fulfill your potential, you need to move out of your comfort zone and into the “learning zone.”"

The Learning Zone:

-Get out of your comfort zone
-Read 10 minutes a day (Relevant, Learning, Non-Fiction reading)
-Listen to people
-Give back
-Set goals
-Stay positive

When things are going well, I bet you could check off all of these. When things are going poorly, that may be a different story.

During difficult times, it is nice to have something to put things in perspective.

Monday Morning Leadership Quote:

“One of the nuggets of wisdom from an old friend that I will always remember is how to face problems and be positive., no mater the situation.

She loved to tell the story of how everyone could go to a field — about the size of a football field — and line up around the perimeter. While standing on the edge of the field, each person is given the opportunity to throw their problems into the middle of the field. One all the problems have been thrown in, you have your choice of which ones to pick up and take home. Most people will probably pick up their own problem and go back home, realizing that they really didn’t have it that bad after all.”