"Two men are walking in the woods when they come across a bear...”

At the point of conception we are endowed with a stew of DNA. It determines our height, our weight, our hair color, our eye color, everything about us. This includes our intelligence, our passions, our resilience and our desires. We have a DNA blueprint of how our lives could roll out. We are in part a reflection of our life experiences, but more importantly, if we choose, we are the product of who we are destine to be.

Every morning when we first wake we are given a chance to mold the rest of our day. We can choose to look backward at those things that have happen to us or we can chose to look forward to how we will change our existence into something of meaning. All too often I meet people whose yardstick of success is predicated on the performance of those around them. In the story of two hikers in the woods who come across a bear, the one hiker puts on running shoes. The other asked "why, you can't outrun the bear." The first responds "I only have to outrun you." I would suggest that we are all given the innate ability to overcome the bear in our own unique way, without sacrificing someone else.

The travesty of this "outrun you "mentality is that first of all it creates a win-lose scenario and second it robs us of our true potential and our self actualization. We go through life thinking that we have to be better than someone else to have meaning and value. The problem is that we will always know people who are better than us in many ways. Ways in which we are not naturally talented or gifted. The truly competitive people among us become good at marginalizing these talents in an effort to build themselves up.

I know that a better approach is to surround yourself with those much more talented than you and learn from them. "Fly with the eagles." Know that your destiny is as unique as your talents, passion and drive. Spend every day living up to your DNA. The great thing about following your passions is that it makes everyday an adventure. It's easier to get up, it's easier to learn, it's easier to excel and you can do it longer.

Nothing could be more tragic than a life wasted and yet I see it every day, people going through life trying to be better than their neighbors or co-workers, but falling short of their true potential. In time this constant competition, in which we are doomed to lose, wears us down. Retirement is that far off goals that signifies the end of the race. Those, whose focus is on living to their potential, don't want the race to end. They are still creating the person they ultimately want to be. Retirement means no longer working for money.

At conception each and every one of us has all the tools to be successful and happy. It is not externally driven, but internal. Madison Avenue, MTV or Vogue Magazine doesn't own your potential, don't let them form it. Find that which your inner-self longs for, nurture it, feed it and watch it grow. Jack Trout, one of the great pioneers in marketing says "If you can't be first to market, create your own market."

Hiring Soft verses Hard Sales Management Skills

 

Now is a key time to upgrade you staff. As unemployment rises more qualified people find themselves out of a job. If you have questions about your staff's ability to take you to the next level now is the time to make a critical review and take action if required. I want to provide a framework for thinking about this next step. I have hired or help organizations hire hundreds of sales people and sales managers. This discussion is about sales leadership, but some of the principals could be applied to hiring individual contributors.

So you have two candidates which one do you hire? Candidate "A" has a strong understanding of the correct profile of high producing employees. This person can articulate a sound sales methodology and has documented success in teaching and coaching sales skills, but they have average knowledge of the industry and although they know many of the businesses in the territory they don't have personal relationships with decision makers. Candidate "B" has a good track record of sales success but can't easily tell you the profile of a good sales person, their sales methodology is generic and simple and they say they are good a sales training and coaching, but can't give good example where they have actually done it. The good news is that they have been in the industry for years; know all the key players, including the one you're trying to land and can walk the sales people into a few good accounts.

 

Skill	Candidate "A"	Candidate "B"
Employee Profiling	High	Average
Sales Methodology	High	Average
Sales Training and Coaching	High	Average
Industry Knowledge	Average	High
Territory Knowledge	Average	High
Rolodex	Average	High

 

What I find is that most CEO's and business owners with say candidate "A", but their interview techniques lead them straight to Candidate "B". Now I'm going to distinguish between large company CEO's and small companies CEO's at this point because large company CEO's have a tendency to be more strategic in their outlook, because they have staff to handle the tactical issues of implementing the vision. Small companies CEO and middle managers of large companies are more tactical in nature. Small company CEO's and middle managers of larger companies are closer to the market. They naturally understand the need to get into XYZ Corporation or out sell ABC Company at a pragmatic level. Someone else has helped profile the employment candidates (if it is even done), build out the sales methodology (which might be a natural melding of past managers) and they have third parties do their sales training (outside firms or dedicated training departments).

The end result is that the hiring manager has pointed and specific questions about competitors, companies, decision makers and tactical sales strategies. They know the objections they are trying to overcome; they know the frustrations in the market. They are focused on the next 30 days, 6 months and year, not how to sustain growth over extended periods. They could and sometime do ask questions about the perfect sales person, but they don't know the answer, so they have no gauge. Their sales methodology is a simple six step sales process. They sometime feel if they can hire someone to come in to train the sales force once a year or once a quarter, they don't need to want their sales manager to take the time to do it. They need to be closing business. In the end they can full quantify a candidate's ability to interact with the market, but they can't quantify their soft skills. So the hire hard skills

Here is the reality of your decision. Markets change, people come and go. Any industry, business or decision makers knowledge a sale leader brings to your company will be dated in 6 months. Once they run through their rolodex they don't have any new value to add. Once new competitors come into the market or old ones change their products, their value diminishes. From that point on they will be doing an average job of managing your sales organization. Here is what I would suggest. Turn your hiring criteria around 180 degrees. Hire a consultant to get you into the prime accounts. Hire consultants to update your organization on industry knowledge. Hire your sales leader to build and maintain an innovative sales methodology that will constantly change with the market. Hire a sales leader that will teach your sales people to be successful in any environment. At the leadership level hire someone who knows the science of sales and sales leadership. Know that they can coach the sales people into executing the strategy that produces results. They need to be a student of sales, sales processes, sales strategies and tactics, not a student of the industry or the geography.

You can hire sales people to get you into accounts, but once they are there can they close business?

 

The battle sir, is not of the strong alone.

Patrick Henry said: 'An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us. But we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations. The battle sir, is not of the strong alone. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.'

I was reminded of this passage recently. It is an incredible call to arms. It envisions patriotism, honor, valor, and bravery. It inspires us to reach deep inside ourselves to seize that part of us that longs for heroics. It is recognized as one of the truly great moments in American history. This imagery is improved by the fact that we did successfully rise up and prevail.

At times I think we are again under siege by a tyranny just as dangerous as the revolutionist faced. This time it is more psychological than physical. We are under siege from bad economic news, unemployment news, and uncertainty in how our country will impact these events, all blaring from the six o'clock news daily. Those that have jobs live in uncertainty at worst and declining income or overwork at best, and they are the lucky ones. Many would like the privilege of being overworked. Depression is growing at an alarming rate.

Let's take a page out of the life of Patrick Henry. Every morning we are given a choice. The choice is simple, you are about to live this day, you can live it to the most or you can chose to not participate. We need to make the courageous decision to not only participate, but to attack the day. We need to set goals and then drive toward those goals. Just the act of pursuing will ultimately improve the chances of success even if results of your activity don't seem evident.

It's about action, a call to arms. To help fight off worry, have a plan and work that plan every day. In the movie "What about Bob?" remember it's about "baby steps". You have to get up; you might as well make something of it. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Don't try to eat the elephant in a single bite… should I go on?

In case you haven't noticed I'm kind of big on personal responsibility. But no one can do it all by themselves. Everyone needs help once in a while. If you feel you can't do it alone don't be afraid to reach out. There are a lot of people out there that genuinely care. They just might not know your situation.

Worry is about uncertainty. Making a plan and then following that plan removes some of the uncertainty. It gives us a sense of hope. It also keeps our minds busy. Waiting for events to improve is a fool's game.

Mathew 6:25 "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life"

Innovation is the only Sustainable Advantage

I work with all types of companies. Some of them are trying to sell products based on leading edge technology, some are trying to sell solutions built on sometime very good, and other times mediocre, technology and others are trying to sell concepts that can be cobbled together using existing technology.

What I see as overwhelming common among all of these is that whatever advantage they perceive to have in the market will be short lived. Technology, solutions, concepts and ideas can all be copied and improved upon. No company, whether they sell hardware components, software programs or services can maintain a leadership role without constantly striving to improve their offering. They not only have to invest in the improvements require to just keep their offering viable in the short term; they have to invest in finding the next "game changer". This is time, money and resource intensive.

Common sense and urban legend tells us that every company must reinvent itself three to five years. This is not a disruptive shift in the direction of the company; it is a constant morphing of product offerings, markets served, and corporate culture. Here is what I think is the real "game changer". It is the way that companies innovate, changing the not-invented-here mentality to a proudly-found-here mentality. Rather than protecting intellectual property as a means of providing a unique selling proposition embracing openness and collaboration to accelerate time to market.

To sustain a position as a leading edge innovator in the market a company must build a collaboration mentality embracing customer ideas, employee ideas, supplier ideas, competitor ideas, government ideas and ideas from our financial stakeholders. The concept of throwing a need out in the open and allowing all the stakeholders to add input and suggestions, not only to potential approaches to meeting the need, but the very nature of the need itself.

Look at the concept of XPrize Foundation. They provide an incentive for collaboration. The problems are unique and complex. The intent is to harness intelligence from all over the world to bring creative solutions to market. A pragmatic application for the Xprize concept would be to post a need on your website. Provide an incentive to the party that comes up with the most creative solution. The incentive should mirror the internal cost of ideation. Don't just get the R&D folks involved, get all the employees involved, get your suppliers involved (they'll see a potential new market for their products), get clients involved (after all the need is most likely one of their problems), talk to your neighbors, challenge trade associations, expand your team with free intelligence.

If we think that we have little time to respond to market changes now, think forward ten years. How fast do you think you will have to react to stay current, not to mention get a head. You are going to have to implement a want – find – get- manage model to stay viable in future markets. Why wait? Start expanding your teams internally and work toward total worldwide collaboration somewhere down the road.

Business Development verses Sales

I was following a car to work today that has the prestige license “VPRES”. I wondered if this person was a teller in a bank. Kidding aside, titles can really be confusing. I’m in the business of creating long-term incremental new revenue. One might think that means adding new accounts or growing embedded accounts. To me the answer is “yes” and “no”, but mostly “no”. I have traditionally approached sales as the means by which a company achieves its annual revenue plan. This includes both growing existing accounts and adding new ones. I like to think that a good rule of thumb is to have 30% of revenue from new accounts. This helps deals with the revenue attrition experienced with older existing accounts.

So in my definition, what is business development? Clearly you have to be able to sell to develop incremental new revenue. But the selling is more strategic than tactical. A good business development person is opening an all new market. The selling is typically to the early adopters who will blaze the trail for the mainstream sales force to take over. I think in terms of a three year cycle. At the end of three years it becomes more of a sales activity than a business development activity. What are the traits of a very good Business Development person?

Sales: Number one on the list. It’s about revenue. There is no reason to have a business development process if the end game doesn’t produce significant revenue growth. Solution selling skills are the minimum requirement. Advanced skills and experience are what you are looking for. Do they have a wide variety of successes or are they a specialist? I believe a variety of experiences is always best.

Marketing: It’s not about spinning an existing product to fit a new market. It’s about finding and validating an all new revenue source. There is a lot of advanced marketing going on here. Market research is paramount to long term success. Remember, in no more than three years you want to turn it over to the rank and file sales teams to exploit. The marketing is not so much copywriting and collaterals as it is messaging. What is the Unique Selling Proposition and what’s the value add that makes the solution appealing?

Product Development: Again, this is not classical product development. But it is the ability to create a new product from existing parts, with an extra dash of new. It is understanding the effort required and the resources available to meet time-to-market. It’s the ability to assure that it is within the product roadmap for the company.

Business Skills: Are they going to treat the company’s money like their money? It cost money to develop a new market. Can they run it like a profit center or are they content to run it as a cost center. Do they understand the investment they are asking for and the return they are willing to deliver? Have they built Pro Forma statements to use as milestones?

In the end, if you hire a sales person for a business development position, you may grow revenue in the short term, but will it dramatically affect the revenue potential of the company in the long term? And the other point is…. If you are looking for a pure hunter to open new accounts, don’t call it business development. If you want a hunter, ask for a hunter and hire someone who is proud to be called a hunter. If they don’t like being called a hunter then they probably aren’t one…..

Unique Sales Proposition

This is one of the least understood and most over used concepts in sales and marketing. Everyone thinks they have one, few companies do. Here’s why….

A Unique Sales Proposition (USP) must have these characteristics:

1. First and foremost it must be unique
2. Second, it has to be easily validated
3. Third, it must have real intrinsic value to the buyer.

USP’s are situational. What has unique value in one environment may not have any value in another. So one of two things must happen, either the USP changes based on the environment or the seller must target only the environment in which the USP is truly unique and valuable. The second alternative limits the viability of the market. The first alternative widens the target market but required that the seller understand both the unique value of their products or services and the specific value the prospect is looking to achieve. So the USP starts to look like a BBQ Menu; pick one entre, and two side items. Listing the attributes of your products and services is the easy part, getting past the second characteristic is where most fail the test.

Validating your USP is going to be difficult in traditional terms. Companies like to think their UPS is best-in-class service, leading edge technology, the most this, the fastest that, the only whatever…. The problem is can you prove it? More importantly can you prove it prior to the sale in such a way that your competition is left in the cold. This innately means that the USP must be measurable. If I want to state that my product is installed in more companies than any other like product; do I have the third party validated market share data to back up the claim? Is there another study out there that might invalidate my claim? If I claim to have best-in-class service; can I validate it with third party customer care data? Many benefits are just that benefits, they are not USP’s. I may be able to demonstrate that my clients rate my customer service 97 out of 100, but that does not make it a USP. It makes it very good and is an asset, but unless I can validate that my competition cannot meet that, it’s not a USP.

The last point is the logic test. Who cares? I have a good friend whose company has incredible IP based video server technology. It is truly great stuff. It is incredibly fast and has great features. The problem is; who cares. They compete against analog video servers that are half the price in small configurations and most of the video is never viewed. They lead with their gee-wiz technology just to get hammered on price. They try to tout their reliability, but the prospect counters with “I can afford spares”. The real challenge is to find a market that requires very high camera counts and the video is reviewed on a regular basis. Think casinos…. Think major airports….

The point is that every buyer has a unique set of pain that requires a unique solution. The product or service does not have to be unique, just the sales proposition. When your company can document that your product or service can uniquely address their particular problem, you have a leg up on getting the business. This will shorten the sales cycle and could lead to larger margins.

Your USP is not a tag line on your advertising. It is a tangible benefit supplied to a specific prospect in a specific environment. Don’t look for the magic bullet. Look for an arsenal, a smorgasbord of objective tangible benefits that can be used as the situation dictates.

Defensively speaking, look at your competitors USP’s and be prepared to demonstrate how your product can provide the same benefit. It won’t make your product more attractive, but it will reduce the FUD factor.

Selling in the 21st Century

Selling has changed considerably in the last 10 years. Start-ups have embraced this change because they have to. Older companies are just starting to understand it. This change in driving business, has been brought about to a large extent by the movement away from the concept of “Web 1.0” to “Web 2.0”. The major difference in these two concepts is the Web 1.0 was a more traditional push-pull approach. The idea was to attract eyes to your website and then provide value. This is an electronic form of print advertising, except that there is a lot more real estate to use and a wider geographic distribution. Web 1.0 didn’t fundamentally change sales methodologies. Prospects were attracted to the website, were then pre-qualified by filling out a form and passed to sales as a lead.

Web 2.0 changes that dynamic. Web 2.0 is interactive. The website visitor can change the content by commenting on it. They can add their own spin. Two prospects can debate benefits and add insight for each other. Many Web 2.0 demonstration sites allow the viewer to interact with the demo by inputting their own data. They can have a dialogue with the presenter if there is one. Fundamentally, a prospect can experience the first 2 or 3 steps of the sales cycle without engaging a live person. When the lead gets to sales, the prospect is much more informed and qualified.

Using blogs, twitters and wikis as part of the marketing and sales strategy has become more commonplace. Letting the marketplace create marketing content through interaction provides deeper insight. Sales has to adjust to this new medium. As the prospects and client collaborate on new ideas and approaches, Sales has to keep up. No longer can they rely on marketing material printed annually for their source of information. Smart sales people have their own blogs and twitters. They are engaging their market to build relationships and find opportunities. Social networks can provide new knowledge on personalities, backgrounds, priorities. Reference selling through social networks is a growing tool.

Hiring salespeople with a defined rolodex and an aptitude for cold calling is old school and ineffective. There are just too many screening processes available to the prospect. The average buyer in inundated with spam and junk e-mail, not to mention telemarketing calls. They have e-mail filters and incoming call identification to help them manage unwanted interruptions.

Times have changed and companies must change with them. Take the time to reevaluate the interaction between clients, marketing and sales. Look for sales people who have embraced the new technologies and know how to use them to drive performance. Have they defined their social networks and do they know if and how these networks affect their performance.