How Important Are Partnerships To Your Sales Strategies?

I have written a lot about Strategic Partnerships and Alliances as part of your sales strategies. Over the past tow weeks we have been conducting a survey on the importance of partnering to sales strategies. We gotten good participation and, on a preliminary basis, some very intriguing results. Some of the results are actually a bit of a surprise to me---I think people will be quite intrigued with what the final outcome.

We will be closing the survey on June 12 and publishing the results soon afterwards. We wanted to give people a final chance to participate in this important research. To take the survey, please click on this link: Survey On Customer Partnering And Supply Chain Relationships.

The survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete. Everyone completing the survey and requesting a copy of the results will get a copy of the report at no charge. As an additional incentive, we will be conducting a drawing for a winner to choose one of the following, a 32GB iPod Touch or Kindle 2. One of those will be awarded to the winner.

Again, please take the time to complete this survey. All results are completely anonymous. Follow the link: Survey On Customer Partnering And Supply Chain Relationships.

Thanks for your help with this survey. It is open for anyone to take, please forward this mail to colleagues, customers, and suppliers who may be interested in this issue. We will close it on June 12 and all participants will receive a free copy of the final report afterwards.

Tips For Selling To Manufacturers

Thanks to the folks at TheCustomerCollective and Oracle for sponsoring a terrific eBook, Selling Through A Slump. It's a great resource for every sales professional. You really should download the eBook and use it as your playbook to help you in growing your sales within different market segments.

I was asked to write the section: Selling To Manufacturers. To tantalize you to read more in the eBook, I've published the tips I recommended below:

Selling to Manufacturers

Yes, we know the story, the manufacturing sector is had hit. Plants are closing, companies are looking to get rid of excess capacity, and no one seems to be buying. Yet manufacturers are our customers, how do we sell to them, how do we find ways of creating revenue in this sector.Let’s look at Dave’s Top 10 Tips For Selling Within The Manufacturing Sector. Actually, there are a couple of ways we can look at it---you may sell products, services, or solutions to help manufacturers design, develop, manufacture and support the products they develop. You may sell components, parts, or subassemblies that are embedded into the products the manufacturer builds. I’ll try to look at both aspects of this challenge:

1. If you normally turn right when walking in your customer’s front door, on your next visit turn left. Too often we call on the same old people all the time. Explore your customer, call on new people, new functions, new divisions. If you sold to the manufacturing/production lines, go to development/engineering, meet them and see if you can help them solve problems. If you normally dealt with a certain engineering group, call on the engineers one cubicle over, you may find new opportunities.

2. Look upstream and downstream in the process flow. If you supply products or services to support the manufacturing (or engineering design/development) processes, look at how you fit into the process. Can you extend your reach upstream or downstream to make the process more efficient and better integrated. If you supply component parts, look at the parts you connect to (Think the hip bone connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone connected to ……) Can you supply those components or even a subassembly? Can you increase your part count in each product?

3. Look at key/hot issues the industry faces and present how your products/services help the customer address those issues. For example, if you can help make peanut products safe, you are gold! Are there safety issues, environmental, regulatory, compliance issues your customer must address that you can solve? Can you help them with sustainability/energy issues?

4. Leverage plant consolidation and downsizing to your advantage---and to help the customer. In shutting down plants, they have to consolidate operations into fewer facilities. This creates a whole raft of nightmarish problems for the manufacturer. How do they handle the logistics? How do they make their lines more flexible? How do they transition products? How do they do better planning/forecasting for the combined workloads? How do they better manage productivity, quality and efficiency in a smaller number of plants that are doing more. This is a terrific opportunity if you can solve those problems.

5. Make sure they are using your products and services as efficiently and effectively as possible. Are they getting the most bang for the buck/euro/yuan? Audit the use of your products/services to see they are operating and top efficiency. Look at the parts you supply, can you suggest other parts that would be more effective/efficient? This is also a terrific opportunity to look at additional services you might provide (and charge for). It’s also a terrific opportunity to educate your customers about how get the most out of your products/services making them more knowledgeable, productive, and comfortable with your offerings. In the very least, when they start buying again, they will tend to buy what they know and trust.

6. Focus on supply chain efficiency, can you wring out costs in the supply chain/procurement processes? If you supply parts, can you take over more of the logistics management headaches? They probably have gotten very lean and supply chain management may be a big problem. If you supply equipment/systems/services sometimes common tools used by suppliers help dramatically reduce costs and improve efficiency through the whole value delivery chain.

7. Ask your best customers to introduce you to their most important suppliers. If you have created great value and efficiency for your customer, it only serves them to have suppliers that that are achieving the same value and efficiency in their operations---it can reduce your customer’s costs.

8. Look at what is happening to your customers’ customers. Can you identify things that are happening there that present opportunities for your customer to grow their business---which may drive demand for your offerings? Helping your customer grow their business is the surest way to grow yours.

9. Become best friends with the finance/controller functions in your customer. Make certain you understand how they evaluate investments. Make certain you understand ROI/Payback hurdles they apply in their analysis. Look at where they are trying to take cost out of operations or how they are trying to improve the financial position of the company. Make certain you are conversant in their language and lingo.

10. Focus on rich collaboration with your customer. Become an integrated part of their team. If you sell parts, become part of their engineering and design teams to help design better products, reducing their design time and costs. If you sell equipment/systems services, look at how you establish a deeper relationship with the customer.

I’m giving you 11 instead of 10 for two reasons: First, I always try to give my customers more than they ask for. Second, prime numbers have a certain elegance—so I had to end this list on a prime number.

11. Ask your customer how you can help and listen to what they say. Sometimes, that’s all the help they need, but no one ever paid attention.

I believe opportunities abound in the manufacturing segment. Those that take advantage and dig deep will find those opportunities and succeed!

There is a lot more good stuff in this eBook, download it now: Selling Through The Slump

Sales Managers Must Set The Example To Drive Change

We read everyday about organizations not achieving what they want in leveraging sales training, implementing CRM, implementing Sales 2.0 tools, new processes--whatever. While it may sound surprising, one of the key reasons organizations don't get what they want from these programs is that managers, at all levels don't set a visible example in utilizing the tools, training, or processes themselves. Somehow, they become things that the sales people must do, but managers don't.

If managers are not committed to set a visible example in any initiative, the organization is probably better off not doing it--saving the money and time.

Many years ago, I was brought into run a troubled sales organization. We had to go through a major reduction and completely re-examine everything that we were doing. We instituted new sales processes, brought in new training programs, and implemented a CRM system (almost before CRM was CRM). As we made these changes, I started getting push back from the managers and sales people---it was natural, change is tough for all people and there is a natural tendency to resist new initiatives and change--even when what you have been doing doesn't work.

Managers came to me and said "We don't have time to do these things, we just need to get out an sell." Sales people said, "You don't understand, I've been selling for years, planning is bureaucratic and wastes my time." There were lots of excuses, some legitimate, most not.

I decided to simplify things. I told everyone, they were accountable for making their numbers and achieving their goals. I told them they could do whatever they wanted, that they were responsible for their own success.

There was one big caveat: While people could do whatever they wanted, when they engaged with me, they were required to do things a certain way.

I told people I was available 7/24 to make sales calls with them--my highest priority was to be with customers helping them close business. However, in order to get the most out of the customer's time and my time, I said I had the following requirements: I wanted a written sales call plan--using the tools we had introduced in the sales training. I wanted a decision process map, and I wanted an opportunity plan. I told people that if I didn't have those before I jumped on the airplane, I would personally call the customer and reset the meeting, apologizing because we were not prepared to use the time well.

I got some grumbling. It only took two cancelled customer meetings to get people to realize I was serious. They started completing the plans---though only for me. For every plan I got, I would take the time to call the sales person review the plan, we would revise it and come up with a stronger plan---all using the tools and processes we had invested in. It didn't take too long before people started seeing that using these produced results. Soon they weren't using them just for me, but they were using them to improve their own productivity and effectiveness.

We did the same thing with funnel, account, territory and opportunity reviews. I told the management team they could use whatever process they wanted, but in doing the review with me, they had to use the tools and processes we had invested in. In the first few review meetings, people would try to avoid this, I stopped the meetings, sending them out of my office to do the work the way we had agreed. Over time, people started seeing the value of this. Our meetings were shorter, much more productive. We had common languages, processes and disciplines. We were becoming more focused, more efficient and more successful in building the business.

None of this would have happened if I hadn't set the example of using the tools and processes myself. If I hadn't cancelled meetings, thrown people out of my office, we never would have made the changes necessary to achieve our goals. There were some painful times, there was some grumbling. I had to invest a lot of time in coaching people in how to use the tools and explaining why they would produce result----but in fact that was my job!

My responsibility was to set an example for my team. To demonstrate my confidence in the tools, training, and processes by using them every day. To develop my people and their people, showing them and working with them in how they could improve their performance with the tools.

Over the next 12 months, we were remarkably successful, we took a terrible situation and turned it into a great success. We were benchmarked as "best practice." The team was positive, they used the tools, not because I required it, but because they produced value to them and improved their results.

Change is difficult. It's the manager's responsibility to lead people in change and to set a personal example. When are driving change in the organization, it's not them that we are changing, it's us.

In Times Like This, Our Blemishes Are More Apparent

Yesterday afternoon I ran out for a haircut. I always hate this event, the problem is my ears "kind of" stick out. My dad used to say I looked like a car going down the street with its doors wide open. When my hair gets longer, this "problem" is not as apparent, I even fool myself into thinking there is no problem. The longer hair hides this blemish. I always hate getting a haircut because I'm forced to look in the mirror and see those ears sticking out.

This is what's happening with many organizations struggling in this economy. Down economies, tough times, make it impossible to hide our blemishes. They stand out, not only for us to see, but for everyone else to see----and exploit.

One of the important things for organizations to understand, the blemishes have always been there, they've just been disguised or a little less noticeable in robust times. The inefficiencies, bad strategies, dysfunctional behaviors have probably been there but now we cannot hide them or ignore them.

High performing organizations are always inspecting themselves for blemishes. They are constantly seeking to improve. The mirror that high performance organizations use is their customers,employees, markets, and other stakeholders (in that order).

These are exciting times, not because of the economy, but because it has made our organizational, strategy, and other blemishes visible to all and is forcing us to address them. The trick is that as we recover, we must continue to inspect ourselves, constantly refining what we do and eliminating our blemishes.

I can't do anything about my ears---short of plastic surgery (they do provide some lift when I run fast enough). But the things we have been hiding --- or not recognizing --- are staring us straight in the face. We can't ignore them, we have to do something about them.

Designing High Performance Organizations, Designing High Performance Selling Processes

I'm a tremendous fan of Whitney Hess. Whitney calls herself a User Experience Designer. When I look at her stuff, I see principles that apply to successful organizational design and to developing high performance selling processes. Some translation is needed---but really obvious. Whitney gives us important lessons not just for User Experience Design but for creating high performing, aligned organizations.

This is a great presentation on the 10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design. If you are a sales or marketing professional, just do a global replace for User Experience Design With Customer Experience.

Pay attention to Slide 22, in sales and marketing terms, what Whitney has defined is the one of the secrets to establishing a sustainable and differentiated value proposition.

10 Most Common Misconceptions About User Experience Design

View more presentations from Whitney Hess.

Social Selling: Live Q&A Webcast

Leveraging social selling and media is critical to all sales and marketing professionals. We're all struggling with learning the concepts and how we should be adopting our strategies to incorporate social selling and social media.

The folks at The Customer Collective are holding a terrific event. I encourage anyone who follows this blog to register and learn.

The announcement is below, as well as a link to register. Take the time to learn and upgrade your skills!


Social Selling: Live Q&A on Selling with Web 2.0

11 a.m. PST / 2 p.m. EST March 31, 2009

How do you take the proven fundamentals of good selling and apply them to social networking? What Web 2.0 tools should you as a sales professional be utilizing to find new prospects and keep the customers you have loyal?

Sales executives are quickly discovering there is real business value in online connections. The Customer Collective, the online community for sales and marketing professionals, presents this free webcast to provide sales and marketing professionals with the knowledge they need to use social media to find and sell to new customers, as well as keep the ones they currently have close to home. Our expert panel will help you identify the new techniques and tools available to help you develop a Web 2.0 enabled sales strategy for 2009 and beyond.

Tune in to a live interactive discussion with a panel of sales experts, and get your questions answered. Don't miss your chance to hear from:

Mark Woollen,Oracle
Christopher Carfi,Cerado Inc.
Anneke Seley,Phone Works

If you're looking for ways to measurably increase your sales team's effectiveness, don't wait. Register now and:

Learn how social networks and Web 2.0 help sales professionals be more effective.
Become the trusted advisor your clients are looking for who ultimately wins the deal.
Discuss effective low cost/no cost methods you can put in place now.

See the results of our TCC survey, and learn how Web 2.0 enables salespeople to easily communicate with prospects, collaborate with other sales professionals, and garner relevant content.

The first 50 people to register for this webcast will receive a free copy of Anneke Seley's "Sales 2.0" as a gift from us.

Register now while supplies last!Brought to you by The Customer Collective and Oracle CRM.Welcome to the conversation.


Social Selling: Live Q&A on Selling with Web 2.0

The Big Idea: Solve Your Customers' Big Problems

Customers are looking for something different these days. Our traditional approaches to selling are no longer appropriate. As a friend and colleague, Niall Devitt, states, “Buyers are looking for something new!” Other people are saying the new paradigm is “Provocative Selling.”

I’m not certain I buy into more consultant speak about a more advanced form of selling, but I think the underlying idea is interesting. I think the great challenge to sales professionals in helping their customers is to help them solve bigger problems---or even their BIG problems. This requires shaking up how we think and sell, as well as maybe shaking our customers up a little. Let’s look at a couple of ideas:

1. I think we and our customers tend to fall into a comfortable complacency with each other. We know our products/solutions well, as do many of our customers. We may fall into the trap of thinking “we solve these problems,” or our customers pigeon-hole us into a certain space of solutions and we don’t look further --- I’ll talk more about this later.

2. I think our customers may not be seeing the BIG problems, either because it is out of their experience base, or because they are so busy fighting the alligators they forget to drain the swamp. This is where true sales professionals can really make a difference for their customers.

Moving ourselves and our buyers out of our comfort/complacent zone, going after bigger problems/opportunities:

Recently, I worked with a very large successful client. They had achieved large share in the industry and were looking at how to grow—both with new customers and within their major accounts. They had great and deep relationships with the buyers of their products and services, but were struggling with how to sell more.

We created an initiative, the Big Idea! The objective of this was to discover new needs, problems and requirements that my customer could solve. Initially, we thought much of this would drive new product development, but we learned something new. We found problems we could solve, that the customer didn’t know we could solve! With no or little change to the solutions, we found new sets of problems we could solve for our customers.

How did we do this? It seems so obvious, but even the best professionals tend to forget. This client’s buyers were on the operations side of the organization. We started talking to their customers---VP’s of Sales, Strategy, Product Management, Business Development. We asked them, “What problems do your customers have that you cannot currently solve?” We got way too many ideas, but it now gave our client the chance to start solving more and bigger problems for their customer—the operations guys. Problems---opportunities they were not aware of. (I would note, you have to be cautious in how you do this---remember they are already busy fighting alligators—I’ll save this for another post).

This simple initiative had a number of derivative impacts for this client:

1. The sales people did the work themselves! We just guided them, but they engaged new people in new conversations about new issues. They developed far deeper and richer relationships with their large customers, and met new people in prospective customers.

2. They discovered problems they didn’t know their customer had---and to some degree didn’t know they could solve. This created opportunities to expand the relationship and value they brought to the customer.

3. The customers started to think about them in entirely new ways. First, my client was able to reposition themselves from the way the customer had traditionally viewed them (and their competition) into a new role—with far broader solutions. Second they engaged their customers in non-traditional conversations—conversations that pushed both the customer and my client out of their comfort zones but looking at new things---things that were important to the customer!

4. They discovered new ideas about products and services they could get into their product plans. Product management saw new opportunities and started engaging with the sales people and customers in looking at these longer term opportunities.

5. The client found new opportunities to sell stuff! They created new revenue opportunities they and their customers had been blind to in the past.

What about the BIG problem?

Sometimes we try to focus on the BIG problem, the grand slam home run. Geoffrey Moore (et. al.) seem to allude to this in their HBR article, Provoke Your Customer. I like their idea about going beyond “what keeps your customer awake at night,” to “what should be keeping your customer awake at night.” But, I think they miss the real opportunity in their discussion. I’ll talk about this in a separate post.

The BIG problem is not the customer equivalent of “solving world hunger.” We all become prisoners of our own experience. It creates blinders for both our customers and ourselves. Solving the BIG problem is about removing those blinders, looking at things differently.

Becoming aware of the BIG problem is easy—I won’t be pretentious claim solving it is easy, the answer to that is, it depends. The BIG problem always starts with a customer—someone’s customer. The best sales people look not only at their customer’s problems, but they look for problems and opportunities in their customer’s customer. If we want to help our customers, we need to help them help their customers. Restricting our view to our customers—the buyers we deal with narrows our focus and abilities too much.

There’s another way to identify BIG problems, look in a different industry. Too often, we look at our competitors and try to one up them. Frankly, I’m too lazy to do that. It’s nice, every once in a while to look at a completely different industry to see the problems they have and how they have solved them.

Many years ago, the EVP of sales for one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods company taught me this. I screwed up the courage to ask him, “Jerry, why did you hire us, we had no experience in CPG?” His response taught me a lesson, I have never forgotten, “Dave, we hired the best CPG consultants in the world, they didn’t bring us new ideas. Your experience in the High Tech world gave us a fresh perspective and ideas we never would have seen. These ideas give us fresh ways of working with our customers and bringing them new solutions.

Jerry’s observation is something all of us can learn from. Other people may have solved our customers’ BIG problems, but our customers never see them, because like us, they are looking within their industry. By looking outside, we can stop being prisoners of our own experience and get fresh ideas for things that we can solve for our customers.

Moving Beyond Selling To Building Collaborative Relationships

I'm reading Price Waterhouse Coopers 12th Annual Global CEO Survey. It has a lot of good information and I encourage you to read it. One issue that leaped out was the importance in the CEO's minds about the importance of building more collaborative strategies.

Some interesting data points:

• 57% of the CEO's agree or agreed strongly that collaborative business networks would be a defining organizational principle for business.
• 71% believed collaborative relationships are critical with customers and clients.
• About 40% believed collaborative relationships with supply chain partners was critical. (This is a disconcerting issue I will talk about later.)
  

We've always felt that developing close, collaborative relationships is critical to sales. However, to be successful in doing this requires a profound shift in the way we interact with our customers. Traditional approaches to selling will no longer be sufficient. Collaboration means a higher degree of interdependence between organizations. In partnering with our customers, we become important to each other's success and we can only be successful by working together. Partnering and collaboration demand loyalty, relationship integrity, and trust between partners.

Today, the term "partnering" is tossed around too casually by sales people and buyers alike. Rather than simply buying and selling, we talk about "partnering." Too much of the time, the focus, both by sales and buyers, is on "What's in it for me." The seller simply wants to close the deal and move on, the buyer simply wants to close the deal at the best price and move on.

Until we start looking at "What's in it for our partner," we will never be able to create real value in the partnership, and will have great difficulty in sustaining long term, loyal relationships.

I believe sales can offer a tremendous leadership in developing collaborative relationships with customers. It's interesting in the PWC survey to note CEO's have greater focus on these relationships with customers than they have with suppliers. Consequently, if we are going to develop these relationships, sales must take the initiatives.

True partnering demands a different mentality and different set of skills from sales people. I won't go into it in this post--it will be too long. I'll be glad to send you white papers, additionally, some of the thoughts are in a Selling Power article (July//August 2009) in which I am interviewed. However a good way to start thinking about developing successful collaborative relationships is to start thinking the following equation (sorry, I'm a physicist by training):

Translated, effective partnerships are a combination of : Shared Resources + Shared Risk + Shared Rewards + Shared Vision + Shared Values. Without a healthy balance of these factors, the relationship has a high risk of failing.

Collaboration and partnering---true partnering will become increasingly critical to sales. The CEO's have spoken, buyers will not drive this, so it is up to sales professionals to drive the development of these relationships.

Moving from traditional selling to true partnering requires new attitudes, skills, processes, and metrics. Sales professionals need to begin to understand these and develop the capabilities.

(For any of the materials I have referred to, please feel free to contact me at dabrock@excellenc.com, or call at +1-949-305-7146.)

Is Everyone In The Same Boat, Rowing In The Same Direction?

So we've completed all the layoff's, we've re adjusted our strategies to recognize the new realities of the global economy, and we are rushing forward at 200 mph to drive business. All of a sudden, confusion, crises, and miscommunication dominates our waking moments. Who does what, to whom? What are our priorities? What about the things that Jill used to do, but she's gone? I thought this was my job, but now you're telling me something different? You're asking me to do the work of all the people you just laid off---I can't cope!

Too often, we are seeing this with our clients and other organizations struggling to adapt with the rapid changes and adaptations the new economy creates. Executives are moving fast, sometimes too fast, and the organizations are left behind. Most often, we see reductions and layoffs, but no change in priorities and workloads. Too few, already overburdened people are forced to pick up the workloads of those that are left. Or, executives have shifted the priorities and strategies, but these changes have been accompanies with clear expectations of what it means to each person in the organization and their job responsibilities.

The outcome:

• Changes that were hoped for are not implemented.
• People are more confused, more overworked, and demoralized.
• Customers are confused, they don't know who to work with, what to do.
• Things that were supposed to speed things up, making the organization more efficient are actually bogging things down.
• Organizations are not producing the results management expected, so now
  management starts looking at further reductions---the death spiral continues.
  

Organizations are going through massive changes. Leaders need to help their people understand those changes and their role in executing the changes. Leaders must assure everyone is in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, and that everyone is in stroke! Organizational Effectiveness in executing the changes should be the focus of management.

In implementing these shifts, leaders should:

• Stop and make sure they and everyone in the organization knows, understands, and has internalized the changes and their roles in implementing them.
• Clearly identify those things that were important and used to be done
  that now must be stopped. What you stop at this time is more important than what you continue doing.
• Explicitly redefine roles and responsibilities of everyone on board. They simply can't pick up the workloads of others. The organization's priorities have changed, make sure everyone knows their role in implementing the changes.
• Redefinition of the roles and responsibilities helps to keep important things from falling through the cracks. It eliminates the issue "I thought that was Bob's job." It eliminated wasteful redundant efforts---two people doing the same thing.
• Communicate your new strategies, priorities, roles and responsibilities to your customers. Make sure any changes you implement make it easier for your customers to buy from you, to get their questions answered, and to get service from you.
• Identify and establish new metrics that support the changes in strategy, priorities, and roles. The old metrics are probably no longer appropriate. After all, they were based on a completely different set of organizational assumptions.
• Monitor--but don't micromanage, but be aware people may still be confused, feel overwhelmed, or haven't internalized the changes. The moment you see problems cropping up, jump on them, clarifying priorities, strategies and the new roles.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate---to your people, your customers, and suppliers. Make certain they aren't confused, make sure they are aligned.

Alignment is critical to every organization. When making changes that many organizations are doing, making sure everyone in the organization, your customers and suppliers are in the same boat, going in the same direction ---- aligned----is critical to success. One of the best tools we have seen to help organizations do this quickly and effectively is the Organizational Effectiveness Profile (OEP).

Organizations are going through massive changes. Speed is critical, but only if everyone is aligned, focused and working together as effectively as possible. Make sure you take the time to get everyone in the boat!

Seven Lessons For Leading In A Crisis

Bill George wrote a great article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago: Seven Lessons For Leading In A Crisis. Without going into detail (read the article), the lessons are:


Lesson #1: "Leaders must face reality." My views on this are: The key issue here is to be willing to look at and tell the whole truth, including how leaders have failed. Until you face reality, your strategies are wishful thinking based on a fictional view of the organization. You won't solve your problems until you acknowledge what the real problems are.

Lesson #2: "No matter how bad things are, they will get worse." My views on this are: This is related to Lesson 1. Often, leaders can't believe things are really that bad. They tend to shoot the messenger or down play the seriousness of the issues. In doing this they never address the real issues or develop the right corrective strategies.

Lesson #3: "Build a mountain of cash, and get to the highest hill." Undoubtedly, cash is king in troubled times. At the same time, I may differ a little, I believe companies need to invest in building their future in tough times. Investments in improving efficiency and effectiveness are critical. Investments that improve your positioning and maximize the value you bring to your customers are critical. I would say: Cash and liquidity is important, but don't hoard it unnecessarily, realize that you must continue to make investments in building and improving your business.

Lesson #4: "Get the world off your shoulders." As Bill highlights in the article, I see executives tending to go into isolation, focusing superhuman efforts on rescuing the organization. Despite what we think, none of us have bid "S's" painted on our chest. The most effective path to recovery is to engage the creativity, energy, and skills of the whole team in developing and executing solutions to the organization's challenges.


Lesson #5: "Before asking others to sacrifice, first volunteer yourself." Haven't we seen enough of executives protecting themselves, at the expense of everything and everyone else in the organization? Leadership is about setting personal examples. We cannot expect people make sacrifices until they see us sacrificing as well.

Lesson #6: "Never waste a good crisis." This is great! Crisis can be an important rallying point for driving great change. When things are going well, people tend to be very resistant to change---perpetuating bad processes, practices, products, behaviors. In crisis, people recognize the need to change and rally behind it. Leverage this as an opportunity to improve.

Lesson #7: "Be aggressive in the marketplace." Organizations tend to do exactly the opposite. Companies tend to retract, they tend to be very cautious and conservative. This is the time to make aggressive moves, reset the rules of competition, re position and better serve your customers.

Do Great Sales People Make Good Sales Managers?

There was an interesting thought posed in LinkedIn today: “Good sales people make good sales managers.” It went on to ask the characteristics of good sales managers. The question struck a chord, a dissonant one, provoking me to respond. I’m sure I have missed a lot of characteristics of great sales managers, and would ask for your addition, deletions, edits. Here’s my response and the list I started with:

Great sales people are sometimes the worst sales managers. Likewise, some mediocre sales people end up being stellar sales managers.

There is a long list of leadership skills/traits that are important for managers. I will stay away from repeating these.

Some specific areas that I think are often overlooked for sales managers:

1. Very process oriented. Today's sales manager cannot be involved in every deal, issue or transaction. They have to have a strong process in place, make certain their people understand and are executing the process. The sales manager has to continually monitor the process, taking deep dives in problem areas to help their people address them.

2. Disciplined and performance oriented. Closely tied to the previous point, the sales manager must have a strong focus on performance and performance improvement. This requires having the right metrics in place, making sure people understand what they are accountable for, giving them the opportunity to perform, being there to coach them when they have problems, and being prepared to take the appropriate actions if performance problems are not resolved.

3. Loyalty to the organization and their people. The sales manager is often caught between a rock and a hard place---the objectives of the organization sometimes come into conflict with what is best for the team. Effective sales managers are actively involved in setting organizational strategies and priorities (at least in terms of sales) and engage the sales people in executing them--though they may resist---which requires strong engagement and coaching. At the same time, sometimes the "organization" is insensitive to the sales people. The sales manager needs to defend the sales people to the organization, making sure they are heard.

3. Strong business orientation and focus. Make the right business decisions—both for the customer, for the sales organization, and for the business. Understanding how businesses work and what drives them.

4. Incessantly customer focused. If I have to say more, then we really don’t understand the point of professional selling.

5. Incessantly curious---driven to learn and improve. Incessantly curious about solving customer problems. Incessantly curious about the art and science of professional selling—driven to improve the performance of each individual in the organization, the organization as a whole, his own personal performance, and the business. This means they probably spend much more time asking questions and listening then they do talking.

6. Appropriately compassionate. Understand what drives people—customers, sales people, support people, others in the organization. Able to understand their points of view and what drives them. Able to communicate and work with them in a matter that demonstrates respect and trust. At the same time, able to make tough decisions—but with compassion based on the impact on individuals.

7. Able to sublimate their egos. Sales management is about leadership, growing and developing people, growing and developing the organization, growing and developing the business. It is not about how great you are and your past victories. It requires admitting you are wrong when you are. It requires being able to change your point of view.

8. Problem solvers. Driven by solving problems, finding ways to overcome obstacles, not being wed to the past. Creative and innovative in adapting new approaches to address issues and improve the business.

9. High energy. Constantly moving forward, setting strong examples for everyone around. Note, I am not saying high activity, high meeting orientation. High energy is different than meaningless activities.

10. Value, principle driven. Without a strong value system, a manager has no context in which to make decisions and drive the organization. Without sticking to the values and principles, the organization will wander and not produce results.

11. Thoughtful, reflective, good sense of humor. Self explanatory.

12. Able to leap tall buildings without tripping. Sales managers don’t need to have a big “S” on their chests, but they need to inspire and motivate others.

I’m sure I’ve missed some and could go into much more detail on each item. But I look for all of these in hiring great sales managers!

What would you add? Are there any you would eliminate?

Moving From Customer Acquisiton To Customer Engagement

For some strange reason, in the past few days, at least four different executives have called me to speak about changes they see with their customers markets and organizations. The conversations all began at different points, for differing reasons, but seemed to be converging on a central issue: The need for organizations, marketing, and sales to focus on Customer Engagement as critical to success and growth in the future.

I have to admit, I am still sorting out some of the issues and what they mean, but some of the things we see are:

1. Traditional means of acquiring customers is not working. Yesterday, I had a spirited discussion with a colleague in France around the topic: Cold Calling is Dead, How Do We Leverage Social Media for marketing! Sales people, don't cheer to quickly, I don't think cold calling is dead, but I do believe the nature of cold calling needs to change. As an example, every day, I have conversations with new people-prospects-potential clients. These are, for all intents, cold calls, but the nature of how we chose to engage in a conversation has changed. In our discussion, we talked about how our own work was changing and the role of new social networking tools was changing the types of conversations, who we engaged, and the means by which we carried on those conversations.

Yesterday, I participated in a review of one of my client's demand generation programs. They have well defined and refined programs, well targeted lists, and a reasonable value proposition. Years ago, their programs would have been considered by many to represent best practices. Now, while the programs are producing results, they are far less than two years ago.

2. This morning the EVP of Sales for a major technology company called me to shoot the breeze about what's happening in the markets. His view was the differentiator for many organizations was going to be customer acquisition. As he looked at his company, his competitors, his customers and the markets they participate in, he viewed that most of the companies were at parity in terms of costs, pricing, product offerings, quality, and other factors. He believed the critical success factor for his company would be the ability to acquire and support customers in a way that differed from any one else.

We started talking about what that meant---I saw were moving beyond the traditional view of customer acquisition to a different way of engaging customers and potential customers in conversations about their business.

3. No sooner had I hung up the phone, then another call from the VP of Strategic Accounts for another company called me. I felt like deja vu all over again! But the conversation also had a different twist. He was having a heated discussion with the CEO of his company that just because they had Salesforce working well for their company, they couldn't stop their marketing activities. He was trying to convince the CEO (who was trying to cut people and money), that this tool was just a tool, but could not displace many of the programs they had for generating business. As we got into the discussion, it became clear that his CEO, was starting to read too many blogs, getting too many tweets, and had gotten a big dose of social media over the holidays and saw that as the salvation for business generation.

For some strange reason, I could go on with the stories, all they do is reinforce the fact that profound changes are afoot.

To some degree, I think the silver lining to the economic and financial challenges we all face is that thinking about how we do business is no longer a nice thing to do, it may mean survival. The current crises gives those of us who take the opportunity, the chance to profoundly change the way we build relationships with our customers, retain them and acquire them. I think those organizations that choose to engage customers in a different way will emerge the winners.

I'm still sorting a lot of this stuff out. I don't know the answers, but have some suspicions about the changes.

1. I think the old ways are far from being dead. Cold calling is not dead, prospecting, advertising (traditional), trade shows, direct marketing, telemarketing, websites, SEO, "adwords." and all the stuff we have grown up with and which consume much of our customer acquisition and retention time, money, and energy is here to stay----but needs to be evolved and modified.

2. I'm still trying to figure out things like LinkedIn and Facebook and how they contribute to business development--at more than a personal level, but in helping enterprises do business differently. I'm convinced there is a role for these (other than advertising), but I (and others) are still learning. I'm starting to see some of my clients engage their customers and partners in very interesting ways, using of all things, You Tube. Their customers and partners are taking matters into their own hands and promoting my client's products in very interesting ways. Fortunately, my client was smart enough to encourage it rather than try to stop it.

3. Likewise, I know that blogging has a role, but at an enterprise level, a lot of challenges remain. I recent newspaper article discussed the challenges of corporate blogs and their believability. I'm also sure that things like Twitter have a role to play (I'm almost embarrassed to say I just signed up yesterday and have yet to send my first tweet --- I think that's what they're called).

In the coming years, rather than displacing anything, I think we will see creative intermingling of these tools and approaches, creating a richer dialog and experience with current and potential customers.

In the end, all of these things are just tools. It's important that we not lose sight of what we are really talking about. Business growth, marketing, and selling in the coming years will require us to engage our customers differently.

I think we will start having conversations not presentations. I think customer acquisition will become less about marketing and selling, and more about collaboration and partnering.

I think the number, depth, and richness of the conversations will increase profoundly---the tools and technologies enable this---they also enable all this to happen in real time.

I think organizations, buyers and sellers, will be more selective about the number and quality of the relationships they establish. After all, this takes time, energy, commitment, and has a cost. No one can afford to have deep relationships with everyone.

I think fluid networks of "just in time" collaborations will become important to building business. If each organization can only afford to develop and nurture a limited number of deep relationships, a way to grow and expand is to begin to network those relationships in real time, when they produce value.

While things change, some stay the same. Relationships are important, the virtual world will complement, but not displace deep human relationship--face to face or voice to voice. The traditional tools we have used will still have a place, but have to be positioned with all the other tools to create richer customer experiences.

Sales will have to change. For the first, consultative or solution selling must become the fabric of the sales process, not just buzz words. Sales professionals will have to leverage and use the new tools to enrich their relationships with customers and influencers in the markets. They will have to move from pitching to listening to engaging the customer in a conversation.

Maybe I'm wordsmithing, but I think we are talking about something different than customer retention or acquisition. Those sound too one way or push oriented to me. I'm also not talking about the pull orientation in some of the new social media (or traditional consumer advertising).

Somehow the concept of Customer Engagement seems to be the closest to embracing all of what needs to be done to survive, grow and thrive.

Does this make sense or am I just playing with words?

Stop Assuming You Know Your Customers, Start Listening To Them!

Thanks to one of Fred Wilson's recent posts, I discovered Whitney Hess, a user experience designer in New York. She was quoted: "In order to survive, companies have to stop assuming they know their customers and start listening to them." Simple and profound.

I spend a lot of my time with business, marketing, and sales executives. Many espouse being customer focused. Many are making good strides, but in my experience we have a long way to go.

Whitney's comment got me thinking. Why is it so difficult to listen to our customers? Why is it so difficult to engage our customers in a different conversation?

These are not new concepts, but why is it so difficult to execute?

I'm not sure I have a lot of insight into these issues, but I have some ideas --- by the way, I'd welcome yours.

1. We have met the enemy and it is us! Most of the organizations I work with are filled with brilliant, creative people. People who have accomplished a lot and produces results. Sometimes, however, this creates an arrogance that we know more and better than anyone else. We stop listening and start telling. The challenge comes when they --- the customer --- stop listening to what we are telling them, Usually they stop listening because we really don't understand them and are not producing value.

2. We've stopped seeing the forest because we are focusing on the tree! (Not the trees, but THE tree.) People develop a selective listening. We've succeeded in becoming focused and goal directed, but that may leave us blind to what is really being said. We focus on The tree, Our tree, and ignore the neighboring trees and forest. Except those may be more important to the customer or create new opportunities for us.

I'll linger on this point a little. One of my clients has very good product managers. They come from the industry---many are former customers. They engage customers in deep conversations about technologies and their needs. The problem is, they are engaging in talking to a specific group of customers---specialized technicians. These technicians important in providing infrastructure to support the business but they aren't driving the business. They only respond to the needs of the business users. My client would do well to expand their view to include the business users, understanding their needs and drivers, along with those of the technical users. They will discover new opportunities---new trees.

3. Our mother's taught us not to talk to strangers! Good advice when we were kids, but now it is too limiting. If we only talk to our friends, if we only do assessments of our own industry, if we only track and respond to competitors, we narrow, blind and inbred. We don't get to see and experience new things. Our strategies become incremental, not game changers. We continue to exchange places with our competitors for superiority, yet each evolve slowly and are probably not seeing and creating breakthrough opportunities for our customers and ourselves.

I spend much of my time working with top executives in high technology B2B organizations. At the same time, I also do work in certain niches of the fashion/lifestyle industries. I am always struck by the innovation, creativity, and some of the business models I see in the fashion/lifestyle sector --- mostly because some of them have so much potential when applied to high tech B2B! I don't have to be smart, insightful or innovative, I just have to learn how to adapt these creative ideas to a different set of circumstances and industry.

4. We've lost the art of having conversations. We focus on the pitch ---- What's your elevator pitch? Let's go pitch the customer! Even in this day of Zen Presentations, we focus on the pitch, on presenting, on talking, on winning a one sided argument.

Where do we talk about listening? How do we develop the ability to have a good "elevator listen?"

Actually, it goes beyond listening --- it's establishing a conversation or a dialog. It's about engaging the people we are with. It's about learning something new, realizing we might have to change our position. It's about challenging our own and other's ideas and positions. It's about having a healthy debate and maybe some conflict --- all oriented around creating better solution -- for our customers, for our businesses.

I could go on, but will stop here. I owe a big thanks to Whitney for her insightful comment: "In order to survive, companies have to stop assuming they know their customers and start listening to them."

I'd love to get your ideas --- perhaps we can start a conversation!

First Rule Of Management: Stop Whining, Take Responsbility.

Jeffrey Pfeffer has a very nice column in the Wall Street Journal: Woes? Executive, Blame Thyself. There are several very interesting points:

1. It is typical for executives to blame outside-uncontrollable causes (the economy, etc.). Research shows that companies that blame poor results on internal controllable factors see greater subsequent stock appreciation than those who blamed their problems on external factors. Apparently the market appreciates executives taking responsibility for identifying and addressing challenges.

2. Pfeffer identifies the First Rule Of Management: Don't act like a victim. There are always things you can do to make things better. So stop whining and take responsibility.

The article goes on to examine issues about identifying what the real problem is and how to address them, providing examples of both good and bad practice---using the usual suspects. It's good to read!

Seven Ways To Fail Big

I'm still rolling the conclusions of Paul Carroll's and Chunka Mui's HBR article: Seven Ways To Fail Big, around in my mind. The article is very interesting, based on research they have done on 750 business failures.

They claim that nearly half could have been avoided (not surprising), and that the avoidable failures were primarily the result of flawed business strategies, not poor execution (somewhat surprising).

They summarize seven key reasons: The Synergy Mirage, Faulty Financial Engineering, Stubbornly Staying The Course, Pseudo-Adjacency's, Bets On The Wrong Technology, Rushing To Consolidate, Roll-ups Of Almost Any Kind. Each reason is accompanied with case studies illustrating the point.

The article is provocative and stimulates thinking. While, it is worth reading and there are good lessons to be learned, I questioned the research methodology somewhat. It appears to be primarily based on secondary research (news coverage, case studies, other document) rather than primary research (interviews and in depth original research).

For several of the cases they highlight, we have some insight that would not be readily available in public information. In those cases, extremely poor execution, lack of commitment to the strategy, and other factors were also key factors to the failures. However, I may be nit picking with a "chicken-egg" argument.

In spite of being slightly troubled with the analysis, the article is certainly worth reading.

Developing And Maintaining A Sense Of Urgency

Thanks to the Leadership Now Blog for their post on developing and maintaining a sense of urgency. It gives me another soapbox!

A sense of urgency is critical to executing any strategy. However, it is important to note that a sense of urgency is different from activity. In John Kotter's A Sense Of Urgency, he describes much of what is done under the name of speed, urgency, or activity is actually a false urgency which is "unproductive flurry of behavior built on a platform of anxiety and anger."

Kotter describes a true sense of urgency as being externally focused and expressed in daily behaviors that move relentlessly to the target, ever alert to changing conditions and weeding out superfluous activity.

A true sense of urgency requires thoughtfulness, focus and disciplined execution. Often, it requires one take time to think and review. Often it takes patience and discipline to follow through to see what results are produced and to take corrective action. Finally it takes courage. So much of the meaningless activity we encounter produces a facade of moving forward, but when you look behind it, nothing is happening and no results are produced.

The blog is worth reading and I've put Kotter's book on my reading list.

Stop Wishful Thinking ---- Focus On Executing Your Strategies And Business Plans!

Over the course of a year, I meet with dozens of companies and hundreds of professionals. In the course of most of our discussions, people are concerned about their business strategies and plans. These "strategy" discussions are wide ranging--- they can be about an overall business or organization's strategy and direction, it can be about developing and launching new products, about partnerships/alliances, about sales and routes to market, or about a specific sales strategy, or a strategy for personal growth.

Regardless of the specific "strategic" issue, the discussions are always exciting. There is a lot of creativity, openness in assessing alternatives, enthusiasm in developing an approach, and then we finish, we're ready to execute. This is where things come to a grinding halt. There may be some false starts, but nothing happens. The momentum of day to day activities may overwhelm us and we fail to move forward doing what we planned to do.

It's clear, execution is what counts. If we don't execute our plans or strategies we will never achieve the goals we established. We feel guilty that we aren't achieving our goals. We hold meetings to find out what is wrong. We invest time in developing new plans and strategies ----- without ever testing the original strategies. In the end, all our strategic and business planning becomes nothing more than wishful thinking.

There has been a lot of good stuff written on execution. I don't want to repeat that here. I've been thinking a lot about how to move forward --- I've seen too many organizations on the edge of greatness, but unable to take the step.

Here are a few ideas about what may hold us back --- and how we might move forward.

1. We expect perfection and are afraid that execution may show we are wrong. We have to stop thinking about developing perfect strategies. Plans give us a road map to our goals, but we have to adjust those, based on our experience in execution.
2. Embrace failure and mistakes. They just help us know whether we are on target or not. They provide real world feedback that enables us to adjust our plans and goals.
3. Write it down. Write down your first few steps or actions. Set clear goals and metrics. Writing it down does two things. First, there is something about writing it down that makes something more real. I'm sure there are lots of studies about this phenomenon, but writing something down makes the plan concrete. Second, when we execute the actions, we get to check it off on our list. The act of checking or crossing something off, gives us a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
4. The first step is always the most difficult. Don't focus on the entire action plan, it can be overwhelming. Focus on the first step. Once you get past this point, somehow the next steps seem to come easier. When I assess failure in business strategies, very often it's because the organization never got started, they never took the first step. As a corollary, anticipation is always worse, Nike has the right idea, "Just Do It."
   
5. Share the results with your team. Good or bad, you've learned something, now the team has something to work with in continuing to move forward.
6. Don't over think things, keep it simple. Business schools, consultants, guru's, and all sorts of experts thrive complexity. It keeps us gainfully employed. However, over thinking things and making them too complex keeps us from taking action. Over thinking also starts us on that destructive path of second guessing ourselves.
7. Don't take yourself too seriously, have fun. Somehow we take ourselves very seriously in executing business plans. When you focus on executing each step, even for the biggest plans, there is little that you can do that is not recoverable or fixable. Laugh when you make an error, have fun as you learn and correct the plan/strategy. Keep it fresh, keep it light.
8. Execute your plan and give it a chance to succeed or fail. Every plan I have ever seen has obstacles. Don't abandon your strategy at the first obstacle -- worse yet, don't abandon your plan before you start. At the risk of being repetitive, we learn, we adjust, we move forward.

Remember, without taking action, all our planning and strategizing are just wishful thinking.

There are lots of resources out there in planning and execution. A couple of recent blog posts provide some additional hints on execution. Harvard Management Update's "Execute Your Strategy Without Killing It," and The Glue's "Top 10 Reasons Strategies Fail To Be Executed" are worth reading.

Unforced Errors -- A Killer To Effectiveness

I just read a brilliant Post on the Slow Leadership Blog entitled: Why Organizations Make Unforced Errors. Frankly, I can't state it better than has been already stated, but I will extract a few key points.

The concept of forced and unforced errors comes from sports (I know, we tire of sports analogies, but this one is important). Forced errors occur because the opponent is playing better than we are. When I speak, I frequently challenge organizations to OutCompete the competition. By this, I am referring winning through superior skill, offerings, value, or execution. OutCompeting the competition involves performing at the highest possible levels---and doing it on a sustained basis.

Unforced errors are the things we do to ourselves. They have little to do with the opponent or the competition. As stated in the blog, unforced errors result in us throwing away our advantages.

For the most part, unforced errors are avoidable---high performing people and organizations set themselves up to eliminate unforced errors.

Effective teams, working well together, completely aligned in purpose, strategy, focus, roles/responsibilities, make fewer unforced errors in executing their strategies.

Organizations and individuals that slow down, taking the time to think and organize make fewer unforced errors.

Planning and attention to details, understanding everything that needs to be done, beforehand, reduces the chance for unforced errors.

The quest for speed in execution is not inconsistent with this theme, but speed is useless---damaging---unless it is part of a well developed and sharply executed plan. We produce too many unforced errors focusing on speed as the end, not a means.

"Busyness," high activity levels, and multitasking increase the likelihood that we will make unforced errors.

Wimbledon is on now, the Olympics are coming up. Whatever your sport of choice--look at the world class performers in the sport. Look at their forced and unforced errors. Look at how they plan, focus, and execute. Look at how teams work together a one. Look at the speed at which they execute well thought out plans and strategies--maximizing their advantage and minimizing the unforced errors.

Take these lessons into your lives and businesses to improve everything you do.

Only The Paraonoid Survive

I've always loved this book by Andy Grove of Intel. Just seeing the title on the bookshelf in my office has often caused me to reflect on things, take my blinders off, and build contingencies.

I just read an article in Fortune on "(Bill) Gates' Golden Rules." One really struck me: Institutionalize Paranoia. Ray Ozzie is quoted, "Bill and Steve created what I guess I'd characterize as a culture of crisis. There's always someone who's going to take the company down. It's mythical, but at any given point in time, there might be two or three big competitive things that the company is juggling. It's something people here are used to, and it's accretive in terms of making things more resilient over time."

The notion of an institutionalized culture of crisis making people and organizations more resilient is very powerful. We have seen too many organizations/people become complacent. Many complacent in their success. Others just satisfied to muddle along. Others oblivious or blaming others.

As I reflect, most of the high performance organizations I have been involved in have a healthy sense of paranoia or crisis. It seems to keep the creativity high, the energy and activity levels high and drive performance.

As with anything, anything taken to excess can be destructive. There are many examples of taking the notion of paranoia too far. Those that don't like the concept of institutionalized crisis will pull out those examples to refute the idea. Many will undoubtedly use Microsoft itself as a prime example of things gone wild.

With all that taken into consideration, I will generally side with the Paranoid.

Finally, I remember someone telling me, just because you are paranoid, doesn't mean something isn't out to get you!

More Tuned In

I received a thoughtful reply to my review of Tuned In from Craig Stull. It takes courage to reply to an negative review. Below are Craig's comments and my response.

"Hi Dave,

I just read your review of our book and I would like to thank your for carefully reading the book and taking the time to review it. Although you seemed a little apologetic about some of your comments, we understand where you are coming from. We intentionally wrote the book to address senior levels of management so we focused on “what” needed to be done as opposed to “how.” We have been teaching the “how” for 15 years and realize that, just for the technology industry, it takes over five days of lecture and workshops to drill down into that level.

We considered a deeper level of detail but felt that the book would join the legions of other academic books. We wanted a book that was approachable, practical, and, of course, pragmatic! We wanted to create a book that was a quick read but could convey the concepts of what we evangelize. Details on how to execute the six steps will have to come later through various forms of deliverables.

Again, thanks for taking the time to review Tuned In.

All the best,

Craig Stull
Founder/CEO
Pragmatic Marketing, Inc."

My response:

"Craig: Thank you for your note! I appreciate you taking the time and having the courage to respond. I will update my review to reflect your comments.

Just my view----I work with the top executives of global 500 companies on a daily basis. Most of the executives I work with have been very successful, are bright, and intellectually grasp the issues. The core issues you raise in Tuned In have been in the literature for years. Few executives I work with are not already aware of the what (though some reminders help.) They struggle with the how. They struggle with inspiring their people in executing the how. I believe there is a space somewhere between your coverage, an academic tome, and 5 days of lecture that can provide greater value to these execs.

I have seen some evidence, even through short papers, on focused topics (e.g. “going beyond the interview to discover customer needs before they are aware of the need”) to have an impact and resonate with executives.

Knowing your work, I had hoped you would address that space.

Thanks for taking the time to write. My best wishes to you and your colleagues for the success of your book. I hope you write a sequel on the how---that’s one I can get behind. Regards, Dave"