A few steps before you write your next business plan
I then outlined a template to help form his ideas that looked like this for each idea:
"Not just is it profitable, but is it right?" -Obama
I just listened to Psychologist Barry Schwartz give a lecture on "virtue" at TED Talks. If you have not heard of TEDTalks, they are Technology, Education, and Design talks, a free-form gathering and speaking by some truly intelligent people. I highly recommend it. In this season's speakers, Barry was a standout. I also found his talk on moral intelligence and virtue particularly relevant to sales.
First off, we need to eliminate the "pusher" and "manipulator" salesmen as not "real" salesmen because the value of a true salesmen is that they connect need with ability to supply. A true salesman knows that discovery is key: "You probably did know we exist (or could do this) but...." While this is a necessary part of selling, it is only the first, smallest, step. The real bulk of the work begins when the salesman has identified a customer with a need his company can fulfill. After discovery, the salesman identifies an entire list of reasons why the customer will not make the obvious business engagement; They can't decide; the order process is too complex; already committed to another (likely less good) supplier: we don't trust your company; we are scared and can't decide... There are also supplier side barriers that come into play: We don't know that they will pay; they want special treatment; we sold to them before and had a bad experience.... Continue reading...
Numbered because I suspect there will be more....
"What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." -Friedrich Nietzsche
My corollary, similar to that famous quote is, "Risk of being killed can have positive consequences".
Years ago when I was Director of Engineering for a division of Honeywell, I was curiously following a long-standing problem facing my colleague, Tom Armfield. Tom was a seasoned manager who had just been promoted from field service manager to Director of Manufacturing. (See "Production vs Prototype Sales" for more on Tom.) The problem was with the work quality of the team that manufactured the electrical control cabinets was terrible and it was affecting the entire company. Continue reading...
Business in an era when 1+1 = 2 (not 3)
Most articles that discuss a company's mission, vision, strategy, or even marketing often cite Nike and their tag line "just do it". It is also well known that during an earlier time Nike had a different internal slogan of a completely different sort: "beat Adidas". About the same time Nike had their aggressive slogan, the company I worked for had a similarly aggressive internal slogan of "kill Weston-Loral" (our geographically closest direct competitor).
Why is it that these old style, aggressive slogans, that target a competitor are now so rare? Why are aspirational slogans like "just do it" all the rage? What can we learn about the effectiveness of these slogans in their time? My thesis is that such slogans were the products of their market environments and that much of the same market environment has returned leading to the conclusion that slogans and their consequential real action need to change back to the old again. Continue reading...