15 minutes early or 5 minutes late for the meeting?
Thoroughly prepared or learning on the fly?
A day before the deadline or two hours after it was promised?
10% below budget or the over run?
Exceeding expectations. Always.
Or assigning blame. “It’s not my fault!”
I see it everyday. Often it is well intended. In some instances it has seemingly become acceptable. Or at least quite common.
The over promise.
Unfortunately, it is also the kiss of death over time.
An A product with an F process grades you out as a C player.
Good habits are contagious. Often the ability to design an extraordinary experience exists in attention to the tiny little details almost everyone can impact. If we are paying attention. When we focus on consistency.
Deliver a little more than expected, a little earlier than expected, for a little less money.
I was talking to a friend and respected colleague last week. As a Senior Vice President of Sales he was lamenting the unfavorable market conditions. Price competition. Buyer attention deficit disorder. Voice mail. A value proposition you can hardly discern. Procurement. Lengthening cycles. Margin pressure.
His world had changed. His job was much harder than it had ever been before. The same kind of effort was increasingly producing less of the desired outcome. That means pressure. The kind of pressure many people, particularly salespeople, across a variety of industries and disciplines are facing when they arrive at the office today.
What was good enough to get us here simply isn’t going to be good enough to propel us forward. Shift.
I asked him, “what is the biggest bottleneck in the sales cycle? the one thing you need to make happen that you believe will drive the business forward?”
He didn’t hesitate, “We need time with quality decision makers. They need to hear our story. It all sounds the same, but there are key elements of differentiation. I wish our prospects could talk to a few of our customers.”
I didn’t hesitate, “They can. You can help them do it. If you are relying completely on your direct sales organization to influence the marketplace you are missing an opportunity for impact.”
I see the resistance all of the time to the Social Selling movement, particularly among veteran sellers. That question surrounding Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. Is social media a business tool or waste of time?
I knew where he stood. But couldn’t resist the opportunity to flip open my laptop and simply show him my Facebook Wall from the day (and I threw in at tweet from the same day for good measure):
Aaron, Kelly and Brie are like minded colleagues. We are connected and enjoy the benefit of socializing our ideas through new media. They also happen to work for HP, Farmers Insurance and Oakley. Their interest means validation. Their recommendation of my work means everything. Whether they hire me or not isn’t the point. Interestingly, I have never asked for their business. Increasingly, that is how it works (most sellers try and close too soon, before they have earned the opportunity to ask for the business).
I always teach salespeople the value of having the marketplace sell for you (Flip the Sale). The tools and technology enable, educate and eventually put you in a better, more intelligent position when it is time to ask (for help or the business). They expedite the sales cycle. Activate the brand.
Can you explode market share without social media and sales 2.0 strategy? Of course! These are simply tools that help. Frankly, in a competitive marketplace, I will take all the help I can get.
In sales your network is your net worth. It pays to consider how you can positively add value and impact your network each and everyday.
My friend is still skeptical. His view is that social selling wouldn’t be as relevant for “his” business. That is where the conversation always starts.
The journey of discovery toward stopping speeding bullets and leaping tall buildings in a single bound can be rather extraordinary. We’ll see if we can pull it off in 45 minutes!
The journey of discovery toward any worthwhile pursuit is important.
Typically it involves a fair amount of introspection. Most Superhero’s don’t do it for fame and fortune. Typically, it is a higher calling. One filled with meaning and mastery. Passion and purpose.
Everyone has the Superhero inside them. Or is capable of discovering and delivering their very best.
Here are 10 key considerations to aid in tapping into our own passion, purpose and potential:
1. Decide What You Want (and why): This is the hard part. For a caped crusader or mere mortals. The act of decision is important. The best decisions usually include supporting rationale. Examine the what and the why. Once you decide write it down. Be specific. Be intentional. Have a deadline. Want to make President’s Club? Lose 10 lbs? Find a new job? Improve a relationship? Write it down. Give it a deadline. {Tip: make Bold Choices}.
2. Action Plan with Milestones: Build a plan to get what you want. Pay attention to the details. Big things are accomplished in the little moments. Plans helps you focus. Plans help you manage time. Plans help you feel the progress. Plans help you evaluate. Plans help others rally around you. Plans help you maintain the emotional engagement required for big results. Plans help you establish and maintain momentum.
3. Tell Other People: Involve other people you care about. Friends. Family. Have a team. Nobody becomes the best of who they are alone. You need support. You need people holding you accountable. You need allies to champion your cause. {Note: Had I skipped this step I wouldn’t be keynoting this event next week…or any other. The team held me accountable.}
4. Report/Record Activity Against the Action Plan: You need to monitor progress, performance indicators and benchmark against the desired outcome. Hitting the small milestones are signs of progress toward the big goal. Having a record of results helps you stay the course and maintain the emotional commitment among those supporting you.
5. Celebrate: Don’t wait. Celebrate incremental achievement. Progress toward the plan. The milestones matter. Recognize the effort that produces a desired outcome along the way. This is critical for the modern day leader. You’ll get more of what you inspect and recognize!
6. Modify the Plan: The world changes. Life changes. Plans change. Modify, update, adjust, adapt and evolve accordingly. Don’t use the accelerated pace of change as an excuse for not having a plan. For not writing things down and recording progress. For not moving through a process of discovery and decision. Plans change but process is still important.
7. Don’t Quit: Not at the first sign of resistance, setback, mistake, misstep and considerable concern that embarking on this adventure simply wasn’t a a good idea. The resistance is coming. Rejection. Failure. Fear. Doubt. Insecurity. Stress. Anticipate the hard parts. Work through them. {Tip: The Dip is an excellent resource for determining when to quit and when to stay the course. Many people give up on the cusp of a breakthrough).
8. Get Better: Mastery takes time. Hard work. Help. Practice. Most people don’t practice work (hard to do when you are busy working). This makes it hard to improve. The 10,000 Hour Rule in Outliers suggests that the key to extraordinary performance and success is a matter time and practice (20 hours a week for 10 years should just about do it) and doesn’t have as much to do with talent. The good news is we all have exactly the same amount of time and decide how to invest it. Even a little practice can accelerate breakthrough performance.
9. Help Others: The Superhero ethos. Help. It is amazing how much we can improve and evolve through service. It is often when we’ll experience the most profound growth. It is often a catalyst for elevating our own emotional engagement. I see it everyday. The best sellers. The best leaders. The best people I know give first.
10. Have Fun: Enjoy the ride. At the end of the day success = happiness!
I look forward to the event in the hometown next week! MSAE has done a fabulous job building momentum toward next week with a progressive pre-conference promotional initiative (my video prompt included). I may get inspired enough to break out the cape!
I live and love the iLife. In making the transition from Blackberry I became an AT&T customer by default.
I have experienced dropped calls and hit dead zones over the last two years. Just like I am sure everyone else on just about every other network has. It certainly wasn’t enough of a disruption that moved me to explore other service providers. However, had an alternative option been presented to me with incentive and ease of transition I certainly might have made the move. I represent the vast majority of customers (yes, likely your customers and employees). I was reasonably satisfied. Not loyal.
That changed for me last week. AT&T has captured my heart and moved my spirit. I am now part of the Rethink Possible Tribe.
Why? Simple. The human element. The essential, secret ingredient that can turn your customers into the most loyal, fanatical, brand evangelists on the planet. The essential, secret ingredient that can rock your workforce, elevate engagement, accelerate performance and turn culture into a competitive advantage.
It comes down to people and relationships. Particularly people that are engaged and intuitive enough to create a compelling experience.
I spent an evening with AT&T last week. I was hired to keynote a dinner event. The people I met were special. The way they treated me was extremely generous. They were all Brand Ambassadors. They were warm, welcoming, supportive, hospitable and extended themselves beyond measure to ensure I was able to succeed. It wasn’t necessary. It was simply AT&T.
I know them now. I like them now. They have my support. Any my business. I want to work with them again. Whether I do or don’t doesn’t really matter. This brand was humanized for me in a very positive and powerful way. That drives loyalty. It is that simple.
The people are the brand.
Often it isn’t what you do (plenty of other people/companies do what you do just as well as you do it and for just about the same price), but how you do it and who is doing it that makes the moment memorable enough to keep customers (and employees) coming back for more.
Put people first.
Performance and profitability are more likely to follow.
If your people strategy isn’t the #1 priority on the agenda today perhaps it is time to Rethink Possible?
I am committed to at least 3 meetings a week simply designed to further develop a meaningful relationship. Nobody is closing, rather, it is merely a conscious effort to foster deeper connections where they matter most. These meetings are typically breakfast, lunch or dinner by design and intended to move me away from the screen, minimize the distractions and engage in the moment.
I am ahead of schedule this week. Five meaningful meetings and it is only Thursday. Thus far they have produced an outcome I could have hardly conceived on Monday morning. New relationships. Referrals. A very important reconnection. A whole lot of fun.
It is easy to get consumed “coffee shopping” it. I have been there. Spinning the wheels in meetings that don’t seem to count for a whole lot more beyond the Mocha. I know it is important to strike the proper balance and make sure the meetings and moments matter. I believe that happens by design. I also believe the result is difficult to replicate via text and twitter.
I also suppose it will prove to be 3 of my most important hours each week. If they aren’t? Hey, it’s just lunch.
This week was a great reminder of some powerful advice:
It is easy to let convenience drive decisions even when our underlying instinct and internal compass is whispering that an alternate choice would serve us better. When the whisper becomes a shout we change. But often it doesn’t. Convenience prevails. We settle in. We miss out.
We all go through periods of feeling stuck, trapped, afraid, mediocre and wanting more. A time perhaps when the inconvenient choice seems inconceivable.
When convenience isn’t so bad, a quest for more can seem a bit irreverent or perhaps even irresponsible.
Sometimes change is just plain difficult.
Is it worth it?
I’d simply say pay attention to that voice. Trust your instincts. They are usually right. It is usually worth it.
The objective of this webinar event will be to provide actionable content that today’s business leader can leverage to improve morale and elevate performance. We will provide a state of the union with the current data set from Modern Survey research related to employee engagement and discuss the implications and agenda necessary for moving forward.
We are doing this because job satisfaction has approached 20 year lows. Because our employee population is overwhelmed, exhausted and unnerved by the sea of change that is today’s new reality. Because productivity and performance declines should be expected unless we adjust our approach to work style design and leadership. Because we can do better.
We will introduce data and trends we believe to be worthy of consideration and hope to contribute to this important conversation in a relevant way. I’ll be teaming up with Modern Survey President, Don MacPherson to deliver our message about what today’s leader can do next Tuesday, at 11:00 a.m. CST. We hope you can join us. Did I mention, it’s free?
Spring is here. After a long Minnesota winter it is very welcome. But that isn’t the season I am most excited about.
Nope. I am ready for Conference Season! The next few months will see associations and corporate teams gather in multiples. From the annual event to the impromptu off site, busy professionals will be getting together to connect, communicate, collaborate and set the course for forward progress in their business. I assume a little fun will be had along the way.
I recall a couple years ago hearing about the conference model dying. The premise being that with emerging technology there would simply be increasingly less need to have a conference style event. That premise didn’t deliver on the promise and as someone who attends 30+ conferences a year there is increasing interest the live event. No doubt, expectations around the experience are on the rise. Quality content and connections are a baseline requirement. But today, people have a real need and desire to come together and share with like minded people. I am fortunate to have two such opportunities this week.
Today, I’ll be in Little Rock talking about Passion & Purpose at the CUPA Southern Region Conference. Then it’s immediately off to the SHRM Talent & Staffing Conference to spend a couple days with a Rock Star community in San Diego. I simply cannot wait to be part of the conversation about the most critical issue facing just about every business as we emerge from this recession: TALENT!
I had an opportunity to have a pre-conference conversation with SHRM about the event. Part of that conversation included some thoughts about how to get the most out of the conference experience as an attendee. My key thought is opt in and participate! Online. Offline. Tweet Up. At breakfast. In the evening. Take it all in! If you leave with 3 key ideas to take action on in the next 100 days (TAN PLAN) and 3 new, meaningful connections then the experience will have been very worthwhile.
If you aren’t able to join in the fun this week our intention is to continue the conversation online (we think it is important). I’ll be teaming up with Don MacPherson of Modern Survey later this month for the Engage – Inspire – Empower webinar event. We’ll explore the latest research and mega trends on Employee Engagement and provide some specific, actionable take away for business leaders. The data alone is worth the price of admission (FREE)! Plan to join us on Tuesday, April 26 at 11:00 am central time (register here). Don’s latest post on the value of values is also well worth the read.
Looking forward to a great season! Hope we connect along the way!
I was fortunate to spend a couple days this week working with a world class talent acquisition team.
The group at CDW is lead by Melissa McMahon, SMA Chicago’s 2010 Staffing Professional of the Year. This team knows talent. The business recognizes that talent will be the disruptive competitive advantage. They need to achieve growth goals and this group is going to deliver the people that deliver on the business plan. These are People Who Get IT!
I can tell you the focus of our training and time together wasn’t spent on tactics like Boolean Search, Recruiter ready Linked In profiles or source effectiveness reporting. Nope. We actually spent our time on Recruiter Effectiveness.
What constitutes Recruiter Effectiveness on a world class talent acquisition team? Have a look at the Rock Star Recruiting skill and competency list as defined by CDW in session (picture enclosed). A pretty good self assessment for anyone concentrating on the practice of people.
Our training emphasized the competitive decision cycle – from Recruiter point of contact to conversion. Where the real recruiting happens. This is what Team CDW had to say about the experience:
The session content resonated because they buy into a fundamental principle – Recruiting is Sales (and Marketing). That is a conversation we’ll continue next month at the SHRM Talent & Staffing Management Conference & Exposition in my Tuesday morning keynote.
If you completely disagree with what I have to say know that Dan Pink is keynoting Monday and Susan Packard is on Wednesday. That alone is worth the price of admission and the all star sessions and networking in San Diego is never a bad thing! Hope to see you there.
Enclosed is a video preview of our Sales & Recruiter Effectiveness training. Feedback is always welcome!
