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New Blog site for In-Synk

2012-01-17T16:30:00.000-06:00

I have a new blog site that is part of my website. Go to http://www.in-synk.com/blog/

All my previous posts have been loaded up there.

Thanks for following me

U of Memphis has a chance to TopGrade the Department and Football Program

2011-11-29T10:42:00.001-06:00

Dr. Raines take note: This is an opportunity to TopGrade your Athletic Department and Football Program.

Take one important step before hiring your search firm and creating a search committee(both things that need to be done). It's the first step in "TopGrading" an organization. Write a scorecard for the positions of Athletic Director and Head Football Coach. Not a job description, a scorecard. When one writes a job description, one lists the duties and responsibilities for the position and hope a great outcome is delivered. With a scorecard, you define the desired outcome for the position, the results the person will deliver if you hired the mythical, ideal candidate (an "A" Player). Then work back to define the attributes and activities and skills needed to deliver the outcomes. And the support needed by the university to help win.

Then start compiling your list of candidates based on the scorecard, not just personality or ties to the school, or alumni influence. You hire the best match of candidate with what you can afford to spend. The scorecard then becomes the plan of action for the department or team. Both the university and new hires know their part of equation for success and can be held accountable to it. Forward progress ensues.

So Dr. Raines, if the outcome you want for your department is major conference membership, and a solvent program, define what a new AD has to do to deliver the outcome. For the football coach, define the acceptable level of winning, and the type of players you need, and the kind of victories you want. Hire the people who have the experience, and core values to deliver in the reality of the situation right now.

Give the scorecard to the search committee and search firm and ask them to follow it, it's your TopGrading plan. Don't hire anyone that doesn't have what it takes to deliver the outcome you want, not matter what his background is. If you don't, your candidate will end up in the trash heap, just like Tommy West and Larry Porter, and Rip Scherer....And it won't be his fault.

You have a chance to turn this around and make a real difference in future of the University of Memphis.

TopGrading is a strategy that winning organization use on to get the right people on the bus, in the right seats, doing the right things to succeed. It works. It's hard. But it's worth it.

Call me if you want to make TopGrading a practice that drives your growth and success.

Executive Improvement Day at the Growth Summit

2011-10-27T20:37:00.000-05:00

Day two at the Gazelles Growth Summit. Different tone for today. Personal improvement. Worked hard. Lots of improvement to be done. ;-)

Todd Klein author of Built for Change. He worked on ideas for having courage to face change. Companies and their leader have to be Unconventional, Structural(more on this later) and Aspirational to face the changing world. Not all the companies he studied were new ones, not all were tech companies. Studied the gamut.
--Fearlessness. It's a myth. The companies that navigate change are risk adverse. The take calculated risks, based on this key Question.
--List five things that you know about your customers that we know better than our competitors or our competitors don't know. The answers reduce risk and give courage.
--Irreverent: Myth that they break all the rules. They set different rules and follow them.
--What industry metric do you measure regularly for no good reason? Stop tracking it. (example: Zappos doesn't measure call time to keep calls short. They reward 4 hour call center calls. They brag about them.)
--They measure employee fun, not employee satisfaction. Count informal interactions. Proxy having fun.
--Detachment: Another myth. The lonely executive at the top figuring it all out alone.
--They are proactively Inactive--Schedule down time. Disciplined about taking time to screw up. And work the front line. Produces insights: (Bezos of Amazon packs boxes in the warehouse for a week every year. Not as undercover boss either. To clear his head.
--Schedule an offsite to do something. In the next ninety days.
--Process Another myth. They only "process" what they can control. Not what Goliath does either.
--This is called synthetic creativity. Create boundaries for just a few important ingredients for success and get out of the way.
--Find one thing you can do tomorrow that you enables someone with half your experience to do a portion of your job with 2x the outcome.
--Banish Small Thinking Reality not a myth. New ideas are fragile. They protect them from small thinkers. Let them incubate.
--Long term planning at these firms go three layers deep.
--Is there a customer advocate in your firm? Not a customer service rep. Someone responsible for reporting how your customers are doing overall, not just with you. Then how we are doing.
--Universality. Can a single word capture the universality of your business. Trust, Self Confidence.
--Mine is Clarity or Forward Progress
--Appetite for Destructions A myth. They are not crash and burn people like Chainsaw Al.
--But they are willing to sink the boat if they have to (change the model, turn things upside down) to compete.
--If you were fired, but could hire hire one person to come with you to eviscerate the firm, who would that be.
--Meta Lesson: Sustainable Transformity is difficult to do without Passion. Hard to sustain passion.

Sally Hogshead--How to Fascinate--7 triggers to Persuasion and Captivation
--She has developed a model for determining the aspects of your personality that you use the best to persuade others.
--Problem solving model as well as a way to gauge your own persuasiveness strengths and capitalize on them
--Seven triggers: Power, Passion, Mystique, Prestige, Alarm, Rebellion, Trust.
--Has a neat free assessment. I recommend you take it. Go to www.SallyHogshead.com and click on What is your F-Score
--I found it very interesting. Can you guess my primary and secondary triggers and my dormant trigger. I'll buy lunch for the first person in Memphis who gets in right. I was quite surprised.

Travis Bradberry: Emotional Intelligence 2.00
--Really reinforced for me that all of us need to work on being more aware of our emotions and those of others. Being good at this only helps your succeed. 58% of ones performance is tied to emotions yet only 36% of us can accurately identify the emotions as they happen. And we let them control us.
--Those with average EQ outperform those with highest IQs 70 % of the time.
--His book has an assessment with it, similar to Strengthfinders 2.0. The assessment tell you where you stand on your emotions and recommends three strategies in the book for improving your EQ.
--I'm going to buy the book and take the assessment. You should too.

Rabbi Barr next. A rabbi comedian. funny message about this.
--Teach people how to think about their problems and they will solve them.
--One other nugget. "When you meet a couple who says they don't have problems, they will be divorced shortly."

Greg Crabtree: Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits.
--Finally, an accountant who understands building businesses.
--Two Great Metrics to use to make sure cash flow grows. GP$/Labor$ and GP$ /Management$
--The denominators are total labor expense and total management expense.
--Think of them like the NFL Salary Cap. Will help you focus on profitable business only.

Writing this in the Atlanta Airport. Great summit. Make plans to join me at the next one in Atlanta. The Gazelles Leadership Summit May 15-16. Jim Collins is the Four Hour Keynoter.

I'm exhausted but refreshed at the same time. See you soon.
-
Travis

Notes and Quotes from the Gazelles Growth Summit

2011-10-26T07:42:00.000-05:00

My quick video summary

Details:

From Youngme Moon, author of Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd
--99% of Business leaders think their product offering is different, yet most regular people(their customers) have difficulty seeing any difference. Products seem the same.
--Ask yourself this questions: if you went out of business tomorrow, where would your customers go and would they even miss you?
--There is no formula for being different. But every differentiated brand does the following: Says no to many of the benefits their competitors offer, and offers many things (saying yes) their competitors would never offer.
--Great case studies: IKEA and Mini Cooper.
--They turn negatives into personal positives for the customer. Their competitors turn positives into negatives
--'Different' brands provoke friction, an emotional reaction that focuses the customer's decision.
--Deliberately push away groups of customers--not for everyone.
--The negative is where the "gold" is.
--Too many companies pay too much attention to competitors, ending up duplicating them
--Customers can tell you what they want, but can't really tell you how to be different. When they tell you how to be better, they are telling you how to copy competitors. That's why this is hard.
--Different and crazy look the same when you start. Give crazy time to incubate before criticizing it.
--Passion plays a big role in being different. Makes you mystical. It helps to have a culture of passion to be different.

Daniel Pink, Author of Drive:
--What most of us "know" about motivation is wrong. Based on Folklore and Intuition. Not Science.
--What we do to motivate our people actually hinders their motivation and hurts your business.
--If/Then compensation works well with repetitive mechanical like work.
--Works horribly with even Rudimentary Cognitive work. Most work today requires at least Rudimentary Cognitive Skills.
--If/Then compensation says to the employee that this is no longer their work and hinders creativity
--You must pay fairly. If compensation violates basic fairness the motivation game is over.
--You must pay people enough to take money off the table as a motivator. When they aren't worrying about money they will think about their work and perform much better.
--Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose are the motivators.
--Management is a technology from 1850.
--When you ask people to describe their best bosses. They say "High Standards, and They game me "Freedom" to do the job. Not "He hovered over me and watched everything I did."
--Autonomy can be synonymous with Accountability
--Mastery--Getting better at things is very motivating.
--Annual evaluations are awkward kubuki style events. Don't measure progress
--You must increase the metabolism of your feedback.
--Purpose: Help people understand their contribution and the difference they make.
--Spend 2x more time on why than how.
--Sales commission: Higher base with profit sharing always works better. More collaboration. Customers like it better. See them as agents not sales people.
--People are not slightly taller, less smelly, biped donkeys, why do we treat them this way?

Alan Miltz--See my previous blog post from Monday. Covered the same material.
--But the key question is are you borrowing to fund growth or pay for waste?

Alexander Osterwalder--Business Model Generation. I've got to get his book.
--3 things business people don't do well 1. discuss their business model. 2. Design their model. 3 Test them before they build them.
--He advocates the business model canvas. Draw the picture of it to discuss it and design it and test it. www.businessmodeltoolkit.com
--The temptation to quit comes right before your model starts succeeding.

Looking forward to today: And then coming home.

Lots of Learning Today--Here's a summary of the best ideas from the Gazelles Growth Summit Coaches Day

2011-10-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

Feel like someone opened the top of my head today and poured in a bit too much knowledge. Lots learned today, that will take a few days of digesting. Looking forward to sharing it when I get back.

On building community. Three elements have to exist. Members have to be authentic, have to feel safe, and have to serve each other. This begs a question. Are you building a community with your organization? When you build one, you move faster.

We spent lots of time learning about strategy. Here are some quotes that resonated with me.
--Many companies "had" a great strategy, but lose it along the way.
--Strategy = Tactics in Context
--The executive team gives me good information, but the charts tell me the truth. (a quote from Alan Muhlally of Ford, explaining why he uses dashboards.
--Opinions are the most dangerous data in business.
--Strategy=choosing what not to do.
--Performing operational excellence is not a strategy. Can't be sustained. Can be copied. Leads to the "seduction of streamlining" which is a trap.
--Strategic Planning = Strategic Thinking and Execution Planning

--We had been operating in a Supply driven economy prior to 2007. For the first time since WWII we are operating in a Demand driven economy.
--We need to discover profit pools--they exist.
--Define a list who you are going after. Have sales report on who they have gotten off the list buy landing them, instead of finding new clients.
--Consider having sales people call in every day to report on their funnel. Record it and don't make them do reports. The technology exists to do that.
--Jack up Marketing
--Sales people's degrees are in partying. Marketing people's are in history, physics and math.

Innovation is a dimension of strategy. Hot, sexy word right now.
--Have to have a design attitude right now.
--We reviewed different Strategic Frameworks that drive Innovation. Too much to share in this blog. But loving it.

--Spent time with Kevin Daum, of Roar, learning how to use humor to enhance messaging.
--Look forward to sharing with you a video I'm having made to explain what I do and the outcomes you get from coaching. It's funny.

And I won a coaching award from Gazelles at the dinner this evening. Living a Gazelles International Core Value. "For the Good of the Order" Very humbling to win it.

Revenue is vanity, profits are sanity, cash is king.

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm at the Gazelles Growth Summit this week in Phoenix Arizona. Sharpening my axe.

Spent a half day with the other Certified Coaches yesterday afternoon. Spent a good two hours working teaching the People Decisions of the Four Decisions(tm) Model. Great session.

The the insight I want to share this morning is from the next session. Cash Flow: Blind Spots in your Financial Dashboard. Alan Miltz, a cash flow thought leader was the presenter.

Banks look at your ability to service your debts. Period. Do you have or are you generating the cash to cover your obligations. You should be looking at your business this way as well.

You can improve your cash by revenue growth, or better management of assets, or both. But must American business owners get lulled into the revenue growth only, and don't manage the assets and end up borrowing 40 cents on the dollar to generate 30 cents on the dollar in revenue growth. Bad formula.

One other interesting insight from Alan. A client of his outsourced his inventory from China, almost crippling his Cash Flow. He thought, mistakenly, that the higher margins due to the lower cost of goods would deliver higher profits, which it did. But killed his cash. Because he had to hold more inventory, eating up cash, and he had to pay the Chinese for the inventory upfront before they shipped, eating more cash, creating more debtor days. And he though he was doing well. (another reason to question the almost automatic move to outsource suppliers overseas).

Looking forward to more insights from Alan later in the week, as he is doing a keynote later in the full summit.

More tonight, the night after, and the night after than.

The importance of identifying and moving "Rocks"

2011-10-06T10:15:00.001-05:00

Final post in a series of posts on "Moving Rocks." I'll be covering this in depth at the next In-Synk Huddle.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, here goes:

Finding and moving your rocks is super important to sustainable growth. In the past, many of us achieved organic growth or "rising tide" growth. We had a pretty good product and processes to support it and we executed. And we grew.

Anyone notice that the economy is flat. And will probably be that way for the foreseeable future. With a few exceptions, most growth will have to come at the expense of competition. Riding the tide is not really an option. To get the competitive advantage needed for growth, you have to find the rocks that will sustainably move your forward the furthest. And then the next one, and so on.

The biggest trap in this is mistaking "Weeds" for "Rocks." You still have to pull the weeds. But weeds are not Rocks. Got to get to the Rocks and move them.

Another view of "Rocks"

2011-10-05T14:48:00.000-05:00

3rd in a series of posts on "Moving your Rocks" which I'll be covering in depth in the next In-Synk Huddle.

While I like the bulldozer imagery on moving rocks that I posted yesterday, I've come to appreciate the view I'm going to give you today just a little bit more. It seems to resonate more. Seems more clear.

First think of your three year goal or BHAG as a really big hole that you have to fill.

Your Rocks are the initiatives/cababilites/projects that if executed will fill up a big portion of the hole. So the idea is to identify Rocks that, in addition to the regular daily execution items done well everyday, will fill up the hole faster.

Rocks will never fill the hole up completely, there is too much day job stuff that has to fit around them to fill it up completely. So you can't stop the Day Job stuff. But if you can't put rocks (things that give you advantages with the Day Job stuff) into the hole, filling the hole will never happen. Real growth will never happen.

Looking at Rocks this way is all about Forward Progress. More positive than the Bulldozer analogy. Has a building blocks type of feel to it.

Pick one of these analogies. And figure out your Rocks and get cracking on them.

The Bulldozer Image of Moving Rocks

2011-10-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

Second in a series of posts on "Rocks" Will be addressing this topic at length in the next In-Synk Huddle.

This image comes from my family heritage of Civil Engineering. Although I'm not a Civil Engineer, it seems to be in the Synk blood. Father and Sister were/are successful Civil Engineers.

Imagine you are building a road (your strategic plan) from Memphis to Jackson. The easiest road to design and build is a straight line. Because of terrain, a straight line road just isn't possible to build. Valleys, Forests, Hills, Rivers are in the way or must be worked around. The Civil Engineer and Contractor uses a bulldozer and all types of other heavy equipment and devices and materials to build as straight a road as possible.

Think of the path of your business, between where you want to go, and where you are like a Civil Engineer or Contractor. How are you going to get around, over, destroy or bore through the obstacles in front of you. These are your "Rocks" that you have to move.

Very vivid imagery that helps you identify the major initiatives/capabilities/projects you have to implement to achieve the goal of your business. Does this work for you?

The only down side to this it can get you thinking only about "obstacles." There are additional "Rocks" that add to the competencies of your organization and bring value that don't really fit into this language.

More on that in the next post.

Growth only comes when you "Move Your Rocks!"

2011-10-03T19:28:00.001-05:00

I'll be ruminating on this subject for the next couple of blogposts and at the next In-Synk Huddle. Hope you can make it.

Rocks, in Rockefeller Habits lingo, are the major initiatives/projects/capabilities that, when put in place move your organization forward furthest towards a long term goal.

That's pretty broad description. Dependent on what the long term goal is, what your core values and core competencies are, and what your purpose is. If you determine these, and act and execute on them, they start adding up to growth. Real sustainable growth.

As opposed to the incremental or temporary growth you achieve when you maximize on your current capabilities and competencies. You have to move on these and move your Rocks too. I often call these "Day Job Rocks" Real Rocks are bigger than your daily responsibilities.

As opposed to whacking away at the "Weeds (In-Synk terminology)" the annoying day to day obstacles and issues you keep addressing but make little or no progress on.

More tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Measure outcomes and outputs, not time on the clock.

2011-09-22T15:00:00.001-05:00

I while back, I had a pretty good boss, with an annoying habit. He really measured and remembered people's performance based on the time each person left work each day. He wanted to make sure people were "putting their time in" and "not shortchanging" the company.

Mind you, this was a floor of executives directing the efforts of field offices, so there really wasn't a correlation between time your left the office and the performance of their field offices.

How many similar things are you watching instead of the outcomes and outputs?

Get out of your own way.

2011-09-21T15:35:00.001-05:00

I'm betting that some of you out there aren't going to like what I'm about to say.

The most dangerous entrepreneur out there is the one that doesn't know what he/she doesn't know and makes no attempt to find out. They can't help but get in there own way and have trouble getting out of their own way.

I'm not talking strengths and weakness here. I'm fairly certain that entrepreneurs usually know what the are good at and what others should be doing for them. It's called knowing the "highest and best use of your time." They just need to be reminded of this from time to time. Self included.

What I'm talking about is a lack of knowledge, through lack of exposure, education, or experience, of important ideas, functions, processes, laws, etc that impact their business. Knowing what you don't know means you ask for help and insight. It means admitting some vulnerability. It means continuing to grow.

Not knowing these things means you don't know you need to ask. Mistakes, huge or repeating ones, follow. It's the sin of ignorance or hubris. You become your own obstacle.

This is a difficult dilemma for entrepreneurs. They are independent by nature, and usually pretty smart. Culturally, pressure exists that you can't let anyone see you sweat. Competitive pressures exist as well.

What enterpreneurs need is a safe set of business "friends" of a diverse background, that trust one another, that are committed to growth, to fill in each other's blanks. A go to group of peers, a peer group.

It's one of the best ways to get out of your own way.

What Would the Home Office Say?

2011-09-20T21:33:00.000-05:00

Figuratively I mean.

Let's pretend your business is a branch office or outpost of a very well run, respected, growing company (put aside any biases you have against "the man" and corporate offices from your past and assume for our game of let's pretend, that such a thing really exists).

What would the home office want to look at that would tell them you are doing well and contributing to the growth of the corporation? What numbers would they want from you? What outcomes would they expect?

What would the home office say about what you should be focused on? What you should be doing? How you should be behaving?

I'm not so naive to think that most "home offices" know what to look for, look at, ask for, or say. But if your business was owned by such a corporation, a well run, respected, growing company, wouldn't your answers to these questions be important for you to know. Wouldn't they be a good direction for your business?

Just thinking on the computer, that's all.

Experts aren't always experts.

2011-09-15T22:06:00.000-05:00

Beware the expert who says he's an expert at everything.

You bring them in to gain their insight or expertise at one thing. Next thing you know they are professing that they can handle everything you can throw at them.

These people aren't experts. They might think they know everything but no one can be an expert at everything.

I know what I'm an expert at (a couple of things), what I'm good at (a few things), what I know about(lots but that doesn't make me an expert), and what I'm a novice at (lots here as well). When I know about something and am not an expert or good at it, I give my insight and to push them to someone I trust who is, or help them decide how to find one. That's what a real expert does.

Experts are usually self aware. They should be able to tell you what they can't do and what others will do better.

Experts who profess being able to do anything are self promoters whose personal interests come before yours.

This applies to any field.

The Necessity of Experts and the Need to Use Them

2011-09-15T20:59:00.000-05:00

In a number of interactions in the past several days, I witnessed a number of instances where the investment in an expert would have done wonders for the business owners. Even small investments.

One used a good attorney (loyal, trusted, respected) for a case which required some serious in depth experience to represent him appropriately in a sticky situation. Didn't go well. The attorney did his best. But didn't have the depth of understanding of situations like this to win the day. (I personally suffered in a similar case a few years ago, I learned the hard way.)
Another is trying to build a sales management function, without ever having managed salespeople before. He's a smart guy and with small investment in an expert in Sales Management, just a short consult, he could have implemented an expert's recommendation with out his help. Saving headaches and getting better results.
Another is trying to do better forecasting on sales and expenses, without having good accounting analytical expertise available. He again is smart, but he's winging it.
Finally, another is making poor hiring decisions, without the advice of a hiring expert to guide him.

I could enumerate endlessly on other types of situations that apply. A little investment, in some cases very little, to get perspective and expertise involved in making a good decision, would have saved aggravation, time, and lost opportunities.

It gets down to this. Decisions are always better made with great minds focused on them. If you don't have the great mind you need on your team, can you borrow, or rent one?

Uncoordinated Coordination

2011-09-07T14:16:00.000-05:00

It's a funny idea, uncoordinated coordination. Read the term in Youngme Moon's book, Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. I'll be reviewing the book at the In-Synk Business Book Review this Friday morning.

She uses it to describe the "herd" mentality that seems to automatically occur between competitors as they seek to differentiate their businesses, that drives competitors to be almost indistinguishable from each other. She calls this "uncoordinated coordination", or "coordination without the coordinator."

Take this idea out of the marketing realm.

We want coordination within our businesses don't we? We have to have it because everyone is responsible for completely different functions in the business, and they all have to come together to deliver profits, right?

Too much coordination is stifling and de-motivating. But too little, results in two things, both bad: The herdlike behavior and utter chaos. I don't like either of these outcomes.

The key is to provide the right level of coordination, with as minimal effort as possible. Which is hard to do, without establishing a good meeting rhythm. The right kind of meetings, focused on the right things, timed right to keep things moving forward. When done right leaders find their coordination or management time shifting from 70% to less than 30%. Time that can be spent working on new opportunities.

Meeting Rhythm is the topic of the my next In-Synk Executive Huddle on September 23rd.

One other thought. People hate meetings because most of them are bad and unproductive. I'm not talking about these type of meetings. Meeting Rhythm eliminates these sort of meetings.

Blinding Glimpse of the Obvious (BGO)

2011-08-26T10:14:00.001-05:00

When these happen it's great. The floodgates open up and whatever it is that you have been stuck on gets unstuck. If you've been stalled, you start moving again. I want more of them. You should too.

But the label (BGO) implies that you just stumble across them. Or that they are divinely inspired. Or they are totally serendipitous. (Serendipity is "Irish" for planning, you knew that didn't you). This is not accurate.

BGOs happen when that last bit of info connects the dots between lots of other bits of information you have been struggling with. You know these other bits of information because you have been compiling them for a reason, or studying them. You've been paying attention to them, often for reasons you might not understand, but you know that paying attention to them is important.

So if you want more BGOs to happen, and I do and you should, one needs to keep paying attention, keep studying and struggling.

Keep compiling the data. Keep playing with all sorts of different ways. Keep cataloging them and re-cataloging them. Keep trying to composing theories that make puts them in order for you.

Keep feeding on a steady diet of input (stimulus) from others. Peers, experts, catalysts, coaches. People who see things differently than you do. Who think differently than you do.

BGOs will come. Not necessarily when you want them to come. Just make sure they keep coming by doing all of he above. When they don't, that's when you need to start worrying.

I've had several in the past couple of weeks and months. BGOs come from working hard and being disciplined about paying attention to everything.

More musings on this in the next few days. Inspired by Steve Jobs on this. He paid attention and had and keeps having loads of BGOs.

Why believers go the church (or synagogue, or mosque) each week.

2011-08-25T08:34:00.000-05:00

The first reason is obvious, to worship and praise God.

A secondary reason exists as well: to hear the stories of their faith. I'm Catholic, and what I believe is taught, re-taught, illustrated, and reinforced by listening to the scriptures each week, especially the Gospels. It's how we learn what we believe, challenge what we believe, and determine how to live. The weekly reinforcement of these things keep the faith alive. Similar things occur each week within all the various faith traditions of the world.

While I am not suggesting that you equate your business with your faith or religion, what are you doing to make sure the core values of your organization stays alive. Are you telling and retelling the stories about the beginning of your company? Are you examining regularly how to live the values that drive the success of your business? Are you catching people doing the right things and telling them and everyone one else?

If not, your organization will eventually start to stall, and maybe even become irrelevant.

Are you working the right Zip Code?

2011-08-08T21:05:00.001-05:00

Recently as the board chairman of a local charity, I experienced the following. Four fundraising events of a similar nature, one of them producing double the donations in $ than the others combined. One of the leaders of the others, asked why it was more successful.

"We were working a different zip code at this one."

The leader of the more successful event had friends that were much more affluent and ready to donate than the others.

In your sales campaigns, are you working the right zip codes? I mean figuratively not literally.

The customers on the higher end of the food chain take longer to sell and are harder to sell. Are you forgoing them for the "easier to sell" customers at the bottom of the food chain. Are you targeting the potentially more lucrative accounts and making sure the sales force is calling on them.

Let's face it. All sales people (you and I included) when given the chance take the easiest route to the money. Any money. Even at the expense of the big money.

Just some things to think about as you regroup and refocus your sales team for the last four months of the year.

Come to the next In-Synk Huddle on August 19th. Title? The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Sales Teams.

I'll be blogging on Sales Effectiveness all this month to help you get your sales teams in order for the last four months of the year.

While on the topic of BHAGs. Here's one from a client I helped recently.

2011-07-27T13:34:00.000-05:00

http://www.gorocketfuel.com/the-rocket-blog/rocketfuels-really-big-goal/

A Big Powerful BHAG

2011-07-21T16:03:00.001-05:00

I've blogged before about the power a good BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) brings to an organization. Provides vision, focus, inspiration, and determination.

Yesterday, at the Sales and Marketing Society Lunch, I enjoyed Richard Shadyac, CEO of ALSAC, the funding raising arm of St. Jude Children's Hospital, discuss how Danny Thomas would explain his dream of St. Jude to people he didn't even know, and inspire them to help him and donate as well. This is was in 1962 way before Jim Collins defined the term BHAG.

"I'm going to build a children's hospital. We are going to treat catastrophic diseases at this hospital. No family will pay, treatment will be free. We are going to build it in the South. Are you in?"

It's quite the BHAG, and still drives St. Jude and ALSAC today in 2011, 49 years later.

Amateur or Expert: Some musings.

2011-07-06T21:47:00.001-05:00

If you are a business owner you have to be an expert at something, or the long term success of your business is questionable. But don't assume that because you are an expert in something that you are an expert at everything. Most likely you are an amateur at most things.

Experts and amateurs alike need coaching or assistance. Just ask Tiger Woods.

Take me for example, I like to think I'm a strategy and execution expert. But twice a year I go away to get updated on all things related to strategy, execution and leadership.

I also think I have good instincts about marketing. Instincts are not expertise. I know a good marketing idea when I see one, can even create a good marketing idea or two every so often. But I've learned I need the hand of an expert to make sure the idea is complete and that I can convey the idea effectively. So I'm an amateur marketer. And I get help from an expert or two.

Determine what you are an expert at and what you are an amateur at, and get coaching or expertise accordingly. Stop trying to be expert at everything,

Two Books I Recommend: Both Start With the Letter "D"

2011-07-05T13:24:00.000-05:00

DRiVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink

Elegant writing that challenges the common held belief that leading people is all about Carrots and Sticks. Now I understand how I set sales records for Kelly Services back in the day, when I didn't have commission, or significant bonus or incentives.
Our Book Club Selection this Friday. http://in-synkdrive.eventbrite.com

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. by Youngme Moon.

I'm only about twenty pages into it right now. A more meaningful and detailed version of Blue Ocean Strategy.
Biggest takeway right now is that strenghtening your company to be well rounded (pretty good at everything, fixing your weaknesses) hurts you strategically. Makes you part of the herd, which is what everyone else is always doing.
Much more in this book than I anticipated. A HBS professor that makes sense?!. Will be doing a book club of this somehow somewhere sometime.

A Steady Diet of Input

2011-06-27T11:33:00.000-05:00

At this weekend's Inner Circle Symposium, another facilitator (John Engelman, of Ames, Iowa) said the following. "Business Leaders Need a Steady Diet of Input."

Thinking about this over the weekend, I have to say I agree. All the great leaders of the world make sure they don't operate in a vacuum. They understand the importance of having an exchange of ideas and dialogue coming at them. Bill Gates, check, Steve Jobs, check, Warren Buffet, check.

The In-Synk Huddle and Book Club are ways of creating a flow of ideas. (http://in-synkwho.eventbrite.com is the next huddle, http://in-synkdrive.eventbrite.com is the next book club).

Inner Circle by In-Synk creates a flow of deep meaningful dialogue between business owners and CEOs. (www.innercirclemidsouth.com).

Increasing your diet of ideas and dialogue is what In-Synk is all about. It's my passion. Can't help myself.

Unlike a diet to lose weight, your diet of input should be growing.

How's your diet of input? Is it growing? Do you have one? Or are you isolated and getting all your ideas and advice from your brother-in-law?

People and Process, not one or the other, trumps everything.

2011-06-15T09:04:00.001-05:00

Continuing on this theme of Right People in the Right Seats doing the Right Things:

You need both great people and great processes, not one or the other.

If you rely mostly on great processes, at the expense of people, you will eventually have crummy people trying to slog through your great processes until they fail as well.

If you rely only on great people, without insisting on great processes, you will wear out your people who will leave and leave you with crummy processes.

Crummy people aren't capable of developing great processes.
Great people won't tolerate crummy processes.

It's a symbiotic relationship. Can't have one without the other. At least not for very long.

We'll be working on this at the In-Synk Executive Huddle this Friday

Culture doesn't trump strategy, it accelerates it.

2011-06-14T09:14:00.000-05:00

Been thinking about this since the Mavericks win on Sunday.

I've said many times, as have other consultants, that culture trumps strategy. That by having a strong, reinforced culture you don't have to have as good a strategy as those without culture.

I have a different take on it now. The Mavericks culture of celebration and encouragement accelerated the talent and strategy they employed, allowing them to overachieve and win the championship over a team that clearly had the most talent in the league.

Conversely, the poor culture of the Heat, diminished the abilities of the top talent they had available to them, allowing the Mavericks to pass them by.

The lesson here: constantly pay attention to your culture, teaching it, reinforcing it, encouraging it. Hire and retain people who can live it. It takes more than top talent or a great strategy to succeed. It takes a great culture to maximize or accelerate it.

Why the Mavericks Won

2011-06-13T08:32:00.000-05:00

It's their "High Fives." Read this article from the WSJ predicting their victory.

Someone actually studied game film of all NBA games this past season, counting how many physical acts of encouragement players give to each other in the heat of battle. During the season and during the playoffs the Mavericks were among the top teams in high fives and other acts of encouragement. The Heat, near the basement, especially during the playoffs.

Clearly the Heat had better talent. I'm not dissing the Mavericks here. They are talented, but the Heat has the young superstars, and while the Mavs have some great wily veterans, it's clear talent wise that Heat has the advantage.

To me it is clearly a case of culture leveraging talent to outperform the more talented competition.

Does your company culture catch people doing the right things, or does it find everything wrong? Does your culture pick people up from failure or ignore or punish it?

Do you want to be the Mavericks or the Heat?

Evidence of Success

2011-05-31T20:07:00.000-05:00

Riffing on yesterday's post. What you need to do is "Detect Evidence of Success" for both Core Values and Talent during your hiring process.

About 13 years ago I used to present a program called "Detecting Success in Future Employees," using the theme of TV detectives and how they interviews witnesses about the crime scene. The one I focused on in particular was Lieutenant Columbo, played so winningly by the late Peter Falk. If you are too old to remember this television show, I suggest you go to YouTube and look up some episodes and pay particular attention to his interviews of suspects and witnesses. His technique was brilliant and nailing the suspect by getting to the small bits of evidence of wrong doing, catching people in their facts that didn't add up.

For employees, just flop it around to detecting evidence of the desired behaviors that represent the talents and values you desire. And then ask more and more questions to catch their facts so that the do or don't add up. If they don't add up, don't hire. If they do, continue the process.

This is called behavioral interviewing. Which none of us are as disciplined as Columbo is. The simple formula is this: Tell me about a time when you ........(did exhibited integrity, or handled a difficult sales encounter). Let them talk. Nail it down with follow up questions to get the facts. If they can't give the facts, they didn't really do it. If they can, all you do then is make sure there story matches your talent and values standards.

Check out Columbo's style here

Core Values or Talent?

2011-05-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

The answer is yes. Change the "or" to "and" and the answer is still yes.

Even though I've been quoted (and I own up to the quotes) that company culture (core values) trumps everything, I still say the answer is yes.

Let me give you and example to explain my answer:

Several years ago,when I first got started as a business coach and peer group facilitator, I met with a pretty successful business owner operator. Things going pretty well for him. But he was a bit unsatisfied with his sales team, in particular, the turnover and the costs of turnover. We talked about it. Here's what I learned.

He hired only church going Christian, family men for as sales people. Didn't matter which church, just that they were regular church goers. I believe he also extended this beyond Christians only. This way he felt confident that he could trust them and that they would make good decisions similar to his own values. Fair enough. Good way to ensure honesty, fairness, motivation, integrity, etc. All company core values that were desirable. What else was he looking for when hiring sales reps? "Nothing, they either sink or swim." He did nothing to determine whether any of them would be successful at sales. Core Values don't translate to talent.
As you can imagine, turnover was particularly high and sales inconsistent. Not because of lack of values, but because of lack of skill. You must hire for both.

Great Core Values but no Talent. You've got a problem. Probably a productivity problem.
Great Talent, but poor Core Values. You've got a bigger problem. Integrity and teamwork problems.
Have both. Smoother sailing. (there are always challenges with employees. You'll have good challenges here that are fun to deal with).

Customers not Passengers / Stores not Busses.

2011-05-18T14:52:00.000-05:00

One final insight to pass along from Mark Aesch, author of Driving Excellence and speaker at last week's Fortune/Gazelles Leadership Summit.

As you can surmise from this morning's post, Mark really places importance on how you frame the way you think. It can make all the difference in the world.

In turning around the Rochester Transportation Authority, he spent lots of time, effort and money getting the drives and all others to think differently about how view their positions.

The shift can be summed up this way: "We don't have passengers, we have customers. And when they step on the bus they are stepping in to our store. Act accordingly."

When this mindset was adopted by the majority of the staff, momentum really shifted and they really started to deliver positive results.

Driving Excellence--Mark Aesch and the Fortune/Gazelles Summit

2011-05-18T08:15:00.000-05:00

Final post of mine referencing my findings at the Fortune/Gazelles Leadership Summit.

Mark Aesch was truly an interesting speaker at the summit. He was the featured CEO. He runs the public transportation authority of Rochester NY, their equivalent of our MATA. Quite the contrast to our bus service. He took over a money losing operation and turned it into a surplus (read profit) making entity, while reducing bus fares and increasing ridership. His book, Driving Excellence, outlines it all for us. We'll be featuring it at the In-Synk Business Book Club this fall. Stay tuned.

He has a formula: Strategy Development + Quality Measurements + Courage in Decision Making = Outstanding results.

He also asked the audience to rethink how they frame things.

Sunday afternoon drives vs. Destination Management
--Sunday drive mentality is a paternalistic, listless, and ego driven way of leading
--Destination management is purposeful and deliberate. People stay on board because they know where they are headed.

"I think" vs. "I know"
--"I think" means the biggest title in the room wins.
--"I know" means information lights the path to good decisions and to the Destination you are going to

Sad Decisions vs Tough Decisions
--So often we frame things as "tough" when they are merely unpopular or emotionally troubling.
--There are very few "tough" decisions when you have clear direction and the data available. The decisions become crystal clear. They might be sad decisions because of emotions connected to them.

Survivors vs. Succeeders
--Survivors merely try "hang on" to what they have. Protecting their status and perks.
--Succeeders risk their personal survival for the future success of the org.

Couple of other hints
1. Financially driven orgs are not financially successful ones
2. Clearly identify what success is
3. Create a plan, not a budget(budgets are for survivors not succeeders)
4. Be in charge--not demonstrate you are in charge.

Tom Peters has endorsed this book as the best leadership book written in the past ten years. I'm going to get a couple of copies and give them to our Civic Leaders and to the head of MATA.

Marshall Goldsmith--Insight from the Fortune/Gazelles Summit

2011-05-17T11:43:00.000-05:00

I've been going to Gazelles Growth and Leadership Summits for over 7 years now. Seen Collins, Buckingham, Peters, Lencioni, all the best gurus. They didn't hold a candle to Marshall Goldsmith. His understanding of the personal dynamics of leaders and what gets in their way was profound, deep, and practical, all at the same time.

We'll be doing his book, What Got You Here, Won't Get You There, some time this fall at the In-Synk Business Book Club. Stay tuned.

Marshall is a coach to the top executives/leaders of the world. On top of that he is an effective speaker and facilitator. Speaking to close to 500 people, he connected with everyone as if you were the only person in the room. And besides style, he had content. Here are some of his gems:

--"Stop doing" as a leadership tool. Leaders need to stop doing a number of things they do that they think is leading. Many of the things you did to get into the leadership position you find yourself in, are no longer valuable when you lead. They get in the way. Must stop doing them.

--Stop judging, stop critiquing. You are here to help. "I am here to help"

--"The more successful we become the more delusional we become. Delusional people are happy."

--Top three most conceited professions in the world. Medical Doctors, Pilots, Jesuit Priests, followed by FBI agent. The conceit of these people isn't necessarily bad.

--#1 problem of leaders--They have won too much.
--#2 They try to add too much value
--#3 they tell people how smart they are
--#4 they pass judgement
--#5 they play favorites and don't admit it

--Can't effectively coach someone if they themselves aren't motivated to change.

--The Feed Forward Process
1. No Feedback on the past. Can't change that. Let go of it.
2. Cannot Judge ideas--Listen w/o judging
3. Learn --as much as you can
4. Help as much as you can

--Leadership is a Contact Sport

--No follow up = No Change
--Little Follow up = Little Change
--Lots of Follow up = Lots of Chanbge
--Consistent Periodic Follow Up = Great Changes

--It's always going to be crazy
--Keep it simple, focused , fast.

--The bigger the org gets the simpler things need to be to work or get better.

--One you pass 40, whining about parents is stupid.

--Leadership is showtime. Have to be Authentic

--Worst three words an leader can use--"No," "But," "However." Eliminate them from your vocabulary.

--If you are debating between conscience and goal--Pick the conscience.

--"Goal Obsession" undermines the mission of the organization. Commit to a goal to wholeheartedly you turn your brain and heart off. And those of those around you. This is very bad. (this was the best insight of the entire speech, he demonstrated it to all of us. We all drove right in and proved him right.)

If you ever have the chance to listen to Marshall Goldsmith, or read one of his books or articles, do not pass go, do it directly.

How's that for an endorsement?

Insights from the Gazelles/Fortune Leadership Summit

2011-05-16T10:37:00.000-05:00

As promised, I'm sharing my insights from the Gazelles/Fortune Leadership Summit that I attended last week. Today I'll relate what I gathered from master turnaround executive Greg Brenneman. Tomorrow: master leadership coach and author Marshall Goldsmith. Wednesday: master public sector executive and author Mark Aesch. Stay tuned.

Greg Brenneman certainly spoke with the authority of experience. Former CEO of Burger King, PwC, and was involved in turning around Continental Airlines. Currently serves on the boards of Home Depot and ADP. As you can see he is experienced. Mostly from a "corporate point of view" meaning in creating these turnarounds he had both the moxie to create change in huge organizations and the resources to work with. But I found lessons for mid and small businesses nonetheless.

Underlying concept: "Must adopt the attitude that you are in perpetual turnover/turnaround mode." Things are changing in the world that fast. You must be changing too.

Best Quote: " A crisis is a terrible thing to waste"

Five Tools Managing in a Slow Growth/Uncertain Environment
1. Build a Fortress Balance Sheet--Like Fort Knox, protecting your cash and assets
2. Have a Plan: A "Go Forward Plan" --A One Pager listing out the "Go Forward" actions in these four areas: Market, Financials, Product, People. With Metrics on all of them. "The fastest way to make money is to stop doing things that lose money."
3. Think Money In--Not Money Out. "Can't save your way to prosperity" Get the customer traffic up.
4. Clean House--The team that put you in crisis will rarely pull you out of it. Get an "A" Team and focus them on the plan and only on the things in the plan. Spend 33% of your time or more on coaching the A players.
5. Let the Inmates Run the Asylum--In other words, get out of their way. Let them work. Let them rewrite the plan for their portion of the plan. Hold them accountable to it and support them, but let them do it.

He also had an interesting way to report on progress, He eschews email. People don't read it and don't get the gravity/excitement/clarity needed when reporting on the "Go Forward Plan." He advocates a Company-Wide Voicemail Every Friday, detailing all progress accomplished that week from the Go Forward plan. "This is what happened this week." It conveys progress, confidence, and momentum while giving just a bit of peer pressure to those not contributing.

Great perspective from an expert. What do you think?

SouthWest Airlines--Still doing their own thing.

2011-05-09T21:31:00.000-05:00

Flew from Jackson, Mississippi to Houston this morning for the Gazelles Conference. Coming home the tomorrow.

Pleasant experience all the way around. I was originally going to fly out from Little Rock, but when I found that the freeway to Little Rock was submerged Saturday evening, I started scrambling.

Changing to Jackson (I-55 was dry and Jackson connects with Houston via direct flight) went without a hitch. No extra charges. Passed right through.

Still doing that strange boarding process they have, but guess what, no one is pissed off by it. Everyone is in the same boat. Want a better seat, gotta get their earlier. That's fair. What's more, the boarding process was really much quicker, without all the crazy boarding calls like we listened to for American Airlines.

Not as much fun as in the past, but I enjoyed the joke during boarding process that those with small children could go first, that is unless the children wanted to be treated like adults.

Free soft drinks and nuts (still serving nuts). Everyone orderly and understanding on finding seats (all in this together, again). No charge for baggage.

And there was once again the traveler on the trip that had never flown before(at least his luggage wasn't garbage bags). They are still competing with the "Dog" and the train. I chuckled at this.

Still doing their own thing. Still making money. Still not in Memphis, but there's hope. They just bought Air Tran. Here's hoping! Really enjoy SW, even with all their quirks. They do it right

Additional Insights from Blue CRUSH/TRAC Meet

2011-04-28T12:11:00.000-05:00

This is a follow up to my last post about the Memphis Police Department’s Blue CRUSH Program/TRAC.

Some other things I found impressive about the Weekly TRAC Meet that I want to pass along:

Besides having the weekly results posted in tables, the data was converted into graphs, both line graphs and bar graphs. And pinpointed geographically via mapping software. Doing this with your data is extremely important. It brings the data to life by making it Visual. When you do it, all participants can do instantaneous trend analysis more easily.
The Administrative Chiefs and the Director refuse to beat up the commanders with the data. There was no need to. Presenting to peers makes poor performance obvious. The focus shifts naturally to learning how to improve from other people’s performance. There was no time in the meeting for brainstorming on each commander’s situation, but lots of the proverbial, “meetings after the meeting” between commanders took place. You want to encourage this.
It was obvious that targets or benchmarks have been set for each precinct. I would love to know more about how the benchmarks were set. Certainly having more than four years of data available helps. I’m betting that Monthly and Quarterly meetings as well as Annual Planning are conducted to set the targets.
Finally, it was obvious that rhythm of the weekly meeting is a welcome habit for the commanders that they have come to depend on to do good work. The esprit de corps of the force is strengthened. They can see the progress they are making and give themselves their own reinforcement.

Several commanders said something similar to the visitors that is significant. Police officers become police officers because “they want to put bad guys away,” and the TRAC meeting and the Blue CRUSH helps each officer accomplish that task more often. They feel they are making a difference everyday. When you have that feeling going on in your organization, you’ve got it going on!

What's the real driving force behind Blue CRUSH in Memphis

2011-04-27T20:38:00.000-05:00

We've read about it in the papers and on the airwaves. The Blue CRUSH (Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History) campaign featuring the Real Time Crime Center are delivering results. A 29% drop in total crime in Memphis from 2006 through 2010. Continued reductions and efficient crime fighting in 2011.

I've been intrigued by the results since learning about the programs at presentations by Professor Richard Janikowski (UM) and Director Larry Godwin at a couple of meetings I attended over the last six months. Wanting to learn more I got myself invited to visit the Real Time Crime Unit and the Weekly TRAC (Tracking for Responsibility, Accountability, and Credibility) Meet.

Don't you love the acronyms!

The Real Time Crime Center is impressive. It's a high tech data center monitoring crime data as it happens, both video monitoring and data communicated through PDA's the officers carry and the PCs installed in their vehicles and 911 calls and many other streams of relevant crime data. Some big time numbers crunching is going on and is being fed in real time to officers on the beat. With a huge wall of digital montitors, it rivals just about anything you've watched on the TV Show CSI.

For sure, the speedy flow of data and analysis has a huge impact on crime fighting. Incredible tools have been created to pinpoint the locations and type of crime and the subsequent efforts of each officer. Those with the best data have a huge advantage in fighting crime just as the organizations with the best data have a huge advantage over competitors. I love the technology the MPD has deployed and I applaud the courage demonstrated in the investment in being state of the art and high tech.

But I'm even more impressed with the low tech habits the MPD has put in place that drives the utilization of the technology. These low tech habits make sure the best data is used in the best possible way, multiplying the competitive advantage the technology creates.

I'm talking about the weekly TRAC Meet. Each week, at the same time, the commanders of each precinct attend the TRAC meet along with commanders of special units and administrative commanders. Each commander, in turn, gets up and reports on their results from the previous 7 days and presents their strategy to improve the numbers for the next week. Data is compared to mean and median data and last year's corresponding week. It's mapped out geographically as well. Lots of bar and line graphs help commanders track and present trends and then determine strategy for the coming week.

While the tone is congenial and some teasing occurs, each commander is on the spot on front of their peers so peer pressure is at work. No excuse making. Just good feedback. Both affirmations and honest suggestions for improvement. The dialogue is honest and direct and trusted. They are all in this together. Pat Lencioni would be proud of this productive dialogue and the commitment and results it delivers.

What's going on is the "Synk"-chronization (excuse the pun and self promotion) of strategy and tactics. Every commander is aware of what is going on in each other's precinct. Real time. Strategy is coordinated. Teamwork ensues. The criminals don't have a real chance.

A second habit, which I wasn't able to observe, is the daily meetings at the start of each shift at each precinct. Driven by data. The officers on the beat are delivering results.

This is meeting rhythm at it's best. Right out of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish. No wonder I'm excited. Good meeting rhythm drives execution that delivers results. It accelerates the impact of whatever strategy, tactics and technology you employ.

More on this in future posts.

How effective is your meeting rhythm? Do you even have a meeting rhythm?

A New "New Years" Resolution

2011-01-09T20:29:00.000-06:00

This shooting of Arizona's Representative Giffords disturbs me. It appears that this assassination attempt was/is a mental health issue of the accused, not some conspiracy that people are blaming each other for.

But I'm still disturbed.

Here's what I'm going to do about it personally, and I want you to hold me accountable for it.

I resolve to abstain from using militaristic language and imagery in my language except when the discussion is about our military or hunting. I'm going to have to find a new vocabulary when coaching, teaching, and consulting with my clients. Competitors will no longer be the "enemy." Customers will no longer be "targeted." I won't be advising clients to "scope" things out or make sure you "have your target in the cross hairs." I won't ask clients to get in the "trenches" or "blow up" a department or process.

I hope you get the picture. I could go on endlessly with examples, couldn't I.

I will still want my clients to beat their competitors, to segment and profile their customers to serve them better, to be focused in their efforts, to walk a mile in their employees shoes, and to rebuild from scratch in rebuilding a department. I want them to succeed. I'm just going to have to find better ways to explain things and converse with them.

This is going to be hard. We are so dependent on military and violent language and imagery in our communications. War is war. Politics and business and most everything else in our lives isn't.

But I'm beginning to think our acceptance of this type of language and imagery, in some way allows us to accept this behavior or helps inflame things. I don't want to be a part of that anymore.

I resolve to be better and above this.

365 Thank You Notes

2011-01-01T20:55:00.000-06:00

On the same road trip I mentioned in my last post, I listened to a story on NPR about a person who last year made a New Year's Resolution at the start of 2010: to write a handwritten thank you note (emails and texts didn't count) to some one each day no matter what. He did it to establish the habit of being thankful every day for something.

It forced him to look for good things that others had done. And to tell them he appreciated it. Kind of like the key insight from the One Minute Manager. "Catch someone doing something right and tell them."

Made a substantial difference in his life, not just with friends and relatives, but with customers and coworkers. To do it everyday takes you out of doing it for family and friends only.

While I won't be committing to a thank you note a day, I will be picking up some stationary shortly and try to do at least one a week.

Shouldn't you?

Brilliant Disguise

2011-01-01T20:44:00.000-06:00

Made a long round trip road trip to Detroit last week. Jamming with Bruce Springsteen on the way. The title of one of his songs jumped out at me.

"Brilliant Disguise"

Even more than before we must get behind the "Brilliant Disguises" job candidates put before us as we try to fill open positions, get past the best face put forward to the real face we'll see when the join us.

Two ways to do this. The CIDS (Chronological In Depth Structured) Interview recommended and used by TopGraders everywhere. Or a well developed Behavioral Interview.

Both focus on getting candidates revealing data to you about actual behaviors performed by candidates in previous positions. Candidates must tell you what they have done in the past, that is related to what you want them to succeed at, rather than what they might do in hypothetical situations. If they don't have relevant successful behavior, you probably shouldn't hire them.

And when you are selling the job to them, are you putting on a "Brilliant Disguise" about your company, selling it too strongly.

When you decide what kind of car you want to buy.....

2010-12-20T16:48:00.000-06:00

....don't you start to see them everywhere as you drive to work each day. I know that happened to me when I last purchased a car. Mercedes C Class. When I decided to buy a used one, I suddenly saw them everywhere. The exact year and model and color.

Apply this phenomena to your business in two separate ways.

When hiring a key position. Write a complete job description in a scorecard format. Start with the outcomes you desire of the position, work back to activities needed to be accomplished to achieve the outcomes, and then detail the experience needed to do well doing those activities. Then add in the personal characteristics that candidates would have that qualify. Review the scorecard regularly and pretty soon you will see potential candidates everywhere.

Same goes for your target market. Go beyond the demographics of the client or customer you are targeting. Think very specifically about the persons in the positions who you are selling to or serving. What background, what cars would they typically drive, what skills would they have, what hobbies, etc. as Bob Bloom (author of The Inside Advantage and The New Experts) would say, put a face on that typical client. Then create your marketing message and uncommon offering around those specifics.

Doing this makes both job candidates and prospects more real. And your efforts to obtain them will be more effective.

Seth Godin has an insight into this as well in his post today. Click Here to read it.

The best know what they are looking for before they get it.

Give "Graphically Explicit" Names to Iniatives and Rocks

2010-12-06T19:43:00.000-06:00

Worked with a client today on brushing up and refining his newly completed, first time One Page Strategic Plan. In the goals column, he had listed an initiative for the new year titled "Develop and Implement XXXXXXX Division Strategy." I asked him to explain what that meant.

He started meandering through an explanation of the division's operational problems that made it a break even proposition. Revenue was excellent, but operational inefficiency eliminated any profitability. Part way through, his second in command said, "We need 'Drop 'n Go' profitability on this product line!"

"Why don't you make that the title of your initiative?"

He replied, in a somewhat questioning tone, "They'll know exactly what we want to accomplish."

"And you don't want the team to know exactly what needs to be done?" I asked.

He quickly changed the name of his initiative, and his first quarter rock and his first quarter theme.

Need I say more about giving Graphically Explicit names to your Initiatives and Rocks?

"Multipliers" will take your Leadership Ability Higher

2010-11-30T20:25:00.000-06:00

For years I've pretty much stayed with one book, when people asked me to recommend a leadership book: The Leadership Challenge by Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner. It's foundational and it's research has been duplicated at least three times now. The Five Leadership Skills outlined in the book make a great model for learning how to lead, evaluating your leadership, and planning how to lead. So pick it up and read it.

But while you are at it, pick up Multipliers by Liz Wiseman. It's a great sequel to The Leadership Challenge.

It takes us deeper into understanding the difference between good leaders and great ones. It outlines two types or styles of leaders. The regular leader, or Diminisher, who maximizes performance but doesn't get the most from his people and resources, and the Multiplier, the leader who regularly gets twice the output from his/her people than the Diminisher, in effect getting two teams for the price of one.

In most cases the Diminisher behavior is well intentioned.

I suggest you take the Accidental Diminisher Quiz to see how you stack up. I did and found that I had a few more diminisher skills than I thought however well intentioned I may think I have been.

And come to the In-Synk Business Book Club this Friday, we'll be reviewing the book, complete with "Synk Notes"

Hope to see you there.

In Case You Missed It.

2010-11-28T16:20:00.000-06:00

The Commercial Appeal covered my recent Annual Planning Day. Five Companies attended, Five completed plans, Five are ready to grow in 2011.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/26/one-page-strategy/http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/nov/26/one-page-strategy/

Any others out there interested in participating in an Annual Planning Day. Let me know. I'll be happy to host another one!

Sales in the Brave New World

2010-11-15T19:40:00.000-06:00

As a former president of the Sales and Marketing Executives of Memphis, the wisdom of the statement we opened our meetings with is firmly ingrained in me. "Nothing happens until someone sells something." It's true, not just in the business world either.

But a shift has occurred in the business world, the entire world for that matter. I wrote about this in a recent blogpost. The power in the sales transaction has shifted from the seller to the buyer. The sales person no longer has control of the process, and it's not just because of the worst economy of our lifetimes, although that has accelerated the shift.

It's because of the combination of real time access to information on the internet and the globalization of the economy. The buyer has control. The buyer can learn and know about the features and benefits of any product or service instantaneously. B2B or B2C. The buyer, if they want to, can know your product as well as you do. And the buyer has instantaneous access all the options(competition) available due to globalization. And buyer's the expectation is transparency.

So the sales world has changed. The "locus of control" of the transaction has changed from the sales person to the buyer. What does that mean for the sales person? It changes the entire nature of the sales function. "Tell and Sell" is no longer necessary. This diminishes the importance of the relationship between the seller and buyer. Customer loyalty is dying, the best one can hope for is customer preference.

The selling process is now all about the buyer and his/her problems and opportunities even if they have nothing to do with the product or service. Every sales relationship is a complex sale. If you want repeat business, you must be identifying the buyer's larger opportunities/problems, not just solving them. No more transactional sales.

Still, nothing happens until someone sells something. So the sales person is more important than ever before. But the role is different. And the skill set for success in dramatically different as well.

Of course, I have some reading recommendations for you. First two books by Bob Bloom, The Inside Advantage and The New Leaders. By reading both of them you'll understand what's driving the shift in the sales arena. The other book I recommend is Mastering the Complex Sale by Jeff Thull.

Or you can come to the In-Synk Executive Huddle on Thursday of this week. The topic? "Sales Success in the Post Web World: How to Manage Sales People in a Brave New Role" AM Session and PM Session.

Or you can keep your head in the sand about things and continue to commoditize your business by refusing to recognize and address this change.

Catalysts; You are one, therefore you need some.

2010-11-04T11:24:00.002-05:00

I almost failed chemistry in high school (from lack of interest and effort), so correct me if I don't get this entirely correct.

A catalyst is a substance that starts up a reaction between chemicals, and saves energy in the process. The final outcome? Less less energy, less time, less cost.

In some ways the owner/CEO is the catalyst for the company. It comes with the territory. With it comes pressure that drains energy. The organization stalls. Growth slows. Things get mucked up. Decisions become more difficult. You can no longer see the forest for the trees.

Time for an outside catalyst.

A catalyst can be a coach, a peer group, a seminar, a newsletter, a plan, a book, a meeting rhythm. A multitude of these things.

The best leaders have a number of catalysts feeding them and their teams energy, input, advice, and insight that fuels them and enables them to grow faster, with less energy, with less cost.

Get a catalyst to get things moving again. Get a bunch of them. Use them all the time.

I'm available!

There's been a shift of power in the sales arena!

2010-10-28T09:30:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed it? After 2000+ years of the seller being in control of the sales process, the buyer is in control. Lots of us have noticed this. Most people are attributing it to the worst recession of our lifetime (my lifetime at least). Any time the economy declines, the buyer gains power. And this certainly has happened.

But the shift started before the recession. Because of technology and globalization, the seller no longer controls information about their products or services. We don't call sales people to get informed. We call sales people to place an order, after first learning all we can about their product or services.

Buyers can find out just about everything about a seller's product and services without having to ask a sales person anything. Salespeople no longer add value to the sales process (or should I say "buying" process) by telling features and benefits. It's a new paradigm. And it's here to stay. At least until someone blows up the internet. This requires a new mindset, and new set of tactics, a new buying process.

I'm holding two events in November to help you learn how to address this new "buying" process.

The first is the In-Synk Business Book Club on November 5th. We'll be reviewing two books by Bob Bloom who outlines this paradigm shift and strategies for succeeding in it. http://in-synkinsideadvtg.eventbrite.com

The November In-Synk Executive Huddle deals with this subject as well. Mike Skelton of Red Rover Sales and Marketing will be joining me. He'll be discussing "Sales Success in the Post Web World: Managing Salespeople in their Brave New Role" I'll be discussing how Meeting Rhythm works in this new sales environment. http://in-synksaleseffectam.eventbrite.com and http://in-synksaleseffectpm.eventbrite.com

Come get up to speed on this.

Goalies facing Penalty Kicks--An model for bad decision making

2010-10-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

Read a blog yesterday that gave me a name for poor decision making that I've encountered repeatedly in the business world. From the soccer world, involving goalies and penalty kicks. It's not a perfect analogy but at least I have a name for it now.

When facing a penalty kick a goalie generally takes a guess and dives right or dives left, trying to anticipate which way the shooter is going to go. Go right and the goalie is successful 13% of the time. Go left and the goalie is successful 14% of the time. Yet when staying in the middle success jumps to 33%. Poor odds all the way around but significantly better staying home. But the goalies don't stay home. They go left or right. They stay home less than 6% of the time. Goalies are predisposed to action over inaction when facing penalty kicks.

In the business world it works like this. A problem comes to light. The leader says "we have to do something about it." Someone immediately says something they could do. So they do it. So they can say they did something about it. And they pat themselves on the back. A predisposition to quick action when facing trouble.

Not much thought about it. No strategic or tactical context. No dialogue. No objections. Just do it. Entirely reactive.

Unintended consequences result usually making things worse.

The bigger or more difficult the problem, the preference and pressure for immediate action increases.

We all do it. Self included. Happens in families, communities, businesses, schools and government. Even though some reflection and dialogue or planning with others increases your probability for a successful resolution and forward progress.

One way to fight it, is to have a strategic context for making decisions. A strategic plan grounded in core values, core competencies, and disciplined thought/dialogue. Then you are prepared for the unexpected and aren't reacting.

Another way is to have disciplined talk time or dialogue with others in a council and have ten heads advise you on possible solutions instead of just your own. Accessing the knowledge of others to make a good decision. A council of one just doesn't cut it. A standing council of other smart people to rely on for counsel and insight and accountability. A council of peers.

Any other ideas on how to stop acting like a goalie facing a penalty kick?

Insights from Orlando--Final Day.

2010-10-20T16:07:00.001-05:00

Have and hour or two at the Orlando Airport. So many insights and connections today, both to much I've learned at past summits and to what I learned yesterday and Monday. Looking forward to sharing some of it at the Huddles tomorrow. http://in-synkchokeam.eventbrite.com and http://in-synkchokepm.eventbrite.com

Bob Bloom got the ball rolling this morning, talking about the findings and advice in his book The New Experts. which is one of the books featured in the next In-Synk Business Book Club http://in-synkinsideadvtg.eventbrite.com/ on November 5th. It wasn't the best presentation, but I think it was the most important one. You want to learn what is in his book. Sign up for the Book Club. He titled the presentation the Ten Simple Truths About Business Growth.

Looking ahead is useless today. Velocity of change is too fast, too high. Globalization and Technology is the cause. If looking down the road instead of around the corner you will be bypassed.
Barriers to Growth, whatever it is, isn't your problem. Don't try to solve the cause. Not enough time. Work on getting around it.
Simple solutions to Growth are best
Fastest , surest, least expensive way to grow is to leverage an underutilized uncommon advantage you already have. It's a strategic asset that is sleeping. The Inside Advantage his first book deals with this and that's why we are also reviewing it at the next book club. Be there.
Brand Building and Tag lines are useless. Not enough time to build brands. Build what your brand stands for and bolt it to your brand. Remember the experience. It's what customers worry about. Facebook and twitter mean you live in a glass house. You are exposed. Your brand has to be real.
What works is single minded Repetition of Message.
Internal Consensus and organization alignment is mandatory. Through the entire organization
Customer Loyalty is an anachronism. Customer Preference is the best you can get. "I prefer you"
Get used to insufficient prospect to customer conversion, and customer churn if you can't build preference.
Historic ways of doing strategic planning kills innovation (not the Gazelles way though.)

He then talked about The New Experts:

There is a seismic change in the market, that people are overlooking by focusing on the poor economy. For 2000 years the seller had all the information, and could control the sale. Today, for the first time the buyer controls the information and the sale.
Customers have unlimited knowledge and unlimited access to it.
Customers have immense choice on everything. B2B, B2C, B2I, you name it they have choices.
In Real Time! Right now.
His book lays out how to attack this new situation. The Customers are the New Leaders. Don't think you need to learn this? Come to the book club on Nov 5th so you don't have to read the book. http://in-synkinsideadvtg.eventbrite.com

Next up was John Warrilow, Author of Built to Sell Great Presentation. Building your business to sell, is a great strategy to follow even if you aren't ready or looking to sell. I'm getting the book.

You have nothing to sell if the business is you.
Teachable + Valuable + Repeatable = Sellable
Eight Steps to making your business sellable
Pick a scalable product or service out of all you sell
Create a positive cashflow
Fire yourself as Rainmaker
Commit to it with conviction--don't straddle two things commit to the one thing. Drop the other
Lock in your team
Hire an intermediary--You will get too emotional about the process
Tell your executive team
Convert an offer.

Final Speaker was David Meerman Scott author of New Rules of Marketing and Real Time Marketing and Marketing Lessons of the Grateful Dead.

Did you see the Oakley Sunglasses on the Chilean Miners. $41,000 dollars of advertising value in 33 pairs of sunglasses
Gap tried to change logo, new website of Crap your logo, making fun of it
Winn Hotels banning Paris Hilton
United Breaks Guitars Watch this.
All, and the reactions to them are examples of Real Time Marketing.
Taking action in Real Time to build awareness is Real Time Marketing. Related to Bob Bloom's topic.
Surprisingly, Financial Markets are the model. Trading stocks and commodities is done in real time.
Airplane tickets are sold in real time. But both are bad at Real Time Marketing (except for Bloomberg)
Don't use your words, Use the words your customer uses (good advice for marketing).
Word of Mouse not Word of Mouth. Faster because it is exponentially duplicateable
Social Media is tools, Real Time is a Mindset. Adopt the mindset.
Respond in media of the news or attack or comment
Can't wait for lawyers or marketing guru to do this. Will be too late. Got to do it now.
Apologies work in Real Time
Further from the action, the worse the action will work.
Someone in your company has to be working on this, watching this, thinking about this. Can't plan for it except to have Real Time systems in place. Feeds of data and channels in place to get your Real Time Marketing out.

Loved the Summit. Why not come with me next time? I'll get you a deal.

Insights From Orlando--Day Two

2010-10-19T21:07:00.000-05:00

Great day of learning today. Three really good sessions that I will focus on. But first I'll focus on the best session of the day. Five coaches talking around a table during happy hour. Often the best part of any meeting.

We were discussing X-Factors. The thing a company can implement that gives them a ten times advantage over their competitors. It's kind of a Strategic Thinking Exercise to spur creativity and you can often find something, build or implement it and have it fuel tremendous growth. We couldn't agree that all companies could find one for their industry segments, but it is worth trying because what you will find can create a strategic advantage, albeit not as dramatic. We agreed on other things:

The place to start looking or thinking about is the chokepoints in your industry or internally. Funny we agreed on that because the In-Synk huddles this week are on that very subject. http://in-synkchokeam.eventbrite.com and http://in-synkchokepm.eventbrite.com
You should ask your best and biggest customers this question. What are the nightmares/horror stories companies like yours encounter when the do business with a firm like ours?
Map out the sales and delivery processes you follow and ask where do these get jammed up? Or the places that are difficult to do?
Go to trade shows for your industry and write down all the titles of all the breakout sessions. Think about the ones that are the most common?

Chip Heath, author of Switch the book club selection in August, was fabulous and very enlightening. You must pick up the book or have me do a session with your team on this. And I won't make you read the book.

People hate change. Or we think we do. But we change for important things. Think Weddings and Baby's. We make significant changes for these things without even thinking about it. Clue: The emotional connection
We don't hate change. We are just schizophrenic about it. Logical yes, emotional no. Got to get the emotions in the game to make changes
We often consider true but useless (TBU) when trying to convince people to change. Think of the food pyramid. True but useless in helping you eat right.
Easier to effect change by focusing on Bright Spots. Start with what is working and going right. Find people having good results and figure this out and hold as the model for others.
Too many choices to choose from to effect change=decision paralysis
Script the Critical Moves, not all of them. Small bytes. Clear Picture.
Shrink the Change. Not a huge one, small ones and small victories
Destination Postcards "You are going to be third graders by the end of the year"
Don't think/analyze/change rather see/feel/change.
Shape the path. "What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem. Change the situation:" Architects and designers know this intuitively.
The rider/elephant analogy he uses really works well. Can't describe it here. Ask me about it.

Verne Harnish was excellent as always:

Figure out the BHAG after you figure out the brand promise / x-factor. Not before
Strategy comes from considering the data. Lots of it. Have teams prepare data about all things relevant prior to the "thinking session"
The data serves as stimuli. the better the stimuli the better the creativity and strategy. Don't brain storm (really should be called brain drain). Inject data, think about understanding it, in structured way, strategy pops out. Good data in, great strategy out.
Recommended reading Lords of Strategy by Walter Kiechel. I'm going to pick it up.

Liz Wiseman, Author of Multipliers our December selection for In-Synk Business Un-Book Club. http://in-synkmultipliers.eventbrite.com

There are leaders who are Multipliers and Diminishers. We have worked for both.
It's all about access to knowledge. Multipliers access the knowledge of others and put it to work in empowering ways
Diminishers access the knowledge of others and drain it.
"Accessing what other people know and using it effectively is the key skill of 21st Century."
Diminshers are geniuses (focused on self and must let people know they are geniuses.
Multipliers are genius makers. Not about them.
Diminishers get less the 40% of the brain power of the people working for them
Multipliers get 80% or more of the brain power of the people, effectively doubling the workforce for free.
Multipliers want to figure out your genius and deploy it
Diminishers want to fill slots.
"Multipliers work with intensely fierce intellectual curiosity. They want to figure out what other people know."
They listen as number one skill. Asking questions.
Diminishers decide things then have debate to prove themselves right
Multipliers spark debate and then decide the right things
Try having a conversation with someone but only ask questions. It's hard.

David Sokol, CEO or Net Jets and Warren Buffets best man. His six principles for leading

Integrity
Safety
Commitment to Customer
Commitment to Employees
Commitment to Investors
Operational Excellence

All in all a great day. I'm tired and going to bed. Will be tweeting and doing a summary blog tomorrow.

Insights from Orlando--Day One

2010-10-18T21:30:00.000-05:00

My cup is overflowing. Yesterday and today, in the coaches sessions at the Fortune Growth Conference, I've been fire hosed with new information and insights on business growth and all related topic. I'll be putting my findings down in this blog for the next few days. Follow me.

Probably my biggest insight from today is this: Strategic Planning is a an inaccurate term. Not accurate at all, which is why many people do it so poorly. It's Strategic Thinking and then Execution Planning. First get your people to together and determine what needs to be done to get you where you want to go and why(Strategy). Then decide how you are going to get there(Execution).

The Four Questions of the Gazelles Model, if translated into this type of wording goes like this: People Resourcing, Strategic Thinking, Execution Planning, and Cash Modeling.
And the Model is more Circular than we think. For Example: If you are having difficulty determining your strategy you probably don't have the right people so you have to work on people. If you have the wrong people it's probably because you can't afford them due to cash flow. If you cash flow is poor you probably are not executing well enough to deliver cash. If you are having difficulty executing you probably don't have your strategy articulated well enough.
So identify your difficulty and go one step back in the model and start working on that long term while you work on the difficulty short term. For example. Having trouble determining your strategy, your people might not be experienced enough to figure out, so get some outside trained brains to help with this.
Finally. This really emphasizes pages 114-116 of Good the Great, the most important pages written in the last 20 years. "The Council." The "Council" should be meeting regularly to discuss this cycle very regularly. Dust of the copy of Good To Great and reread these pages. The "Council" drives everything.

My next big insight is this. 1 + 1 + 1 = 19. We reviewed a real case study of a company that if 1% improvements were made to Revenue, Cost of Goods, and Expenses the corresponding increase in Net Profit would be 19%.

This was an introduction to Managing Margins. Margins are the most overlooked Metric.
Margins are the leading indicator of company health and growth
You can't manage lots of external factors, but you can manage the internal factors that make up margins.
Three basic strategies to do this. Transparency--get rid of all blending of margins. Break margins by product line. This turns accounting into a profit center. Pricing sensitivity--price each line of business separately. Get pricing compliance from the sales people. Expense Management--spend $1000 needlessly and carelessly you are throwing the money away and it takes $10,000 of revenue to replace the net margin.
Attack this with a vengeance.
I'm going to get a piece of wire from Brubaker to demonstrate this in the next huddle.

Third, to have a healthy community you have to have conflict. If you don't have conflict you have a "pseudo community" You have to work through a "Chaos Period" to build trust to be able to get to a Real Community where healthy conflict exists.

Learned great stuff from the Objective Management Group (OMG) people about their sales performance assessments and training tools. These have demonstrable ROI. Very sophisticated. Will help maximize performance of your sales team and sales processes.

Tomorrow's (or today's lineup depending on when you read this) Lineup:

David Sokol--CEO of NetJets, He is Warren Buffet's Mr. Fixit
Chip Heath--Author of Made to Stick, and Switch
Verne Harnish--Author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits speaking on the Seven Strata of Strategy
Liz Wiseman--Author of Multipliers
Mo Fathelbab--Author of Forum: the Secret Advantage of Successful Leaders on Enhancing Executive Team Communications

That's it for now.

Lessons from The Checklist Manifesto

2010-10-04T09:36:00.000-05:00

The In-Synk Business Book Review this last Friday was enlightening. We reviewed The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Not just theory, concrete techniques that will improve your organization. Some insights below:

Two ways to fail, ignorance and ineptitude. No reason exists anymore to be ignorant. We have all the access we can handle to knowledge. Our lack of use of that knowledge is ineptitude. As access to that knowledge overwhelms us we become more inept. The answer is the use of effective checklists.

"We don't like checklists. They can be painstaking. They are not fun" p 173.

"We are not built for discipline, we are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at." p. 183

Two types of lists: Do then confirm, and Read then do.

We lull ourselves into skipping crucial steps.

Checklists mirror the Meeting Rhythm suggested by Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnis.

If you missed Friday's book club you missed a good one. Next month, on November 5th, Two for the price of one. Two related books, The Inside Advantage and The New Experts by Bob Bloom. Add it to your checklist. http://in-synkinsideadvtg.eventbrite.com

See you there!

I know I make this Sales Mistake....

2010-09-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

.... so I bet many of you do. From Dave Kurlan's Objective Management Group. Link a the end of the blog to his blog where I stumbled over this.

"In the baseball diamond above, capabilities, value propositions, and presentations take place between third base and home plate. Yet, when a salesperson gets an audience with a prospect the salesperson is has just reached first base. It's inappropriate to run directly from first base to third base without touching second base on the way! But that's what 84% of all salespeople skip the valuable criteria that sits between first and second base, as well as between second and third base.

A salesperson representing the industry leader or the low-price leader might get the business by being in the right place at the right time, but it's nearly impossible for everyone else to succeed in these scenarios. It is very difficult to sell without uncovering a prospect's compelling reasons to buy (spend money) and buy from you instead of your competitors. That is just one of many criteria that must occur between first and second base. It's nearly impossible to sell without learning how much money the prospect will spend and that is just one of many criteria that must be identified between second base and third base. When a salesperson isn't aware of those two important slices of information, it isn't possible to differentiate (think decommoditize) your company from the pack nor can you present both a needs and cost appropriate solution!

Here is the link to Dave's Blog

Uncertainty--Is it self created.

2010-09-29T08:46:00.006-05:00

I'm a bit confused/bemused by all the commentary about uncertainty in the economy/government and how it is paralyzing business owners.

Not trying to be political here at all. But what exactly are we uncertain about.

--That the economy is down, slow, tough, etc. We've been certain of that for at least two years.

--That the credit market is tight. We've know that for the same amount of time.

--That the government is ill equipped to deal with this, or at least it takes government takes a long time to act on urgent situations. We've only known about that for 30-40 years or more.

--That most of the "experts" of all persuasions don't know what they don't know. Ditto.

We're pretty certain about all of these things. Here are a few more things we should be certain of.

--That our customers know best what they need so they are the best source of "certainty" about the future.

--That other business owners know more about what is going on than the experts.

--That inaction is action not taken, and is very dangerous. Sitting on the sidelines waiting for the uncertainty to fade means you will miss the opportunities.

So get about the task of moving forward instead of moving backward. Improve your business. Get going and remove the uncertainty. It will give those who depend on you confidence and will solve this poor economy.

ADD/ADHD and the Entrepreneur

2010-09-28T08:41:00.000-05:00

I live in the land of ADD or ADHD at home. I don't have it. Three members of my family have mild cases of it. Two members don't. The two of us who don't often huddle up to make sense of how to get things done or help them get things done. It can be a wild ride sometimes. I say this with affection.

The research supposedly shows that a great percentage of entrepreneurs and business owners have either ADD or ADHD. Some hide it well, others wear it like a badge of honor. Some, who don't have it seem envious of those who do or claim to have it. I think many, like the founder of Kinkos Paul Orfelea, have turned to their advantage by acknowledging it and building support systems around it,

But lately I've been thinking about whether it matters or not. I'm beginning to think that being a business owner or entrepreneur in today's increasingly complex world is enough to make you become ADHD or ADD. (Clinicians say no). So many distractions, coming at you so much faster, with so many more options and information easily accessible to help you (or paralyze you). To operate in this world we might just have to adopt the same sort of support systems like Orfelea.

We need things like One Page Strategic Plans or VisionQuests or Checklists, or Peer Groups to distract us back to where we know we need to be but get pulled away from. The distractions (the other ones) bring creativity, but these new systems need to distract us back to execution.

What do you do to distract yourself back to execution?

Execution = Checklists: "The Checklist Manifesto" Atul Gawande

2010-09-27T12:18:00.000-05:00

It sounds almost too simple. Checklists.

When something is of absolute importance to be done right, the answer is a checklist. The person with checklists is also the person getting the most done, and if they are good checklists they are getting it done effectively.

The execution portion of the "One Page Strategic Plan" creates a series of checklists that go right to the front-line to insure the strategy is carried out.

The Daily Huddles and Weekly Huddles we recommend at In-Synk and Gazelles are updates of checklists that refresh them and drive accountability and execution.

Manuals are checklists when you get right down to it.

Yet we resist using these effective tools or use them the wrong. Even in an increasing complex world that cries out, "Get a checklist."

Come learn about Checklists at the In-Synk Business Book Club this Friday. We'll be reviewing The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande, the master of checklists.

http://in-synkchecklistman.eventbrite.com

Put it on your checklist. Now!

Blue Ocean Strategy-- A review of the review.

2010-09-07T15:16:00.004-05:00

We had a great In-Synk Business Book Club Meeting last Friday. Reviewed Blue Ocean Strategy. 11 in attendance. My impressions of the dialogue below:

Going after a Blue Ocean Strategy is real risky if you don't do the numbers on it. But at the same time the processes out lined in the book give structure to a creative process. I think one has to do the creative first, without letting the numbers get in the way of the creativity, then do the numbers to make sure it's a viable strategy. (thanks Carl Barton and Karl Schledwitz)

Getting the strategic sequence right is so important:
1. Buyer utility
2. Price
3. Cost
4. Adoption

I was impressed that there was lots of advice, almost a lecture, that the strategy has to be tied to execution and vice versa. And the the biggest obstacles in going forward with a Blue Ocean Strategy are probably from within your organization. Find the "devils" and "angels" and work on both of them.

Cirque de Soleil is and excellent example of a Blue Ocean strategy. Expanded the circus into an totally different sandbox and eliminating threats from the traditional competition. Expanded the market and grabbed it. Initially Starbucks was good Blue Ocean strategy.

Great quotes:
--"Never Outsource Your Eyes"
--"You must get your managers to witness 'operational horror'"to overcome cognitive hurdles in pursuing the strategy.
--"A company is everyone from the top to the front lines." all have to be involved in the strategy at all levels.
--Practical reality demands that companies succeed in both blue oceans and red oceans and master the strategies for both.

I especially liked the emphasis on non customer for developing Blue Ocean Strategy. Three types: soon to be, refusing, and unexplored.

Come to The In-Synk Business Book Club next month on October 1st. The Checklist Manifesto

Free isn't, and never was.

2010-09-01T08:30:00.002-05:00

Don't really know why I am writing this. Afraid I'm going to sound too much like Seth Godin, I suppose.

Free doesn't exist, never has, never will.

There are no such things as...

Free Lunch
Free Ride
Free Trade
Free Enterprise
Free Healthcare
Free to be you and me,

They all might be excellent theories, ideals, points of view, marketing strategies.

But they don't exist and never have and never will.

I'm not into free.

Freedom isn't free.

Haven't had my coffee yet today. Optimism comes after caffeine today.

Wharton takes a play from Lencioni

2010-08-30T11:37:00.004-05:00

After watching the local news this weekend (something I usually avoid)and watching the film clips of Mayor Wharton comments on how to come up with money for city schools, I realized he is following a team building strategy laid out in Pat Lencioni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team, one of my favorite team building books, and one I have been evangelizing on lately.

Wharton is gathering the stakeholders, telling them the city has to come up with a plan, but he doesn't know exactly what it should be (expressing his vulnerability). He just listened to and clarified the suggestions of the labor leaders and HR personnel. And proceeding to do the same with all other stakeholders.

This vulnerability builds trust, something that has been lacking within City Government in the past. This trust engenders positive input and creates buy-in from the participants, even if only a smidgen of their suggestions are used. Then all participants are more ready to commit to a solution, whatever it may be.

He also refused to comment publicly to the press about which suggestions he likes or favors, saying everyone will latch on to one of them and then political positioning begins and destroys the process before it begins.

This is the way to build teams. Good job Mayor Wharton. Stick to the process.

Don't improve by doing this,

2010-08-24T21:23:00.002-05:00

Talked with a friend about how the high school he is coached football at hired a new coach, who assumed everything was wrong, everyone was worthless, and that he knew better. The result is that the long term assistants, who had much to do with the great winning record in the past, are gone, the players are confused and they lost their first game to an clearly inferior team.

Bringing the all powerful leader in who feels he has to change everything to prove his worth, almost never works out. Didn't work at HP at with Carly Fiorina, didn't work at Michigan with Rich Rod (much to my horror), and it won't work at your company either.

The leaders who win in this situation, come in and look for what was done right in the past and reinstate, refresh, and reinvent it for the current circumstances. Winning leaders come in and find what is going on right and who is doing the right things and start building right there. Winning leaders recapture the past and improve it.

I received some very good advice when I was transferred to Albany to fix the Kelly Services office there. "We don't know what is going on good or bad here, but we aren't happy with the results. Go in and observe for 60 days. Don't make any major changes in haste. Wait until the 60 days is over, then you will know what to do. Then do it. Keep us posted."

It kept me from doing things that would later have to be redone. Everyone knew I was the new boss and was going to change things. I didn't have to prove my worth right away by doing something big.

The situation where everyone is getting everything wrong is rare. Be careful in jumping to that conclusion. Don't get sucked into the "fix everything" strategy. It doesn't work, it just sets you back more.

Admitting Mistakes--Saying You Are Sorry

2010-08-20T10:11:00.003-05:00

Why is this do hard to do? We know it's the right thing to do, it's something we learn in kindergarten. But it gets conditioned out of us. This is not my usual type of topic for my blog, but it's been on my mind recently.

About two years ago, a guest came to Inner Circle. By the end of the meeting he had proceeded to insult/abuse all the members, questioning the value of the advice they offered on the issue he presented for discussion. Clearly he was having a bad day and was not accustomed to being challenge as happend in Inner Circle.

I called him a day later, to check in, to see how he felt about things and to apologize for the meeting not going well for him. He hammered me and everyone else in the group again. Again I said I was sorry for how it worked out. And followed up with a written email apology. Again I got hammered in a reply email. I put him in the DNC file: Do Not Contact.

When things like that happen to us when we apologize, it makes us not want to apologize ever again. Things like this condition us not to apologize.

Compare this scenario to another recent apology scenario. I've been having some problems with my CRM email server. Contacts have been getting numerous multiple copies of the same emails from me when they should have only been getting one. Clearly very annoying. And I've been embarrassed about it.

I found the problem and got it fixed. And then send a "My Apologies" email to the group that was getting the most of them. The response: Mostly thanks and appreciation and understanding. "I've had similar problems, no need to apologize."

So now I'm more apt to apologize and to admit I have made mistakes. And I've been reading another book by Pat Lencioni, Getting Naked. One of the things he explains, which should help all service based people, is the fear of being found out on mistakes made, hinders your ability to build customer loyalty. Basically, when you openly own up to a blunder, the client's (and everyone else's) respect for you shoots up dramatically. I recommend Pat's book as I do all of his other books.

Now I suppose if you keep apologizing for the same mistake again and again, it shows you are not capable of learning and probably not capable at all.

Here's the end of the story. Regarding my DNC. About a year after our encounters, while "officing" at the Crescent Club between client meetings, my DNC stopped by and apologized for his behavior at the Inner Circle meeting, sincerely and without any rationalizing or excuse making. "No excuses, it was wrong, I'm sorry."

My respect for him went back up. And he is no longer in my DNC file.

Forecasting 2011?--Don't listen to the pundits....

2010-08-13T12:24:00.004-05:00

...or the news, or the commentators, or the government reports.

They are largely reacting and reporting and predicting based on old news and ideology. By old news, I mean they are looking at lagging indicators about the economy. It's old news now and will be older news in 2011. By ideology, I mean they are talking (the pundits mostly) to promote their own point of view. Trying to say something witty or sticky at just about any cost to justify why the are getting the sound byte.

So who should you listen to? Two groups: Your customers and your peers.

By customers, I mean call up your top 20% of customers who are doing 80% of your revenue. And listen hard to their plans for the next year. What are they expecting? What are they ordering (from everyone)? What do they think? Years ago, when I was with Kelly Services in Pittsburgh, I went through this exercise in planning my budget for the new year, against the advice of my superiors. I hit my numbers that year exactly.

By peers, I mean other business owners whom you trust and can share information with. Probably not competitors. But if you are in some sort or Peer Group you are tapped into other experts who know what is going on. They are tapped in. The have the best instincts for what is happening.

The advice on customers comes from my good friend Verne Harnish, of Gazelles and author of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

The advice on peers comes from personal experience. Running Inner Circles (peer groups for business owners)for 8 years now I can say with authority they have called things more accurately in this economy than any other experts I've heard on TV.

Starting a new Inner Circle in September. Become an Insider and get the best expert advice available for running your business and predicting the future.

Not Getting The Results You Planned? Here's What To Do.

2010-08-09T21:05:00.001-05:00

Analyze the activities that are supposed to be driving the results.

I bring this up in response to an inquiry at a presentation I made last week. An audience member came up to me and asked me about results. I had just reviewed Pat Lencioni's model from the The Five Dysfunctions of a Team(a great book like everything Lencioni writes).

"I've got a great team but I'm just not getting the results we need. What do I need to look at."

I've got a few suggestions:

1. You first have to look at the activities that should be driving the results. Are they being done? Are they being done well and in a timely manner? If not you might have an accountability problem. Measure and monitor daily, weekly, and monthly. What gets measured gets done. You'll know what to do if they aren't doing them.

2. If the activity is there and being done well, your activities or tactics need to be tweaked, evolved, maybe even changed. It's probable that at the very least,the buying process or cycle has changed for your product or service. Or a competitor has come up with a compelling reason to buy from them the supersedes your compelling offer (or now less compelling offer). Time to adjust and recalibrate. The market has changed.

3. Finally, look at what you used to do when things were growing, and try to figure out what you stopped doing. Graph out your sales for the last several years. Highlight the periods of growth. Look at everything the key people were doing during this time and find out why they stopped doing it. Figure out a way to update that old activity and make it relevant and start doing it again.

This last suggestion is more significant than you think. When things are going well we tend to believe we have become geniuses and start tinkering with what works for no other reason that we are supposedly smarter and want to be more creative. Or we got real busy and diverted attention away from the good things we did that drove business to handle the new level of business. We get out of rhythm. We get cocky. We get complacent.

We got to get back to what works. That's what the best turnaround artists do. They don't really try to fix what is going wrong as much as find out what worked when things were going well and get back to it to get around the weaknesses. This is documented clearly in How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins. The losers forgot what worked and stopped building on it. The ones who survived got back to their roots and got back to business.

True But Useless

2010-08-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

Lots of meaningful information at yesterday's In-Synk Business Book Club review of Switch: How to Change when Change is Hard. But the quote from the book I'm thinking about the most is "True, but Useless."

The book implies that we often give our followers "true but useless" information and expect them to make significant change in the their behaviors. For example, we say something like "sales are down" and assume that motivates people to work harder and smarter. Doesn't work, ever. We must give precise direction on how to improve or change, positive reinforcement when we see changes we want, and we need to set "BHAG" goals the give the motivational tug to drive the change.

Get the book. It's really useful. Switch

I think there is another way to look at "True but Useless." As a filter for screening the high levels of information hitting us these days. Lots of it is "true but useless" and only serves to raise anxieties. When watching the news, when getting reports from staff and customers, in every meaningful interchange, insist on getting and giving "true and useful" rather than anything less.

What Gets Measured Gets Done

2010-08-03T17:31:00.003-05:00

We all know the truth in the title of this blog. And if you don't you need to read more Peter Drucker.

The key to the statement is whether you are measuring the right thing. We always jump to measuring the outcome, which is a lagging indicator. We need to be measuring a leading indicator that measures what produces the result.

Try this personal analogy out: For years I've needed to lose weight. Anywhere from 30 to 50 pounds. But I wouldn't step on the scale. No progress. Starting weighing myself weekly, again no progress. This week I started measuring what I eat, using an online calorie counter. Now I know how to make progress towards losing the weight. Learning what works and what doesn't, and motivated too boot.

My weight is the lagging indicator, calories (what I put in my mouth) is the leading indicator. It's predictive and motivating.

Are you measuring the right thing? If you aren't getting the results you want, you are probably measuring just the results and not what adds up to the results

Good Soldiers become Dead Soldiers

2010-07-22T18:47:00.005-05:00

Enjoyed listing to the audio from Brad Smart , the TopGrading Guru on how to say no to a boss that asks too much of you. It's oriented towards the up and coming executive who is talented and gets fired.

But for business owners and C-Levels, the reverse of the message is more important. That we pile up responsibilities on our A-Players and burn them out and make the B-Players or worse. That means the boss is a B-Player or worse. We kill our own soldiers by doing this. The good ones not the bad ones!

Click here to listen and see if you agree. Good soldiers become dead soldiers

Make sense? Stop being your own enemy. I seem to remember being a victim of a boss like this.

What do you think?

Internet Sabbath

2010-07-20T09:38:00.002-05:00

At Inner Circle I've often encouraged members to take and internet holiday when going on vacation. No email, no internet, no texting to work, no phone calls to work. Cold turkey. It really helps to clear your mind and ensure that you get refreshed on your vacation. The members who have done it have raved about how it's opened their minds and refreshed their souls. Adding balance back into their lives in this hurry up world we live in.

The next best thing would be a regular "Internet Sabbath." Heard this on NPR this morning. Each weekend take one day (or two) as an "Internet Sabbath" to make sure you get the rejuvenation your deserve on the weekend. Disconnect from email, internet and texting. Use just the phone. Talk to someone.

Makes sense to me. How about you?

What's up, head's up?

2010-07-18T22:08:00.002-05:00

Seth Godin has it right in his latest blogpost.

I often recommend that business leaders have daily huddles with a WUHU agenda (what's up, heads up).

They work well because of the emphasis on the positive, the opportunities of what people are working on and the opportunities that people are noticing.

Seth explains it better in his blog.

Does Incentive Pay Really Work?

2010-07-08T13:32:00.002-05:00

Inner Circle Member Ham Smythe referred this video segment and we are discussing it at all Inner Circle Meetings this month. It certainly caught my attention and challenged the beliefs of a number of members. Will challenge you as well.

The amazing truth about what motivates us Dan Pink.

Pink makes some good points. I like his pillars of engagement, "Autonomy, Mastery , and Purpose." These are the things get and keep people engaged and motivated.

I'm not against pay for performance. Love it. But it never got anybody to do anything. It's just a powerful negative reinforcement. "I'll do these things to avoid not getting my bonus."

Musing on Social Media

2010-05-10T12:41:00.002-05:00

Just some random thoughts this morning on Social Media:

--I generally like it, find it fun, and I seem to be more up to date on what's going on in the world.

--At the same time, I find myself clinging to my newspapers: CA, WSJ, and NYT Sunday Edition. For in depth coverage or analysis there just seems to be something more there. And when reading a paper, I find myself reading articles on all sorts of subjects, not just those that interest me.

--Social Media is here to stay and is changing the way we communicate. Especially with prospects and customers. They know more about us than ever before. And they like it that way. We must embrace it.

--I have found that it speeds up the "getting to know you" part of the sales process. Both as a buyer and seller. In both cases, this has been to my benefit. Prospects and clients have a far better understanding of what I do and this has usually been positive so I focus on this in my Social Media activities. "How can I let others know about what I do and have been doing that is beneficial to them?"

--It also seems to be a commoditizer. They or we think we understand the value being delivered by us or them. We or they are in more control, that's for sure. But the more complex the sale or service the less the value is understood. Much value is being left on the table to the detriment of both parties.

--Social Media isn't Sales 2.0. It doesn't replace sales process and sales effectiveness for most of us. It's fairly random also. I'm not sure we can count on it to drive sales and revenue.

--We have to be in the game and using it, but we have to know what it can and can't accomplish. Big advantages in marketing, but it doesn't close the sale. And if we're not careful, it can distract you from higher priorities.

What have you been thinking lately about Social Media.

Last Post about Vegas--Verne's Insights

2010-04-23T10:26:00.001-05:00

Promise to be the last post on this. But I though you would like Verne's Insights from his own Summit. Here Goes.

"WARNING: below are some "aha" nuggets from the Fortune Sales & Marketing Summit, however, please don't construe these as a complete summary, as in "is that all they learned?" Space limits me to a few simple, yet hopefully, useful ideas.

Biggest Sales & Marketing Mistake -- in proposals, on websites, in emails, during conversations -- the biggest mistake is talking too much about your own company -- your history, your products/services, features, benefits, people, and capabilities. See if you are doing this. More on this below.

Inexpensive Corporate Videos -- According to Forrester Research, video is 53 times more likely to be on the 1st page of Google. Bettina Hein, founder of Pixability used a simple Flip camera to produce a 2 minute summary video of the summit, a few key nuggets shared. She then showed everyone at the Summit how to do something similar, info you can find on her website.

40% No-Decision -- this metric has been on a steady increase, notes Jeff Thull, author of Mastering the Complex Sale. "It indicates that your biggest competitor is not another firm, but customers deciding they don't want to purchase a solution like yours from anyone. They just don't see the value in what you do." This is why 50% of the selling process must be spent establishing the value of your solution through a Diagnostic and Discovery process. Most sales people don't want to take the time. But if they do take the time, it reduces the overall time to close a sale by 42%. Read Jeff's book.

Always Be Leaving -- Thull (pronounced 'tool') shared several what he called "Key Thoughts." One key thought is for sales people to "always be leaving" a conversation with a customer. For instance, the customer says "but your competition has a better solution for a lower price." Rather than confront and defend, it's better to say "the competition just might have a better solution and price. I just don't know enough yet about your situation to know if that's the case." You never want to be verbally confrontational in a sale.

Top Four Blog/White Paper Titles -- spend 40% of your time picking the right titles for your blog posts, videos, or the white papers you publish on the web. Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot and author of Inbound Marketing, had us construct four impactful titles. Keys: 10 words or less so Google doesn't truncate; always include the key words your customers use to search for your products and services; and make it catchy like the headlines of a newspaper or CNN.com. For example, one of his employees is an Olympic athlete, so rather than title a white paper "Growing your business" she might title it "An Olympic Athlete's 8 Internet Marketing Tips" -- internet marketing tips being the three key words and Olympic Athlete being the catch.

Five Rules for Readability -- Tom Sant, author of Persuasive Business Proposals, shared five rules for making anything you write more readable -- and Microsoft Word can automatically tell you if you've met four of the rules: short sentences (ave. 17 words or less); short words (average 5 characters or less); 10th grade reading level or lower; and less than 10% passive voice. I've been writing for years and never knew about the "Readability Statistics" tool in Word. The fifth rule is no fluff, guff, geek, or weasel words in your writing.

Readability Statistics -- Press F1 while in Word to pull up the Help/Search menu and search for Readability Statistics. Follow the instructions to turn on the feature. The only confusing part of the instructions is the "Word Options" choice is at the bottom of the right hand column of the main Word pull down menu. Once the feature is activated, you have to actually manually check the Spelling and Grammar of your document once (under the Review menu) and at the end of the process the summary pops up. Cool feature -- I'm at a 9.7th grade reading level, 4.7 characters per word, 20 words per sentence, and 2% passive voice for this insight. I was higher on all these statistics and made adjustments.

Biggest Mistake in Losing Proposals -- talking about your company! Most winning proposals don't mention the name of your own company until the 2nd or 3rd page of an Executive Summary. The first page should outline the customers pain/situation and the measurable results they'll achieve if they purchase your solution. Same goes for your website, emails, and initial conversations with potential customers. Read Tom's book.

Zappos Tour Photos and Video

2010-04-22T22:09:00.002-05:00

Video of the tour guide at Zappos on Thursday.

Video

Link to my photo album of the Zappos tour pictures on my In-Synk facebook page.

Photos

Wednesday Update from Vegas.

2010-04-21T22:33:00.004-05:00

Let's just put it this way. I'm filled to the brim and overflowing with content and ideas. If you are a learner, you really need to come to these Gazelles Summits.

I'm thinking about doing a Memphis Debrief Session of all I learned. Interested, let me know by responding to this blog.

First up this morning, the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh:
--Just so happens that began as an entrepreur in college making and selling pizzas out of the basement of his dorm.
--Says Zappos is a service firm that happens to sell shoes, clothing, etc. 75% of their business is return business. Invest in the experience and let the customers sell.
--Not focused on maximizing efficiency, in fact do many things very inefficently. The focus on maximizing the experience to build lifelong customers.
--#1 Priority is getting the culture right.

Hiring for culture. Culture trumps skills. Will fire highly skilled people who violate the core values of the firm.
5 weeks of training, including one week in warehouse doing pik and pak, no matter how senior the position being hired is.
Pays a $2000 leaving bonus in the first six months of employment to insure people aren't taking the job just to have money. None given out in 2010.
Culture Book produced every year, everyone contributes
Use and encourage twitter to build culture.

--If you are living the core values you are living the brand.
--What matters is alignment. Core Values create and sustain alignment. Instant Roadmap. Becomes a way of thinking.
--Spent a long time talking on Happiness Psychology. Will post in another blog next week.
--Culture doesn't mean procedures. No scripts at Zappos.
--Build your business around what you are passionate about and would do for 10+ years even if you only made a dime.
--Was inspired to sign up to take a tour of Zappos HQ in the morning.

Next up was Matt Johnson, expert on Pricing.
--Profit = Price x Volume- Costs. Volume and costs are optimized. But not Price. We a leaving a lot on the table. All of us.
--GE estimates losing $50 Billion due to discretionary pricing of poorly trained sales people on price.
--We study what we pay for. We're sloppy about what we charge our customers. Internally we say price is important, externally we don't act like it.
--Best idea of this presentation. We should try segmenting by how they percieve the value of our products instead of just by their value to us.
--Track what customers are WTP willing to pay for.
--Price objection is usually a smoke screen. Need to dig deeper.
--Create a pricing structure for sales people to control quoting. Salespeople will naturally say they have to have a lower price.
--Ask yourself this: Do your sales people find it easier to negotiate with their customer or with their boss?
--Transparently post gross margin results of each sales person. Poor pricers will get grief from peers.
--Price structure is a C-Level Responsibility

Next up Kevin Daum author of Roar!
--Will be working to get him to come to Memphis for Sales Summit put on by Chamber and SMS.
--Only twenty percent of sales people truly enjoy selling and most of them work for Chet Holmes ;-).
--If the sales person has to take a customer through the entire sales process from lead generation to transaction and referral, this is not scalable
--Marketing's role is to make Sales process more efficient. More Scaleable. Marketing is an efficency tool.
--Four Types of Buyers, From Passover Questions:

Wise Buyer--Done all the research--guide them to buy by being logical
Cynical Buyer--Been burned before--Acknowledge their cynicism, open your kimono a bit, little bit of self sacrifice to build trust
Simple Buyer--Know what they want. You have it or not. Sell if you have it, move on if you don't. Don't sell them what you don't have.
Disinterested Buyer--Don't know about you and what you have. Shift them to other type.

Next Up was Tom Sant on Proposal Writing
--Get his book Persuasive Business Proposals
--Told lots of stories of truly horrendous proposal writing.
--Proposals are not : Price Quotes (Commodity), Product Specs( Transactional) or Company History (self centered)
--Sales people want to avoid proposals. (Clone them, Data dump, or self talks)
--Persuasion is the act of presenting facts and opinion so that the customer says yes.
--Five Keys to Better Proposals:

Only quote to qualified buyers, real opportunities that you can win.
No canned proposals--specific to specific situation
NOSE Order: Needs first (customer's pain), Outcomes second (potential gain), Solution third (How gained or delivered, Evidence last(proof you can do it).
Show the money--Value recieved not just price
KISS--Keep it Simple and Short.

--Lots more good stuff, but get the book or call me for more.

Verne closed the show:
--When the sun comes up you better be learning.
--Question customers regularly just to talk. Not to sell. Both good and bad customers. C-Level should call five a week and share what they learn.

How are you doing?
What's going on in your neighborhood or industry?
What do you hear about our competitors?
How are we doing?

No such thing and B2B or B2C. It's all P2P People to People. It all applies.

I'm sure I'll have more to blog about tomorrow. Worn out. Feels good to learn this way. Join me at the next summit in the fall. In Orlando. We all need to have regular learning weeks like this.

Tuesday's Takeaways from Vegas.

2010-04-20T22:21:00.003-05:00

Three really good speakers today at the Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit. So much thought provoking I had to skip out on the last session and rest my brain. Lots to wrap my brain around. And you too.

The opening morning session featured John Thull author of Mastering the Complex Sale. I'm going to get his book and I recommend you do too. Was worth the price of admission for the whole conference to here him speak. Direct, researched, and enlightening about how to sell in this new era. Here are his major points.
--The Golden Age of Sales is Over. They own us. They (the customer) know everything we do.
--A complex sale is whenever you don't want to be a commodity sale.
--Customers have normalized pain: That is they don't believe they have a problem, and/or don't believe they can change.
--Question to ask yourself: Are customers capable of doing a thorough diagnosis of their problem?
--He goes on to present a model that flips the traditional sales model over into Discover, Diagnose, Design. and then Deliver. Previous sales training models and processes equip us poorly to sell this way, when customers don't know how to diagnose their problems themselves.
--Most of us are selling with 90% of the value we deliver tied behind our backs.
--Can't share more at this time, I need more time to digest it. But will change the way I sell. Get the book.

The Second Speaker was Brian Halligan of Hubspot. Topic Inbound Marketing.
--Today's marketing brain width is more important than wallet size. Get the brains working.
--Step by Step Process

Publish your way to recognition. Content is a magnet for customers, create content
Optimize your Content --SEO and SMO, Titles combine key words and pop, don't pimp your product though.
Pump your content out: twitter, stumbleupon, utube, Flickr, linked in, Facebook
Call to action to get more content. "White paper for email address"
Measure

--Who does this well for you: DARC. Digital Native, Analytical, Already has followers, Content Creators.
--Turn your website into a hub of content.

Final session was Eric Keiles and Mike Lieberman authors of Reality Marketing Revolution I'm going to get this book as well.
--Traditional marketing your parents watched is dead or dying.
--Marketing must be Quantifiable, Prospect Focused, Goal Oriented, High ROMI, and Remarkable.
--Do the Red Blue test on your website and all marketing materials and correspondence. Circle all words about you in red, and words about customers in blue. Blue should outweigh Red. So does your website talk about you (wrongo bongo) or your customer (righto).
--Follow this funnel for content--Public to No Risk to Low Risk, to High Content.

That about wraps it up. Off to bed. Call me for more information and insights. Watch for a post of a video that illustrates new era of sales and marketing.

Monday's Big Insights from Vegas

2010-04-20T09:00:00.001-05:00

Three important sessions at the Coaches portion of the Fortune/Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit here in Vegas. Insights from Verne Harnish, Lean Process Basics from Guy Parsons, and The Inside Advantage from Bob Bloom.

Insights from Verne:

--The next book we all need to read, "The Checklist Manifesto"
--We have focused too much on getting great people into the right seats (not that this is bad, it's good) and ignore improving processes that cut across functional areas that can make a huge difference. Great people with great processes outperform everybody.
--Can you boil your one page plan down to a one phrase plan? Used internally only and might seem to be customer unfriendly that counter intuitively drives the differentiation that customers want. Some examples:

Blackberry--Easy in, impossible out.
Southwest Airlines-- Wheels Up
Rackspace--It's not about he services it's about the support.

--To create change, focus on the "Bright spots" instead of the laggards.

Lean Process--Guy Parsons:
--Applies to every process not just manufacturing
--Study work flow from the small stuff between the good stuff. What's between all the good work. Reducing that eliminates waste and brings value to the customers.
--Plan on eliminating lots of the "not normal stuff"
--Definition: Deliver the most value from the customer's perspective while consuming the fewest resources, using the creative talent of your people.
--The customer perspective is important: Question: What are they really buying from you and what are they willing to pay for? Must start here.
--When you shorten the time line of a process the result is lower cost and higher value (and probably higher margin.
--Don't ask "who" ask "how" to improve the process?
--Biggest waste to apply lean process to is the budget process.
--Waste is a symptom not a root cause. Must as Why Five Times.
--Effective is preferred to efficient. Lots of efficient people are ineffective.
--Processes are often long hours of nothing happening between moments of excellence.

Bob Bloom and the Inside Advantage:
--4 Decisive Moments to own in the customer's purchase progression to leverage Uncommon Moments.
1. Now or Never Moment(First Brief Contact)
2. Make or Break Moment (Lengthy Transaction Process)
3. Keep or Lose Moments (Customer's continued usage)
4. The Multiplier Moment (Repeat, Advocacy, Referral)
--Integration between Who, What, How and Own is the key to the Inside Advantage.

That's it for today. Got to get some sleep. I fear my hair is on fire!

Quotes of Note from Vegas

2010-04-19T23:43:00.003-05:00

Always lots of interesting quotes at the Gazelles Conferences. Here are the ones from today's coaches session that I though you would find interesting. Content blog for the sessions coming a bit later this evening.

"Some is not a number, soon is not a time. Here's a number 100,000. Here's a date June 14, 2006. 9:00 AM" --Donald Berwick

"A BHAG shouldn't just big and compelling; it should hit you in the gut."-- Chip Heath in Switch

"You want an Uncommon Offering rather than a unique one, unique can be copied and might not be needed."--Bob Bloom, The Inside Advantage

"Are you playing not to lose, or are you playing to win?"
" No one is worthless, they can always be a bad example."
"In today's world we are smothered in complexity." --Verne Harnish

"A bad process will beat down great people everyday of the week."
"Find the core processes that cut across areas of responsibility or departments and assign responsibility for the process being right to someone."
"When you expand by throwing resources at a problem you always create waste."--Guy Parsons.

"To sell the first deodorant, they had to sell bad odor first."
"Throw some gun powder on the fire." --Bob Bloom

Four trends you can't ignore when planning for the future (from Bob Bloom)
1. People design their own products online
2. Barcodes in TV and Print Ads in five years or less
3. Data Mining is everything.
4. Strategic alliances among competitors.

That about wraps up the interesting and amusing quotes from today. More tomorrow evening. Blog on today's three big ideas coming up next.

Blogging from Vegas

2010-04-18T22:34:00.003-05:00

Greetings readers!

I'm in Vegas this week attending the Fortune/Gazelles Sales and Marketing Summit. Four days of content from the top thought leaders in Sales and Marketing plus Verne Harnish.

And unlike the saying: "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." I'll be sharing what I learn in Vegas with all of you.

Here's the line up of speakers and workshops:

Monday(coaches only day):

--Guy Parsons on Lean Process
--Bob Bloom on "The Inside Advantage"

Tuesday:

--Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos-- "Exceptional Customer Service"
--Jeff Thull--"Mastering the Complex Sale"
--Tom Sant--"Persuasive Business Proposals"

Wednesday:

--Brian Halligan, SEO of Hubspot--"Inbound Marketing"
--John Assarag, "Sales Mastery"
--Kevin Daum, "Roar, Get Heard in the Sales and Marketing Jungle." (and last week the #1 book sold at Amazon.

Today's Insight: "Marketing should bring customers to you who are already predisposed to buy from you."

I also learned quite a bit about two new product lines I'm offering.

--Sales Assessments from Objective Management Group. Screens for new sales hires and full sales force assessments that show you how exactly to improve your sales processes and improve your people with the right kind of training.
--Self Paced, Practical Sales Training Modules that include accountability and practice via myprofessionaldevelopment.com

Gazelles is also offering a remote CFO style dashboard service, which includes downloading info from Quickbooks, two hours of analysis, and two hour conference call with CFO each month after you close your books. Designed for $500,000 to $5,00,000 revenue firm that doesn't have a truce CFO or Controller. Looking for Beta testers. Anyone interested.

Time for bed. Hope you'll join me this week in Vegas.

A Ticket for Inattentive Driving

2010-04-16T10:29:00.003-05:00

A week ago, driving my son to a Boy Scout Campout at Village Creek State Park in Arkansas, I passed through a speed trap(location provided at the end of the blog) and was ticketed to the tune of $164 for Inattentive Driving. Boy was I steamed. I certainly let the officer know how I felt about it (but without cuss words).

Now that I have calmed down about it, I find that it is a good metaphor for something all owners and CEOs have to avoid.

It was a sneaky speed trap. 55 speed limit on a well paved and designed road built for the speed we were travelling. Smooth sailing. Not much traffic either. For a one mile stretch of road the speed limit goes to 45. Same road, same conditions, same traffic. Just a speed limit sign that I wasn't looking for and a sheriff waiting for me not to notice. A sign that something was different that I overlooked because things seemed fine. Smooth sailing.

When things are moving smoothly in your business, and even when they aren't so good but routine, it's real easy to miss the signs that something is changing. At the In-Synk Huddle yesterday we were talking about Cash Dashboards and how we choose to not see them or pay attention to them and we miss a small change that could have huge consequences. In that instance you are Driving Inattentively just like I was in Arkansas. The signs are there, we choose to ignore them. And the price the company pays are of higher consequence than the $164.

As far as I'm concerned ignoring the factual data on performance and trends is unethical behavior for an owner or CEO.

Now I'm not sure my Inattentive Driving in Arkansas was Unethical (and I'll argue that the deception of the speed trap is, shame on St. Francis County). But I paid a price for it. And learned.

Just so you know, the speed trap is on Hwy 1 North between I-40 and Wynne, in the Village of Colt (population 365 but there really isn't a village there). Goes from 55 t0 45 for less than a mile. And sheriffs are waiting for you if you are Inattentive.

My 100tth Post:: Significance, Acceptance, and Direction

2010-04-13T08:45:00.003-05:00

At a recent Inner Circle Meeting, a member brought up the problem that two key employees seem to be having an on-going morale problem. We chewed on this for quite a while. Lots of good little tips for the short term management of the situation, but nothing quite satisfying.

Then another member dropped this line on us: "Significance and acceptance are the drivers of morale."

This really caught everyone's attention. We talked about morale from a more macro level from this point on.

People who feel significant and accepted have good morale and generally good attitudes.

Significance. Can your people see that their work somehow makes a difference to the company? If not you need to show them how it contributes, or else it becomes just a job. They will figure out how to contribute elsewhere if you don't

Acceptance. This one is bit more difficult. If they feel condescension they don't feel acceptance and again it becomes a job. Find ways to "accept" them or make them feel constantly "welcome" to your team. Engage their ideas and thoughts. Highlight their contributions.

After thinking about this some more since last week's meeting, I would like to add one more item. Direction. Having a sense that the organization is collectively headed somewhere makes a huge difference. The feeling of treading water is not a good one. Set a direction, show them how they can significantly make an impact on that direction, and accept their ideas and contributions.

It won't work with everyone, but will head off most morale problems. It's called Leading.

And it was a whole lot better of a solution that team building exercises.

The Baseball Case For Creating Alignment

2010-04-05T08:23:00.003-05:00

With the start of baseball season last night (go Red Sox), I feel it's necessary to share a story many of you have heard me use before, to make the "Baseball Case for Creating Alignment." Just about everyone understands baseball. It's a pretty good story so I hope you'll indulge me.

About three years ago, my mother in-law (Cardinals Fan) and I went to a Memphis Redbirds game (Triple A). They were playing the Albuquerque Isotopes. The Redbirds hit five magnificent home runs. One, by Rick Ankiel, went over the scoreboard and we could see it bound down the street. Truly wonderful.

But as we left the ballpark, we were muttering to ourselves about how disappointed we were with the outcome of the game. In spite of the five home runs, the Redbirds lost 12-5.

Five magnificent acts of excellence that added up to just about nothing. Granted, this was Triple A baseball and the players were probably trying hard to get noticed by the parent club rather than playing for victory. But if they were playing together instead of for themselves, couldn't they have gotten a few runners in place so that the home runs were not just magnificent but productive as well.

As a business analogy though, I think this story works. I see it all the time, individual acts of excellence not really adding up to much. Because there isn't alignment, there isn't a plan, there isn't a spirit of collaboration.

Is this going on in your organization?
Are you hitting home runs at the expense of the team?
Is your team swinging for the fences without loading up the bases first?
What will you do about it?

Practicing What I Preach

2010-03-29T14:00:00.002-05:00

While I profess to being a bit of a leadership and execution guru, I have to admit that I don't get many chances to take the reins and lead very often. I mostly advise and coach leaders on leading. But the past several months I've lead a group of volunteers, organizing and executing a fund raising event for the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality, a Family Fun Ride to raise money and awareness to help homeless families.

And looking back on it I realize I really did practice what I preach to my clients and in my blog. The first time event was a great success, surpassing our goal of $5000 by over a $1000. The rest of this blog is a summary of some the principles I realize I followed in making this happen.

First Who Then What--I really focused on getting together a team of sharp volunteers together, who were both experienced in other fund raising activities and who were culturally committed to the mission. Then I laid out my idea for a bike race for serious bike riders. As committee we chewed on it quite a bit then agreed that it would easier and probably more productive to do a "for fun event" emphasizing families. What great advice. And that's the direction we took. Later the same team suggested a substantial change in the layout of the course, again a serious improvement over my original idea. The Hedgehog Concept in practice.

Get the Right People in the Right Seats --At this point I knew I had most of the right people. I only had to get them into the right jobs. Some by self selection, some by cajoling. And as a group we helped frame out the objectives for each area of responsibility. And recruited what was missing. Then we got moving.

Create a Shared Vision--I spent more time talking about the outcomes we wanted in each area of the event, rather then defining how to do it. I let each person bring there expertise into play. And do it their way as long as it was moving forward towards the goal. Lots of times people asked me what to do. I usually pushed it back to them by saying, "can't see a reason not to do it that way, what do you think." and also giving advice on how to proceed but not taking over for them.

Get Out of the Way--and spent lots of time encouraging the team. Saying "Well Done" quite a bit.

Good Meeting Rhythm -- Early on we had monthly meetings, each person reporting on their to do lists and brainstorming on how to improve what each other was doing. Making suggestions giving group encouragement. Basically making sure the essential talk time occurred that let us make corrections and improvements and forward progress. In the last six weeks we had weekly meetings. Doing more of the same. This really made things come together. This engendered lots of collaboration across areas of responsibility. Execute, execute, execute. I wanted to suggest daily telephone huddles but thought it would cause a revolt. But lots of telephone calls, and emails kept me on top of things. And I made damn sure we didn't waste time in the meetings.

One Rock at a Time, Metrics on each Rock--While we worked on all the priorities at all times, I made sure we focused on one major item at a time. The first focus was on sponsorships, When that was done, we shifted to publicity and ridership, then on logistics and execution. We had goals or checklists that we could turn into measurements in each area. This helped a lot as when the ridership we wanted wasn't coming, I was able to hold the line on expense to make sure we reached our financial objectives.

Celebrate -- Lots of Well Dones. And I jokingly mentioned that one volunteer earned the "Volunteer of the Week" and everyone else seemed to want to be named the same. So I started picking out one each week. Didn't get everyone into it, but most everyone. We'll be celebrating in a week or two in debriefing party to start planning for next year. And I decided to join the band in singing "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" at the event as my celebration.

On the Monday morning after the event, I have been reflecting on the success and have found that for the most part I practiced what I preach to my clients. I'm glad I did. This stuff really works and usually makes a bigger difference than we care to admit.

What do you think?

Why Performance Reviews are so Hard.

2010-03-25T10:02:00.000-05:00

We all seem to know the HR advice on Performance Review and Evaluations. Doing them once a year isn't really good enough. Do them at least once a quarter. Tie them to actual job performance. A performance review shouldn't be a surprise to the boss or the staff member.

We know we should be doing them. We know it works. So why do we find it so difficult to do them.

I think it's because of two things. The first is that we have set goals for the employee at the start of the year or employment. I mean specific outcomes you want them to achieve. And then we don't turn them into checklists or roadmaps with the employee upfront. So we forget what we asked them to achieve and when it's time to do the review, we are in a scramble and then do a review based on non performance items. Or we just dodge them because this is hard to do or it makes us uncomfortable.

The second reason is that we don't have effective meeting rhythms in place where people self report on their checklists (To Do lists) and you see progress everyday or every week. Good meeting rhythms make it easy to know how well everyone is doing. And that makes assessing performance easier and the reviews become and effective tool for improving performance.

Of course there is more to it than that. But as yourself this, is your lack of an effective meeting rhythm making it really difficult for you to measure and coach the performance of your people?

The Next Ninety Days

2010-03-24T08:38:00.000-05:00

March is almost over, April is almost here. Time to plan out the next ninety days.

I believe it's Jack Welch who said this: "All you need to know about Strategic Planning is where you want to be 20 years from now, and what you're going to do about it in the next 90 days."

He's right. Blue Sky thinking about the future opens up the creative juices and sets a direction for you. But the rubber hits the road right now. So break up the long term plan into 90 day segments and get something done that move you forward.

Not just something, but the one thing that moves your organization the furthest toward your goals, or the one thing that sets up the most important thing.

Selecting 90 day segments makes progress tangible and measurable. And meaningful.

So set up a half day or full day of planning and pick that next rock you have to move and get cracking on it.

And while you're at it. Schedule a day in June to plan out the 3rd quarter.

What's Your Next Brand Promise?

2010-03-22T09:21:00.003-05:00

At last week's In-Synk Huddle we talked about Branding and Brand Promises. It's funny, but I had a takeaway from my own presentation. Here it is:

Your current Brand Promise isn't good enough if you want to grow. Lots of us, myself included have figured out what we need to promise our customers to keep their brains indelibly branded on our being the solution they need to solve their problems. And we may have even done a good job of communicating that Brand Promise.

But how long will that Brand Promise keep working. Knowing that imitation is the highest form of flattery, at the very least it's going to be copied and mostly likely improved on by competitors. Our currently successful Brand Promise could easily become a "Table Stake" (what you have to be good at just to be in business).

We all should be working on the next brand promise that builds on the last one.

Take FedEx for instance: Their first Brand Promise was "Absolutely, Positively Overnight." But now the Post Office can deliver that. Currently they espouse "When it absolutely has to be there" and they are a step or two ahead. But I'm guessing Fred Smith and his executive team is working on a new Brand Promise or two.

Here's my advice. Set a goal three to five years out. Create a new Brand Promise for that time frame, based on customer needs, that is an improvement over today's. Then figure out what to put into place or changed to deliver on it. Now you are thinking strategically.

Are you working on your next brand promise?

Telling "As" about "B" or "C" Leaving

2010-03-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

One of my clients related the perfect way to inform your A Players about a B or C Player that is leaving.

He related that the staff member was being let go. Most everyone was ambivalent. Then he relayed that "I asked him to leave so I could keep you."

Everyone was puzzled. He then explained that the rest of them would have gotten sick of working with him. That they needed stronger players around them to get better themselves. So he wouldn't lose them.

Everyone smiled.

Are you risking losing your best players by tolerating less than "A" performance from the others?

My Nose in Four Books at One Time

2010-03-17T09:05:00.003-05:00

When I woke up this morning, I looked around the nightstand and saw four different books cracked open. I'm usually a one at a time reader. I'm thinking these four books must be important ones if I'm multi-reading. So I'm inventorying them for you today.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman--my takeaway: we must somehow reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources. Forget for green reasons, for national security reasons. But the answer is green.

Switch: How to change things when change is hard by Chip and Dan Heath--Verne Harnish sent this to me. Shows a great model for initiating change. Must embrace both the inner rider and inner elephant of the people a of who need to change their behavior consider the situation.

Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands by Marty Neumier: Not sure of takeaway right now but very interesting.

Pop Goes the Weasel by James Patterson: Mystery Crime novel featuring dectective Alex Cross. A real page turner. Frees up my mind to wander and think creative thoughts. And don't have to think too hard. Good release. Provides balance. Always have one of these going.

What are you reading?

A Missing Link in Sales Improvement

2010-03-16T20:43:00.003-05:00

Reposting Dave Kurlan's post from his blog "Understanding the Sales Force"

I was walking through the Airport when I saw what could be the missing link to sales improvement.

I watched a baby place a dirty napkin into the trash. This wasn't any trash deposit though. This baby clamped his tiny fingers around the napkin, carefully steered his little hand until it was centered over the trash, and coaxed his fingers to open until the napkin finally dropped gently into the trash. At this accomplishment, his mommy let out a loud roar of approval, "yeah!!!", and congratulated her little boy for successfully taking out the trash for the first time.

Did you notice the missing ingredient?

When salespeople are learning how to do something new, how often are they cheered on? Chances are, when and if they attempt to do something new, nobody even notices unless the salesperson happens to relate the details of the call. Salespeople usually hear the cheers only if they win a year-end award for performance.

When Sales Managers join salespeople on their calls they should conduct some pre-call coaching and share their expectations about what they would like to see their salespeople do. What would happen if, immediately following the call, if the salespeople actually execute the pre-call coaching, their sales managers cheer them on? The baby wasn't applauded for a big event or outcome, simply for a simple first time accomplishment. Do you think a little cheering might encourage the desired behavior changes?

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 @ 04:50 AM

Couldn't have said it better. I offer the sales force evaluations and screens from Dave's company Objective Management Group.

Sales Turnover--Some answers from Dave Kurlan

2010-03-08T10:19:00.002-06:00

I've been following Dave Kurlan's blog some time now. One of his latest posts caught my attention. It's a discussion about Sales Staff Turnover and why it occurs. Made me think about the answers to these questions that come up in Inner Circle all the time.

Here's the link http://bit.ly/bCo0OD

He writes a pretty thought provoking blog on Sales Management. Always challenges me.

Subscribe at: http://www.omghub.com/

What's on your mind?

Control Freak vs. Quality Control

2010-03-05T09:09:00.001-06:00

Interesting discussion at Inner Circle yesterday morning. Which generated the following quote:

"I told my team that I'm not a control freak, I'm a quality control freak. When the quality of your work isn't not where it should be, I'm going to want to take control."

Besides being a catchy quote, it addresses what one's responsibility should be as the leader of a team.

How does this quote grab you?

Do your listen to the young, naive of your team?

2010-03-03T15:03:00.003-06:00

Interesting insights from today's Inner Circle Meeting. The best one came from the story of a member, relating how one of his younger and more naive sales reps tried something with a client that he would have advised against, because of course he knew better due to his wisdom and experience. Turned out what she did created a bigger sale and more loyal customer.

Of course you can chase a lot of rabbits down holes if you don't have some sense of judgment on these things. Young and dumb doesn't work as a method or process. But the fearlessness and willingness to try new things or difficult things can produce lots of new ideas. Lots of creativity. Lots of energy.

The young and naive don't have the bad habits veterans do, and with that don't have the filters of experience that stop them. They see the same bit of data differently than you do. And that's a good thing. We all need new views of the same weeds we have been staring at.

What are you doing to listen to the new views of your young and naive? And how do your reinforce good behaviors and results that come out of such thinking? If you don't they will disappear and your veterans will be left to not try the difficult things they just know won't work.

Core Values and Company Legends.

2010-03-02T14:25:00.003-06:00

In facilitating the identification of a client company's core values, I often ask the team I'm working with to bring some of the legendary stories from the early days of the business. Today was no different.

The client team brought a whole host of stories, about the first orders, the first products, the passion of the owners, events that defined the future of the business and the character of the leaders. We put all of them to good use, along with other exercises to determine the core values that should be inspiring and guiding the people of the company.

One really jumped out at us. I can't explain it to you, confidential you see. The name of the core value jumps out at anyone who hears the story. Can't miss it. It's called "Jumping the Fence" I guess you just have to guess at what it means.

But this is what I'm sure of. This story will be told repeatedly in the future and team members will know exactly when the need to "Jump the Fence" creating incredible alignment which in turn will generate growth.

Do you have some legendary stories of the past of your company? If so, why are you keeping them under your hat?

Winter Olympic Version of Topgrading

2010-02-25T07:56:00.004-06:00

Watching both the women's bobsled and the women's aerial skiing last night, I was struck by the athletic histories of the American competitors. It's my recollection that none of them grew up wanting to bobsledders or aerialists. The aerialists all seemed to be a gymnast in their previous life. Many of the bobsledders were track, soccer, or basketball players. So how did they become "A" players as bobsledders and aerialists (making the Olympic Finals qualifies as an "A" player to me)?

Here's what I think: Some one at the federation level realized that the pool of people available that were experts at this was limited. They determined the athletic attributes that would make a good bobsledder or aerialist and then approached athletes who were pretty good but not good enough to make to the podium in the original sport, but had competitive drive. And invited them to try this new sport.

To create A Players in our companies, we often have to do the same thing. The pool of already accomplished "A" Players is slim for a given position you need. But potential "A" players are out there just waiting to be invited to your company to get to the top. Determine the attributes and skills and needed and look at groups of people who have those skills but are deadheaded where they are, and make the invitation.

The Grateful Dead as a Business Model

2010-02-22T09:03:00.002-06:00

Read this interesting article in Atlantic Magazine over the weekend. The archives of the Grateful Dead are being donated to UC Santa Cruz. Open to academic study. The author thinks that studying their business practices will enlighten us all on the methods of customer loyalty, social media, branding etc.

Here's the link:

Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead

So often the best insights into business success and strategy come from the most unlikely places.

Slash and Burn Doesn't Work

2010-01-28T13:47:00.003-06:00

Had lunch with a slash and burn casualty today. You know the scenario, a newly promoted boss comes on board, has marching orders to make a difference or wants to make a name for himself. They unilaterally cut staff in a ruthless not rigorous way. Blood everywhere. They sure made a difference. Everyone now knows who is the boss and the expenses are down so maybe a short term profitability might have been achieved.

A short term gain that probably causes even more long term pain.

The empirical evidence is quite clear on this. Slash and burn doesn't work. It only accelerates the decline (How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins). Neither do drastic restructuring or dramatic initiatives.

So what do you do when expenses need to reduced and headcount is probably the only way? Be rigorous not ruthless and get back to the basics of what made you a success in the first place. By rigorous, I mean looking closely at the anticipated contributions of every person in company. Everyone. Looking forward instead of just backward. By getting back to the basics, figure out what stopped happening that brought you success in the past and figure out how to do it again in the new situation.

At lunch, my friend related that the new boss pretty much cut people based solely on old news, without looking at the funnel that was being created. Now that funnel is gone because the people bringing it in are gone. They had got back to the basics and were starting the way out of the whole. Without being rigorous they threw out the best performers, setting the operation even further back.

Be rigorous, and get back to the basics that worked before.

The Last Gas Station Before the Desert Isn't There Anymore

2010-01-20T08:00:00.001-06:00

Think about it a bit.

The economy, for most of the last decade seemed to be on autopilot. If you had a good product or service it often sold itself. You didn't have to be good at selling or marketing or delivering it. There was enough demand to go around to overcome your inadequacies.

Kind of like the last gas station before the desert. As long as it had gasoline, it didn't matter whether it was well run or not. The owner or manager could be Genghis Khan himself and he would still make money.

Well I'm not saying you are all Genghis Khan, but your business isn't the last stop before the desert anymore. In this economy you are on a different corner and if you want to make money you better have more to offer than just gasoline. Competition is everywhere.

Filling Slots or Building Resources

2010-01-19T08:00:00.000-06:00

Rarely does anyone admit to being a slot filler anymore when hiring people, lot's of lip service being paid these days to how people are our most important resource. But I regularly hear about new staff members being hired and thrown at the work. No direction, no orientation, no feedback. And this more often than not leads to poor performance.

Would you do the same thing with an expensive piece of equipment? Just slap it into place, no training on how to use it, no maintenance and hope for the best. Probably not. You would make sure the equipment provided the highest return possible for you. And you would work on it until you got it humming just the right way for you.

This same approach needs to be taken with employees. You need to provide direction, feedback, and encouragement until they are humming along just the right way as well. Yes you have to hire the right person first, but that is only the start.

This is your biggest responsibility as owner or CEO. Finding the right people and then working with them so that they can produce at the highest level for you. It's not easy and requires constant attention, until they are getting it right. And then they'll need some more. It's never ending.

So are you really building resources or just filling slots.

If you want to learn how to build resources, come to the In-Synk Huddle on Thursday Morning.

The Key to Great Service is Taking Responsibility

2010-01-18T16:25:00.003-06:00

A recent breakfast meeting at Panera Bread made me remember once again the key to great customer service. Taking Responsibility.

Yes, you should have a good product, and good systems, and good value pricing. But all of that adds up to naught if your people don't take responsibility for delivering great service. Especially when mistakes are made.

That morning, my meeting partner didn't get his bagel toasted as he had asked for. He was going to overlook it. It wasn't that important. But when waitress came back with the cream for the coffee she noticed that it wasn't made to order. She picked it up and took it to the toaster and fixed it. Didn't hand it off to anyone else, she took ownership and just solved it. Brad was much happier.

I'm hoping she also figured out why it was missed in the first place and took some systemic corrective action as well. But that is less important than taking ownership of the problem.

Ever wonder how such great customer service is delivered at the Ritz Carlton? They have a rule there. Whoever discovers a problem or poor service, also owns the problem or poor service until it's fixed and the customer is happy. So the chambermaid, or waiter, or switchboard person stays in the loop until satisfaction is accomplished. They may not even be involved in the solution itself, but they are involved to ride herd until it's solved.

It's a good rule for your organization, that is if you want to deliver great service.

Core Values/ Purpose and the Boy Scouts

2010-01-12T09:16:00.005-06:00

I attended a Eagle Scout Court of Honor on Sunday. Moving ceremony. If you have a chance to attend one you should.

I'm still thinking about it. Towards the end of the ceremony, they asked all Boy Scouts and Former Boy Scouts to stand up and recite the Boy Scout Code and the Boy Scout Law. Half the room stood up and from memory recited both, myself included (I only made it to first class).

Wouldn't your organization be more effective if everyone could recite your company Purpose (The Boy Scout Code) and your company Core Values (the Boy Scout Law)? Does your team even know your Purpose and Core Values?

I thought about how many times during my short Scouting career I recited the Code and the Law. And how many times the four Eagles being honored that night recited the Code and the Law. In both cases, so much that it became second nature for them, and it became a part of them.

While your company Core Values and Purpose may not be so noble as those of the Boy Scouts, your team should know them and be able to repeat them. And you should be reviewing them and communicating them as much as possible to make them live in your organization.

Start 2010 with the "End in Mind"

2010-01-04T09:00:00.000-06:00

Over lunch today, I helped a client get started creating a strategic plan, in Inner Circle Parlance, a Vision Quest. Our dialogue reminded me how important it is to set a direction for your organization. To create strategy, one really has to "start with the end in mind," Whether it's company or departmental or personal strategy, having a picture of what the desired outcome will be makes all the difference in the world.

If you don't have an "end in mind" then what you build will be an amalgamation of individual efforts that don't add up to anything in particular. Your organization will lack the alignment that creates stable and sustainable growth. You'll eventually fall into a firefighting or reactive mode.

New Year's resolution time is a great time for thinking about the "end in mind" that you will build your organization towards in the new year.

Figure it out now and don't go wandering around aimlessly in the 2010.

2010 is a year for Sales Execution

2009-12-30T14:05:00.004-06:00

It's time to stop being defensive and go on the offense again. That means Sales Force Execution.

You have to get the right sales people saying the right things to the right customers.

Sounds simple. Difficult to do.

I recommend subscribing to Dave Kurlan's blog "Understanding the Sales Force"

Dave nails it in each and every post, about what works in getting your sales force to execute effectively. He destroys myths about sales, and provides good hard data on what works, what needs to be in place and how to do it.

Keep your eyes peeled for more information on this. I'm going to be offering Sales Force Effectiveness huddles/workshops/coaching in this New Year. Not sales training, but sales leadership and execution.

Go Back to Past Greatness to Improve Your Future

2009-12-10T14:25:00.004-06:00

After hearing all the discussions at this morning's Inner Circle meeting, the major thought I want to convey today relates to going back to what you done well in the past, to improve for the future.

The temptation to radically change things when things aren’t going well is hard to resist. It's natural to feel this way. But usually that instinct is wrong and you need to resist that urge.

Research from Jim Collins studies of great organizations going bad (his book How the Mighty Fall) indicates that those that fall stray too far from what made them great. They innovate too much, or take to radical of action to fix everything when everything isn’t broken.

Usually something needs to be fixed but not everything. The change needed might only be renewing your focus on what made you great in the first place. I said it in the meeting, the best corporate turnaround artists, the ones who really turn a company around, are those that go back to what was done good in the past, get the companies to start doing it again, and then tweak it.

No matter what’s going on in your company, you did something good in the past. Get back to it.