Archive for the ‘Managing’ Category

There are two kinds of people in the world of customers and prospects: Those who are motivated by moving away from a problem and those who are motivated by moving toward a solution. Successfully selling to them means listening carefully to their language for the words that will tell you which kind you’re dealing with, says consultant/coach/trainer Erik Meier. Read more here about how to sync your presentation with their style.

In this earlier post, I referred to a New Yorker article about creativity by about  Jonah Lehrer. Turns out it’s part of the campaign supporting his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works.” Here’s a New York Times review of the book and here it is at Amazon.com.

Do you struggle to keep people in your organization on message? Do you worry that news media questions will catch you off guard?

Political campaigns provide an entertaining and effective example of how to stay on message and what happens when you slip, as I wrote in this 2010 article. We offer training sessions for boards of directors and teams of business leaders, which may also include on-camera practice.

A professional association sought our help when they contemplated changing their management company and office location and wanted to communicate the options and reasons effectively to their members at an annual meeting.

“Your diligent work helped us to portray a strong message,” the president said. “The delivery felt quite easy actually, maybe because we were so prepared.”

Contact me now to schedule key message training for your organization.

With Mad Men back (hooray!), it’s time to look at a seminal publication in the world of advertising: “Your Creative Power,” published in 1948 by Alex Osborn, a partner at the advertising agency of BBDO.

Osborn pioneered the creative process known as brainstorming. When it came to ideas, quantity was more important that quality, he said. An unbridled team of people firing off one idea after another generated rich ore which would be mined to find perfect gems of creative concepts. Criticism was forbidden.

It sounds great, and I know I’ve spent a lot of time in my career grandstanding in brainstorming sessions. Only trouble is, they don’t work.

This New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer cites subsequent studies showing that individuals generating ideas solo came up with as much good stuff as when they worked in groups. The most effective structure was a team brainstorming session that allowed disagreement and debate. That format came up with the best ideas and participants had more good ideas in the days that followed.

In general, though, teamwork produces better results, Lehrer reports. Collaboration became more important as scientific knowledge grew because “interesting mysteries lie at the intersections of disciplines,” he said.

Northwestern University sociologist Brian Uzzi studied the teams that create Broadway musicals. He measured the connections between shows’ creative leadership and found that a mixture of social connections and newcomers worked best. Take “West Side Story.” Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein and Broadway Laurents were Broadway icons. Their creative shot in the arm was some kid who’d never worked on a Broadway show before: Stephen Sondheim. (I pause now to genuflect).

As a member of Commercial Real Estate Women of Detroit, I interact regularly with people who design office interiors. This field as much as any was changed by the concepts of teamwork. Lehrer gives many examples of prolific scientific laboratories and even Steve Jobs’ design on the Pixar movie studios, with an atrium whose geography and multiple functions forced everyone to interact.

Bob Thomas of the Michigan Association of Chamber Professionals and I have been connected through social media almost since it started. In 2009, a Twitter comment by Bob led me to an engagement facilitating an economic development planning session at the Tawas Area Chamber of Commerce. (Yes, social media ARE good for business!) We’re friends on Facebook, where Bob recently shared this informative perspective on how to be a strategic thinker. In summary, you must

• Anticipate
• Think critically
• Interpret
• Decide
• Align, and
• Learn

Many years ago a stand up comedian (Robert Klein? George Carlin?) had a comedy sketch in which he advised us how to ruin somebody: Buy his daughter a Barbie doll. With that $5 investment, your opponent would go broke buying clothes and accessories for the doll.

Razors are a little like that: Buy the handle and there’s only one set of blades that fit. For many years I used a Gillette Mach 3 man’s razor. Why? Because I got the handle free, tried the blades and liked them. Then, one day, I bought a package of Rite Aid blades, whose label suggested that they would fit in the Gillette handle. They didn’t, so I bought a Rite Aid handle to go with the blades. Gillette lost my repeat business while Rite Aid made certain that I had to come to their store whenever I needed blades, at which time I would also buy … whatever: Greeting cards, candy, sunscreen, lip balm.

The other day I went to Rite Aid to buy more blades. The package didn’t say what handle they’d fit, but they seemed OK. Nope. The alternative blades didn’t fit, either. Well, heck. If I’m going to buy a new handle, I’m going to buy a national brand, so I won’t be restricted to Rite Aid.

With that failure, Rite Aid potentially lost hundreds of dollars of my business.

It gets better. I started comparing devices and costs and discovered that the unit cost of a single, triple-bladed cartridge can go as high as $2.60, while a package of twin-bladed disposable razors have a unit cost of 38 cents each. Note that those were men’s razors. Those for women – pink instead of green but otherwise apparently identical – were 41 cents each. Are my legs more sensitive or complicated than my husband’s face? I think not. (The women’s razors with the Susan Komen brand logo were even more but I wasn’t going there!)

The lesson here is about preserving customer loyalty. You can never, ever let up. Of course you have to continue to provide value, but a satisfied customer will pay a premium to avoid having to shop around for a replacement. Remember, too, the adage that a satisfied customers tells three people while an unsatisfied customer tells seven. Look at me: I’ve just told 850 people about my dissatisfaction and how to find a decent shave for less than 38 cents a day.

Entrepreneur Patrick McKenzie wrote “Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice” for software engineers, but there’s much in it that applies to everyone. My favorite highlights:

•  Modesty is not a career-enhancing character trait
• All business decisions are ultimately made by one or a handful of multi-cellular organisms closely related to chimpanzees, not by rules or by algorithms
• “Read ad. Send in resume. Go to job interview. Receive offer.” is the exception, not the typical case, for getting employment.
• Actual grooming is at least moderately important, too, because people are hilariously easy to hack by expedients such as dressing appropriately for the situation, maintaining a professional appearance, speaking in a confident tone of voice, etc.

As comedy memoirs go, Tina Fey’s Bossypants has a ton of great management advice. Where she really excels, though, is in her essay on how improvisation can change your life and, I would add, your workplace behavior.

Here are her four rules of improvisation:

• AGREE. If your coworker says “Let’s do a news release about this,” agree, at least for starters, and see where it takes you.
• Say YES, AND. Say “let’s do a news release and share the information on social media.”
• MAKE STATEMENTS. Be a part of the solution.
• THERE ARE NO MISTAKES, only opportunities.

You can read it online at Amazon.com. It’ll take a little effort, but it’s worth it. First, go to this link. Click the “search inside this book” link below the picture of the book. Then, in the search box type

the rules of improvisation that will change your life

Enjoy!

By Erik Meier

When you’re counting close friendships, loving relationships, acts of kindness, or the gold bars securely stashed away in your secret vault, the answer is, “Yes!”  It’s better to have more…rather than fewer of them.

Is the same true when it comes to the tools for building and growing your business?

Many salespeople (and their organizations) believe that more is better.  Unfortunately, “more” often translates to the latest technology or some “magic bullet” process for attracting new clients or closing sales.

Do you really need the latest and greatest to grow your business?

Do you need the newest and most comprehensive CRM application that allows you to not only record, but also organize, prioritize, and analyze every bit of information about every contact and every customer?

Do you need a cutting edge marketing program that gets your message out to a scientifically defined demographic, in a precise manner, at a predetermined point in time?

Do you need the latest computer applications to preload, download, and explode each step in your business development process so you can track, document, and report every interaction with every prospect?

All of the “latest and greatest” can provide some advantages… sometimes.  And some can be very beneficial.  But, do you need all of them?  And, do you need more of them?

Probably not.  In fact, they can hinder your ultimate productivity and progress. Continually seeking new resources to make your job easier, more effective, or more efficient, sidetracks you from the actual work that needs to be done.  It’s a form of procrastination that has a compound negative impact.  Not only do you spend time looking for and researching the next magic bullet, but once you find it and obtain it (or what you think is “it”), you must spend additional time learning how to implement it.  And all of that time is time diverted from your primary objective of building your business.

When growing your business, it’s not about how many resources you acquire…or whether they are the latest and the greatest.  It’s about how you use the resources you already have to solve the problems you face, and to create a path for accomplishing your goals.

It’s about thinking strategically; understanding the true nature of the roadblocks between you and your objectives, and then calling on your initiative, skill, and determination to find a way around, over, or through them.

It’s about tackling the hard tasks first and getting them out of the way as quickly as possible, rather than wasting time looking for magic bullets to make the tasks easier…or perhaps make them disappear.

And, it’s about being honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses; identifying the strategies and skills you need to improve; and then taking the necessary steps to refine the strategies and develop your skills.

There will always be a new shiny object to attract your attention—one that promises unparalleled results.  But, your ultimate success won’t come from a new technology, a new computer application, a new marketing process, or a new sales tracking system.  It will come from your determination to do what has to be done…and your willingness to do it to the best of your abilities.

Erik is the CEO of the EAM Consulting Group in Troy.   He trains, coaches and consults as an authorized licensee of Sandler Training,  a world leader in innovative sales and sales management training. Click here for information about Erik’s Nov. 30 introductory seminar.