A Conclusion I'd like to share

After watching, listening and researching as carefully as I can, I have come to a conclusion I’d like to share with you. I will be voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket when the ballots arrive in the not too distant future. While there are a number of issues and areas that have convinced me, among them, while in no special order are: • Philosophy: I believe one candidate believes strongly in a centrally controlled government while the other believes decisions should be made at the local level as often a possible. An example is President Obama’s call, both in 2008 and 2012, for the federal government to hire teachers. I believe this should be left to the local community. I cannot see any reason why this effort would be at all improved by being controlled by another large central bureaucracy. • Acumen: I see them both a venture capitalists. One raised private money, invested it in away that created jobs, created wealth and had success north of 80% of the time, often enough his firm was called the “best” in the industry. The other took tax payer money and selected an emerging industry to invest in and far too may failed, Solyndra as an example, where the investors (taxpayers) lost all their money and every employee lost their job. • Experience: One has a short time as a Community Organizer, a truly brief stint as a US Senator and nearly four years as President. The other has a long and public track record in private industry, community leadership and public service and in each category he can point to significant success, while the former never talks about his “organizer’ experience, missed nearly every vote while a senator and ha failed to deliver on nearly every commitment he made while he was running for office. • Wisdom: while one views those who don’t share his ideas as opposition, the other views them as”enemies” as he has said a number of times. So, while one reaches out to forge agreements with a legislature that t is 87% populated by the other party and has significant success doing so, the other refuses to even meet, has developed few if any relationships even within his own party, delivers three budgets in a row that can’t get even a single vote from anyone in his own a party. His apparent view of himself is that he is able to govern without input, as we saw when he told us if we allowed him to spend about a trillion dollars we would see major improvement, and as it turned out it affected unemployment not an iota, he was unable to identify any “shovel ready” jobs and the money spent served only to deepen our mounting federal debt burden. • Respect and Civil Rights: passing an executive order that gives the President, for the first time, the right to arrest and hold indefinitely without charge and/or to eliminate (kill!) US citizens without receiving the constitutional protection (or so we thought!) of the right of due process just scares me to death. It’s an ugly slippery slope and one we should recoil from. And we need to decide as a country, will we be a country that strives to give every person an opportunity or will we be a country largely controlled thru dependency? It’s a valid question, and either choice won't be perfect, but the underlying philosophy is a critically important decision. • Discernment: while one inarticulately commented on why 47% of the people who will not vote for him “no matter what” the other looks out at a large audience in Cleveland Ohio and comments that he only sees “hard working people.” Anyone who looks at the population in Cleveland and sees people who haven’t had a job for too long and see no prospect for one in the future is too out of touch with our current reality. And just giving away free “Obama Phones” won’t fix the problem, it’s just another small attempt o create more dependency in my view. • Libya: we use to call events like this another SNAFU, a WWII military term. But losing an Ambassador and several other key fellow citizens, seeing that loss as “a bump in the road” and failing to recognize the true enemy is an enormous and unforgivable catastrophe. And the inept follow up is frightening. Listening to VP Biden describe it as a failure of the intelligence community, not a single department, but the whole darn community and then he says immediately thereafter that he is relying on the very same community to decide there is “absolutely no atomic bomb risk in Iran” is beyond imagination. It is truly time for a change, and I hope each of us will take this election seriously, think carefully about the choice each of us will make, and I’m hopeful that you will arrive a the same conclusion and give the Romey/Ryan ticket your vote. Although these are humorous, they also have elements of truth to them, and you may find these short videos entertaining yet insightful. http://thehayride.com/2012/09/maybe-the-best-ad-of-the-political-season-so-far/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdnY8r7_fLw&feature=player_embedded

An Emerging Metric in New Hire Consideration

Many firms rely on historical performance and interviewing ability as their primary vetting criteria. The dominate considerations for many seem to be, “did everybody they interviewed with like them and did they do well at their last firm.” While these may play a role, they rarely by themselves, accurately determine future performance. Employing available sophisticated assessments that show aptitudes, capabilities and behavioral traits are additional critically important elements of any decision process, and can dramatically lower the “failure” rate so many experience. And there is a new element that may play a role as large as any of these other critical elements. The ability to demonstrate effective networking skills! It may rank right up there with IQ. NS, (networking skills) includes demonstrating the ability to meet, bond, form non-organizational teams, be visible in the marketplace, adept at social media applications, and maintain and grow an ever larger set of connections. This should likely be an important part of any hiring consideration.

Marketing at its Best

Marketing at Its Best We recently spent about a month touring India, our first visit to this exotic country. At the wonderful Taj Hotel on the beach in Goa we witnessed a wedding -- quite an event in the Indian culture and Hindu religion! These weddings can last three days. Inviting many hundreds, even thousands, to a sit down reception dinner is common. One person we spent a fair amount of time with told us he had 3,000 at his wedding reception dinner! We were told these extraordinary events, at least by American standards, occur for several reasons. In the Hindu tradition, as it was explained to us, there is no formal marriage document, so they want as many to witness the union as possible. The Indian government outlawed dowries, so families now spend an extraordinary amount on the wedding and wedding gifts, which replaces what they have historically gave as a dowry. Upon our return to the states I had an occasion to book an event for about 600 people and I chose the Hyatt Regency Bellevue as our venue. While talking with my terrific sales person, she told me they had just hosted an Indian wedding the evening before our meeting. Remembering our experience in India, I asked her about it. She explained that Hyatt corporate marketing realized this could be a valuable market niche. They surmised that it could be good for many of their hotels that are located where many people of Indian heritage live. They researched and documented carefully. The Hyatt staff learned details like what kind of alcoholic beverages Indians tend to favor and what kinds of foods are traditionally served at weddings. They event researched special things brides and their parents would expect. After Hyatt did a thorough research job, they developed presentation materials, brochures and all of the “marketing” materials you might expect from a quality marketing department. What is particularly interesting is that they went even further. They organized webinars for the sales staff to learn the language and discuss the nuances of what their target audience would expect and respond to favorably. They even found local chefs who specialized in Indian food and could prepare a traditional Indian wedding feast! They literally left “no stone unturned” as they prepared their sales people to be knowledgeable “experts” and pursue what they thought might be a viable market. Notice that they did not focus on expertise in the features and benefits of their hotel chain, but rather developed their own expertise in how to successfully talk to this market segment in a way that would give their prospects confidence in their ability to deliver a quality event. The result? They dominate the market in the Pacific Northwest and I assume many other markets as well. They’ve created a highly differentiated product, although it’s just their normal capability re-defined for a unique audience! And they have an annuity that comes from a strong personal referral base! Doing the job the way it should be done It’s exactly what all marketing departments should do, but so few rise to this level of excellence. It wasn’t a huge investment on their part. They just did good, solid research and a thorough job of adapting their materials to a special market segment. Then they equipped their sales people by identifying resources their sales people could leverage, and followed up with an excellent job of educating/arming their sales people for the task. It’s a model anybody can adopt, from the largest firms to sole proprietors, and it’ll work wonders!

The India Analogy

The India Analogy
Effective Sales Compensation Plans

On a recent trip to India, which some say stands for “I’ll Never Do It Again” I was struck by the confusion that was on the first road we drove. The drive was from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer, which is just a few miles from the Pakistani border. I discovered that there are very few street signs in all of India. People navigate by asking another “local” and receive directions based on landmarks and monuments. Many of the roads connecting cities and villages are little more than one lane, making driving a constant challenge, and passing a breathtaking experience! On this drive of about 2½ hours, we shared the road with dogs, sheep, goats, monkeys, donkeys, camels, elephants, tuk-tuks, cars, buses, trucks and people walking with major loads on their heads.

As I thought about this unique day, it reminded me of the sales plan compensation confusion that many firms face.

First, many companies also navigate by inquiry rather than available empirical knowledge. They ask friends and associates what they do, just like we asked directions in India. And they proceed to develop plans based on what they think they heard.

Occasionally they think to ask a professional organization that samples incomes, but this isn’t the same as a compensation plan, it’s in the “expected earnings” category and serves to help recruit versus designing a plan that is optimally effective for their firm.

Like the roads in India, there are myriad confusing variables to be taken into consideration, including:
• Does the firm have a transaction or an annuity model?
• If it’s an annuity, what is the trigger that causes the next purchase?
• Is it a direct sale or a channel sale?
• What actual influence does the sales rep have?
• How are leads developed and distributed?
• Is it a geographical sale or a market sale?
• If it’s market, is it also vertically oriented?
• What does the competition do?
• What kind of sales person is the best recruit?
• Is longevity in the position important?
• What is a reasonable time to become proficient in the company’s products?
• Does the “on-boarding” process work, and result in quickly effective sales people?
• Is there an expected performance level, and is it defendable/rational?
• Is income tied to an expected quota?
• Is the quota “seasonalized” so it matters periodically, not just at year-end?
• What is the right mix of base and incentive compensation?
• Does the incentive actually motivate desired performance?
• Does the sale typically require additional support people to conclude it?
• Is there a personal connection with the customer developed during the sales process?

These are typical questions I ask when I review and/or develop a compensation plan for sales teams. The answers aren’t always easy to discern but, they do matter!

Visiting India

We just returned from a month in India. We visited a number of cities and towns including Jodhpur, Jaiselmer, Jaipur, Udaipur, Agra, Goa, Rathanborgh, Delhi and Mumbai. It was an amazing “bucket list” trip. I was told India stands for “I’ll Never Do It Again.” I’m not sure I totally agree although it was among the most “exotic” places we’ve ever been. There are fascinating issues to explore and stories to tell, which I intend to do, but I thought I’d comment on a few of the lighter surprises today. There are really no street signs in India; they navigate by monuments and landmarks and by asking nearly anyone and everyone for directions. “Go to the clock tower and take the second turn after that” kind of thing! Interestingly enough, everyone was willing to stop what they were doing to give directions, every time we asked. We had a driver for the four of us, but few people venture far enough away to be comfortable and familiar with each of the locations so they just stop and ask, and invariably get accurate directions willingly given. On one stretch of road, from Jodhpur to Jaiselmer, which is on the historically significant “silk road” and close the Pakistani border (close meaning about 15 miles) we drove on the typically slightly expanded one lane road, which is predominant in the country with only a few exceptions. On the several hour drive we shared the road with: goats, sheep, dogs, donkey’s, monkey’s, cows, water buffaloes, camels, elephants, camels pulling carts, people walking , tuk-tuk’s, other cars, buses and trucks. Wow! There was no discernable speed limit although we rarely went very fast because we’d honk at a cow who was largely disinterested in moving at all, so we’d steer around him and continue on--

Open Water Cruising and Sales

Open Water Cruising and Sales
Do They Share Attributes

I had the privilege of piloting my friends 60' Ocean Alexander again recently, and it reminded me of many of the fundamental tenants of successful selling!

1. We discussed our trip and knew where we hoped and wanted to go, what we wanted to see, how long we expected it would take, and then planned the details necessary to support those “trip” goals.
a. We all need an “account plan” which reminds us of our goal, timeframe, expected mileposts in the process and the like so our “call” plans reflect the strategy documented in the account plan which, of course, can be changed as it needs to be, just as we’d change the cruise plan for adverse weather.

2. Before leaving the dock we checked each system, made sure the boat was ready for the large body of water we were about to undertake
a. Exactly as all truly great salespeople do—review everything they’ll need on a sales call before the sales call to be sure they are prepared and ready

3. Then we checked our planned routing and developed an alternative
a. precisely as we should all know where we expect/want the call to go, and be ready for the deviations that might get thrown at us

4. As we navigated the waters, one was the pilot and one stayed steadfastly on lookout for deadheads and other “flotsam and jetsam” that can cause havoc with a boat/rudder/propeller, ruining what could be a great day or worse.
a. It takes a team to effectively sell. All too often we either expect sales people to be entirely independent and /or they choose to be “lone rangers.” Neither works. Smart successful salespeople know when and how to engage others with skills and experience that can help avoid those “deadheads” that can derail the sale. Just as important, while the sale is progressing nicely, it’s wise to stay ever vigilant; is competition just around the corner; will they surprise us when they show up; are we ready for them; have we anticipated they might present themselves and have we planned for that occasion?

5. When we arrived we carefully and thoroughly documented the trip in the log book including comments on interesting things we saw, how the boat preformed, things we wanted to remember about that days cruise, maintenance issues, etc
a. The great salespeople know to immediately log the call in their CRM for ready reference and for using to help plan the next call. They include the results of the call versus their plan for the call, issues they want to recall, subtleties that occurred they want to remember and account for, like a new person of influence they hadn't met before, or how involved/distracted the prospect was and how to manage/account for unique behaviors in the next call. They don’t rely on their memory!

6. And the next day we started over again, invoking the same disciplines and to the same level of detail
a. Too often we all fall victim to believing we know the customer/prospect well and don’t really need the same attention to detail we might use with another, but when we do, we put the sale at risk!

I wondered how we can successfully transfer the need for a disciplined approach when we’re cruising the open water, to the sales process, and why it seems so hard for so many. Those that get it, are wildly successful and we refer to them as “natural” salespeople—not the case at all—we can all be “naturally” great if we adopt and stick to the same disciplines necessary to have a safe and enjoyable cruise!