Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all. As the end of 2008 rapidly approaches, the Inquisix team hopes you are all enjoying the holidays with your family and friends. If you’re thinking of prepping early for 2009, here’s some of our most popular articles from 2008.
Why would anyone take a salesperson seriously when their first communication – first! – offers a freebie of four hours of work? Let’s see, I don’t yet know what you do. That means I have to take my time to go to your website and figure it out. Then decide if I want four hours free.
If your fear of the economy is showing, maybe you need to take a step or two or nine back. If your product or service had value before the economy tanked, it still does. If you don’t believe that, you can bet that your prospects won’t. Good sales and marketing people know how to position their offering to meet the current needs of their audience. If you can’t figure out how to sell whatever the heck you offer in light of the current economic conditions, the last thing you want to do is give it away. If it ain’t worth anything to you, it’s worth less to me. And I don’t buy the little disclaimer at the end – if you try us out now, you may buy us later. If I don’t need you now, I won’t remember you later.
Instead of doing the email equivalent of cold-calling with a drop-your-shorts offer, how about asking clients who DO see your value and ask them for referrals?
So I was trapped in a local selectman’s meeting recently. If you’ve never done local or town politics, I can confidently say Dante would have reserved an inner ring of hell for what I experienced.
I love efficiency. When I was taking French I often dreamt in French, but now I just dream efficient– probably because it has been beaten into me over time and sealed off when I had twins. One can not be inefficient and have multiples.
So back to the meeting. I was there on a pretty serious matter– a stray bullet zippin’ across a neighbors’ yard, breaking a window and firmly entrenching itself in the bench the kids sit to take off their muddy boots. Investigations, issues with the local gun club all found myself and my neighbors at the local selectman’s meeting.
Not the top of the agenda, I waited as the selectmen debated for an hour and half on boat hoists and a request for proposal for a new dock. I was impressed with how thorough they were for the RFP, and was really not happy that I would, given the nature of my business, be there most likely for the long haul given the time and depth spent on boat storage (which I know now more than I ever hope to.)
So imagine my surprise when they spent a total of 20 mins on the matter and basically left it as a status update with no resolution.
What?
Yessir. 20 minutes and I was home before Ugly Betty was over.
The ridiculousness of the situation gnawed at me until I actually realized what was going on. It’s only natural actually, I mean haven’t you found that the more important, more crucial the task, the more it gets put off until it reaches a “critical” level. I’ve done it personally, because if I only had more information, waited until the price went down, or had more time to complete it, the best possible outcome would be achieved. Right? Wrong. Usually I forget about it or postpone it (stressing all the while) until I realized I wasn’t ever going to get any more info or the price had going back up or it’s backordered, or I had so little time left that only “merely adequate” end product was derived.
Let’s give it a name: Inverse Proportion of Immediate Action to Importance of Task* (*the exception being life-threatening instances where it is a direct proportion– we all seem to rise to the occasion when a tornado is a comin’.)
Do you suffer from IPIAIT? Take a look at your day-to-day projects and I bet you’ll find at least three that are in a holding pattern while you’re waiting for some key piece of data that, given a second look-see, really might not be that key. Waiting for the moons to align will leave one waiting longer than really necessary. I know from personal experience that the times I’ve “just did it” were often my best work product. So from an efficiency and a productivity perspective, when you know you have around 80+% of what you need* (*outside of something like the space shuttle or nanotechnology where this doesn’t work so well) just do the first draft. Anything extra is gravy.
As for my fair Selectmen. Seeing local politics in action I don’t envy the job one bit. Of course there maybe other reasons at play so it might not be absolutely fair — but I will say it was my first impression… and, as far as I’m concerned… they count.
And just because, an inspirational little video for your viewing pleasure:
An interesting post on EyesOnSales by Paul McCord got me thinking early this morning. He says to make sure you know how strong your referral is before contacting the prospect. Just because someone gave you a referral doesn’t mean that the prospect values that referral. Seems like common sense to find out what the relationship is and how strong it might be before acting on that referral.
But maybe it’s not common sense. Inquisix (as you all know!) maps the process of getting (and giving) referrals online. Just like a SFA system tracks a sale from lead to prospect to opportunity to close, Inquisix tracks referrals from search to ask to get to rate. Our data shows that the referrals with the best rating almost always have the best exchange of information at the ask and get stage. Why? Because at this stage in the referral exchange is where you are networking with another person to gain a referral from them. Thus, you are exchanging your bona-fides on why you deserve the referral and why they can deliver on the referral.
The best referrals provide you the opportunity to strengthen your reputation with not one but two parties - the person you’re asking the referral of and the person you’re getting the referral to. Makes sense to take the time to do it right!
I’ve recently been catching up on the medical TV show, House. He’s a brilliant doctor who’s interested in diagnosing the diseases but not interested in his patients. He’s arrogant, condescending and a royal PITA*. He’s also one of the top doctors in the U.S. So his behavior is tolerated and even encouraged by his boss when a really tough case comes along.
Don’t we know sales reps like that? They bring in the big deals, save the company’s quarter on more than one occasion and earn more money than their boss. But they’re also rogues who don’t play by the rules, couldn’t be bothered to keep the SFA system up to date and generally ignore the rules without consequences. Their boss has a love/hate relationship with them, with love being highest at the end of the quarter.
What does your company do? Do they tolerate these reps? Embrace them? Fire them? Try to find more of them?
Maybe it’s the recession. Maybe it’s learning first-hand the difference between a friend and a “Facebook friend.” Maybe you’re noticing that the phone’s not ringing and the thought of cold calls is making you take a coffee break. Or maybe it’s just the narrow selection of blogs that I read, but it seems that there’s a plethora of recent blog postings on how to network effectively in the real world.
Adrian Miller, author of The Blatant Truth, is offering a quick primer on improving your networking skills. His key point, “You need to know how to effectively communicate with others, build strong relationships, and make the most out of online and in-person networking opportunities. No, it’s not easy, and it’s certainly time consuming, too. But, the benefits of successful networking can be instrumental in growing your business.” Of his tips, the ones I find people forget about most are “Be Appreciative” and “Follow-up and Follow Through”
Bottom Line - Successful Networking requires WORK and requires both an ON-LINE and IN-PERSON presence. Do all 3 successfully and you’ll be successful. Drop one and you won’t.
I’m already tired of reading about the doom and gloom in the marketplace. How fear is the new driving factor in this recession. So it was very refreshing to read an article about 14 companies that were started during a recession and made it BIG.
You’ll recognize the names, like Hyatt, BurgerKing, FedEx and even Microsoft. Better yet, the article lists Google, PayPal and salesforce.com as recent success stories that thrived during the dot com bubble burst.
So if you’re looking for the silver lining or even a nudge to start your own company during these trying times, then read this article and be motivated!
On the recommendation of a friend, I’ve been reading, “The Virtual Handshake” by David Tetten and Scott Allen. It’s an interesting mix of research into online networking and practical steps to improve your online networking experience.
They suggest that how you build relationships has not changed since the days of networking via face-to-face and email. What’s changed is the medium in which you network - now it’s primarily the web. I think that while the web is important, it’s primary purpose is to enhance your face-to-face networking, not replace it.
The book focuses on their 7 keys to building and maintaining an effective online network. I think these steps would be just as applicable in building an effective in-person network.
Your Character - what other people think about you. It’s your reputation
Competence - do you walk your talk?
Relevance - how relevant is your network to your networking goals?
Relationship strengths - how strong is your tie to the people in your network?
Information you know about the people in your network - parallel to the strength of your ties is how much non-published information do you know about the people in your network?
Number of people in your network - both your direct and two-degrees-away network
Diversity - the more heterogeneous your network the better it can help you
The authors believe that social networking software allows you to have the best of both worlds, a large quantity of high-quality connections. While I don’t agree with this sentiment, as I wrote here, I do concur with their sentiments that successful networkers focus on what they can give you and not what you can give them.
All in all, a good book to read. Especially if you are looking for a how-to book on building a sustainable and positive online presence.
I was just reading Mark Cuban’s blog and he has some sage-like advice. He’s made a ton of money, dedicated to speaking his mind and ticking people off. Plus he’s smart. So I take note.
His latest piece on the economy resonated me like tin drum. He gives a broad list of scary facts about the U.S. economy (and I won’t go into it but just say, you should read it)– the end result is… with respect to the economy, no one knows squat. No one knows where it’s going: up, down, sideways. And these are the experts, the pundits, the people in charge. With mounting stress, your average U.S. citizen that holds a job, pays into a 401K, saves for their kids college and holds a mortgage is like a deer in the headlights. We are at an economic psycho-social paralytic standstill. What do we do?
We all need to find our inner Hustler. We need to start doin’ the Hustle.
Before you click off, think about it. The real definition of a “Hustler” is less 70’s Pimp, Disco and dirty magazines and more about attitude. So where one might see visions of Starsky and Hutches’ friend (and Snoop Dogg Doppelgänger) Huggy Bear, I see the people, and more importantly, personalities that will not only survive life’s rotten episodes but thrive. Classic examples? Rhett Butler AND Scarlett O’Hara, The Wright Brothers, The Greatest Generation (who survived Depression AND won WWII AND brought the atomic age…,) Oprah, Post-WWII Japan, Martin Luther King, Estée Lauder, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela,Thomas Edison, James Bond,The Founding Fathers, MacGyver, Tina Turner, Madonna, and the list goes on and on…
The one thing all these people (real or fictional) had is that they refused to be hindered. Their progress (professional, personal, economic, political) was not going to be halted by anything. Not the economy. Not politics. Not tragedy. They looked at the issue from the perspective of “there is success to be made and the path to it might be different than expected.” So they got creative, they rewrote the rules, they re-invented themselves/their company/their country, and they SOUGHT OUT NEW WAYS of doing things. The new opportunity is always out there, you just have to seek it.
So how does this apply to you? We are in tough and uncertain times, no arguments there. It is time for you to tap your inner “Hustler” and “hustle” for new ways to do business. Your business. New products and services that can affect your company’s bottom line by either saving you money or helping you make money faster or (even better) DO BOTH. The old way of doing things is exactly what everyone else is doing, and that doesn’t make it right, it only means you’ll all be (sinking) in the same boat. Seth Godin, in his new book Tribes (read it if you haven’t yet) subscribes that playing it safe isn’t exactly safe. He believes the world is ever-changing and new rules apply. The Hustler learns how to play them. Or else get played.
And just because, under the you-know-you-thinking-about-it file:
I received a telemarketing call today. When will telemarketers ever learn? I first get the silence as their auto-dialing software realizes I picked up the line so it transfers me to a call center rep. Then he mispronounces my last name and company name. That’s 3 strikes right there. But I’m usually interested in the pitches of others, especially cold callers, so I told him to continue. He was pitching mailing machines. I told him we do everything electronically and weren’t interested. So he looked at his script and asked, “Can I send you an email about our services?” To his credit, he laughed with me after realizing how absurd his question was. If they don’t use their own service how can they expect their customers to?
