Harder Or Smarter? Art Or Science?

The Sales Director's number one priority
How can you measure the effectiveness of your sales team?  What should you measure?  How important is it that you measure it?  I guess the answers are mostly, "Not sure", "Not sure" and "Very"!  And although the second might be more specific, are the specifics quoted the right ones?

A survey of Sales Directors in 2008 showed 'measuring sales team effectiveness' to be their number two priority, which seems to justify my claim of 'very' as the third answer.  So what was their number one priority?
That was 'increasing revenue' which possibly implies a disconnection between sales and marketing as 'increasing gross profits' would have been mine!

But coming back to measuring the effectiveness of the overall sales function, we need to consider whether working harder or smarter is the better strategy.  On top of this we need to decide whether sales is an art or a science.

What areas and functions may be easiest to measure and then improve?

How can you measure the effectiveness of your sales team?  What should you measure?  How important is it that you measure it?

Sales is an art, and not a science
Unsurprisingly, the general opinion is that smarter is better than harder.  The expression 'busy fools' came up quite a lot, apparently.  Also we need to recognise that sales is an art, and not a science, as things that work once may not work every time when repeated.  But having said that, sales is a highly 'teachable' art, where practitioners get better with practice, and where coached and mentored practice is more effective than unsupervised repetition.

This leads on to the idea that there is no single 'magic pill' that will cure all ills.  Smarter will mean making smaller improvements across many areas, so what are the easiest for the Sales Manager or Sales Director to measure and then positively influence?

Lead Generation
This is essentially a Marketing activity, so the sales team shouldn't be being asked to do it all.  But neither should their performance be judged acceptable if they do none of it, and recognise that when they do so they will be wearing their 'marketing' hat!

In generating leads, the emphasis must be on quality rather than sheer quantity.  There must be better, earlier filtering of 'no hopers' and 'time wasters', with self-disqualification being particularly effective.  Marketing have a big responsibility not to attract rubbish in the first place!  The Marketing function should also be providing all who wear a 'marketing hat' with one or two simple differentiator/qualifier questions to further eliminate, at the time of first contact, those who will waste valuable resources.

Sales is a highly 'teachable' art.  Practitioners get better with practice.  Coached and mentored practice is more effective than unsupervised repetition.

Background Research
When following up a sales lead, before first human contact, there is a lot that can be done to research the prospect and thus colour the form of the response.  The internet provides a wealth of free information and a lot more at very moderate cost.  This is an insignificant investment when compared to the time and effort wasted on enquiry follow-ups that should have been seen as hopeless from the start.  Therefore it is a crime not to make use of it.

The sales team can be given simple, efficient tools to access this information, and be motivated to do so.  The lead generating function could even do this for them and supply the results with the lead.

Qualify and Prioritise
This continues the theme of the first two points.  If you're going to lose, lose early!  Don't waste time on no-hopers.  Unsurprisingly (but not always commonly seen) weeding out a list before you start working on it will improve your conversion ratio!  Qualification should become a habit.

These thoughts apply too when following up a lead.  Building a relationship, building rapport and trust, and getting commitments at every step is in itself a filtering process.

When following up a sales lead, research the prospect.  This is an insignificant investment compared to time wasted on no hopers.

Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
This should be a 'no brainer' but is it always thus?  Getting people to buy more is one of the only three ways of growing sales, gross profits and your business, so again it should be a habit, shouldn't it?

Oddly enough, this appears to be more of a problem in businesses with large product ranges.  It is reported that product training doesn't seem to be as effective as you might imagine, but I could find no information on how well the training was constructed or delivered!  Most effective is the sharing of what works.  So many internal sales meetings seem to focus on what went wrong, and skim over what went right!  The balance should be the other way round, but never lose sight of the fact that one size doesn't fit all.  The answer is to adapt and adopt, test and measure.

Get More From Existing Customers
I won't even bother with the cliché!  Suffice it to say that Account Planning and regular communication is a good idea, but don't plan for planning's sake.  Only do it if, and only do it in a way that, you can demonstrate it is helping.  Despite the cliché, you need to have a balance between first time and repeat business, and you should keep this balance under review.

Many internal sales meetings seem to focus on what went wrong, and skim over what went right!  The balance should be the other way round

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OK, I Can Spare You A Minute

Build credibility and rapport
When you first get the chance to have a conversation with someone in anything that might turn out to be a business context, there are several important things you must establish extremely quickly.  You need to start building credibility and rapport; you need to start allowing the other party to decide whether a 'relationship' with you might be of value to them.  You need to be 'interesting' and 'interested'!

You need to start building credibility and rapport.
You need to be 'interesting' and 'interested' for this.

Train your sales team
When this rapport has got off the ground, you may need to start 'training' this possible member of your 'surrogate sales team' to spot others who may find knowing you of value.  The ability to do this part clearly and succinctly is often referred to as an Elevator Pitch.

"An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project.  The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words)." - Wikipedia

Start training your 'surrogate sales team' to spot others who may find you of value

Where to start?
Before you can start constructing and refining your elevator pitch you must have the following information available to you about your business.

• Who is your ideal customer?
• What problem do most of them have?
• What pain(s) does having that problem cause?
• What good does your customer get out of what are you selling?
  i.e. How does no longer having the pain make them feel?  All the ways!
• Why do your customers choose you, and not one of your rivals?
  All the ways!

Note which of these are singular and which are plural!

Just one ideal customer type should be defined purely by information in the public domain.  For example, there isn't an SIC code for companies with cash-flow problems!  We all know you can work with other types but you have to pick one at a time.

Their biggest problem is unlikely to be voiced at first, but finding and fixing this will remove their pains far more effectively than merely relieving one 'symptom'.  Understanding their symptoms will lead you to your diagnosis of the underlying 'disease'.  It will take a conversation with an individual to discover whether or not they display these symptoms.

Define your ideal customer by public domain information.
It will take a conversation to discover their symptoms.

Size matters!
Now you can start to construct your 'Elevator Pitch'.  In fact I believe you need several elevator pitches: 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 breath, 1 word or phrase - all have their place.

Practically you'll have to start long, then distil and refine.  You just won't get it right starting short and trying to expand.  You'll need to test and measure to see if your messages are coming across, and being received and understood.  Get a friend to ask someone what you do!

If you are a regular networker, you may feel the need to vary your pitch so you don't seem repetitive, but this risks confusing your listeners.  Getting the one-phrase version right, and then using this every time as an 'Anchor', you become known for that phrase, people aren't confused, and you can safely ring the changes.

You need several elevator pitches: 60 seconds, 30 seconds,
1 breath, and 1 word or phrase

A helping hand
One possible template for a longer elevator pitch is:
"I work with (ideal customers) who (widely held problem) which means that (widely suffered pain).  I help them (pain relief) so that they (life without pain)."

An alternative opening might be:
"You know how (ideal customers) are always (widely held problem) which means that ......"

Go on!  Give it a try.  Confidence come from practise, not further study!  Use the one-breath version as your intro on cold calls too, for instance.



Both of these ideas steer miles away from:
"I am (what it says on the second line of my business card).  I can do (a list of all the things you ever have or ever might have done)."  Followed by the unspoken, "What do you think?"  Or more likely, "No, please don't walk away from me.  Surely you can't go and find someone more interesting!"

I work with (ideal customers) who ...
I help them (pain relief) ...

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The Toughest Sell Is To Yourself

A great new idea

Often, when you come across a new idea or a new way of doing or explaining something, you think it sounds great.  You feel you want to adapt it and adopt it for yourself because you really think it will make a difference to you, and quite possibly to those around you too.

“You come across a new idea that sounds great.
You think it will make a difference to you.”

Imagine doing it yourself

So then you start to imagine yourself implementing your adaptations and guess what?  Suddenly it doesn't seem quite as right for you as you thought it did!  It still looks great for other people but, for some reason (that you get better and better at explaining - largely to yourself), it won't work for you!

“You start to imagine yourself doing it and guess what?  Suddenly it doesn't seem quite as right for you as you thought!”

Shattered confidence

The technical term for this is fear, and the biggest fear generally involves you!

With most new things the toughest sell is to yourself.  You worry about all the things that might feel uncomfortable, that might go wrong, and you've shattered your confidence before you've even started.  You don't doubt the value of the idea; you just doubt your own ability to implement it.  You need to build that confidence that was shattered before its very conception.

There are many reasons for lack of confidence, but many boil down to either a fear of getting hurt or a fear of looking stupid.  Even the fear of losing money is really only a combination of these two key fears - You'll be hurt and you'll look daft!

“You worry about all the things that might feel uncomfortable, that might go wrong, and you've shattered your confidence before you've even started”

Essential survival mechanism

These fears are largely the 'flight' part of the 'fight, fright or flight' that is hard-wired into our behaviour as a survival mechanism.  We probably need to be taught or to learn from experience that hot objects, ferocious beasts, fast moving heavy machinery and sharp tools can cause pain.  But once we're aware of a few specific examples, we can translate these into generalities, so then we can evaluate new potential threats when we meet them for the first time.  Essential survival mechanism as I said.

“Survival time.
Three choices.
Fight, fright or flight.”

The little voice in your head

Often however, the little voice in your head that's telling you not to do something becomes too arrogant and dogmatic, and tries to wrap you in cotton-wool with its CYA* policy, and you develop fears that are counterproductive to both your survival and your success.

To overcome this and gain confidence it is frequently a good idea to replace, rather than try to eradicate, this little voice in your head.  Try telling yourself that actually it's rather good to be doing this thing you're trying to do, that you'll feel great once you've done it, that it will be a pleasure and not a pain
to do it.

“The little voice in your head tries to wrap you in cotton-wool.
Don't eradicate it, replace it!”

Tell the face in the mirror

And here's the clue to increasing your confidence: "Tell yourself"!  Confidence comes from practise, not further study.  Look in the mirror and tell the face you see there the things you need to be able to tell other people.

If the highest price you've ever quoted is £1,000, tell the face in the mirror, "My price is £5,000."  Did you start to grin or laugh?  Getting in first with the laugh in the face of our own (perceived by us) silliness is a natural defence mechanism to mitigate the pain that comes when the other person laughs first at our misfortune.

Keep practising in front of the mirror until you can say, "My price is £5,000" with a straight face and mean it.  Then you'll have all the confidence you need to say it to customers!

“Tell the face in the mirror what you need to tell others.
Confidence comes from practise, not further study”

*CYA - A well known policy; it stands for Cover Your Arse!

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Be Interesting; Be Interested

I am making a huge leap of faith here.  I am going to assume that you don't want to be viewed as being dull and boring!  Or do you think you will be better liked and stand more chance of getting referrals if you are?  Was I right?  I sincerely hope so.

If people aren't already telling you that you're one of the most interesting and friendly people in the room, then you might want to do something about it.

Back in summer 2009 there was a lot of talk about a Swine Flu epidemic, but why do you suppose are there only epidemics of bad things?  Epidemic actually means 'a larger number of cases than expected', so how might you create an epidemic of people who think you're interesting?

Some of the ideas discussed in my 'Pricing By Value' Workshop are definitely applicable here.

To be interesting and memorable you must provide what the other person regards as valuable, for a very reasonable investment on their part, and receive in return something you rate highly profitable.  This applies whether you are meeting someone for the first time or re-encountering an old friend.

Taking the second of these ideas first, you may think the reasonable investment will consist of the other person taking the time to listen to you tell your tale - so you'd better not take too long.  But this is very 'me-centred' and is time-based, and thus cost-based.  How would it be if the other person's 'reasonable investment' was taking the offered (by you) opportunity to tell you about their business?  To recruit you into their surrogate sales team and train you?  Wouldn't this show you to be 'interested'?  Surely this is one of the components of being 'interesting'.

This takes us back to the first idea above.  One value outcome for the other person would be to have recruited and trained a new salesperson.  Additional value may have been perceived through your probing questioning, where you ensured you fully understood their market and product, which has helped them understand it more too and hence become better able to explain it to others in future.  But how might this be profitable for you?

By behaving in this way, which is so unlike the way most people behave, you are seen as being highly memorable by being highly interesting as well as highly interested!  But this won't be the end of the encounter.  Having derived so much value from you, the other person will feel obliged to reciprocate, and if they don't you may wish to do a little prompting.

Now their 'reasonable investment' is listening to you, so reply in a way that answers some of the questions you have recently asked them.  Do resist though, the temptation to do this without a break.  Part of the value to the other person is being allowed the opportunity to practise the questioning skills they have just heard you use, knowing how nice is was to be treated in this way.

Their value outcome this time results from their very clear understanding of how you help your customers, who they are, and the good they get out of you doing so.  The fact that they can add to their own value to their clients by bringing you in when appropriate is part of this value.  And your profit this time is in having another well-trained member of your sales team.

Of course it's possible to swap 'you' and 'other person' in all of this and it reads just as well, and is just as true!  Genuinely win-win I'd say.

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The Customer's Route To Your Sales Team

At some point, every single one of your customers was totally oblivious to your existence and to the products and services your business provides.  And I hope you will agree with me that your best customers are those who not only buy a lot from you, very often, but who are also active members of your 'surrogate sales team'.  If you could get more of the 'oblivious' to become 'sales team', that would be good wouldn't it?

If only there was a clearly defined, well signposted route available to them, don't you think that many of them would get a long way down that path?  By understanding the sections this route needs to have in its construction, you can make it easy for them to do so.

The first thing is to register on the prospective customer's senses, to achieve consciousness.  You need to provide several means by which this first perception can happen, and you should be doing so in places where you know your ideal customers are likely to be.  You can't expect them to come to you at this stage.

Next, the prospect has to have a better acquaintance with you and the things you can provide.  This could be provided by the other 'consciousness' messages which they happened not to come across first.  Equally it could be the repetition of a message.  In either case, the prospect will not start to absorb your messages until they have this acquaintance with you.

Now, with prospects very aware that they know of you and are familiar with you, they are in a position to absorb what good they will get out of doing business with you and what sets you apart from your competition, your distinctiveness.  If you try to ram your messages down their throats before they have arrived at this point, your efforts will have been wasted.  And 'ramming' is unlikely to be productive at any point!

Now the prospect has an interest in possibly purchasing from you, and you need to make sure there is a simple and obvious means for them to communicate this interest back to you.  All the previous effort will be wasted if the prospect has to 'jump through hoops' in order to indicate that they'd like to know more.

The fifth step is to convert their interest into an initial sale, and for now all I will say is that this is a subject of its own, and that yet again there is not one fixed 'one size fits all' mechanism for doing this.

Having bought from you once, you will be trying to get the customers to buy from you again, to gain repeat business from them.  As before, there will not be just one single tactic that will work on every occasion.

Maybe after their first purchase, or maybe later, you would be hoping that your satisfied customers will be letting their contacts know how good you are and how pleased they were to have used you.  To achieve this you must not neglect the need to provide the means and the encouragement for them to do so.  In other words you need to recruit them into your sales team and then 'train' them.

Several things now become apparent from this route from 'oblivious' to 'sales team'.  Firstly, that it is actually a circular path, because the activities of the 'sales team' will introduce previously 'oblivious' new people at the 'consciousness' level.  Secondly, that enabling a prospect to journey through consciousness, acquaintance, distinctiveness and the cultivation of interest is Marketing; from interest to sale and to repeat business is Sales; and that through repeat business, sales team and full circle to new consciousness is Marketing once more.

Thirdly, the three 'mores' of growing a business can also be mapped onto these ideas.  The first part of Marketing is getting more customers; the early part of sales can also focus on getting them to buy more; and the later overlap of Sales and Marketing to achieve repeat business can also encourage buying more often.

Out of all these thoughts is born your Sales and Marketing strategy!

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How Does Your Garden Grow?

On the basis that most if not all business owners could easily shrink their business, let us focus on how to grow it instead.

To start with, what does 'grow' mean here?  If you grow sales, is this the whole answer?  Well, if each sale loses you money, then obviously not!  So is it growing profits?  Well, yes, but you can only go so far with cutting costs, so you need to grow profitable sales.

But will profitable sales grow your business if your customers never get around to paying you?  Of course not!  Your business will die through lack of cash!

Leaving debt collection aside for another time, let's look at growing sales, bearing in mind we'll need to ensure they are profitable too.  There are only three ways to grow sales!  Sales growth comes from a combination of:

• More Customers
• Spending More
• More Often

And that's it!

Your strategy for sales growth should consider all three 'mores'; how easy it will be, how much you will need to invest to get the return you seek, how profitable it will be.  Your strategy will be unlikely to focus on just one of these mechanisms either.  Almost certainly it will be a balance of all three, probably with one playing a larger part than the others.

Attracting new customers who've never bought from you before will involve promoting your name and your marketing messages, and is unlikely to produce instant results.  Your 'new customer' strategy will need to take your messages to where your ideal customers will see them.  You can't rely on strangers coming to find you where you are.

These strangers will probably need to receive your messages several times before they start absorbing much more than your name, however compelling your messages may be, so this needs to form part of your 'new customer' strategy too.

Persuading customers, be they first timers or repeat buyers, to spend more relies on having 'more' for them to buy!  Not exactly earth shattering, but nevertheless often ignored!

It may be that you can persuade them to 'upsize', or you could 'upsell' by convincing them to add extra products or services to their purchase.
Whatever you do, you need to have the 'more' available for them to buy.

When it comes to the upsize, you will almost certainly be able to do this yourself by adding extra value to your basic offering, checking of course that these extras are actually seen as being of genuine value by your ideal customers.

Providing products and services to be 'upsold' does not however have to rest entirely with you.  This is an area where Strategic Alliance Partnerships can be very important.  If your partner's products complement yours, it is reasonably likely that your products complement theirs, so you can help each other.

Lastly, there is the question of how to persuade customers to come back for more, and get them to do so more frequently.

As existing customers, they are already know you and presumably remain happy to have bought from you in the past.  Your task is to ensure that the next time they want what you supply, they will come back to you, isn't it?

Well, yes, of course, but it goes beyond that simple picture.  They may only be aware of the narrow range that they actually bought from you previously, and not your entire 'repertoire'.  And this repertoire may have changed since they last purchased from you any way.

You also need to be in the front of their minds at the time they decide to take action to satisfy their new want.  In this regard 'a miss is as good as a mile' in terms of the timing of your messages, and there's the clue.  You have to be in the front of their mind shortly before they make their decision.  As you have no idea when this may be, you have to regularly remind them of your existence and capabilities.  In short you need an effective 'keep in touch' system.

As a parting thought, what if you consider yours to be a one-hit business?  As my friend the Undertaker reminds me, he doesn't sell to the deceased!  He sells to their family.  And guess what?  They're all going to die one day too!  So maybe yours isn't a one-hit business after all!

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Can Your Team Really Ever Be A Team?

Previously I've used sporting analogies to talk about business folk in general and then Sales people in particular.  This time I'm returning to business people generally, though maybe with a slight bias towards Marketing and Sales.

Let me ask you, is a sporting analogy appropriate in every instance?  Or is it true that every group of people striving to reach a common goal is a team?
Is the Three Musketeers' cry of, "All for one, and one for all" appropriate all the time?

In your Sales team or your Marketing team, do you view your colleagues as team-mates or competitors?  If you get an order, does this mean that one of your colleagues hasn't got it, or have you only deprived a competitor company of the business?

If one of the team achieves what they set out to do, is this seen throughout the organisation as the team achieving what the team set out to do?  Or does the reverse apply, where the individual may have reached their goal but the rest of the team are seen not to have reached theirs yet?

Let's look at this from a sporting perspective.  If a rugby player scores a try, the team gets the points.  If players from the same team score many more tries than the opposition, the team gets lots of points and, in the absence of penalties, the first team win the match.  This then is definitely a team sport.

If a racing driver starts from pole position and stays in the lead until the chequered flag, or has passed all the cars that are in front of them by the end of the race, they are the winner, but is it a victory for a team or an individual?  Of course it is a victory for a team!  All the 'supporting cast' will have had to play their parts to perfection too for their driver to cross the finishing line in first place.

In fact it would be hard, if not impossible, to think of any sport that isn't a team sport, even if there is only one performing athlete in the mix.

Back in business though, things can be subtly different.  The skill sets and the rewards structure may be such that one person can meet their target and be rewarded, whilst another doesn't and so doesn't get rewarded.  They may well be part of a group who all report to the same person, but compared with our sports example, they don't appear to be a team, however the office jargon may describe them.

So how should we describe that group?  A useful alternative in this case is to call them a 'Committee'.  A team is where all win or no-one wins; the team's performance matters more than individuals' performances.  A committee is where one person can win but others can lose.  If you have a committee, the sports analogies actually ring very hollow, especially those about team spirit!

Is your team focused on short-term goals, as with a sports team, with importance and intensity characterising the members' behaviour - a desire to win the current game - or not?  Do they give their all for today and let their position in the league table take care of itself?  Are the elements of competition and results strong in your 'team'?

Most business scenarios do not have this same degree of short term intensity.  Instead they are complex and there are obscure links between cause and effect.  Even in competitive industries, many of the people in one organisation never get to meet their competitors, and the evidence of the results of their work is usually not as strong as in a sports team.  Many cannot see how their individual efforts contribute to the overall result.

If only the 'team' behaved more like a team, there may be more to be gained from these analogies.  A relay squad knows its job it to get the baton to the finishing line, but that only the runner on the anchor leg will actually cross the line with the baton.  Good communication, the mutual trust to pass clients from expert to expert as their needs change throughout the sales process, and the knowledge that the only thing that matters is the order, not who gets it, would stand many business teams in a lot stronger position.

We need to use sporting analogies with care here then.  Plus, there will be people in your organisation who hate sports, for whom competition is anathema, and indiscriminate sports analogies will alienate those people, not include them.

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Unaccustomed As I Am

Talking about MPs [We were, weren't we?  At least here in the UK just now!], some years ago one of the major parties tried to help its newly elected Members of Parliament by issuing them with a template for a maiden speech.
Knowing that even to appear on a ballot paper requires pragmatism, common sense and intelligence, the covering note reminded timorous new Members to insert the name of their own constituency in the gap!

Fortunately, better advice is available for the rest of us, and politicians too if they choose to look for it!  Making a 'maiden' speech to any audience of speakers might feel terrifying, but they will all remember their first time and will be willing you to succeed.

If you appear in front of them and start off by apologising, they'll expect the worst.  Don't be too hard on yourself.  We all have things we don't like about ourselves, but the reality of public speaking is that the audience doesn't see them.  So, harder as it is to do this than to say it, RELAX!

Know your subject, and know that the audience are interested in hearing about it.  Be passionate about it, and know the details.  If you're asked to speak about something you don't know about, learn about it!

Never, ever waffle, apologise or thank people for listening!  Too many speakers open with self-deprecating remarks.  Sure the best person to tell a story against is yourself, but not right at the start!  Without words, your body language is capable of committing the same sin.  So don't come on cowering and trembling, saying "I don't really know why they've asked me.  I'm not very good at this."  Take a few deep breaths, walk on stage looking confident, and smile.  Then, by way of a good, relevant introduction which grabs your audience, get to the point!

The first few seconds of your speech are crucial.  You have to grab the attention of your audience, so how can you do this?  How can you gain and keep their attention?  Firstly, engage your audience.  Some ideas for doing this are:

• A question to the audience
• An amazing statistic
• A comparison between two unrelated things
• A promise to reveal a secret
• An amusing story

Whichever you do, and I'm sure you can think of other ideas of your own, you need to make them think.  Within your 'introduction' you should also be telling them how long your talk will take, why they will enjoy it, and what they will get from it.  Then tactfully tell them that they will receive that value only if they pay attention to you right to the end.

Learn from other people's speeches, and everyday conversation.  Analyse what people do to get the reactions you seek.  For example, groups of three ideas have worked well for a very long time, and still do; from "Faith, hope, and love" in the New Testament, to "Education, Education, Education" in the 21st century.

There is a difference between written and spoken English so don't try to speak an essay, and don't try to convey too much information.  The written word is good for communicating details, but speaking much less so.  And keep it short and simple!  The full St Matthew version of the Lord's Prayer is only 66 words!

Weave imagery and anecdotes (your own!) into your speeches.  Imagery
pre-dates writing and continued apace whilst general literacy levels were not high.  Coats of arms and mediaeval inn signs are examples which survive, but parables and fables were once the only means of preserving knowledge.
Yet again, keep the anecdote short and simple.  The parable of the Good Samaritan takes only 165 words!

The ability to ad-lib, or speak "off the cuff" is often seen as an enviable skill, but look at the literal meanings of these phrases.  Ad Libitum translates as 'to the freest extent' or 'as much as one desires', and your shirt cuff is where you might well have written carefully researched and abbreviated aides memoires!.  So actually we are claiming to admire both long and rambling and carefully scripted speeches!  Over-confidence in your ability to 'wing it' can lead to an aimless, pointless speech with no clear structure and no clear message.

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Succeeding In Spite of Yourself

What does it mean to shoot yourself in the foot?  Is it that you're not just aiming too low, you're aiming so dangerously low that your foot is in the sights as you pull the trigger?  Or is it what the military call a 'negligent discharge'?  Have you accidentally pulled the trigger while your gun is still in its holster, muzzle downwards?

Whichever you prefer, the common thread is carelessly, stupidly, naïvely doing something that causes you pain and delay, and does you more harm than good.

I have come across many examples of businesses shooting themselves in the foot, so I thought I'd list some pitfalls for you to recognise and avoid.  You can imagine a (falsely) reasoned argument in favour of each of these.  I believe the counter argument carries far more weight in each case.

1. Selling to the wrong people
   Don't push your business on everyone you meet!  Know how to identify your ideal customer.  It's a waste of time trying to sell to people who simply don't need what you're offering.
   
   
2. Selling the wrong product
   Don't assume all your ideal customers want what you are selling!  Even if you believe they need it, they have to want it before you can sell it to them.  It's a waste of time trying to sell to people who don't even need what you're offering.
   
   
3. Forgetting your Unique Selling Point(s) - USP(s)
   You must offer more than just items of value to the ideal customers.  You must give them good reasons to buy from you rather than your competitors.  You must consistently tell them why you and your products are uniquely placed to help them.
   
   
4. Failing to focus on value creation
   Customers only want to buy from you because the value they get from the purchase far outweighs the value of the money they have to part with to do so.  If you don't create value for them, in their minds, they will see no need to purchase.
   
   
5. Haphazard Marketing
   You need a Marketing strategy that covers all areas of the customers' long-term relationships with your business - From them first finding out you exist, to them telling all their friends how good you are!
   
   
6. Ignoring the only three ways to grow a business
   Getting more people, to spend more, more often - These three 'mores' are the only three ways to grow a business.  You must balance your efforts to increase each factor according to your market and the needs of your business.
   
   
7. Ignoring repeat business
   The third 'more'! - You need to keep your customers aware of your existence, and have the 'more' there for them to buy
   
   
8. Ignoring Up-Selling
   The second 'more'! - You need to offer products or services that are complementary to the things the customers initially wanted to buy
   
   
9. Only advertising when you need Customers
   The first 'more'! - This is the one people usually focus on to the exclusion of the others.  "We need more sales so how can we find more new customers?"  Advertising isn't the only form of promotion, and promotion should be an on-going activity.
   
   
10. Not tracking results
    Not even the 'experts' can accurately predict what will work for you and what won't.  You have to test and measure each Marketing activity.  You have to know what produced what.  Then, if it doesn't work, drop it.  But if it does work, do more of it!
    
    
11. Not following things through
    If you're like most, you'll have many, many things you'd like to try.  Don't waste time and money starting something that you can't follow through.
    
    
12. Running an advert only once
    If you fix your 'haphazard Marketing', you'll be aware that people need to be given several opportunities to fully absorb your messages.  If your promotional activity doesn't produce results first time, it's probably never been given the chance!
    
    
13. Copying the Competition
    Do what you need to do because you know that you need to do it.  Believe me, all your competitors could easily be making the same foolish mistake!  Quite possibly because they all followed blindly!
    
    
14. Trying to save where it counts
    Don't try to save money in places where it shows.  When it comes to what your customers can see, you should spend whatever it takes to get everything looking right.
    
    
15. Spending too much money, unwisely
    Your business should put cash into your pocket, so before you invest money into it, be clear on how you're going to pull that cash back out again
    
    
16. Spending too little money
    Equally, don't be miserly and don't let frugality get in the way of efficiency.  Take advantage of skilled outsiders who can do certain tasks more efficiently than you can.
    
    
17. Going against your intuition
    While you might think that logic is the language of business, that's far from the truth.  If you base all your business deals on hard logic and ignore your intuition, you'll get hurt!
    
    
18. Being too formal
    Business is built on relationships and human beings don't want to build relationships with faceless corporations.  They only want relationships with other human beings, so build rapport and relax formality as appropriate.
    
    
19. Failing to optimize
    You can't simply focus on creating value, and imagine the rest will take care of itself.  As a business owner, you need to find a way to deliver your value in a cost effective way.
    
    
20. Not collecting your money on time
    Collecting money from people can be hard, so collect a substantial portion of the money first before you provide anything.  When it comes to debt-collecting, if you act like you don't need the money, you'll never get paid!

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Why is a Salesman Like a Sportsman?

Continuing with a previous thread of the similarities and differences between Sport and Sales, there are several obvious common themes.

• About competition and 'performance'
• Results oriented
• Have to get it 'right on the night'
• Underperformance is highly visible
• Operating under pressure
• Past and potential performance are merely indicators
• Preparation is vital
• Preparation is no guarantee of a good performance
• Complacency is a killer, e.g.
  • Underestimating the competition
  • Overestimating the competition!
  • Skimping on preparation
  • Ignoring the need to monitor and assess developments in your field

However, the approaches to training seem vastly different.
Excuse the gap.  Blogspot doesn't seem to handle tables perfectly!

Sports Professionals	Sales Professionals
Train constantly	Train occasionally, if at all - Maybe one or two days per year
Work on all different aspects of their game	Rarely address more than one or two aspects
Some training is under guidance, some is on their own	What training there is will often be self-motivated and individually organised
The Coach continually monitors performance and operates a 'continuous improvement' regime	Managers monitor performance less often, and frequently wait for a crisis before offering assistance
Coaches also develop individual training programmes for each competitor in their charge	Whole team only ever goes on the same 'one size fits all' course
Huge use of role-play in practising for their event	Apart from any that is part of a training course, there is a notable lack of role-play - You're in at the deep end, doing it for real!

Can you imagine this Sales scenario operating in professional competitive sport?  Yet we have to assume that salespeople also want to perform to their best, and that their best is at a high level - otherwise why haven't they changed to a different career?

The Sales Manager and Sales Director have to view their roles as 'Coaches'.  In professional football, for example, if the team is consistently performing badly, it is recognised that the results are the ultimate responsibility of the Manager.  If the results don't come, it will be the Manager who loses his job before too many of the players lose theirs!

If the salespeople model themselves on any particular sport, they need to be aware of the circumstances that prevail in that sport.  For example, in Formula 1 mid-season testing has been banned since 2009, but not because it delivers no benefit.  Far from it!  It has been banned purely in order to level the playing field for the less affluent teams.

In both scenarios, the team have to be trained and they have to have the opportunity in a 'safe environment' to try putting into practice what they have learned.  Further observation and suggestions for improvement must be effectively continuous.  A sports Coach will monitor their protégés in action, in competition as well as in training, because performance under pressure has to be analysed and shortcomings acted upon.  Sales needs to be similar.  In both spheres there has to be room for new ideas, new techniques, new training regimes and new approaches.

Those responsible for sales team training should ask themselves, "Could the team apply all they've been taught anyway?"  In a sporting context you'd be hard pressed to answer anything except 'of course'.  But has the sales trainer taken the time to understand the company's customers and markets?  Their problems and circumstances?  Have they observed the sales team in action, under pressure?  This type of trainer would not be cheap, and it would mean investing a large amount in your sales team.  But aren't you expecting them to be as professional at their jobs as any top professional sports star is at theirs?

Apparently, around a third of sales people change jobs each year, so does this tempt 'management' not to invest in their development?  I doubt the figure is as high in professional football, despite the lively transfer market.
Do football club Managers feel it's not worth developing their players because they'll all have moved on in a few years?  By not investing in those staff who do leave, you'll be failing to invest in those who'd like to stay, and they'll up and leave too because they want to be developed!

Many sports which operate in a 'club' environment make use of senior players to help with the development of juniors, and sales teams need to do the same.  Neglecting the accumulated in-house wisdom would be a grave error, so analyse why your top performers are at the top.  Help them to do so if they can't put it into words themselves.  Get them involved in the training and coaching of the whole team.

If you have any responsibility for the results of a team - even a team of one - don't just tick the box which says 'we've done training'!  Take a leaf out of the sports Coaches' book.  Olympic medals aren't available for selling, but if they were, wouldn't it be nice to think that your team would be among the medallists?

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Changes In Buying Attitudes

21st century Sales and Marketing is about solutions, win-win outcomes and lifetime relationships.  It is about rapport, understanding and value.  It is about co-operation, appreciation and service.

We have to be careful that our behaviour and language do not turn the experience into confrontation, win-lose and one hit sales.  And the situation is more or less identical across most sectors.  I even talk to my friends the undertaker and the wedding planner about how to get repeat business!

Much as it was advocated in some quarters in the past, I'm not certain the 'wham, bang, thank you' style was ever hugely productive; and it is almost certainly going to be ineffective with today's more sophisticated buyers.  So what is it that is making buyers more sophisticated?

The answer lies in communication and information - in short, it lies in the internet.  'Googling' what it is they want gives them access to remarkable amounts of information from more suppliers than ever before.  In the past their decision making was far less informed, but now they will know a lot more before you ever get to talk to them.

There is a risk, however, that this increased product knowledge will become merged in the buyer's mind with price!  Buyers may well reject initial quotes out of hand, even from favoured suppliers.  They will try to treat your product or service as a commodity.  Buyers will be thinking that, if they can save a few pennies, they will do so.  If your product or service isn't a commodity, don't let them believe it is!  It has never been more necessary to understand their fundamental problems, the circumstances in which those problems exist, and to propose solutions that reflect why you are uniquely placed to help solve them.

It is also vital to understand the customer's decision making process - one of many 'circumstances' - and this may well have changed recently.  Companies are becoming more risk-averse than ever; decisions are being referred to and made by committees; and no-one wants to take personal responsibility for anything.  People are becoming terrified of being held accountable.  But you can, and should, be offering certainty - but this should also carry a price premium.

Technology is not all bad news though.  It can give access to more information about your competitors' offerings; it can make internal sharing and discussion of information easier; but it can also make it simpler for you to by-pass 'gatekeepers'.

Increased buyer sophistication is also leading to the increasing popularity of referrals.  Networks, customers, unconverted prospects, suppliers, social acquaintances and many other contacts can be approached for referrals, and should be!  It might be as simple as giving you the name of a key decision maker, but it all helps.

Most customers are seen as loyal and most want to be, but as supplier you should never take them for granted.  It is the service with which you deliver your product (or service) that counts.  Keep a customer ecstatic and they won't be tempted away, even by a cheaper rival.  It remains true that people buy from people they know, like and trust.  It is the value that the buyer derives from the purchase that matters.  The more salespeople understand what value means to the buyer in a given situation, the more they can help the buyer.  So make sure the buyers know why you are asking all these probing questions.

But what if yours is a commodity?  How can you compete against, say, cheap imports from the Far East?  The answer is for the sales team to enable their customers, and thus themselves, to fully understand the fundamental problems, the circumstances in which these problems exist, and the way in which the buyer's own performance will be judged.  In this way it becomes apparent what 'total package' is required, and the customer can be helped to see the full value of receiving it.

Key pointers for future behaviour of your sales and marketing team.

• More customer communication and contact
• More 'business knowledge' - Not just product knowledge
• Being more available
• Reducing bureaucracy
• Less 'pitching by quotation'
• More discussion and agreement face-to-face
• Better 'keep in touch' systems
• More and better induction and ongoing training
• Build more rapport and better relationships
• Understand how buyers want to buy
• Understand 'problems and circumstances'
• Don't make sales presentations - Don't dictate
• Be beneficially different
• Give buyers choices

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Recruit And Train Your Sales Team

One of your reasons for attending a Networking meeting should be to recruit and train members of your surrogate sales team.  You are lucky if you can sell to someone in the room; you need to have them and their address books selling for you.  Pretty obviously they'll have no idea how to do this and no motivation to try, until you have told them.

Coupled with another of your reasons for attending - the ability to meet and get to know strangers - this means that 'recruitment' will be on your agenda.  Please be careful!  Don't try to rush into 'induction training' too early, and don't neglect further training for existing team members.  People who already know you, what you do and who you do it for, can be re-invigorated by some pertinent Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

Assuming you've broken the ice, established some rapport and are starting to enjoy each other's company, there is some pretty fundamental stuff you need to communicate, and then be sure has been received, understood and stored.

You can also use these same 'headings' when someone is recruiting and training you into their surrogate sales team.  If you don't understand these things about them and their business, you won't be an effective member of their team, so don't be afraid of letting them know you haven't quite got the full picture.  They will thank you for letting them help you be a better ambassador for their organisation, and they might just get better at explaining themselves in the future.  You will need to know:

• How to identify their Ideal Customers, using only public domain information - e.g. 10 to 40 person accountancy practices within 30 miles of Cambridge
• What 'symptoms' to look out for when you encounter one - e.g. Suffering from cash-flow problems
• How to check these really are symptoms of a 'disease' they can cure - e.g. They can only fix some of these personally: Low sales? Unprofitable sales? Excessive debtor days? High overheads? Inefficient staff and/or procedures?
• How to explain how wonderful life would be without these symptoms
• How to indirectly establish enough credibility for them, to allow contact

Neither of you is trying to get the other to sell their product or service for them!  What what both of you want the other to do is gain permission to broker an introduction, and then do so.

The sales training you do with your team on these occasions can be similar to training a 'regular', employed sales team.

• Some members of the team will be performing better than others, so study and analyse what they do, and share the ideas with the rest of the team
• Make study and analysis a continual activity, not a one-off fait accompli
• Best practice has to constantly evolve - something new might make the best even better
• Best practice may need to adapt rapidly to sudden changes in the market
• Don't neglect the 'tried and tested' techniques that new recruits can adopt, without fear of your (management's) disapproval
• Ask the entire team for ideas - "What's working for you right now?"

Again the best could get even better.  Modelling the best is just a starting point, a benchmark, a springboard, so accept ideas from anywhere.

Just as with a 'regular' team, you need to encourage communication within the team and with 'management'.  Encourage discussion of difficulties and have systems in place for team members to debate specific issues amongst themselves as well as with you.

As well as understanding prospects' problems and circumstances, all the team must be able to access the information which allows them to understand your problems and your circumstances.  By this I mean that they need to know the questions you (management) will ask as part of monitoring their performance, so they will have asked their own questions of the prospect and have answers ready for you.  They will be able to monitor their own performance against these well-publicised and understood rules too.  Bi-directional feedback will be of great help in resolving any bottlenecks.

For your surrogate team, out there prospecting on your behalf, processes and later developments of them will only work if the team 'buy into' them.  Your surrogate team need to feel listened to, the processes need to make sense, and they need to be extremely simple to follow.

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Sales Presentations Are So Last Century

My advice to anyone asking about a sales presentation would be, don't do it!  What purpose do you think it will achieve?

Why would you ever need to make a sales presentation?  If you don't yet understand inside-out and upside-down the prospect's fundamental problems and the circumstances in which they exist, how can you possibly know what to present?

And if you do understand, it's not a sales presentation, is it!  You will be presenting your suggestions, your proposal, won't you?

Yet many thousands of words continue to be written on the subject of sales presentations, by well respected people in their books and in well respected publications.  Just looking recently at a small number of articles on this subject revealed some amazing things.

I find it frightening that this stuff is being broadcast to sales teams as state of the art, immutable fact, under the banner of professional bodies who claim to represent these teams' interests.  Within the 'sales advice' community there seems to be this continued fixation with:

1. Giving sales presentations - Generally involving PowerPoint or something similar
2. Having a 'one size fits all' sales presentation, yet one that is flexible
3. Letting specialist outside companies produce your sales presentations

Authors identify the five situations where they feel you ought to want to give a sales presentation:

1. In meetings with buyers
2. In corporate account presentations
3. When helping your 'customer champion' to convince their colleagues
4. At events where 'customers' gather
5. As a response to a request for information!

The advice seems to be grouped into four categories:

1. General Advice
2. Detailed Advice
3. Presentation Design
4. Detailed Design Steps

My own reactions to all the points raised can be summarised as one of:

• Hear, hear! - because I agree
• Why? - because I don't believe they've justified their assertion
• Amazing! - said with huge irony
• Well, yes! - said with almost as much irony
• Expletive deleted! - said in genuine amazement that anyone could still think that way

Let me give you the detail on the first two.

General Advice

• Your presentation must be flexible - Repeated ad nauseam - Amazing.  So why try to have a one size fits all?
• Cover your scope and capability - Why?  Surely it should be about what the customer will get out, not what you can put in!
• Use a specialist presentation design company - Why?  Apart maybe from graphic design and PowerPoint coding, shouldn't your sales and marketing team be well enough skilled and well enough trained to write the copy themselves?

Detailed Advice

• Keep it to 15 slides so you don't bore the audience - #ED!  And 15 won't?
• Think from the buyer's point of view - Amazing!  Is there any other way?
• Don't just blow your own trumpet - #ED!  Words fail me!
• Start your presentation by describing the state of your marketplace - Why?  What interest does the audience have in that, that they aren't aware of already?
• Get an early agreement on something, anything - Hear, hear!
• Use your smartness to create a pleasant surprise - #ED!  And being a smart-arse is the way to build lasting, win-win relationships?
• Convince the audience by showing what you can deliver - Well, yes!  But if, and only if, what you deliver is being described in 'value to the customer' terms - which is quite a different thing from benefits - and is pertinent.
• There is often too much focus on what the salesman wants to say rather than on what the buyer wants to hear - Amazing!  And yet you're still trying to push the idea of a sales presentation!
• The salesman is trying to promote change and all change is risky - Hear, hear!
• Few sales presentations actually address the senior decision makers - Amazing!  You could never guess they would be involved in the decision making, could you!
• You don't need to be the biggest or the best to win - #ED! You don't say.
• Linking content to customer outcomes gives you the ability to quote higher prices - Why?  Linking content to outcomes allows the buyer to see the value, and thus see the return on their investment!
• Your audience is under time pressure and is inwardly focussed - Well, yes!  So cut the crap and get them to admit the value outcomes to themselves!
• Only present when you've established a potential need - Amazing!  Unless there is a full-bore want, why waste time on a presentation?
• Your presentation should turn 'need' into 'desire' - Amazing!  And there was me thinking your 'conversation' should allow the 'prospect' to do this for themselves!
• Research your audience and their business requirements - Hear, hear!  But do use the best source for that information - Your audience!
• Address the concerns of each member of your audience individually - Well, yes!
• Hone your abilities at handling supplementary questions in the Q&A session at the end - Well, yes!
• Spread enthusiasm and take your time - Well, yes!

There is another way, a better way.  If you recognise yourself or your organisation in any of these, please allow me the chance to talk to you and start to explain that there are other ways.

There's lots more advice like this in my regular bulletin.  Get your FREE copy!

Sales Myths And Folklore

Research has shown that some of the preconceptions about sales folk are in fact untrue.  Apparently salespeople are not 'only interested in deals', 'only motivated by money', 'lazy', or 'mercenary'.  What has emerged from the surveys is that salespeople are 'influential', 'hardworking', and 'passionate about their contribution to the business'.

On the other hand some of the generalisations that salespeople themselves like to believe, have been shown to be well founded.  For example, over 70% of salespeople are men, who are likely to be paid more and probably have a more senior position than their female counterparts.  Unsurprisingly there is a variation in the figures from industry to industry and from one region to another.

Over 50% of salespeople never planned a career in sales and barely 20% of salesladies look on sales as a lifetime career, compared to almost half of the salesmen.  However, the ladies felt far more positive about the way their careers had progressed in recent years, compared to the men.

Salespeople are proud to be in sales, and 95% enjoy working in the profession.  Of the 5% who say they don't, a large number are in IT and Telecommunications where earnings are generally highest.  The sector with the highest 'enjoyment factor' is Business to Business with 98%.

Salespeople tend to judge their own work primarily by performance against targets, but this maybe because that is what others measure them by.  With advances in technology being applied to the sales process, face-to-face selling is still reckoned to be the most effective way to secure business.  Perhaps surprisingly, sales divisions were reckoned to have the most influence in over 60% of companies, with accounts/finance at 20% and marketing at 11%.  But then the researchers were surveying sales people!

Unfortunately almost two-thirds of sales people do not feel well-managed, with 'laissez-faire' and 'distant' criticisms coming to the fore, rather than 'aggressive' or 'dictatorial'.  Almost as many claimed they could fulfil their line manager's role more effectively than the incumbent.  Amongst the managers of this group specifically, 'aggressive' and 'dictatorial' did dominate.

For the sales managers, long hours, long weeks, short holidays, working whilst on holiday, and taking insufficient exercise all loomed large.  These managers stated that their biggest motivator was winning the respect of their teams.

At a higher level, the sales directors still work long hours but not long weeks.  Far more than the managers, the directors were applying their own skills to their CVs and other career related activities.  Somewhat bizarrely, the directors and the non-managerial salespeople do seem to take plenty of exercise.  Looking at other aspects of lifestyle, most salespeople eat healthy lunches, with less than 10% resorting to burgers, chips and pies.  One in eight claimed never to eat lunch.

Rather worryingly, one third of salespeople had received no sales training at all in the previous twelve months, and only 10% had received more than 5 days.  Amazingly not even half had taken it upon themselves to read a self-development book, and a quarter said they would not be interested in a free newsletter dedicated to sales improvement*.  Once again it was in the Business to Business sector where the greatest proportion reckoned they actually had received adequate training.

The researchers concluded that:

• Sales is getting tougher
• Salespeople's needs are more complex than just money
• Salespeople are hardworking
• Sales needs more women
• Salespeople enjoy their work and are proud of what they do
• New talent needs to be better nurtured and developed
• Salespeople want to improve their sales skills

*There's lots more advice like this in my regular bulletin.
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You Can't Do Everything For Everybody

One of the crucial rules of marketing is that you're almost certain to fail if your strategy is to take a small slice of a large cake.  The idea sounds so plausible, doesn't it!  We must be able to take 1% and make a decent living for ourselves, mustn't we!  The trouble is it just doesn't work like that.

You might still fail, but you'll have a greater likelihood of success if you change your plans and aim to take a dominant slice of a different cake.

Imagine you've decided to take 1% of the illegal drugs supply into London.  Do you think you'll survive - and I mean that quite literally - your first day?  Will you even still be alive to enjoy your first coffee break?

You need a different strategy.  Either you and 10,000 heavily armed friends can go for 99% of London, or you aim to be the exclusive supplier to one addict.  Either way you have to plan to dominate.

You have to focus on a specific, under-served market niche if you want to be really successful.  Find a niche and carve out a reputation for yourself as the expert in that field.  A common mistake is to develop the niche product before establishing whether the niche market exists, and whether it's buying.

In their book "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", Al Ries and Jack Trout list as their first two laws:

1. It's better to be first than it is to be better
2. If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in

To find your own niche ideas, start by getting into the habit of writing down your ideas as you have them.  Don't try to filter anything out at this stage.  So, where to look for ideas?

1. Solve an existing problem
2. Use freely available, public domain information
3. Ask your current customers and website visitors
4. Combine products into new packages
5. Sell 'own label' products
6. Improve an existing product
7. Adapt an existing product for a different market
8. Exploit today's "must have"
9. Look at your own hobbies and interests
10. Combine ideas and improve on them

Expanding on this last point, if you can marry two diverse ideas, 2 plus 2 can often equal 5!  For example:

• Gutenberg combined a coin stamp with a wine press and invented printing with moveable type
• Long ago, someone combined two soft metals, iron and tin, and produced a strong alloy, bronze
• A French chemist launched a hair colouring product but soon branched out into cleansing and beauty products.  The modern name of his company is L'Oréal.

You can take an existing product and try to think of ridiculous ways to make it work.  Trevor Bayliss combined the electronics of a radio receiver with the mechanism from a wind-up clock to create the clockwork radio.

You can make unlikely pairings of businesses or people and create the most superb results; an idea particularly used in music:- Stéphane Grapelli and Yehudi Menuhin, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, Luciano Pavarotti and U2.  Or in business, the car maker Mercedes Benz and watchmaker Swatch combined to create the Smartcar

You can take two everyday products and create a third which has a whole new market:- A trolley and a dustbin make a wheelie bin; a copier and a telephone make a fax machine.

It isn't always easy to create a new category.  In the field of human endeavour, we're all different, so you'd think that would be simple, but after a while it starts to get ridiculous.  I can't imagine the Guiness Book of Records having a category for the first left-handed pilot with red hair to fly solo across the Atlantic!

The irony is that when someone else finds a new niche, we all say, "Why didn't I think of that?"


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Destroying Your Reputation And Your Relationships

There are many ways to build a better reputation and great relationships.  It's probably true that it takes less time to destroy them than it took to build them, and it may well take even longer to re-build them.  We tend to notice these 'many ways' most readily when they go wrong in a big way, but often we are doing ourselves and our chances no good at all in small ways yet we don't realise we're doing it!

Communication
In our conversations and written communications we might be guilty of being patronising by asking lightweight, rhetorical questions at which the other person takes offence.  Even something as simple as, "Would you like to save time and money?" could be seen as patronising.

Then, our more heavyweight questions might be seen as too aggressive.  For example, "Are you sure you're getting it right every time?"

Many people dislike undue familiarity too soon in a relationship.  Using people's Christian names without even unspoken permission can set them against you, and they almost certainly won't tell you directly why they've now gone cold towards you.

Another gaffe to avoid is the use of highly dated clichés.  It just shows you've only learned what you know from a textbook, and you couldn't be bothered to buy an up to date one either!  This applies both to 'Sales speak' and to 'Adviser- or Sales Manager speak'.  Who wants to read, let alone hear, "And that's not all.  Just wait and see what else our product can do for you" or "Remember, people buy from people".  The thoughts may be correct but please, craft your own version of the message.

It is easily possible to get somebody's back up by being assumptively critical, so don't.  "You too can have an apartment in Monte Carlo like mine," isn't the best thing to say.  And putting people into categories when it's obvious you've had no prior contact doesn't do you any good at all, even if it's based on public domain information.  "As someone with two outstanding County Court Judgements against you ..."

Reliability
As well as in conversation and communication, another sure way to damage your reputation is by being seen to fail to deliver on promises you have made.  I have already explained elsewhere that the making and keeping of promises is an essential part of building people's trust in you.  If you behave like that before they're paying you, how much better will you be once they start?  And conversely, if you keep breaking promises before they start paying you, how likely is it you'll change your behaviour once they start?

The problem is that the apparent breaking of a promise can often be the result of the two parties having a different interpretation of what the promise actually was!

At its crudest, there are three elements to a promise.  For the sort of small promises I advocate you make and keep - actually I recommend you 'trade' them - continually, much of this doesn't require to be written, but it's still a good idea to make sure it is understood in the same way by both of you.

A promise generally consists of three elements, and it's essential to agree on these at the outset.

• Deliverables
• Payment
• Timescale

I believe deliverables are easy, but then my degree is in Engineering!  In that world there are some simple rules:

• If you want it, ask for it
• If it isn't in the design specification, don't be surprised if it isn't delivered
• The specification should be a list of 'questions' not 'answers' - You're paying for the 'answers'!
• If the form of the 'answer' is that important to you, it should form part of the 'question'

Going back to Henry Ford's quotation, don't ask for a faster horse if what you want is to be able to get 300 miles from Chicago to Detroit in just one day!
However, if you want to win the Derby, then ask for a faster horse!

Another thing that needs to be agreed up-front is how both parties will agree that the deliverables have been delivered - the Acceptance Criteria.  As I said, with very simple promises it's so easy it doesn't need writing down.  "I'll call you tomorrow at 10:30," contains the design specification, the acceptance criteria, the payment and the timescale.  But with more complex promises, failing to agree on the acceptance criteria at the outset leaves you open to a game of, "Oh yes I did - Oh no you didn't."

Agreeing the payment seems to be fairly simple once the deliverables and acceptance criteria have been agreed.  But, if you get into a negotiation, take a little care.  You may have to adjust the 'package' in order to reach a mutually acceptable 'price', so don't forget to feed back these adjustments into the specification and acceptance criteria.

So far, so good, but when we get to agreeing timescales, especially short timescales on more complex promises, things can get heated and emotional, if allowed to.  Only one person can control your use of your time, and that's YOU!  And it follows that you cannot control other people's use of their time.
They must do it for themselves.

On a complex promise, you need to get 'buy-in' from the rest of the team when it comes to timescales, and this must be done in an atmosphere where everybody feels free to say, "I just can't do all that you are asking within the time you are suggesting."

Have a great reputation and satisfying relationships.

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Whatever Happened To Joined Up Thinking - Part 2

The title implies that joined up thinking used to be widespread but recently we've lost the skill.  Not necessarily true; maybe we never had it!  But even ancient Greek generals debated the unpredictably far reaching effects of ripples on a lake when you lobbed in a stone.

People who can foresee the unintended ought to get a more than fair hearing, but often the opposite is the case.  They get labelled as negative, or resistant to change, or not being team players.

Even the most reasoned arguments don't guarantee that the foresight will be listened to, let alone accepted.  By 2001 scientists at the University of New Orleans were already publishing papers on the risks of having built a city near the sea, protected by levees that cause the ground behind them to sink below sea-level, as it was no longer being topped up by soil deposits from the tidal waters.

In the 1930s, sociologist Robert K Merton listed five causes of 'unanticipated consequences'.  The first two were Ignorance and Error, but the fifth is the one I find most fascinating.  The fifth cause is the Self-Defeating Prophecy, in other words the fear of a foreseen consequence drives people to find solutions before the problems happen.  The prediction then becomes false because it itself changes history.  Think of warnings of the future depth of horse manure on the streets of London, made in the 19th century!

Incidentally, it was only sometime later that Merton turned his original phrase on its head and coined the more well-known expression, the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy.

Whilst unintended consequences can hinder progress for the common good, I believe the real criticism should be levelled at the scale of the 'unintentionality', which is sometimes vast.

Popularly known today as a 'lack of joined up thinking', the possession of Critical Strategic Foresight is far from universal.  As noted in an earlier post, it seems extremely thinly spread amongst politicians of all persuasions!  Maybe President Obama can break the mould.

Merton's third cause was 'imperious immediacy of interest', that is to say a vested interest coupled to a short-term action.  Here longer-term consequences are often deliberately ignored - totally different to the genuine ignorance of the first cause.  As an example, consider the enforced adoption of spreadsheets, where the user has to enter the formulae themselves.

If you are ignorant of the appropriate algorithms and their purpose, the spreadsheet will just help you to arrive at the wrong answer more rapidly.  The time spent performing manual additions and long multiplications might well have allowed greater insight into the problem, and so resulted in you arriving at the correct answer.

Many corporations lack the infrastructure to help gather Critical Strategic Foresight, or fail to use their infrastructure correctly.  Similarly individuals need the mental 'infrastructure' to consider these, "OK.  What if ...?" questions before getting their sleeves rolled up and starting the task.

Critical Strategic Foresight is unlikely to arrive conveniently, just when you're looking for it.  Murphy's law says it will be after strategies and tactical plans have been formulated and signed off!  Because the pressure is now off, and the understanding is a lot more complete, the mind can wander laterally and those, "Oh my goodness!" moments start to happen.

One answer is to create a list of testing questions by which individuals and organisations can challenge and judge new ideas and the resulting Critical Strategic Foresight.  These question may well be of the "If, then how?" variety, or with 'how' replaced by any of the other five ways of starting an open question.  Without such an infrastructure, someone who is Critical Strategic Foresight savvy will more likely be seen as a Luddite than as an innovator.

This was noted by Merton as the fourth cause of 'unanticipated consequences', the Basic Values; in other words the very culture within which change is being sought risks stifling that change, or else its implementation will destroy the culture.

So how can Critical Strategic Foresight be cultivated?  Both individuals and organisations can adopt creative thinking methods like negative brainstorming and devil's advocacy, based on seeking out counter arguments and not shying away from, "What could go wrong if ...?" questions.  Such a culture implies that inconvenient and challenging questions will be welcomed at any time, and will be given fair consideration; an important thought when, as was noted earlier, Critical Strategic Foresight doesn't always arrive just when you ask for it.  The understanding needed for Critical Strategic Foresight to flourish can take time and experience.

New strategies and technologies can usually be explained in broad terms when required, but unintended consequences often arise from the detail.  Therefore strategies should be defined in detail, prior to their implementation, and the detail not left to be created as the project goes along.  Views of consequential outcomes should be sought from those with an in-depth understanding and years of experience - the sort of 'nit-picking Luddites' who actually welcome progress, but not change for change's sake.

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