humor

The Devil’s Claw

Standard

I was shocked.  I was thrilled.   And then, I was completely ticked off. 

I’ve had this puzzle for almost a year.   It’s called the Devil’s Claw.  

You can get these at any Barnes and Noble and this one is rated “Challenging”.   The key is to get the darned thing apart into the two pieces.  I’ve tried.  My wife has tried, my daughter has tried,  my son had tried, my son’s friend has tried, unsuspecting party goers and holiday revelers have tried as I’ve begged many to just “ give it a go” and figure out a way to get the Devil’s claw apart.   

I like the puzzle.

It represents something too, this puzzle.  It must be defeated because well, it just has to be.  Hanayama, the company that makes the puzzle, specializes in recreating these puzzles from the 19th century and knows that there are thousands of people like you and me who need this type of challenge.     We tackle puzzles every day at work, but we sometimes want  more.  

At exactly 9:47 pm, I was sitting in the Man Cave (yep, I got one of those).   The Discovery channel was on (something about submarines), the laptop open and email up, a Bud Lite nearby too close to empty and as I was apt to have,  the Devil’s Claw was in my hands.

And……then…..

It came apart.  One piece in my left hand ….and one piece in my right hand. 

I was shocked.  I was thrilled.   And then, I was completely ticked off.   

I jumped to my feet.   Finally, after so much time had passed, I had defeated the Devil’s Claw.    The only problem was, as I began to head upstairs to exclaim to my wife that I had conquered the devil himself,  I realized that I had no idea how I did it.   I had taken it apart but had no idea how.  None. 

That was not good.  That was really not good.  That made me angry.  And then as I paused, it made me realize how often this happens.

I wanted to share how had succeeded.  I needed to share how I succeeded.  I actually needed to know how I did it.

When you succeed today at work, perhaps landing a colossal sale, are you absolutely sure how you did it?   Do you know exactly what steps you took, what process, what angles, what words, what perspective you took to make that success happen?

What exactly was the way in which you were able to take your Devil’s Claw apart?  When your colleagues, boss or spouse ask “How did you do it?”   Can you respond in a specific way?

You need to.  And often, too often, it isn’t easily explained.

Over the years, I have heard many success stories, so many difficult yet successful stories in which a sale was made, a solution solved, a customer indebted for life to you because of what you did.   And over the years, the how is often lost.

The how gets buried in the “It was magical, they ended up buying the whole suite!” or the “I just went with it” or the dreaded “because I’m a good salesperson.”  The how is forgotten.

Even the “I kept probing until I discovered” or “I wouldn’t take “no” for and answer” or the “I just knew we had what they needed” is akin to that playing mindlessly as I did with the Devil’s Claw in my lap and having it fall apart in my hands.

Success without knowing how, is not success, it is Random Achievement.  Random Achievement isn’t something you or I want.  What we want is success that we can understand and explain.  Success that is understood in minute detail is repeatable and wonderful.

Every manager, sales leader or marketer out there should be asking the questions of the successful salesperson about that successful sale and exactly what happened.   Don’t settle for the vague answers or the generalizations.  Salespeople who are successful may or may not be aware of how they accomplished the feat; (I know that years ago as a salesperson, it took me time before I was consciously aware of how I succeeded).  Your job as a leader is to delve deep into that space and “CSI” the event giving the salesperson and the respective populace the recipe for achieving this specific success. 

Random Achievement is great at the time, but it is no longer random when it falls identifiably upon people with some consistency.   The Devil’s Claw for me was a Random Achievement.   It did not have to be.  I’ve been working on that puzzle for nearly a year. 

Watch closely.  Watch how.   

I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday and got two more puzzles, both more difficult supposedly than the one I unknowingly conquered.  

The devil made me do it.   But this time, I’ll be watching. 

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Ugh! The World Cup Soccer Sales Approach

Standard

I figured out why some of our sales efforts don’t work so well.   We sometimes use the World Cup Soccer Sales Approach.  

I tried watching the World Cup over the weekend.  I did.  I watched England vs. USA and Germany vs. Australia.    I was annoyed, confused and bored.    I walked away.  

Thankfully those 5 hours I wasted made me realize that the World Cup Soccer Sales Approach is dangerous.  Use it on prospects and customers and they too will become annoyed, confused, bored and walk away.   

In order to see if you suffer from using the WCSS approach let’s take a look at the nasty 3 step problem that is World Cup Soccer and its sales counterparts.

Step 1:  Annoy Your Audience.  The trumpets have got to go.  That incessant drone (and it really does sound like angry bees) is all that you hear.  It borders on inane.   This is white noise of the worst kind; white noise that is too loud and won’t go away.   White noise like this can be damaging to sales especially when we cold call (or warm call) customers or prospects poorly.   For those 10, 30 or 120 seconds of you spouting your benefits, or “our possible fit” and other drivel like “I can save you time and money” these folks hear blaring in ear and brain self talk like “How do I get rid of you!”, “Can I just hang up???…” I have got real work to do!!.   Annoying white noise is a big deal especially when practicing interruption marketing or sales.

Step 2 : Confuse Your Audience:   I’m not following what these guys are doing with the ball.  Moving forward, passing backward 3 times, moving forward, and passing backward again and again.  And offsides?; impossible to figure out even in replay.    How often does your client or prospect get bounced or passed around to someone and they don’t understand why either?  How often, just when your client thinks they are moving ahead, does she have to tell her story repeatedly to customer service, technical support, an account manager or in chat?  Confusion causes tension and tension stops sales.

Step 3:  Bore Your Audience:   This is the worst because if you can somehow get past the trumpet blaring white noise and figure out the confusing way to work with your business then it all goes for naught if you are downright boring.  I heard a joke over the weekend that that soccer call “gooooooooaaaaaaaaaaallllllll!!!” is really an alarm clock for the sound asleep American on the couch.  My wife was sound asleep watching soccer with me (her last utterance something like.. “nothing is…happening…” ).  And while the commentators never yelled “goal” like in the joke to wake her, the point is not lost.  Boring does not sell.   If your business is unremarkable (especially after that first sale) then your clients and prospects will walk away.   

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

You Got Facts? So What?

Standard

It’s not the size of your knowledge that matters, it’s what you do with it that counts. 

You see, facts are getting less and less valuable every day.  They are just too easy to come by.

I saw two people sitting at a bar the other night playing that trivia game thing; you know the one you pump the quarters into and try and get the highest score.  One of them had an IPhone.    Fastest animal?  No problem, just Google it.  Superbowl X Champion?  That’s easy…Badda -Bing it.  Tallest skyscraper?…Yippy- Yahoo it.  

Game over.   That was fun.   Game means nothing now and so does your score.

Got a new video game for your kid?  Most 12 year olds go online, get the Cheatin’ facts and get the game codes.   Game over.   Good for you that you defeated Tyranna KingZilla, means nothing to me (and really to anybody else either).

Used to be that knowing a lot of facts nobody else knew actually meant something.  Meant you were smart.  Meant you had value.   Not anymore.

If you are the Keeper of the Knowledge, the Knower of All Things or the Encyclopedia of Vital Stuff, good for you except your days of being truly valuable are numbered.  

And that’s OK. 

Knowing facts or having knowledge all by itself had its day, but that was so yesterday.  

  • You’re a plumber who knows how to fix a leaky faucet.  So what? In a heartbeat I can go to ehow.com ( http://www.ehow.com/video_15854_fix-leaky-faucet.html ) and get all kinds of facts by watching a video on how to fix my faucet.  You’ll never get my call.
  • You’re a sales rep who knows every product, every process and every procedure ever created.  So what?  If you are up against someone who has great sales skills and a good search engine, you’ll get the steak knives and he’ll get the Cadillac.

 

It’s not about you knowing stuff no one else knows anymore.   Your customers and your competition can know pretty quickly what you know as far as facts go.  It’s about having the skills to do something with the facts.  The skills and applications and ability to seamlessly and proactively use facts to market better, to sell better, to strategize better and to differentiate you from just being a repository of those darn facts. 

That’s a good thing.

People and businesses that can do those kinds of things well will grow in value. 

So chill a bit about the facts (you can get those so much more easily now) and work on the skills.   That’ll make you stronger and nobody for a long time (maybe never) is going to say “so what?” to that.    

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

5 New Rules For Business Writing

Standard

Let’s be real.   People don’t read as much as they used to. 

They actually read more. 

It’s a texting crazy world.   It’s a blogging crazy world.  It’s a facebookin’ crazy world.  Just look at your kids or your spouse or even your Mom and tell me I’m wrong that we are reading and writing more than ever before. 

Who would have thought  that reading and writing would be so popular today?  Who would have thought 20 years ago that that personal email and the personal letter would still be so much alive when it came to communicating to customers and prospects?  

You’ve got to write to your customers.  Clients expect it now; they even prefer it sometimes.  But the world is changing and so are the writing rules.   Here are 5 you need to know:  

Quit Sounding Like Your Brochure.   A letter from a person (you), should sound like a letter from the person (you).  And a professional person mind you, not a buddy- chummy- BFF one.  In your emails or letters, lose the “The 3 major benefits of our product are….”  Change it to “I’ve noticed three ways customers use this service to get the most out of it…”  The easiest way to think about this is to bring the “I’s”, the “I’ves and the “me’s” back to customer correspondence.   Save the “We’s, the “Ours’” and “Us’s” for the brochure.  This letter or the email is from you isn’t it?  

Don’t Screw Up.   OK, so this one is not so new; but the pain you get is a new kind of pain. It’s quick and severe.  Mistakes in spelling or punctuation in the past might have been “cute” or could even make you look “human” (I remember in the early 90’s purposely indenting something too much so the prospect wouldn’t think this was a template letter!) Today, you make a spelling mistake and it’s a reason to delete or trash your email.  Why? Because all the customer has to do is click twice and she can find your competition who actually knows how to spell.   Don’t give her a reason to look.

Don’t Lose Your Sales Process.    This one drives me crazy.  If you weren’t betting on closing the sale on your first phone call or visit, why does your email or letter try to?  Why does it have the link to “sign up” or have the complete pricing listed?  Sales are like dating; you rarely marry the girl you meet 20 minutes after you meet them.  A (marriage) proposal inside of 2 minutes in a letter and you’ll rightly get slapped in the face (and deleted or trashed). Remember your prospect “hears” you as they read; stay with your trusted sales process, don’t change it from real life or a real phone call. 

Long Paragraphs Kill.    I love Jack Falvey (you can love him too if you go here http://www.falvey.org).  But jeepers criminy, every morning when I get his post I cringe.   It’s just a big ol’ block o’ words; One paragraph.  One looooonnnnggg paragraph.  Maybe it’s his brand or his style but I sigh, I shrug and then I ball up some energy, raise my head and bloody well decide if I want to read this thing.   And honestly, half the time I don’t.  We need the visual breaks; they are the eye candy of writing.  There is a reason Tweeting at no more than 140 characters is popular.  Break it up; think space.

Lose Your Pontificating Signature Quote.  I know you love Sartre or Brecht or Roosevelt or Einstein; good for you.  No one’s opinion but yours though belongs in a business letter or email to a customer.  You’ve messing with fire if you dangle a quote under your name or signature as your personality and your passion should have been in the content above the quote: not here under your name. You haven’t a clue if your reader cares or will be offended.   The worst of course are the people that write “Think twice about printing this email….”.  OK, I will.  I was going to print your awesome letter it and share it with my husband or my wife or my family or colleagues and consider you as a partner, but instead I’ll delete you.  How dare you preach to me, I don’t even know you!  Please don’t pontificate your views about green or blue or red or life or death or taxes in customer correspondence.  Save it for your blog 🙂

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

That 70’s Twitter

Standard

I was way ahead of my time.   You can be too.

Social Media is still exploding.  Like huge.  The FaceBooks, the Twitters, the Blogs and a dozen other tools are top of mind for consumers and businesses these days.  

Businesses are scrambling to figure out these tools fast because haven’t you heard?  People like you and me who use social media are supposed to have new thinking, new desires, new buying motives and if you happen to be about 20ish, perhaps you may be a new species of human known as a “millennial”.  

Nope, I don’t think so.   It’s not the people that are different so much; it’s the tools.

It’s the tools like Facebook, Twitter and Blogs that the media, the marketers and the businesses are getting caught up in.   But don’t be fooled.    It’s not enough to just embrace and use these tools.  If you are in sales, teaching or marketing; it’s important to think hard about why people are using and loving these tools; what comfort and value they bring; enhance your strategy and then act accordingly.     

You see, I was on FaceBook in the 80’s.  I needed to be if I was going to have a life.  I was actually on Twitter in the 70’s cuz’ I found it cool and informative and I was a heck of a Blogger as far back as the early 90’s.  

It’s true.  I was.

In the 80’s I had my little black book with Judy Lelievre (I was totally in love with her), Stephanie Bond (out of my league), Paula Kelly (we went on a date once) and a dozen other girls’ names in there.  I loved that black book (even without any faces) and every time their phone numbers, or addresses or my opinion rating of them changed, (yep,  I ranked them from a measly one star up to four “wicked awesome” stars), I updated that thing religiously.  I needed to be connected and in the know.

In the 70’s the Twitter feeds were always on the back of the stall door in he boys’ bathroom at St. Catherine’s School.    There I learned the latest thoughts (and some new words) about Sister Mary’s lightning quick back hand and about Sister John’s weight challenges.  Always something new on those doors and like the Library of Congress that now holds millions of Twitter posts; I bet that 70’s Twitter is still etched in metal in the second floor bathroom at St. Catherine’s school likely for eternity.

In the 90’s, I wrote a page every night, printed it on dot matrix paper and copied it for the hundreds of call center sales people so in the morning; my wisdom, guidance (and at that time a lot of capital letters), were placed squarely front and center on the chairs of my people.  Some read it, some chucked it, but just like today; it better be interesting/ helpful or people don’t care.

Here is the point.  Get to know the new tools.  Get to know them really well so you can better fill the desires that have been around for ages.  People always want to have relationships and always want to share an opinion.  They want to know the latest going on and they want a community of trusted friends and colleagues. 

Whether they find some of that on Twitter or they find it on the back of a bathroom stall door; it doesn’t much matter.  What matters is that you help your customers, friends and even strangers fill their desires really really well.

The tools may change but the innate desires of folks rarely do.  Know this and you’ll be ahead of your time too.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Josh Beckett Came To My House Saturday

Standard

Mr. Beckett showed up at my house on Saturday.   Josh is a pretty famous major league baseball pitcher and currently plays for the Red Sox.  

My wife had been cleaning all morning in anticipation of his arrival (I told her that it was not a big deal; the house looked fine- but you know how that goes).

I had a busy morning too and was in the backyard when Josh rang the doorbell an hour early.   My wife answered the door and not being much of a baseball fan, she didn’t recognize him even though he was decked out in his baseball jersey that said “RED SOX” on the front and “BECKETT” on his back.  

I came around the front of the house and was surprised that he was wearing a game jersey. Not what I expected.  I was then shocked he had put a ton of weight on and got about a foot shorter since the season started.   I looked a little closer…. and realized……. that it wasn’t Josh Beckett at all, but the cable guy who was scheduled to come about an hour later.

There are a lot of problems with this; not the least of which is that there is an age when a man should stop wearing another man’s name on his back (and that age should be about 14 ).  But there are bigger problems than that; problems that people and companies should fix.   Problems you can get involved in solving.

Problem A):   He scared my wife.  Really scared her.   That is not good.    Who is this guy at the front door in khaki’s and Red Sox Jersey?  She literally told me later “I was freaked out and scared, I had no idea what he wanted and you were way out back”.   (It was only because our dog was barking that I even came around to the front of the house.)

Problem B):   I didn’t trust him the entire time.  About anything.  He was there for an hour adding some cable service and because he chose to wear his Saturday best and he scared my wife, I had a lot of tension and concern watching him work around my house.  If you don’t care how you look, do you care how you work?  

Don’t tell me that his truck should be a giveaway.  His truck was parked behind our two cars and the lettering on the truck if you chose to walk up to it, was tiny, had no colors and no logo.   It doesn’t matter.  If someone comes to your door dressed like he’s ready to go to a tailgate party, you’re not looking at his vehicle for a company or a brand to begin with.

If you serve businesses or are one you’ve known (supposedly) for years about the value of having that logo and that personalization on the clothing because it makes the customers feel at ease and that your company is professional.   So why is it not happening still today?

Uneasiness was the tenor of the day and hence, the entire experience was certainly not professional.

Right or wrong, because of the way he dressed Saturday, I questioned everything about him.   I questioned his ability, his commitment to his company and whether he had any concern at all about me, the customer.   That’s bad news.

And worse now, whenever I see Josh Beckett pitch I’m going to think about the cable guy and wonder if my picture in HD is really as good as it could be.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark

Avoid Problems In The Shower

Standard

Selling is not always about problem solving.   If you are reading the hottest sales books and listening to the trendiest sales gurus though, you might think it was.

 

It ain’t.

Every time I travel, I check into the hotel, throw the bag on the bed, adjust the heat down to 66 degrees (who can possibly be comfortable at 72?) then step into the bathroom to try to wash away a bit of the day’s travel.  I then invariably look up into the mirror and realize the recurring dream I have when dozing off in a plane about my sudden hair growth alas, did not come true.  I move on and peer into the mirror past my balding pate focusing in the space just behind me.

I see now as I always do in the reflection, the curved shower rod above the tub and get reminded once again so powerfully,  that sales is definitely not just about problem solving.

If you haven’t stayed in a hotel in the last 3 years and have not seen the curved shower rod, this post may not make much sense to you though I think they are being sold in some Home Depots and Lowes now. (Here is a picture):

The curved shower rod.   This thing is amazing.  Without changing the size of the shower, it just now feels bigger with a curved shower rod.  Who woulda thunk it?

That’s kind of the point.   Do you think hotel managers across the country were suffering for decades with the pain of having straight shower curtain rods?  Had they been for years dealing with complaint after complaint that the showers were feeling too small for the patrons?  Do you think they got thousands of letters demanding they make the showering experience feel like there is more room in said shower?  

Do you think then that a crack team of salespeople, product developers, sales leaders and marketers hunkered down in some basement trying for years to come up with the product that would fix this terrible problem of the normal straight shower rods?    Do you think they created the curved shower rod as a solution to a problem and sold it that way?

Nope.  Never happened.

Some brilliant person created and sold this product because it made the experience better, not because there was a problem that needed fixing. 

Sometimes if we obsess with “solution” selling or “problem solving” as our lead mantra on the phone or in the field, we’ll fall on deaf ears or worse as we try to illustrate problems that don’t exist in the mind of our customers or frankly in the mind of anyone.

You might get more business when you sell products that add better to a business, not just solve a problem.

Till next time,

Grow The Business.

Mark