Late last week I received a red alert phone call from the SVP of Business Development of a large tech. company on the East Coast.  She had a real problem.  And need to arrive at an immediate solution.

A complex and significant enterprise deal she had been working on for months was in the final stages.  And all indicators pointed to her crossing the finish line victorious.  Value – check.  ROI validation – check.  Proof of concept – check.  Competitive differentiation – check.  Relationships – check plus.  Further, she was a veteran.  Had done her homework.  Delivered deep and meaningful insights related to business strategy and outcome opportunities that elevated the sense of urgency to expedite a decision and move into implementation/execution.  This was an expertly managed, collaborative sales cycle with a customer showing all signs of a desire to move forward.

Unfortunately, as is sometimes customary in late stage game changing deals, Executives who have been removed from the sales process enter to demonstrate commitment, reinforce value and/or personally offer up the requisite resourcing support.  Certainly C level face time can have a very favorable impact.  However, it can also adversely effect an outcome if the C suite doesn’t possess the requisite client facing acumen and commit to the preparedness necessary to impact the decision.  And that is exactly what happened.

I had a Sales Executive on the line who was frustrated and clearly feeling like  she “never should have allowed her CEO to enter into the conversations at this stage….things were right where she needed them and after the last meeting she now has experienced a setback, unsure whether or not she can recover.”

As we conducted our situational assessment it was readily apparent the CEO had made several missteps during the limited client interface that introduced new concerns around the decision.  Moreover the customer had lost some of the good feelings that were previously associated with the idea of this partnership.  And that shift in “feelings” or “instincts” were communicated by the customer post meeting by a sudden need to take a much closer inspection to a specific competitor.  Never a good sign. And we needed a game plan for this sales recovery mission.

As we began developing our approach/recovery plan to compete through the final phase of this sales cycle there was an overwhelming desire to communicate.  She wanted to pick up the phone. Have a personal review with  all of her key contacts.  Apologize to everyone and get the situation back on track.  She wanted to send e-mails.  Have conference calls.  She wanted the fix.  She considered eating deeply into her margins and discounting in lieu of a serious competitive threat to preserve the sale.  Ultimately we organized a course of action that was more directed and focused on moving the customer back to the shared vision of the outcome that my SVP was capable of delivering.  We did that 3 ways:

-By isolating the new issues relative to the decision, owning them and specifically making sure they were addressed.  How you deal with a misstep in the sales cycle says a lot about what kind of vendor partner you are going to be.  In large, complex, technical sales there are likely to be imperfections.  It was clearly in everyone’s best interest for the SVP of Sales to apologize, own any parts of the process that wasn’t managed properly, understand the new/key concerns specifically and address them head on to minimize their significance in the outcome.  Further, she needed to get back to owning the relationship.  She was a big part of the reason the company was going to buy and it was critical she emerge as the lead to drive the relationship forward.

-By reinforcing value. A new competitive threat did offer up another opportunity to discuss the clear and compelling advantages of this specific partnership in a side x side comparison and reinforce the outcomes.  Building out some customized communication around this and presenting it personally at the right time should prove to validate the business reasons behind doing business.  Absent the emotion, the logic make sense (although that isn’t necessarily how people buy) and we we have the opportunity to interject both back into the consideration.

-Give something first. And while that didn’t mean eating into her margins the idea that new concerns were understood and being met with some specific action will make the customer feel better about the partnership and go a long way to demonstrating the understanding, flexibility and value associated with doing business.  That is good partnering.

This cycle stalled but it’s still very recoverable if the next steps are managed properly.  This SVP of Sales is expert enough to seize this setback and treat it as yet another opportunity to demonstrate that she is truly going to bring the very best solution to bear on the business challenge.  And like all good sellers, she is going to make it all about the customer and build the shared vision of the experience and results in working together.

I like her chances.

Posted in Sales, Uncategorized

Would sales be easier if every call you made was to a prospective buyer who was aware of both you and your organization prior to talking?  Would it be easier to sell to qualified prospects reaching out to you with a direct inquiry?  What if you could turn virtually every cold call into a “warm call”?  Sales Nirvana?  Perhaps.

And it’s all very possible today with a shift in strategy and through the adoption of new tools and technology.

The blend of a traditional networking philosophy and technology integration can transform the opportunity to develop higher levels of awareness and more attention from your TAU (target account universe).  Social selling is all about being expertly informed and demonstrating value early in the sales cycle to achieve elevated interest specific to your product or solution.  While you cannot automate relationships, you can dramatically expedite quality introductions and knowledge transfer by leveraging a Web 2.0 selling platform. Consider:

How easy it for your customers to intersect with your BIG idea?

Are your channels alive with your very best new content?

Is your value proposition abundantly clear, compelling and so differentiated its worth considering a change?

Is it clear at “the moment of truth” why urgent action is required?

Are you leveraging quality assets early and often in the cycle to add value first?

Now, benchmark against your competition.

In Professional Selling YOU are the the brand, company and marketing strategy in the eyes of the marketplace.  A good foundational strategy will get you off the phone and in front of customers.

Building Sales Influence with your customer community make sales happen.

Posted in Sales, Uncategorized

Tags: Influence, Sales 2.0

Remember the movie, Meet the Parents?  Where Gaylord Faucker was hopelessly left outside his soon to be father in law’s magic circle of trust despite his every effort and very best of intentions. Once he was outside the circle it took quite the herculean effort to get back inside.

TRUST is a major issue in the workplace today.  Employee engagement has waned and the prevailing feeling in so many organizations can only be described as anxious and trapped.  It matters little whether the marketplace is talent rich, if the talent on the team isn’t aligned to the objectives and invested in the outcomes.  And invested just enough not to get fired doesn’t count.  I know a lot of passive jobs seekers, working and waiting for something better to come their way.

Sales and Marketing have a Circle of Trust with their customers.  So does Recruiting and Leadership with their employees. And trust and engagement are never higher than the moment someone says YES!  Once the big decision is made the trust should solidify and escalate into endearing loyalty and evangelism.  But it usually doesn’t.  The circle breaks down.

When interest is elevated and engagement is high its a violation if the ‘experience’ doesn’t meet the ‘expectation’.  Brands (and employer brands) that can deliver an experience, that exceed expectations consistently (exceed once and fail twice and you’ll drive people crazy and right into the hands of the competition) build loyalty and have the opportunity to drive evangelism.

Transparency and Authenticity are the new mandate.  You better BE what you SAY.  I read a great quote about this on the Edelman site last night.

“Audiences expect companies to interact with authenticity and transparency. Companies need engagement. Both will only achieve these if driven by compelling content that courts, plays and engages with credibility and professionalism. As Peter Whitehead wrote in the Financial Times, Web 2.0 is a world in which anyone can have a go at generating content; Web 3.0 is where professionals take the lead in shaping that content.  And those professionals are the production experts and the multichannel, multimedia engagement experts. A new world, needing a new marketing offer. It’s all for the taking.”

Content is everywhere.  Quality is another matter entirely.  And better communication inside and outside the company is imperative.  And experience is what really counts.

Authentic, Sincere, Transparent, Timely and Relevant Communication builds TRUST. With employees and customers.

How is your company doing?  Are they inside your circle?

Posted in Brand, Communications, Employee Engagement, Recruiting, Sales, Uncategorized

Tags: Trust

The challenges and demands today’s business leader faces are many.  More with less, cost containment, globalization, transformation, reinvention…and amid the challenge and change exists a very real opportunity for confident, capable leadership to emerge and re-engineer success.  People are hungry for more meaning in the workplace and want to connect to something and believe in someone who provides a vision for the future.

Vision is a leadership mandate.  Connecting employees to the vision and instilling confidence about the future of the enterprise help make vision a reality.  People need to opt in for more important reasons than money.  Increasingly it is incumbent upon leadership to communicate not only the where, by the why and the how in the organizational or team journey.  That kind of authentic communication and transparent conversation builds trust and fosters connections around a shared purpose. Simply stated, you aren’t leading unless others are following.  And the best leaders understand that a critical component of their function is to ably serve those they employ in an effort to guide others to personal and professional achievement.  That breeds loyalty.  And success.

Here is Top Ten daily checklist that serves as a reminder of the work effort required to serve as a leader.

1.  Did you demonstrate alignment to the organizations guiding principles (mission – vision – values) and support the brand promise?  Not by what you said.  Rather, by what you did?

2.  Did you barrier bust today?  Remove obstacles, minimize bureaucracy and make it easier for your team to compete and win.

3.  Did you reinforce the strategy today?  The strategy you’ve clearly communicated and have everyone aligned and contributing effort toward.

4.  Did you listen and learn today?

5.  Did you coach, counsel and mentor to improve someone today?

6.  Did you recognize someone or celebrate success today?

7.  Did you challenge the status quo today?  Did you consider that what is working today might not be good enough tomorrow?

8.  Did you achieve an outcome today?  A small victory that leads toward the big win?

9.  Did you make work fun today and contribute to creating culture that people really want to be a part of?

10.  And one of my personal favorites, specific to the sales organization and an absolute mandate in the C suite – did you talk to a customer today?

The best leaders are out front.  Doing the heaving lifting.  Setting the pace.  Offering an example.  Serving others.

Posted in Leadership, Uncategorized

Tags: Leader, Vision

Great song. And for me, I am fortunate that the holidays afford a good reminder of hope, opportunity, optimism, enthusiasm and love! I spent Christmas day with 5 nieces and nephews ranging in age from 1 – 6 years old. And Ben, Allie, Ella, Evan and Jayce offered up a wonderful reminder of the benefit of seeing the world just a little bit more like they do.

Somewhere along the way many of us lose that wide-eyed exuberance and sheer joy of a new day dawning for the limitless possibility it brings. That irreverent spirit and sense of adventure in a world where you can be anything you want to be. When you ask a child what they want to be when they grow up – they DREAM BIG! And they understand how to be present in the moment and fill up those moments with FUN! Not a bad way to roll…

Unrealistic? Maybe. So often though, especially in a tough environment like 2009, it becomes natural to default toward focusing on mistakes of the past, the uncontrollable stressors of the moment and hardships that lie ahead. Instead of the abundance of opportunity both change and challenge can bring our way! A little more letting go of the past, living in the moment and preparing to pursue our passion on purpose are good reminders as we look toward the New Year!

A lot of that comes right down to attitude. And I learned a long time ago, and was reminded this holiday weekend, attitude really is a choice. It’s a gift to be around people (even little people) who have a wonderful attitude, are filled with positivity and are passionately pursuing something they love with a real sense of purpose.

It’s contagious! Thanks guys for the reminder. Happy New Year!

Posted in Uncategorized

Seth Godin asked a group of people, all of whom consistently generate thought-provoking ideas, to provide a page on what they’re thinking about as the new year rolls in. He’s turned that into an e-book called What Matters Now. BIG ideas and well worth the read!

Posted in Uncategorized

I do some writing and a fair amount of speaking on the emerging topic of Employment Branding. And one (and certainly not the only) impact area related to developing a compelling value proposition and brand strategy specific to the work experience with your organization is talent acquisition.  If you are an organization that proactively manages your image, reputation and experience as a great place to work and compete to bring the very best new talent into the organization,  it’s quite  likely the topic of the ‘career web site’ has been considered as part of that conversation/strategy.  I am not entirely sure when or why we made the shift from recruiting web site to career site – presumably because a ‘thought leader’ believed that most people wanted a career vs. just a job – and while that notion fades, the idea that that most career/recruiting sites have a long, long way to go still permeates the conferences, conversations and more importantly the candidate experience.

Most companies struggle to get it right but should understand that at some point, if considering a job/career with your organization, candidates (whatever the source) are going to end up on that site.  It creates an impression.  And hopefully more of the right conversions.  And good Recruiters know it can be critical asset.  Leveraged appropriately (along with a robust portfolio of additional tools) to engage the talent you are targeting not only for the requisition you have open today, but to cultivate relationships with those who possess the skills and competency your organization is going to need to compete and succeed into the future.

There is no landscape more competitive in recruiting  (the talent wars never fade in this business) than Division I College Athletics.  Tons of competition for a narrow talent pool with the very best candidates very publicly identified.  And a workforce with 100% attrition every four years means that success is entirely dependent on talent acquisition.  So, the recruiting skills and recruiting site  need to be best of class and new tools incorporated  given the target audience (the recruits are on Facebook).  This weekend I was given a prompt to check out the recruiting site of the hometown football team,  The University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.  Lead by Coach Tim Brewster, the recruiting hub  Play4Brew is pretty impressive  And while I didn’t attend nor I am necessarily a big fan (when you grew up in Ohio you tend to favor The Ohio State University)  I would assume a high school kid and his family also might enjoy the site experience along with the facebook page, twitter stream and you tube channel. The knockout new TCF Bank Stadium on campus doesn’t hurt either!

Does the Recruiting Site or Digital Footprint convert student athletes?  Not even close.  That is still left to really, really skilled competitive recruiting.  But the assets are leveraged to support introducing the talent pool to  the brand experience that is Minnesota Football.   The U is delivering a pretty robust and impressive experience.  A ton of passion on display which is something most corporate recruiting sites are lacking.   Time will tell if W’s follow.

And not a bad place to spend a little time for some alternative benchmarking  in the practice of corporate recruiting.

Posted in Uncategorized

Bono is a Rockstar.  I was fortunate enough to see the U2 360 Concert recently.  And it was Passion on Purpose on display.  And all of that Passion and Preparation translated into a monster Performance. Its a real pleasure watching artists, who take so much pride in their craft, perform at the top of their game.  In those moments of witnessing near flawless execution, that seems so natural,  it can also minimize the countless hours of real hard effort that comes first.  Bono told a great story on a chilly night in Norman, Oklahoma a couple weeks ago about having played Norman 26 years prior about a mile down the road.  In a small bar, to a small crowd, as relative unknowns.  He simply said “it took 26 years for us to move a mile down the road”…….to a sold out stadium of 60,000 mesmerized fans.  What a journey.  What a great gig.  But it sure didn’t start out that way.  In fact, in took 26 years of Passion on Purpose.

I am reading the book Outliers.  Where Malcom Gladwell puts forth the notion that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve expertise or mastery.  Real hard effort.  Real big sacrifice.  And real tough to achieve Rockstar Status if you don’t really love what you do.  Being a Rockstar in your own chosen vocation isn’t really all that different.  You typically get out what you put in.  The edge usually goes to those willing to give a little more than most.  A mentor and friend continually reminds me to think about doing the 1% that the 99% isn’t or simply isn’t willing to do.  What he likes to call “the hard yards”.  And I woke up this morning taking my own self assessment:  Have I put in my 10,000 hours?  Was I willing to earn the hard yards?

A pretty powerful self assessment to take and bold reality to face.  Achieving Rockstar Status is entirely up to you.

Tip:  If you are a Leader, Manager, HR pro or Executive know that Rockstar’s attract other Rockstar’s.  Big game player’s want to step into the arena of business competition surrounded by talent.  Because The Best Talent Wins!

Posted in Leadership, Uncategorized

This is a compelling presentation that does a fantastic job explaining the social media revolution. The notion that we are experiencing a fundamental shift in the way we connect and communicate is right on point. The game is changing – and smart/savvy organizations playing the new game, the right way, will generate a significant competitive advantage.

Posted in Brand, Communications, Uncategorized

Tags: Social Media