I am reading a very good book on learning about your customer before you ever talk to them (Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling) . This is in part based on what is also in People Buy You. Customers buy a solution to a problem they have. Your job as a sales person is to learn beforehand what problems appear to be occurring, so you can speak about their company and not yours.  Doing anything less, means you are doomed to the losing sales numbers game.

The sales numbers game, if you do not know.(Where trickle down is not pretty).

• Corporate sets a target of 10% more sales this quarter ( We never know where this comes from)
• Each sales guy realizes with  his  10% closing rate, that a 10% increase is multiplied by ten. thus he needs 10 times f2f presentations.
• Inside sales realizes that with a 5 % response rate to prospecting, their outbound calls have to increase by twenty times – and there is no more staff.
• The entire department is already busy – they are not sitting around

This is a losing game, because it does not address the huge losses embedded into most sales systems.  Sharon Drew Morgen, Mitch Gooze and Michael Webb all are up in arms about the tremendous wastage in sales, where such low rates are common.  A few process trainers have ideas about bumping up the percentages a bit with different behaviours.  But that is just icing a flawed cake

No one in senior management recognizes that this is a much bigger issue (yet fairly logical to address).  If you present a solution that solves a real customer problem, that he can recognize easily,  your sales cycle shortens.  You need to start to remove the obstacles to selling that you have created yourself.

In using our sales and marketing framework Rocket Builders find big self made linked obstacles/inefficiencies  in many places in companies, such as:

• product management
• marketing management
• channel management
• executive management but
• rarely in sales management

The blind spot is that if an executive does not know what they do not know, where would they find out? In your company, do not be content with accepting long sales cycles and a decreasing return based on using the numbers game.  You have created these yourself and you must find the root causes (Its your job as CEO) . If you are on a Board of Directors, you should be asking lots of tough questions. Do not know the questions to ask? Give me a call!

• Knowing What to Do vs. Doing It: Successful Selling Requires Knowledge AND Action (thecustomercollective.com)
• Selling Gets Harder Every Day (frontofficebox.com)
• People Buy You. The real secret to what matters most in business. Jeb Blount (regnordman.com)
• Video: Why Sales Fail (customerthink.com)

Team of Rivals. The political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin. 2005. ISBN 9780743270755.  754 pp 9 point type of absolute wonderful insights into the man, the times and the context.  It follows Lincoln from being the very outside choice of the brand new Republican party through to his assignation as the Civil War is being won.  He built his Cabinet of the very people who most strongly ran against him for the job! As you are drawn back to those times you see how ‘messy’ democracy is.  I  was most interested in the roots of the Democratic Party in the South as the pro-slavery party. Not til Clinton were the democrats truly brought to the Liberal centre.   The Republicans started out as the Liberal, pro reform party.  How things have changed.  what has not changed is the awarding of lucrative posts,  contracts, political rewards, personal lobbying and so on. It is quite amusing to hear the liberal “goody goodies” complaining about corruption on a grand scale in Asia and the Middle East, when the Union itself was as full of the same things.  This is a book for leaders, politicians, history buffs and those interested in why Americans do what they do.  Thanks to David Moulton for lending it to me.

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Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton. Rebecca Shambaugh. 2010 ISBN 9780071664172. If you have not read much about Hillary Clinton’s life this book will give you some  idea of how she got to where she is today. It is mostly full of the author’s take on leadership and life habits. These are good ideas, and she uses Clinton’s attributes as a springboard for how one could apply it to one’s life.  A short book, easy to read and fairly well written. I may have been looking for something else, but the book left me a bit underwhelmed.  Perhaps it is due to my impression of the Clinton era lacking a good legacy, and an opportunity clearly wasted.

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Thoughts on hiring a sales person, what companies forget about.

Reg Nordman

We have had numerous discussions about how companies seem to hire the wrong sales people.  This comes up so often that I feel the need to comment, since it is done so regularly.

Usually the situation comes up because a company exec believes they need to add new sales DNA into their company. They may have been doing all or most of the selling up to now, and feel that they need to go onto other things. These are all good things. But the symptom that it is about to go wrong is the implied or expressed belief that once they add a sales person, the problem is resolved. In our experience the problem is about to be exacerbated.

Rocket Builder has heard many common myths about sales people, here are just five

1. All salespeople are the same.
2. All selling is the same.
3. Any salesperson can fit in any company.
4. Being sales driven means I can do things the same as always.
5. Getting out there and selling is the only sales training needed.

Beliefs like this usually lead to this profit killing sequence:

1. Placing a general ad for sales people – “lets just put it out there”
2. Changing the candidate requirements mid stream – “no one met what I wanted”
3. Accepting candidates at random – “they worked for a really big company and did well”
4. Making the wrong hire – “Seems the best of those I talked to, I have a feeling about…”
5. Wasting six months of effort, wages and profits before firing the new hire – $$$$
6. Return to step one.

To help you make your “better” choice for adding sales people to your mix you need a process.  You certainly have a product development and bug fixing process.  Why not a sales hiring process for something this key?A  logical process like the one Geoffrey Hansen, Rocket Builder has. He says:

1. Select your market
2. Select your requirements for that market
3. Deliberately target candidates who meet the requirements.

Sounds like it would be a good coding practise. Of course,  in using this process effectively there is much well thought out detail involved, which is where Rocket Builders helps companies. It is in the execution and details that you find the secret sauce.  If you do this right, then you, Mr/Ms. C- Level,  can:

• add new sales DNA to your company,
• go on to doing those 101 other things you want to do, and
• know that your money machine is working away.

In this business,  prevention is so much cheaper than rework. It just might save your company.  Comments?

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Making Things Happen. Overcoming obstacles between vision & reality. Scott Belsky. 2010 ISBN 9781591843122.  In our daily work we meet very creative people. And. like the author found , many of these have trouble getting things started and completed.  The book contains methods and approaches to help creative types get more “done” . But, the real value in this book is the depth of insight it brings to the wide range of creative people and how they cope with  and succeed in life.  It is not a hard facts book but rather a softer exploration of creativity, full of insightful case studies and examples. I read it in almost one sitting as it held my interest from page to page.  A quiet easy read, it will be of value to anyone who is creative or works with creative people. visit www.makingideashappen.com

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Stones Into Schools. Promoting peace with books, not bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Greg Mortensen. 2009. ISBN 9780670021154.  When we left Greg Mortensen in Three Cups of Tea, he had promised tribal leaders from  one of Afghanistan’s wildest parts to come and build a girl’s school like he was doing in Pakistan. This is the chronicle of the work CAI his foundation is doing in Afghanistan as well as deep insights into the tribal leaders, people and students he encounters on his journeys.  Inspiring, and uplifting as his work is, you are constantly brought back to the constant roadblocks that life in these parts puts in front of the individual who wants to better them self.  In this book Greg is surprised at the work that the US and Allied military is putting in to be sensitive to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Being on the front, the soldiers develop tremendous empathy for the lot of the civilians. This book validates the nation building work that the Canadian and US military are committed to. One soldier said it, ” you can not bomb your way to peace.”  In page after page you read about the incredible dedication of the people to get some kind of an education. They are very tired of war and want to build their country.   An uplifting read and a noble cause.

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Dead Aid. Why aid is not working and how there is a better way for africa. Dambisa Moyo.2009. ISBN 9780374139568. The author, born in Zambia has a terrific CV – World Bank, Harvard, Oxford, Goldmann Sachs. This is a black  African talking about how Africa can be, could be helped.  She builds a compelling case First all the aid that has been poured into Africa has resulted in African people becoming poorer, not better off.  Second the money (World bank et al)  has found its way into “lucky hands” ie the corrupt rulers/administrators and resides in Swiss bank accounts.   Third, Africa needs trade and investment such as being offered by China and India. Fourth, Inter african trade needs to be freed up ( A car cost $1500 to ship from Japan to The Ivory coast and a further $5000 to get it over a few borders)  .  Third Western nations need to  stop sending aid and stop subsidizing their own  farmers (who then dump product onto world markets – putting African s out of business)  - free international  trade.   Then stop supporting the guys like Mugabe with “free money”  Ask for results, roads, bridges  and commodities from the investments (like the Chinese). Put the countries on notice that the aid will stop over five years.   She has really got onto something and is passionate about it.   I wonder if Rick Mercer realizes that if he ships free  mosquito nets to Africa he is putting local manufacturers out of business?  Better to buy locally.  well written and rolls right along. Once again common sense is not that common.  Less Bono and more Moyo. Someone should send this book to Steven Harper.  The best thing is Moyo lays out how this can be done.

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Three Cups of Tea. One man’s mission to promote peace…one school at a time. Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin.2006. ISBN   This is a real life story on one man, Greg Mortensen who discovered his life’s work , while climbing K2.

As of 2010, Mortenson has established over 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 48,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.  This story lays out the hardships and risks he has taken in order to provide the ultimate for his adopted countries Pakistan and Afghanistan.  You can not help but be uplifted by this book. He provides yet  another validating data point to the analyses provided in the the Bin Laden book by Yossef Bodansky I reviewed.

His work has not been without difficulty. In 1996, he survived an eight day armed kidnapping by the Taliban in Pakistan’ Northwest Frontier Province tribal areas, escaped a 2003 firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding for eight hours under putrid animal hides in a truck . He has overcome two fatwehs from enraged Islamic mullahs, endured CIA investigations, and also received threats from fellow Americans after 9/11, for helping Muslim children with education.

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Seizing The White Space. Business model innovation for growth and renewal. Mark W. Johnson.2010 ISBN 9781422124819.  The author is co-founder with Clay Christensen of Innosight.   This book is distilled from many years of applying the Innovators Dilemma.  For that alone it is an important book. However the author has stepped even further down the path of applicability  by forcing you the reader to consider your business as solving the question, ” what job does the customer want done?”  From there one can see applying the ideas of Blue Ocean Strategy (Johnson alls it “white space” . But the growth in your learning continues as you realize just how powerful these ideas are for reinventing your company business model.   The author could have stopped then and it would have been a fine book. But he is thorough and so he proceeds to show you all the things that interfere with new business model innovation, how  many different approaches worked (or failed)  for different companies and the structural thinking behind it.   This is not a huge book , nor a heavy read .  It is theory into practice with a heavy emphasis on practical.  This is a must read, must own book if you are or aspire to be a business leader.

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In The Company of Heroes. Michael J. Durant & Steven Hartov. 2004.ISBN 0451210603. The story of the US helicopter pilot captured in Mogadishu, Somalia which corresponded with the story of  Black Hawk Down.   This is a taut gripping real life story of special ops, top gun flyers and life among the elite of the US Armed Forces.  Durant was seriously injured when his helio was shot down. He endured incredible pain, and  expected the worst. He  received surprising care from some Somalis and eventually was released as a gesture from the warlord , Mohamed Aidid.   If you are curious to live the life of these elite forces and the view of being captured by a young hard nosed military type you will like this book.  I liked his quote from Colin Powell, ” The people in the front lines are right and those in the rear are wrong.”   Durant’s observations of the Clinton approach to this war are totally in line with those expressed in the Bin Laden book.

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