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Are You Impeccable With Your Word?

November 29, 2009 By 1 Comment

These are the days of Personal Branding, reinforced by your internet presence via LinkedIn professional profiles and participation in online discussion groups, Facebook, Twitter and various other venues. There are country western songs parodying the online persona you can create and how that compares with reality (yes, I like country western music… opera too for that matter).There are blogs, led by Dan Schawbel’s Personal Branding Blog, that extol the virtues of creating your Personal Brand. Sales Aerobics for Engineers training and consulting incorporates social media into business development strategies for technically intensive companies.

So much for all this internet hoopla. It seems daunting keeping your online personal brand strategy up to date. The bottom line is: are you impeccable with your word? If folks had to describe what you are about, personally and professionally, how many of them will say your word is your bond? Think about it.

Dan Schawbel and many bloggers – this one included – emphasize that the internet is not the place for hiding behind a murky veneer that doesn’t match up once people meet you in person, listen to interviews or participate in webinars. Yet, how many of us are comfortable with who we truly are, 24/7/365? How many of us constantly strive to do the best possible job we can at any point in time? How many of us are impeccable with our word?

Don Miguel Ruiz, in his landmark book, The Four Agreements, lights the beacon for the importance of being one and the same with your word.And this one singular agreement – as are the other three – becomes critical to your providing value to yourself, your customers and your organization.

If you are true to your word, you don’t have to remember what you said to anyone because you tell the same thing to everyone. There is consistency and uniformity in your responses as a person and as a professional. You don’t tell people what they want to hear; you don’t say one thing to one group and another thing to another group. Come on, you know people like this within the workplace. Perhaps this is your own modus operandi. I strongly suggest that you cease disrespecting yourself and your peers. Strive to be impeccable with your word. It is not easy, not easy at all.

In this most challenging of economies, with companies zigging and zagging as they jockey for competitive position, being one and the same with your word, values and ethics is no mean feat. In unifying your approach, you focus your energy towards the underlying principle of impeccability with one’s word. And you know what happens when you engage in becoming impeccable with your word? You have more energy to give, professionally and personally, because you aren’t as fractured or compartmentalized. This is a journey you take by yourself, for yourself. And ultimately, everyone is on the receiving end of your efforts.

In this most challenging of economies, with self-help books, how-to sales books, online sales blogs and folks looking for recipes for personal and professional success, you are only as good as your last sale. If your year-end sales record is your greatest self-defining moment , your context for self-evaluation must reside on a constantly shifting playing field.Take a step back, and another step back. What is the 50,000 eagle’s eye view you have of yourself? At the end of the day, do you peers and friends define you as “Oh, that’s Bob. He sold $250K of new business this year. Wonder how he’ll do next year.” And…?

In this most challenging of economies, your engineering and technical acumen will only carry you so far. There’s more to who you are than your last completed project or the last technical certification you received.OK, so you are a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Look, I used to process map my kids’ weekly sports practice, game and tournament schedules during high school (I’ve since recovered). Being precise and organized and minutiae oriented is admirable. Being the go-to person who organizes chaos is a pretty good skill set. But…..?

We all bring far more to the table than our jobs allow us to. What if we decided to “bring it” anyway, all the time? What if you take the time to discover or re-discover “what” you are all about and become impeccable with your word?

Being impeccable with your word allows you to bring passion, enthusiasm, objectivity, consistency and energy into everything you do for yourself, your family, your clients and your organization.

Yes, this is something that all of us need to work on daily. Being impeccable with one’s word has a significant impact on our relationships. We feel everyone has changed as a result of our being impeccable with our word. In fact, we are the only folks who have changed and, in turn, the people we interact with are impacted, and react, well, differently because we are truly bringing ourselves to the table, authentically, impeccably, every time they meet with us.

Did you ever think about what the real meaning of Walking The Talk is?

Be impeccable with your word.

Filed Under: Books, Core Capabilities, Engineering, Personal Branding, Sales, sales engineering, Sales-Engineering Interface™, Weblogs Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

My Thanks To The Online Engineering Community!

November 23, 2009 By 2 Comments

I am so thankful to the many online engineering communities who read my blog, access my website and - most of all - engage in LinkedIn Discussions with me. In this most challenging of economies, my engineers have remained open minded while I have rattled their cages and possibly even provoked a few of them! The engineering community understands the great respect I have for each of them and the training that this exacting discipline demands. The engineering community understands that their technical expertise may not ensure their job security as we recalibrate just what it means to be an engineer.

Earlier this year, I began this blog, Sales Aerobics for Engineers, based on the many years of dialogue I have had as a consultant to the industrial engineering community. I was disheartened to see so many engineers being displaced in this economy as their organizations grasped at strategies to balance cash flow, accounts payable and accounts receivable. I vowed that I would do whatever I could to engage the engineering community in a dialogue focusing on expanding their value to themselves, their customers and their organizations.

The engineering community responded. We have traveled this year together, discussing the interface of the technical and non-technical aspects of customer relationships. We have dissected (and will continue to do so) the obsession of the engineer with rushing towards tactical solutions that may be the Achilles heel of the engineering discipline as it currently exists.. We have discussed and parodied the engineering-sales interface so that we could examine the true value that might be achieved through collaboration between disciplines.

The engineers have called me out on topics, countered my statements with their perspectives and we have fearlessly communicated through the medium of the Internet. I have made great contacts and can count on some of my online engineers to always be there to set things right and provide balance to not only what I have to say, but also to how others may interpret the back-and-forth that comprises an online dialogue.

After all, that is why we are all here, communicating with each other. If there were set answers to everything, well, there would be no collaboration and no innovation. In spite of the status quo and in spite of the stigma of the techie persona, my engineers have been willing to listen to my hybridized perspective that incorporates the technical with the sales and marketing side of things.

By now we all acknowledge that things are not going back to the way they were. And we still are not sure the direction in which we all are headed. However, we have gained a tremendous amount of confidence discussing issues, seeking answers, and finding some sort of direction as we recalibrate our disciplines towards 2010.

As we head towards Thanksgiving Day, I give my thanks to the engineering community – domestic and international – who have encouraged and supported each other – and me as well - online through the many excellent engineering forums.  

I am looking forward to continuing our collaboration and dialogue!

 

Filed Under: Collaboration, Engineering, Manufacturing, Sales-Engineering Interface™, Weblogs Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Root causes have rather large contexts

November 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

If root causes have rather large contexts, why do Engineers drill down like technical maniacs trying to get to the Bottom Of All Things so you can create The Ultimate Tactical Solution?

All the flotsam and jetsam you by-pass trying to dig down to determine the root cause is pretty important. Why toss it away? It provides the context of the matter at hand. In fact, it’s a science unto itself. I believe it’s called Archeology. And besides, determining – and “fixing” - a root cause without determination of the FULL context in which it resides is, well, useless.

Think about it. How many of you have proposed new processes, introduced quality initiatives, eliminated workarounds only to have your Pronouncement of Identification and Resolution of the Root Cause fall on deaf ears, at best? How many of you have gotten in trouble with your boss because your solution butted up against his/her environment for evaluation, internal KPIs and award of bonus? So you give up, get frustrated, gripe about things…. and basically wait until the next root cause situation where you do precisely the same routine all over again. Thinking: “this time will be better.” And it isn’t.

Didn’t Einstein say that doing the same things over and over again – and expecting different results – is his definition of insanity? Not Engineering, but Insanity. So why are you perpetually punching your own ticket? When will you know it is time to do the same things differently?

Root causes have really large contexts. If you are rooting around solving problems in a vacuum, get your head out of the sand. The contexts of these root causes are the subject of corporate politics, internal dynamics, working relationships and the harmonic balance of Everything that goes on in your workplace. You rock that boat, and you will not create a ripple. You’ll start a tsunami. Even with the smallest of root cause analyses.

Perhaps you are your own Root Cause. Ever think of that one? And you do have control over your own analytical thought processes. Why not work on them? Because doing the same things slightly differently will yield different results. You may not end up always feeling like a salmon swimming upstream, trying to negotiate buy-in at various levels you identify along the way. You may not get boxed out. Work on the flotsam and jetsam. It’s valuable.

If you know what you are getting into as you are digging it up, what precedes determination of the Root Cause may be the most interesting stuff of all. Understanding the interrelationships of factors creating the problem are more revelatory than fixing the problem itself. Why? Because these interrelationships affect everyone in your organization. The Root Cause may not.

Root cause analysis isn’t there so that you can showcase your technical expertise and Quality / Lean acumen. Folks already know you are very, very smart. They know you went to very good schools where you did very difficult work and got a degree or two that not many other folks could have achieved.So what?

Your non-technical co-workers want you to grow a set of antennae that connects your context to their context. Because your optimum solution isn’t necessarily the best solution once you start stepping back from the root cause to place it into a larger context. This disconnect is THE root cause in the sales-engineering interface.

It takes a lot of folks – and their contexts – to create a situation meriting root cause analysis.And they may have gone through a lot of work – for seemingly justifiable (albeit mind-boggling) reasons – to create that situation, normally called the Status Quo. And they just may not want it fixed. Why? Perhaps your solution is too disruptive to the context in which they choose to operate or have to operate.

So the next time you start to feel the need for Root Cause Analysis on your event horizon, think twice about going for the jugular and the optimal tactical solution. To paraphrase Sharon Drew Morgen, perhaps you can’t see the forest because you are too focused on the veins of the leaves on the trees.

Take a step back or two.

To be continued……

 

Filed Under: Collaboration, Engineering, Job Functionality, Marketing and Sales, Sales-Engineering Interface™, Simultaneous Translation, Weblogs Tagged With: , , , , , ,

It’s Time To Give Thanks

November 9, 2009 By 1 Comment

Thanksgiving is my favorite US holiday. It’s a nearly 400 year old harvest festival at one of the most beautiful, dramatic and transitional times of the year. Mother Nature knew what She was doing with Autumn.

As of the latter half of the 20th century, however, the Thanksgiving Holiday is hard to recognize in the United States. It’s becoming the holiday squished in between Halloween and the green light signaling the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Blink twice and it’s gone. You have to get through Thanksgiving to hit the Christmas sales at the mall on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which I still suppose represents the annual People’s Economic Stimulus Package for this nation.

Thanksgiving is the only Holiday where people are not focused – obsessed - on giving lots and lots of STUFF to each other. It’s about sharing a meal together and catching up with each other. Taking some time to breathe and enjoy each other’s company. Not rushing through dinner to get to Presents. Maybe that’s why Thanksgiving gets overlooked so much.

After all, you only give GRATITUDE and THANKS on Thanksgiving. To others and for others.

I mean, what’s that all about?

Recently, I was discussing this topic with Beth, one of my sales colleagues. She couldn’t have agreed more with my “take” on the situation. We were both so not looking forward to running around like madwomen in December, delivering client gifts and closing out our sales year while cleaning our homes for December holiday celebrations and keeping track of the sales at the malls. Sounded like a definition of perpetuation of insanity to us.

We like our clients. We enjoy working with them. This year has been a real time in the trenches for them. We are thankful to have been given the opportunity to be in the trenches with them. We didn’t want them to get lost in the midst of our – and their – end of year, well, “stuff.”

So we both decided to make the Thanksgiving holiday the emphasis, from here on out, for our customers. Why? Because it once again makes sense, particularly in this most challenging economy.

Thanksgiving is a way of giving thanks and gratitude to family, friends, colleagues and clients. It comes at a time of year – especially this year - when it makes sense to take pause and reflect. The original Thanksgiving was a celebration of survival of harsh times. Well, I can’t think of a holiday that makes more sense for all of us to celebrate right now.

When is the last time that you have given thanks? Folks in sales are already in the midst of frenzied Q4 churning and burning towards the “close” of their sales year trying to make those numbers. By December 1st they are also delivering client gifts and sending out holiday cards. Engineers are trying to finish out projects so clients can be invoiced to bring cash into already strained revenue streams.

Let’s face it. Folks are thankful to have jobs right now. So Thanksgiving might just have a whole lot more meaning than it has in the past. And perhaps the significance of Thanksgiving will be rediscovered so the holiday doesn’t once again fade away into the tsunami of purchasing frenzy about the December holidays.

I’m asking you to take a step back. Rather than checking one more thing off a long list of stuff you have to do before “the close” or year end, why don’t you review what you have achieved this year, not so much in dollars, but in creating value for yourself and your organization?

We have weathered a long and harsh economic lesson, and it is not yet over. We are not quite sure where we are headed, but we have steered a firm course this year towards an uncertain horizon. And we are still afloat, surviving, thriving, doing some things very differently than we would have a year ago.

This year, instead of December Holiday cards and client gifts, why don’t you send your customers Thanksgiving cards like my colleague and I decided to do? We will deliver small gifts and send out cards of thanks the week prior to Thanksgiving. We will have the time to enjoy what we are doing. Our actions will have symbolic significance for us. This expression of our thanks and gratitude to our customers will not be mixed up in the frenzy of the close of the annual sales year or fiscal accounting exercises. Just as we are taking time to prepare a feast for our friends and family, we are taking some time to enjoy our client relationships. We work hard for them. We earn them. We enjoy them.

It’s not all about the sale. It’s about how everyone arrives at a decision. My thanks to my clients.

Filed Under: Customer Experience, Customer Focus, Personal Branding, Weblogs Tagged With: , , ,

Are Your Clients Hunkering Down And Maintaining The Status Quo?

November 2, 2009 By 2 Comments

You make an excellent presentation and then nothing happens and you wait….and wait… and wait. Your company has a price increase and there is the dreaded “deadline” and your customers take you to the 11th hour and beyond and you wait…and wait…and nothing happens.Your customer assures you they will award your company the contract - it’s only a matter of talking to a few more internal folks on their end - and you wait… and wait…and they go with another company’s solution.

I KNOW you have been in this situation, and more than once. And probably rather recently, too. I know I have.

Sharon Drew Morgen, in her recently released book entitled “Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Can’t Buy And Sellers Can’t Sell And What You Can Do About It” offers some riveting insights into the whole decision making algorithm that prevents us from earning the sales and engineering success that we are capable of achieving.

Sharon Drew Morgen views the sales cycle as the length of time it takes your prospect to figure everything out that they need to figure out so they can make a decision. So how long is your typical call-to-close cycle? Getting longer….. and l…o…n…g…e…r?

My blog is directed at Engineers, too, even though I am using the “S” word: Sales. Don’t think you are exempt from this discussion because you are the “doers” rather than the “sellers.” Guess what, you are part of the solution being offered. Every time you get on the phone with the customer, there is a latent sales opportunity waiting for you to discover. Do you have the tools to uncover unmet needs by determining the underlying processes and systems currently in place?

Sharon Drew Morgen’s book really puts the solution placement – you know, the “stuff” we are all selling – in its proper perspective: somewhere in the middle of the decision making algorithm, if not at the end. It’s not about the sale. It’s about the process. And now that I am talking process, those engineering antennae better be going up!

“One of the hardest things for our buyers to determine is that their status quo isn’t good enough.”- Sharon Drew Morgen, Dirty Little Secrets (italics and bold are mine)

Here’s a secret: sales folks are told to “discover” the client’s problems or unmet needs, typically called “pain.” Then they are supposed to drag prospects over the emotional “pain” coals over and over again until the client cries “Uncle” and sees the light and understands “Your Solution.”

So how do you get to that point? Do you think the prospect is going to jump up from the table, cry “Eureka” and reach for a pen to sign a contract just because your company has the Best Engineers or the Best Product or the Best Solution? I don’t think so. What typically happens is that our Clients and Prospects go in hibernation mode and hunker down while they “think things over.” And over and over. Because “Making a Decision” is equated with “Compromising the Status-Quo.”

The process of identifying the systems currently in place that reinforce and impact the organization’s ability to make a decision – TO CHANGE – are examined in depth in Sharon Drew Morgen’s book. Now, Engineers, if you could converse with your prospects and determine the key stakeholders and the barriers to adoption of new/different/best practices, doesn’t this strategy lend itself to process-mapping? If you developed the skill set to ask specific types of questions in a specific manner, thereby impacting the viability of your solution, wouldn’t you want to dig into things a bit deeper before you run off and design the perfect mousetrap – that nobody ends up buying? (Yes, I know, that was a really long sentence.)

“Until the prospect can recognize the full range of systems elements that live congruently within their culture and find them lacking, an Identified Problem is not seen as something that is ready to be resolved – regardless of the cost to the culture, or the problem it seems to be causing in the system.”– Sharon Drew Morgen, Dirty Little Secrets (italics and bold are mine)

What’s really interesting about Sharon Drew Morgen’s book is that the typical salesperson simply doesn’t “get it.” The skill set she proposes, and the mindset too, is too logical and organized. It flies in the face of the traditional sales paradigm. Sharon Drew Morgen starts the sales process by requiring we do our homework long before we try to place the product or solution. Which is where most engineers like to start.

Gee, when’s the last time you started a project from The Beginning? And I don’t define “The Beginning” as “When The Engineer Is First Notified.” Normally the engineer is brought in somewhere down the road after Sales has built all the “relationships” without the benefit of understanding the systemic processes in the corporate culture that impact The Decision To Buy. And I hate to break the news to the sales folks, but bringing in the engineers too late in the game is one of the biggest complaints engineers have about sales folks.

Sharon Drew Morgen points out that the greatest impediment to change is systemic corporate loyalty to preserving the Status Quo. I mean, who wants to change if you can work around the situation and maintain “the way it’s always been done?” And I hate to break the news to the engineers, but loyalty to preserving the status quo is one of the biggest complaints sales people have about engineers. Sound familiar?

Yeah, this book is a must-read for the sales-engineering continuum. It is process improvement and paradigm shift all rolled up into one. No more status-quo.

Time for a little cross-training and a new way to incorporate process mapping and process improvement into your next project? You just may end up speaking with clients and prospects differently, resulting in more productive outcomes and shortened business development cycles.

What are you waiting for?

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Books, Business Development, Customer Focus, Sales, Weblogs Tagged With: , , , , ,