Now that I’m in the airport, there is no free Internet in the lounge or the airport. There is Boingo and a T-Mobile hotspot, neither of which I have an account for. Therefore, my only access now is through my phone and my iPad using 3G. (I could pay for the hotspots, but I’m too lazy to go through the sign in process.)

I don’t know if my flight to Brazil is going to have Internet service, so I’m scrambling to get as much done as possible before we take off.

I am increasingly reliant on the cloud. For those of you non-techie community members, the cloud is a geeky term for applications that run on the Internet and not on your computer. Salesforce.com is an example of a “cloud” application.

I use Dropbox for my files. My CRM is in the cloud. I use Qucikbooks Online for my accounting. I don’t buy much music anymore, because I use Pandora. Almost everything I do now is in the cloud and therefore when I don’t have an Internet connection, it’s a bitch.

The cloud is amazing. It makes software that much more efficient to build and manage. It makes data and information accessible regardless of device. The cloud has changed the “access” game. The cloud is here to stay. I’m a huge fan . . . but, it can be a bitch!!!

The cloud relies on connectivity and when there isn’t a connection, it’s a bitch! The cloud ecosystem is developing faster than the connectivity ecosystem. I’m not talking about connectivity technology. I think the technology, the speeds, etc. is doing just fine. WiFi, 3G, 4G, LTE, etc are all adequate for now. It’s the ubiquity of coverage that isn’t keeping up. A ubiquitous cloud world requires ubiquitous connectivity. That means planes, hotels, airports, side roads, ski resorts and more. It’s becoming less and less “OK” to not be able to be connected. Not being connected in a cloud world increasingly means being disconnected from your life and your business. More and more of our personal and business data is in the cloud. More and more of our personal and business processes rely on the cloud. As this reliance increases, the consequences of NOT having a connection grows.

For most, the lack of a connection is a mild inconvenience. For me, it’s past that. The lack of a connection affects my productivity. Soon, the lack of connectivity could completely grind us to a halt, effecting our ability to do even the simplest of things.

I’m hoping ubiquity of coverage comes faster than it is now. Because without it, the cloud is a bitch!

Update: I just found this. They gave it to me when I checked into the Red Carpet club and I was too dense to take a look.

Double update: there is Internet on my flight. Maybe the connectivity gods have heard me.

Triple update: United “juked” me.  There was no Internet on my flight. That means I spent 10 plus hours unconnected. That was 10 hours of perfectly good work time tossed.

Damn!  I hate when that happens.

In no way do I get satisfaction in the pain or woes of others. So Kodak’s apparent demise does not make me happy. I feel for the company and it’s thousands of employees. Rochester New York is most likely going to change forever over the next 10 years and I feel the people and the city.

Disclaimer aside, Kodak’s woes mark something positive. They mark change. Film, the core of Kodak’s business for almost 131 years, has joined the horse and carriage, buggy whips, typewriters, records, record players, tapes, tape players, dvd’s and dvd players (shit any type of physical music and music player), and other forgotten human advancements in the land of outmoded technology. Kodak’s demise marks the end of another era. It marks the end of another physical technology and the triumph of digital. It also marks progress. Kodak’s demise is a stark reminder that change and progress are inevitable, that time marches on and waits for no one.

Will Kodak as a company carry on? Will they be able to reinvent themselves? It’s a tall order.  I don’t know if they can. Too many companies just can’t make the transition.  To this day, I can’t figure our why the typewriter company Smith and Corona didn’t become the worlds leading manufacturer of computer keyboards and mice and let a start-up like Logitec own the space.

What I do know is the message in Kodak’s woes is crystal clear, nothing stands still and progress is inevitable. To me that’s a good thing. Imagine if we all still needed buggy whips.

The Doer:

The Doer delivers. They meet or exceed expectations regularly. The Doers meet quota, achieve goals, execute and deliver consistently.  The Doers are the backbone to work. The Doers go the extra mile. They have a phenomenal command of the craft. The Doers apply industry known rules and information better than anyone. We rely on the Doers to get things done, run our businesses, sell our products and to move things forward.  The Doers are the engine to work. Doers are good, just not great.

The Innovator:

The Innovator advances the craft. The Innovator brings an intellectual understanding and critique to the craft. The Innovator creates new, alternative processes, methods and approaches. The Innovator dissects current processes and methods looking for ways to improve. The Innovator isn’t happy with the status quo. Innovators add efficiency, accelerate delivery, reduce risk, improve outcomes, minimize latency, and more.  Innovators effect the craft as a whole, not just its delivery.

Innovators don’t deliver. They don’t actually do the work. Innovators are solely focused on advancing or improving the craft, not actually doing it. Innovators are good, just not great.

The Useless:

The Useless are just that, useless.  They can’t deliver and they don’t advance the craft. The Useless are unable to make their goals, don’t improve processes or approaches.  The Useless bring little value. Need I say more?

The Great:

The Great are a rare breed. The Great innovate AND deliver. The Great is the heart surgeon who has a 100% success rate AND created a new procedure to do the surgery that was less invasive and shortened recovery time by weeks.  The Great not only deliver but look to deliver better by innovating.  The Great use innovation to be even better.

The Great are hard to come by. The Great are comfortable doing the work and disrupting the system at the same time. The Great have tremendous vision for what they do. They see what exists as a path to creating more. The Great are creators and executors and attack the craft in that manner. The Great have tremendous command of what exists. They leverage that knowledge and command to push the craft to new levels. The Great don’t accept what exists and are dedicated to expanding their craft to make it better.

Are you a Doer, an Innovator or Great?

What are the essentials to become a great sales manager?

The answers ranged from being a good communicator, to moving from getting results yourself to getting results through others, to accountability, to providing support and setting high expectations. The answers to the questions were good but to be expected.

Here are a few excerpts from the some of the answers:

A great sales manager understands that her salespeople are unique individuals. They have their own way of gaining clients. They should be nurtured as well as held accountable. A mistake sales managers make is trying to force a process on their sales people; a process they can’t do effectively. -Dianne

Great managers make sure they equip their people with the right strategies, processes, systems, tools, training, and resources to succeed. -Dave

When one of the sales people is having trouble, the sales manager steps in to assist and steer the person in the right direction and must take corrective action if necessary – so one of the traits needed is to have the ability needed to confront a subordinate who is not meeting the goals and objectives in a constructive way. — Bob

Equally important, the sales manager also needs to be able to analyze your position in a sales opportunity and guide you through the next step. — Todd

To be a great sales manager, he himself should be a great and super sales man. As many other replies, a great sales manager to be a good coach, motivator and super communicator. — Raj

These are all good descriptions of good sales managers. However, I don’t think they are what make great sales managers.  Great sales managers have a very unique skill that is almost impossible to find and more importantly impossible to teach. It’s the ability to get more out of people than people can get out of themselves.

We all have our own motivations.  Each of us strive to achieve. Some of us set the bar high, others low. Regardless of where we set the bar and how hard we work, individually we are unable to maximize our abilities alone.  To reach our peak, to be the best we can be, requires help — a coach.  Great sales managers recognize this and don’t just look to support or communicate or hold their people accountable, they look to grow and expand them. Great sales managers have the ability to see deeper into people, than people can see in into themselves.  Great sales managers use the power of objective insight to empower, direct, motivate and get more out of people than they get out of themselves.

All people have a blind spot. Each one of us. This blind spot is called Johari‘s window. Our blind spot is that part of us that we don’t see, that everyone else does. We are blind to certain things we don’t like or are inconsistent with our own definition of self. Although we can’t see it, everyone else can.  These blind spots cost us, as we are unaware of our actions. The blind spots are also the personal positive assets that we could be benefitting from yet, we are unaware. Identifying and embracing our blindspots is critical to growth and success. Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to shed light on blindspots without the help of others.  This is where GREAT sales managers come in.

Great sales managers go beyond communication, support, accountability, direction, process, etc. Great sales managers work with our blind spots. Great sales leaders have amazing vision and insight into their people and know how to leverage that insight to get more from them than people can get from themselves.  Great sales managers know how to push people past their own preconceived limits without breaking them. They know how to get people to take risks they wouldn’t normally take. They are able to get people to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Great sales managers take people to higher-levels of achievement.

Great sales managers are the opposite of poor sales managers.  Poor sales managers drive under-performance. When poor sales management is in place, teams underperform. Not only are their people not stretched, they’re not achieving what they are easily capable of. Poor sales management creates an environment where people dont’ meet their baseline capabilities, they under achieve.

Good sales managers are able to get people to do what they know they are capable of and do it consistently.  Good sales managers are the top of the bell curve. There are lots of them. Good sales manager are plentiful and can run a good sales organziation. They will keep the satus quo. They will get people to meet their baseline capabilities. Good sales managers won’t hurt their people, but they won’t take them to the next level.

Great sales managers get people and teams to outperform themselves.  Great sales managers take people and teams to the next level. Great sales managers can see in people what they can’t see in themselves and then know how to tease it out of them in a productive, non-threatening way. Great sales managers create more value than would be present if they weren’t there.

Finding great sales managers is almost impossible.  Few sales managers have the insight and skill to accomplish this. It can’t be taught.  It’s innate. That’s why there are so many good managers, yet so few great.  Great managers are like Jedi Knights, it’s just in them.  If you find one, snap him or her up. They are as invaluable as they are rare. If you are ever lucky enough to work for a great sales manager, thank them!  Because, you wouldn’t be where you are today without them.

Are you a great sales manager?

Have you ever worked for a great sales manager?

What’s it like to work for a great sales manager, a good sales manager and a poor sales manager?

BTW: This goes for all GREAT Leaders!

Hard means it’s new, different, unfamiliar, outside of our comfort zone.  When things get hard it means we are growing. When things become hard, that’s when the learning begins. If it’s not hard, there is no learning.

Most people run, quit, or quietly walk away when it get’s hard. Their head is telling them it’s not fun anymore.

We need to train our heads to like hard. Hard is where the action is. Hard is the beginning of progress. When things get hard we get better, we grow, we learn, we move forward. Hard is the gate-way to success.

Start liking hard.  It’s when things actually start happening.

Artisans didn’t embrace mass production. They didn’t do things just like everyone else.  Artisans were craftsman.  They differentiated themselves by being better than other artisans. To differentiate, Artisans created their own style.  They pioneered new and different approaches. They personalized their craft. Artisan’s used their unique style and approach to elevate them from their competition and establish their brand. Their work defined them and to this day artisans can be identified simply by looking at their work.

Today we have workers. Workers don’t have a craft.  They have a job. Workers don’t have a journey to become a master. Workers don’t master anything. Workers just do. Workers meet the “minimal expected deliverable” or MED.   Workers focus on the work. They focus on the job, not the result. Workers measure themselves in how long they’ve worked or in how hard they worked, not in what they delivered.  Workers differentiate themselves by working harder, not better.  Workers show up, punch a clock, put in the time and deliver exactly what is asked of them.

The world is filled with workers.  It’s easy being a worker. Counting hours doesn’t require creativity. It doesn’t require extensive knowledge. Counting hours just requires you show up.

The world needs artisans. It’s not easy being an artisan. Artisans expand their craft. Artisans have extensive knowledge of their craft, the industry and the people and companies they affect. Artisans don’t count hours. They measure impact. They focus on detail. Artisans don’t just show up, they create.

Are you an artisan or a worker?  It’s easy to know, just not so easy to admit.  Be and artisan, it’s the better choice.

Laura recently finished this painting and I love it.

I worked with Laura at Avaya.  Believe it or not she spends her days with her head buried in spreadsheets. I don’t know how someone so creative can be so successful using the other side of her brain.

Laura sent Big E and I gorgeous painting for the birth of our 3rd daughter, Ava.  It’s a creative play on a pea pod and pregnancy.  I love it.

Laura’s art is clean, creative, sharp, and detailed. Her work has layers. Each layer brings you deeper into the painting. It’s great stuff to look at.

Go check her out. I think you’ll like.

Knowing what to do and knowing how to do something are two entirely different things.  Knowing what to do requires only a high-level understanding of the environment, the tasks and the information. It doesn’t take much to know what it takes to manage a sales team, be CEO, run a professional sports franchise, implement a new commission plan, or develop a new sales process.  Knowing what to do is the easy part.  It get’s hard in knowing HOW to do these things.

Recognizing that knowing how to do something takes a lot more information, time, patience, knowledge, experience, and resources is where the win is. Everyone has an idea. Everyone knows what to do. But not everyone knows how.

Successful sales people; sales managers, leaders, and start-up founders know that learning how to do something is far more important than learning what to do. My friend Seth Levine from the Foundry Group asked me a question I will never forget.  I needed a new developer and I knew it.  I knew what the problem was.  I knew what I needed to do. But, I didn’t know how to address it.  Seth asked me; “How are you going to solve for that?”  Brilliant!  What Seth was asking was, how am I going to do it?  How am I going to get a new developer?

It took me longer than I want to admit to figure it out.  I finally did and it made all the difference.

Success comes from knowing how to get things done, not from knowing what needs to be done.

How much of your day is spent learning how to do something?  Do you work on the things you know what to do or on those things you know HOW to do? — Execution matters.

Rather than wait till I’m finished reading to review it as traditionally do, I’m going to post excerpts here as I come across them. Why wait?

The Challenger Sale is the result of extensive research by the Sales Executive Council.  They set out to measure the behaviors of top performers.  What they found was sales people fall into 5 categories or profiles:

• Relationship Builders focus on developing strong personal and professional relationships and advocates across the customer organization. They are generous with their time, strive to meet customers’ every need, and work hard to resolve tensions in the commercial relationship.
• Hard Workers show up early, stay late, and always go the extra mile. They’ll make more calls in an hour and conduct more visits in a week than just about anyone else on the team.
• Lone Wolves are the deeply self-confident, the rule-breaking cowboys of the sales force who do things their way or not at all.
• Reactive Problem Solvers are, from the customers’ standpoint, highly reliable and detail-oriented. They focus on post-sales follow-up, ensuring that service issues related to implementation and execution are addressed quickly and thoroughly.
• Challengers use their deep understanding of their customers’ business to push their thinking and take control of the sales conversation. They’re not afraid to share even potentially controversial views and are assertive — with both their customers and bosses.

What the research also found was, although top performers could be found in all the categories, the Challenger profile produced overwhelming more top producers than any of the other profiles.

These findings don’t surprise me at all.  For years we have been told our job is to help our customers solve problems or create opportunities for them. Our ability to solve problems or find opportunities is severely hampered if we are unable to challenge our customers and prospects.  Challenging allows us to uncover unidentified opportunities, or hidden problems.  Challenging gets us beyond the surface issues. It gets us to the meat of the problem.

I talked about this the other day. The best sales people are critical of their customers. Being critical, requires challenging.

I’m excited to get through the book.  As I come across excerpts I love, I’m going to post them here. It will be fun to read what you think.

I’ve worn pink ski goggles for over 7 years now.  Why?  I thought the pink was really frickin’ cool.

How many men do you know wear pink ski goggles? Based on my statistically inaccurate poll, taken from the ski lifts every year the answer is;

-Men over 30: zero

-Men (Boys) under 30 a few hundred and the number seems to be increasing year over year.

Every year at least one of my ski school clients asks if they are my wife’s goggles and if I forgot mine at home. –Nope!

I wear them and continue to wear them because I like them.  I think they are fun, cool and different. I don’t feel compelled to wear what everyone expects.

I try to wear pink goggles in other areas of my life as well. I try to wear them when I consult, and when I’m marketing my company. I wore then when I worked for my past employers. Wearing pink goggles is hard, but I try to wear them as often as I can.

When we wear pink goggles we don’t allow ourselves to be influenced by the status-quo.  By wearing pink goggles we are walking our own path, open to the unseen, the possible, the unique, the new, the different and the unproven.  It takes courage to wear pink goggles.  It makes OTHERS uncomfortable. It challenges what they believe to be the expected and the norm.  Pink goggles puts people on their heels. (I still get heat from a lot of my friends, my most conservative friends, surprised?) However, wearing pink goggles also inspires people, it makes them smile, it frees them. When we wear pink goggles we can’t help but affect people and that changes everything.

When I’m not wearing pink goggles, I never seem to be as successful. I don’t achieve as much. When I’m not wearing pink goggles success seems to require more work and more effort. The greatest successes I’ve had have come when I have my pink goggles on.

Do you wear pink goggles?  How often? Do you notice the difference.  I sure do.

Wear pink goggles tomorrow and see if you feel a difference.  I bet you do.