So What?

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

It’s hard to sell when your customer doesn’t get a word in edgewise. For all your lecturing, demo-ing, and just plain showing up and throwing up (ah, what a wonderful phrase), you finally come up for air. And the client is still looking at you.

No comment. No interest. No way are they going to buy whatever it was that you convinced yourself you would try to sell them.

Because they weren’t interested in buying in the first place. And now they are mentally kicking themselves for ever letting you into their office or taking your phone call.

Put yourself in their shoes. All your lofty rhetoric adds up to one question in their minds: “So what?”

If what you are discussing doesn’t answer that question, you have no business trying to win business with that customer.

Recently, I was part of a team coaching a young man who was perfecting his value proposition: the “pitch” for a business competition. Once he got going with his spiel, he moved right through the value proposition into the sales phase into the lecture about all the great features and benefits. It was an absolute train wreck. I still don't know how he could get so many words out of his mouth without breathing!  

He finished his techno business spiel. I just sat there. And said nothing. He didn’t know what to do with my silence. He became very flustered. Which is my point. Entirely.

Finally, I asked him: “What would you like me to do with this information?” More silence, more confusion. I think he felt I should have jumped up and shouted “Hosanna in the Highest” and asked for a contract to sign. Sigh…..

I encouraged him to take a deep breath and lower his shoulders from where they had crept up around his ears, during his presentational zeal. I asked him to consider how his frenzied delivery made me feel? (Honestly, I almost had a panic attack).

And then I asked him “So what?”  

"So what?" is a call to action every business person, technical or not, should be accountable to.

You might say, OK, well, this was an entrepreneurial competition, these folks have never been in this situation and they don’t know any better. Cut them some slack.

The trouble is, I was on the receiving end of a real, live demo presentation recently, by a real live company filled with professional business people. The same thing happened. This was not a coaching session. This is a business trying to gain my support.

I like these opportunities to observe the sales process in action. I patiently listened while the virtual demo proceeded. It was solid information, delivered rapid-paced, without breaks, without time to ask questions. I don’t think the presenter took time to breathe.

So what?

At the end of the presentation, I asked: “What would you like me to do with this information?” And went silent. And so did the folks on the other end of the phone. They didn’t know what to do with that question. And if they, the professionals, don't know what the objective of the conversation is, I'm not going to rescue them.

If your customers are silent during your presentations, you have a problem. Selling isn’t performance art. People are not going to applaud after you complete your solo act. 

Selling is a conversation – the type of conversation that your customers don’t yet realize they want to have. With you. Because you offer relevant and valuable information.

You cannot establish relevance via a monologue. So calm down and breathe. Talk with them. Establish context and priority.  

Your customers have so much more to tell you than you ever had to say at them.

That’s what.

 

 

Filed Under: Customer Focus, Entrepreneurship, Sales Tagged With: , , ,

Business and Tapas

May 16, 2012 By 4 Comments

I just returned from Barcelona. It’s one of my favorite cities. There was a scientific meeting. I spent time talking business with researchers turned entrepreneurs. I also spent a lot of time touring the city and eating tapas, one of my favorite food groups.

I always head to Ciudad Condal Cerveceria in the Eixample district. It’s like heaven, with tapas.

The bar has wood-paneled, vaulted ceilings and a bar area full of marble and brass. It’s like entering a church for tapas. Then there are the people, and I mean all of the people inside the tapas bar. Of course, you can sit along the boulevard under the umbrella tables in the outdoor eating area. Or you can eat at the tables in the restaurant area of the tapas bar. But then you would miss all of the action.

The best spot in the place is to be seated or standing at the bar area. It's where the tapas art happens: the high intensity interface between the customers and staff.  All of the fresh, raw food is beautifully displayed. The waiters, waitresses and bar tenders have on elegant white coats. They know their stuff and they make and serve the tapas with pride. You marvel as they work together, as a team. They are engaged with their customers. Each plate of tapas is served, eye contact and a smile is made.

The food transaction doesn’t end there. Often conversation with your waiter follows. They make more suggestions about what you might like to eat, based on what you have been ordering, or even what their own favorite tapas are. They encourage you to experiment, if they think you are up for it. I’m always up for it and I’ve always been delighted about how these folks can pick up on signals and fine-tune my dining for me.

The locals go to this tapas bar, lots of them, and it’s constantly full all day long. And of course the tourists are at the tapas bar as well. Everyone takes a look at what everyone else is eating, smiles, rates the tapas by making a comment or giving a thumbs up – understood in any language. If someone sees you eating the tapas incorrectly – or thinks you should combine it with some other type of tapas you have in front of you – they suggest this to you, respectfully, with a smile.

That’s why I go to this particular tapas bar. It’s noisy, joyous, collaborative, delicious. It’s theater without pretense. Everyone is there to be together with everyone else. It’s like a party we all have been invited to. The comfort level of being in the same space, with hundreds of friends I never knew I had before I stepped inside, is palpable.

All of us come to this tapas bar to be with each other. Because when we are at the tapas bar, everyone is the same.

We’ve been drawn into this hallowed tapas space by a mutual love of that dish. We work together so everyone has a joyful customer experience. We are patient as we wait for a seat at the bar or decide to stand. No one becomes flustered at the wait. No one hovers over your table.

We respect the lovers in the corner, who are nibbling each other intermittently, and then remember their tapas. There is the priest seated next to the lovers, alone with his own thoughts, obviously a regular.  There is the man to the left of my husband, who is sits on a stool, who offers it to my husband when he sees I have a stool but my husband does not. My husband smiles and declines; he would have done the same thing for this man whom we have never met until tonight. The man's friends arrive to join him, and they stand. The man makes suggestions on how we should mix up a certain egg dish we’ve ordered. He's right; the food tastes so much better mixed this way.

Everyone at the bar is the same.

Once you enter this space, your job title, education, pretense and stress levels are left outside in the street. We are each others' company across time zones and countries and cultures and backgrounds.

We are here to enjoy the evening, together.

It is heaven.

Filed Under: Collaboration, Customer Experience, Entrepreneurship Tagged With: , , , ,

The Value of Wisdom and Learning – Don F. Perkins Defining Moment

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Babette and I had a great chat about the difference between education and learning the other day. She asked for a story that has shaped my being; part of what has formed my character. This is one of the most unlikely and powerful ways someone changed who I am:

The auto plant was humming along all morning without a hitch until right after lunch. Suddenly things came to a grinding halt. Red lights flashed. Managers spilled out of their air conditioned offices and 100 workers tried to find other things to do besides build automobiles. In moments like these, there's never enough brooms to go around.

Then the technicians and electricians showed up with their meters and belts full of tools. 15 minutes went by, then 30; an eternity in terms of lost production. Managers furrowed their brows and offered their "encouragement" to to the technicians.  Despite all of the testing and dismantling, chin rubbing and arm folding, no one could figure out how to make the auto making machinery happy again.

Then the line's utility man returned from his lunch break. He made his way through the throng to the main source of wonderment: an electrical panel full of lights and switches that controlled all the little mechanical whatsits. He made a quick scan of the panel and said: "oh. Here we go." He flicked one of the lights a few times. It went from dark to light. The machinery whirred to life. We grunts put the brooms away and went back to our stations. The managers went back to their air conditioned offices. The technicians went back to their dark corners. Business resumed thanks to the uneducated utility man in his grease stained coveralls.

What happened that day helped me see that education can be a fine thing, but learning is even better. We had dozens of well-educated people racking their brains to find the cause of the problem, and yet it was the utility man who never finished high school who was seemingly the only one who had learned enough to save the day. Wisdom and learning are not the same as education. It is quite possible to have one without the other.

I know there are great institutions out there that can provide real learning experiences. I highly encourage everyone to get as much education as they can, but more than that, I try and learn everything I can, in school or out, from everyone I speak to and every situation I find myself in. Everyone is a teacher. Some teach good lessons, some bad. Life can be your classroom if you let it. You might even get the chance to save the day, even if you never finished high school.

Don F. Perkins is a sales and marketing expert. He blogs at http://mindmulch.net. Don's an innovative, highly technical, savvy and street smart guy who brings everything down to earth. Don understands the internet and how social media can and does make a difference in your business and revenue development. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and just about any other social medium around.

Filed Under: Core Capabilities, Defining Moments Tagged With: , , ,

Got Collaboration?

May 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

On May 5, 2012, I had the honor and privilege of sitting around the table with some of the best sales minds in the business. We came together in Chicago to collaborate.

And collaborate we did.

Leaving agendas and egos at the door, this incredible group of people had been working together online. Not all of us had ever met the rest of us. And so we did. Because we knew we had work to do.

For your benefit.

We are known for the quality of the content we generate. On our blogs, through our workshops, coaching and speaking. Through mentoring, encouraging.

We got together because we believe that the synergy we can produce is far more relevant than the sum of the individual parts.

We accomplished so much in the day we spent together. Insights, reactions, spinning out of ideas, what ifs, gee-I-didn’t-know-that kind of things. You know, the great stuff we blog about, we read about, that we tell you can happen.

It really does happen.

When you put people together who are willing to suspend the Who They Are, their Job Titles, their Accomplishments. When they are committed to working together to achieve something more. Something greater. For their clients, their readers, their audiences - both known and unknown.

Collaboration happens.

If you are an individual who feels they can be more than their job title, their academic position, a professional degree or certification, know that you are not alone.

Life presents us with some interesting pathways. And we are defined by the people and circumstances we meet along the way. They inspire us to do some of our best work.

And I believe our best work is yet to come. Because we are willing to collaborate to achieve it. And you continue to inspire us.

Join in following the input-throughput-output of this initial collaborative meeting, one of many to come. Take a look at Tibor Shanto’s The Pipeline May 7 post  for the full list of attendees and their Twitter feeds. And include his at @tiborshanto.

Consider forming your own collaborative group.  You might just be amazed at what can happen.

Filed Under: Collaboration, Innovation, Sales Tagged With: , , ,

Become Unstoppable – Dan Waldschmidt’s Defining Moments post

May 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Life comes at you with a vengeance.

 

If it’s not your business on the rocks, it’s a family that’s needs your attention.  It’s not just stress or lack of money or the pressure you feel to perform.

 

It’s dozens of little things throughout the day that add up to the challenge.

 

And if you’re not careful, you can feel beaten up pretty fast.

 

The harder you try not to lose, the more inevitable it seems.

 

And so pain gets more painful and hurt more hurtful.

 

Your fear of failing becomes all consuming.

 

You’ve forgotten how to be unstoppable.

And you’re not alone.

As Jim stepped out of the ring after 15 rounds of punishment, he could barely see out his swollen eyes and bleeding nose.  But more then just the pain from several broken bones in his right hand, his defeat by Tommy Loughran was an all-consuming throb that pounded in his head. 

 

It was maddening.

 

Jim had turned pro three years earlier just after his 21st birthday.  Fighting as a light heavyweight, the Irish American boxer, born in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, quickly put together an impressive record of 44 wins and 2 losses.  A boxing phenomenon.

 

But when it was his chance to fight for the title, he lost — by a single round.  And not just lost.  His fractured right hand would take many months to heal.  The depression that descended around him would take much longer to heal.

 

When he began to fight again, Jim was anything but impressive.

 

Over his next 33 fights, his record was 11-20-2.  As his family sunk into the biting poverty of the Great Depression, Jim was left homeless, jobless — begging for part-time work on the docks that required two strong hands when he really only had one that was usable.  He would soon have to humble himself to accept government welfare to keep his family alive.  It was a lesson he would never forget.

 

And then because he had lost so much already, he was expected to lose again.

In early 1934, promoters for John Griffin picked Jim as a stepping stone for their boxer’s career. 

But instead of losing, John won.  In fact, he knocked out the impressive “Ozark Cyclone” mid way into the third round.  And his success didn’t stop there.

 

Jim fought John Lewis, the future light  heavyweight champion — and won.  This would be one of the most important battles of his career.  And then came Art Lasky.  The contender was the odds-on favorite to beat Jim; but  instead he left the ring with a broken nose.  Jim had again beaten the odds.

 

But was it enough for a title fight with the vicious Max Baer, who had punched two boxers to death in the ring previously?

 

On June 13, 1935, Jim entered Madison Square Garden as a 10-to-1 underdog against Baer.  Throughout the fight, Jim took blow after blow from his furious opponent.  Round after round he kept coming — frustrating the younger Baer who threw punches without abandon.  He would be unable to stop Jim.  When the final bell sounded, the judges would hand the unanimous decision to Jim.

 

Against impossible odds, Jim — better known as James Walter “the Cinderalla Man” Braddock  – would become the boxing heavyweight champion of the world.

 

Many still call it the greatest fight of all time.

 

And it might not be a lot different from what you have to deal with on a daily basis.

 

And if a man like Jim can rise from the dust of a New York alley to become the greatest hero the boxing world has ever known, why can’t you?

Why can’t you become unstoppable?

 

You can.

In fact, here are four thoughts for you to think about.

 

  1. Keep throwing punches — You never start losing until you stop fighting.  It’s really that simple.  You can’t give up.  All you have is your will to win.  And that’s the difference in being unstoppable.  No one can stop you when you decide that you’ll never quit.
  2. Never forget a hand up – Remember the kindnesses of those around you.  You might need to take some help to stay on your feet.  Never forget those who let you lean on them.  Kindness is a force that makes you unstoppable.  So is gratitude.  Get good at both.
  3. Make your biggest weakness your killer move – Take what hurts you make it your biggest motivation.  Get better.  Clean up the sloppy parts of your game.
  4. Learn how to take a punch – Sometimes, what looks like brilliance is really guts.  You can’t really get used to getting hit, but you can learn how to stand on your feet and wobble with class.  No need to blink.  No need to cry.  You just take a hit and keep on standing.  It’s hard to lose when you are still on your feet and scowling.

 

We make too many excuses for being fallible.

Life is what we make it.

And that means if you still have fight in you, you haven’t lost yet.

 

And perhaps that is the best lesson yet.

 

You already are the unstoppable force that you think you need.

 

As James Braddock himself said before stepping into the ring:

 

“Whether it goes one round or three rounds or 10 rounds, it will be a fight and a fight all the way. When you’ve been through what I’ve had to face in the last two years, a Max Baer or a Bengal tiger looks like a house pet. He might come at me with a cannon and a blackjack and he would still be a picnic compared to what I’ve had to face.”

 

That just might be the 1930′s way of saying “Bring it on…”

 

Popular speaker, business strategist, and ultra-runner -- Dan Waldschmidt is at war with conventional business strategy.  His Edgy Conversations© have turned hundreds of companies into rock-star businesses and the Wall Street Journal calls his blog one of the” Top 7 sales blogs” anywhere in the world.  He’s on a mission to help companies all over world change the conversation in their industry and dominate the competition.  For more information about Waldschmidt Partners Intl, go to www.EdgyConversations.com or call at 202-630-6730.

Filed Under: Core Personal Values, Defining Moments Tagged With: , , ,

The Curious Case of the Sales Engineer

May 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Casting calls require you to specify whether you are auditioning for a role which calls for singers who can dance or dancers who can sing. While being a sales engineer is hardly a song-and-dance routine, many SEs wonder just what role they are supposed to play in the business development process. 

  • If you are a sales person with a strong technical side you may have identified, prospected, qualified and negotiated the sale. Or not.
  • If you are an engineer with some strong and not-so-soft sales skills you may be taking over the sales process after a lead has been identified and qualified. Or not.
  • You may find yourself inserted into the sales equation somewhere in-between, applied-as-needed, with or without having been provided context. You play a brief but critical role in the drama of the sale and are returned to your department after your role is completed. Or not.

The role of the sales engineer varies greatly within the industry. And the roles you play in one SE position may help or hinder the types of roles you can assume in a new position at a different company.

If you decide that the career path you want to pursue is that of a sales engineer, you need to prepare yourself to think on both sides of the sales-engineering continuum no matter what role you are playing in the process.

You always have a curious and unique position at the table. In a sense, you could provide that simultaneous translation between sales and engineering. Your ability to combine your technical and non-technical perspectives make you a relevant and valuable partner to both buyers and sellers. 

In today's competitive global economy, professionals who can participate in the business and revenue development processes in this cross-functional manner are going to become the rule rather than the curiosity. How are you preparing yourself to take this important seat at your company's table?

There's more to this role than demo-ing. And developing the discussion to get to the demo as an indicator of readiness to buy may be over rated. The key to the process is in your comfort in the customer conversation. The willingness of the customer to get to a demo may simply indicate they want to force the price discussion so they can tell you "No."  Faster. Don't let your customers take you there.

What your customer may need is a conversation you don't yet know how to have with them. In fact, it may be a conversation they don't realize they should be having with you.

Whether you lead with your sales or engineering side, rushing to close the sale may prevent you from fully developing the breadth and depth of the problem. Learn how to have those types of conversations with your customers and colleagues. You may find you have a larger role to play than that of a sales engineer. You may grow your skill sets, and your career, into a strong leadership role.

Filed Under: Business Development, sales engineering, Sales-Engineering Interface™, Simultaneous Translation, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Liberating Yourself from Cubicle Mindset

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Take a look around your work environment. It can be anything from a floor in an office building, to your car, to the local coffee shop, to a hotel room, to an academic department, to an airport VIP lounge, to the plant floor. With access to information no longer the rate-limiting aspect of where we work anymore, the concept of the workplace has morphed. How we develop business, execute sales strategies, and how we engage in engineering can become rather fluid. Regardless of how free-form our work space seems to us, and/or to others, there’s still a lot of discipline involved in making that space a place where we can productively engage in our work.

What is the nature of the work you are engaged in? Is it creative work where you are innovating and designing and teaching and creating? Is it process-driven work where there are specific steps involved to produce your output, requiring that specific types of equipment are also present in the same location? Are you working on your own or with others? How is the usability of your work evaluated?

How do your customers “think” your work space has to “look”? What would happen if they requested to tour your office space in order to validate whether you were capable of working with them? Would you be defensive about justifying that you do your best work over a cup of java at the local coffee house at 7 AM, even though your customers work 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM in an office building? Or would you rent an office they could tour, just so that “your” space resembled “their” space?

If you work in an office space full of cubicles, take a look around your work environment. What is the nature of the work you are engaged in? Now… go to the place and space in which you do your best work, with the people you do your best work. Same deal with the coffee house or your car or your home office or a seat on an airplane.

Regardless of where you work, it can become your cubicle. It can limit your thinking, after a while. Cubicle mindset doesn’t require you to sit in a cubicle. But it sure gets you to think inside a cube. No matter how creative you think you are, or how collaborative.

Cubicle mindset impacts all of us. From time to time, taking your own business or engineering pulse is involved, just to see if you are getting too comfortable. Too complacent. Too involved in a specific pattern of activities.

You might need to determine whether you are oblivious to the obvious, whether you are going for complex solutions and missing the simple stuff. Just because you are maintaining a pattern of activities and mindset that you’ve built up over time. We have to step outside of ourselves, and take a look at ourselves from the outside looking in. After all, that is what we are asking our customers to do, right?

Be on Cubicle Mindset Alert. CMA keeps you alert to situations and contexts and perceptions which, when configured together “differently,” can lead to new insight about old circumstances.

Cubicles are just really boxes that we put ourselves in, over time. Make sure yours isn’t getting too comfy or predictable. So that you can continue to offer relevant, insightful and valuable ideas to yourself, your colleagues and your customers.

Filed Under: Business Development, Engineering, Innovation, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

Robert Terson’s Defining Moment in Sales

May 1, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Robert Terson  spent 40 years selling fearlessly and relentlessly. He didn’t start out this way. In fact, his early sales career was spent selling in a fearful and undisciplined manner.

When most of us get down to the heart of the matter, we fear the sales process because we doubt there is, indeed, any process at all. To most of us, selling resembles organized chaos.

Which is why Bob Tersons’ “The Mound Road Story” from Chapter 1 of his upcoming book, Selling Fearlessly, A Master Salesman’s Secrets for the One-Call-Close-Salesperson is such a classic. 

In this day of Sales 2.0, the complex sale, researching, facilitating, identifying trigger events, and presenting our technical capabilities, we tend to forget that selling is still a very personal experience. Machines don’t sell at each other; people sell to each other. And no matter how smart you think you are or how refined your sales methodology, there’s still a person or two involved in acquiring a customer.

The Mound Road Story, the one that defined Robert Terson, takes us directly into an amazing sales environment, where you only have one opportunity to close the sale. This environment still exists today for many products and services. It’s an art form.

And while you, the reader, might feel Bob’s story certainly doesn’t describe your own situation, guess again.

  • How many of us have relentlessly pursued leads to nowhere, because they represented fantasy rather than the reality of the sales process?
  • How many of us give up on solid leads, the ones we should be pursuing with aggressive intelligence, but cannot stand the thought and fear of rejection or the realization that it may take up to 10 points of contact in order to reach these elusive targets?
  • And how many of us have the patience, in spite of that voice in our heads telling us to give up and go home, to wait it out, with strategic patience? I, for one, know that one of the largest contracts I landed came from over 18 months of strategic patience (and multiple personnel changes at the corporation which was the object of my sales desire).

Not all solutions work, not all sales leads result in a sale and nothing is handed to any of us on a silver platter. The Mound Road Story is a compelling lesson in human nature and how self-belief still remains the fulcrum leveraging our career path.

As Robert Terson puts it:

“If you haven’t experienced it already, somewhere along the way you’ll have your own extraordinary story to tell, and won’t that be something? Until you do, please, borrow the “jug” [his Mound Road Story] and take a “swig” on me whenever you need one; and remember—it’s overcoming those “insurmountable” hurdles which make a salesperson strong and sets the tone for his/her entire career.”

 

Filed Under: Core Capabilities, Defining Moments, Sales Tagged With: , ,

On The Team or Just a Spectator?

April 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What if your customers spoke about you the same way they talk about players in the NFL draft, or whether injuries to NBA players will jeopardize the team’s run to the finals? Someone of worth who is a necessity to their daily and long-term strategy.

Do you ever feel like you are part of your clients’ “teams”? Or perhaps the better question to ask yourself is whether you present yourself as a strategic team member, rather than a “seller” or a “do-er / order-taker.”

There’s a lot of talk about whether or not we create “value” for our customers and our colleagues. And it sounds a lot like the “quality” discussion – whether some thing has quality or not. These are nouns in search of descriptors. These words don’t have significance unless they are modified and translated. Until they are placed within the context of a situation. Your customer’s situation, for example.

In order to be relevant to your customer’s team, you have to possess the qualities or attributes which make you essential to their being able to implement or execute some strategy or “play” that is essential to their longevity in the marketplace. Your customers and colleagues feel you are a critical factor in their success. They need to run their plays through you in order to be effective and competitive.

Taken in this context, if you are just selling or doing and handing off your work to the next person in line, you may be falling short of the type of player your customers need you to be.

You are in charge of the business of being YOU. You are your own player’s agent. Not your company’s. Not your clients’. Yes, of course once you become a key player on their team, it’s amazing how quickly you gain recognition. However, it’s not about what they think about you. It’s about creating a culture, for yourself, of discipline and alignment so that you are always focusing back on being in charge of the business of being YOU.

Let’s face it. There are times during playoffs where the team seems to be in auto-pilot. Like, who needs the coach anyway? It’s because each player is disciplined. They are aligned with the capabilities, input-throughput-output of the other players. We sometimes refer to how this appears to the spectator as “being in the zone.” These players are so tuned-in to the subtle dynamics of the playing field that they are able to adapt and make adjustments that make them the proverbial game-changer.

Create and maintain this type of relevance to your colleagues, your company and your customers. Take a look at the disciplined processes you need to adopt and the strategies you need to adapt in order to align yourself with the constantly changing competitive playing field. It’s a matter of taking stock of everything you currently bring to their tables, anyway. For many of us, it’s right there and always has been.

When you are called on, this week, come into the playing field as a strategist who understands the breadth and depth of your role. Even if you are a process specialist. Even if you are an order-taker. Understand where your input-throughput-output exerts a relevant impact. On the team. On the business of being YOU.

Filed Under: Business Development, Collaboration, Core Capabilities Tagged With: , , ,

Moving Forward by Looking Backward?

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I was listening to Michigan Radio, an NPR station, yesterday evening. There was a well-produced local piece about the Midwest economic recovery.  The reporter, Dustin Dwyer, asked his listeners a thought-provoking question:

“What will happen to the transformation of the Midwest economy when we do finally recover from this horrendous recession? Will we go back to our old ways, or will we continue to change?”

Some question. And something my colleagues and I have also been discussing collaboratively since the beginning of the year. Especially with regard to small and mid-sized businesses; you know, the ones with tight budgets and little revenue, let alone the luxury of human assets, to devote to CRM (Client Relationship Management) tools and large sales forces. The type of companies, often family-owned, where everyone wears multiple hats out of necessity and ability. This size of company forms the bulk of business enterprise in the US.

What does an economic recovery look like? Does it mean that manufacturing capacity, orders and revenue return to their post-recession levels? Does it mean that things look and feel exactly the way they did before? Will this phenomenon provide a sound base for further economic regional growth?  

Dwyer interviewed several economists, including Grand Valley State Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics, Paul Isely, PhD,who described coming out of a recession as follows:

”The problem is, as you come out of a recession, you often have all your resources start to be used making the stuff you made before… And if you’re busy all the time, you don’t have time to think about, ‘How do I change all this?’”

How does securing the orders for consumables and durable goods “happen?” It just may involve a business development and sales strategy that can no longer be supported by a rear-view mirror, post-industrial mindset. Perhaps transformational, experiential economic recovery requires an exodus from a mindset where one state sees “neighbors as our competitors, when, in fact, we’re incredibly connected,” as University of Illinois economist Geoffrey Hewings describes. (He heads up the Regional Economic Applications Laboratory, http://www.real.illinois.edu/ ).

Sounds like what is called for is regional collaboration rather than state-versus-state competition. Economic recovery looking through the windshield.

Rear-view mirror thinking is comfortable. Getting back to the way things were “before” can mean you think you don’t have to work as hard, because you are in an environment you are used to. Like an old sofa. It’s a recipe for complacency and assumptions.

Problem is, you have more competitors now, looking through the windshield, than you  had before. Your competitors are global, not local or regional. These global competitors are not content to hunker down and be comfortable, ever. Because your competitors come from economies and countries where there is no room for complacency, and no security in the status quo.

Economic recovery requires customer acquisition. Those orders don’t just return on their own because someone flipped a switch and the green light came on for the economy.

Are you assuming that your former customers will automatically return to doing business with your company? Something might have happened in the interim.

Selling the same old way you did to get you to where you were in your rear-view mirror is not realistic. And it’s not safe to drive a car constantly looking through the rear view mirror, either.

Have you ever considered that your current and former customers have, indeed, changed the way they select their vendors? And perhaps re-acquiring and retaining them may involve business development strategies that are hardly status quo.

Going back to the way it was, won’t be the same. Prepare yourself for a business development environment that requires far more collaboration than “before” between and among former local and regional competitors. And this collaborative strategy will emphasize developing cross-functional capabilities in your technical and non-technical staff as well.

Windshield mindset. No rear view mirror, please.

 

Filed Under: Business Development, Collaboration, Manufacturing, Sales Tagged With: , , ,
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