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Feeling Ambiguous? Schedule A Walkabout For Yourself This Year.

January 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Wikipedia defines the term “walkabout” as “a rite of passage where male Australian Aborigines would undergo a journey during adolescence and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months. In this practice, they would trace the paths, or ‘songlines’, that their peoples’ ceremonials ancestors took, and imitate, in a fashion, their heroic deeds.”  An alternative term in Wikipedia refers to a Walkabout as a “disambiguation.”

When’s the last time you engaged in “disambiguation”?  

Oh, and you don’t have to be a male.

Folks tend to take personal and professional stock of themselves each December.  You know, what they did and didn’t “achieve” or “accomplish” in the past year. It’s “natural” (?) in the sense that the fiscal year is coming to an end, the tax year is coming to an end and people are going to be evaluated by management.  In other words, you feel as though you are self-evaluating. Yet it’s pretty much all about how you measure up in someone else’s eyes.

January becomes a clean slate. If you are in sales, it’s all about “forget what you did last year and the accolades you earned – what have you done for me lately?”  Yikes!  I’m only as good as my last sale in the eyes of management? If you are in a technical field, it’s more like whether you were able to not only bring in but also manage projects on time and at or under budget… especially last year. It’s a measurement of not only your technical acumen but your “people” skills. You know, that right-brain left-brain interface that is hardly a natural place for most engineers .

Again, your sight line is focused on someone else’s idea of how you should be measured.

What is your own horizon, your own personal benchmark? How can you determine your personal benchmark, even your starting point?

How ambiguous are you? To yourself?

Walkabout. I’m taking a week in February to do a lot of technical, sales and, yes, spiritual reading. I need to catch up…. not with my reading… but with myself. Where am I at? How has the sum total of everything that I have accomplished in 2009 affected my perspective and approach to business and life moving forward in 2010? After all, I’m the only person that can write my own Operating Manual. I can’t write it if I don’t take the time to understand just what type of equipment I am operating.

Disambiguate. I’m taking a week in February to learn best practices about becoming better at planning and conducting Webinars. And I’m going to be composing a theme and game plan for lacing these webinars throughout my blog. I’ve got some great business associates online who are tremendous thought leaders in their own right. When we guest blog or conference call it’s synergy. There’s a lot to offer to our online communities.

Marinate. I’m taking a week in February to mentally marinate some new paradigm thinking regarding how decisions are made and how the traditional and consultative sales processes may be incomplete. I’m studying innovation, its sources, how to encourage my customers to embrace the risk associated with innovation and discover who, within their organizations, are true innovators.

Find your spiritual coordinates. I’m taking a week in February to reconnect to the Who is responsible for the journey that I’m on and that we all are on. As far as I know, we all have only One Ultimate Reporting Relationship.  Sometimes we lose sight of this factor when we are chasing someone else’s performance goals.

Whether you have 30 minutes per week or a weekend a month or a week per year, go on a Walkabout. Every year.  While I have been blogging about how the new global economy will force businesses to recalibrate, we all should recalibrate each year. It’s not just a matter of taking stock of our successes and failures – usually economically or professionally related.

Disambiguate yourself.  I am. Let’s take  the time to clarify, define and, quite frankly, get to know ourselves. We will make ourselves less ambiguous, more consistent and clear to others.  Our thoughts and ideas are not compartmentalized but are stored in readily accessible areas in our brains where they can be combined and recombined for innovative strategies and solutions.

Walkabout.  Something you need to decide to do rather than being forced into a situation of self-evaluation by your bosses. It’s your operating system. No one else. You write the operating manual.

Think about it. What is the value of disambiguation in your life?

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , , ,

Taking the low road is never an option. 10 suggestions for goal setting.

January 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There have been a few blogs recently written about setting goals for 2010. I realize all of us are looking forward to 2010 as an alternative to a grim and realistic 2009. Lessons learned. Goals set, for us and by us.

I have 10 suggestions you may want to consider when goal setting in any year.

1.Establish your horizon.  I’m not talking short term goals vs. strategic goals.  Find your personal horizon. As you advance yourself and your career, I certainly hope you are taking the steps to grow yourself as an individual by making contributions to society as well as your company’s – and your own – bottom line. If not, think about it.

2.Relax your timeline. I’m finding many Gen Y’s have a 3 year timeline that includes spec-ing out who they are going to marry (including pedigree!), the type of car they are going to drive, the home they are going to live in, and just what their life is going to look like. Wow.  Sounds prescriptive. Talk about coloring within the lines. What if life doesn’t quite happen that way?

3.Revisit your priorities. Constantly. What’s important to “them” may not really be important to you. Do you run your life by committee? What’s important to you may be relative to your personal experience and the curves that may or may not have been thrown at you up until now. If you get tied to where you are now, you may never end up where you truly are supposed to be, down the road.

4.Be impeccable with your word. This one item is inflexible and immutable. You need to be true to what you say – and what you say you will do. Your word is not the currency of your career advancement, saying one thing to one person and another thing to another person, all for personal gain. All for achieving your personal timeline. Your word is your bond. For life.

5.Develop a sense of stewardship. What do you give back to others? Selflessly? It’s not just a matter of dropping a donation in the mail. Or occasionally volunteering for something.  What are you actively involved with, hands-on? What could you be more actively involved in?

6.Always take the high road. The low road is never an option. Never. Regardless of tactics used by your peers and managers. Reacting to their methods reinforces their success, not yours. They can’t control a person who refuses to fight back using their tactics. Take the high road. It forces them to follow along that path… or at least recognize your path.

7.Taking the high road means finding your personal high road. What does the high road look like to you? It’s great to have a timeline and set goals. Achieving goals doesn’t just happen.  You must choreograph and respond (not react) and have latitude for pursuing optional pathways to achieve your endpoints. You are the constant in all this. Constancy implies a core set of values that are immutable, regardless of circumstances. Your core values make you trustworthy. Are you?

8.Leave room for the epiphany that your personal high road may not be the high road at all. While we all have a sense of immediacy for achieving goals, allow some room for personal growth. You may find that your idea of the high road was merely one rung higher than the low road.  Hint: you may not be the one responsible for identifying the high road for yourself. No kidding.

9.Be honest with yourself and with others. Some folks make value judgments based on what they feel is “fair” at the time. Fair is an over-used word based on a personal sliding scale of what we feel needs to happen in order for us to benefit. Hmmm… fair doesn’t sound fair at all, does it?  Being straight forward and communicating honestly with others as to why you feel compelled to make the decisions you have made is a good habit to develop. Plus you never have to remember what you tell everyone since you tell everyone the same thing. Which makes you not only honest, but trustworthy. I think these days this is called “transparency.” Something to consider. Regardless of semantics.

10.  Take the road less traveled. You’ll find you are not alone. You’ll find that the folks you meet on this road are honest, trustworthy, ethical and have high personal integrity. You will teach them and learn from them.  You will serve and be served by them.  And you will be rewarded in ways that are beyond the limits of your personal goal setting.

The low road is never an option for achieving anything. Don’t even consider it. You short-change yourself …. and others.

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: ,

Note to Self: Rock My Own Boat in 2010

January 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

After the roller coaster ride of sales and technical business development in 2009, I’ve taken the time to examine what’s important to me in terms of how I approach my client relationships. I’ve also taken the time to re-examine how I process information – sales and technical – and how well I communicate what I need to know to the folks I need to know it from. I figure if I can ask better questions, my customers and prospects can give me better answers.

2009 was such a non-traditional business year. Yes, an understatement. It profoundly affected how I now view the entire business development process. So I don’t view 2010 as being a return to the status quo or whatever things were like in 2008, either.Since 2009 rocked my boat – in fact, it rocked everyone’s boat, didn’t it? – I decided to continue rocking my boat. I liked how it felt. Go figure.

Boat rocking keeps me on my toes. I don’t take anything for granted. I don’t make any assumptions. I don’t forget to do my homework when developing new business relationships. I don’t lump my customers and prospects together in terms of a “one approach fits all” business development strategy.

In fact, I go about developing business as though the boat might capsize tomorrow.

Rocking my own boat helps me develop a sense of balance in terms of which customers are just kicking the proverbial tires and which customers are serious in terms of doing business with me. Rocking my own boat keeps my conversation fresh and engaged in what my clients and prospects are saying to me. Rocking my own boat keeps me searching for new ways to identify the factors impacting their decision to buy.

Now, let me clarify myself here. I’m not looking for new ways to manipulate folks into buying what I am selling. I’m looking for questions I need to be asking to assist people in identifying the offline factors impacting the decisions they make daily.

Your customers aren’t going to decide to buy what you are selling until you stop forcing the conversation towards your solution – as their only solution I might add. Your clients and prospects are expecting you to “sell” them. They want you to “pitch” them. So they can commoditize you, quite frankly, as a “typical sales rep” or “typical sales engineer.” However, they just might not be ready to make a decision, even if you are driven to “sell” your solution to them. Even if your solution is right for them.

So I’m learning how to rock my boat and keep it upright. I’m reading a lot of books. Taking training courses.Communicating with clients. Asking questions of peers. Asking a lot better questions of my customers and prospects that impacts how they put information together towards solving their own problems.

Because, like the Wizard of Oz, there’s always somebody (or lots of “somebodies”) behind the curtain pulling lots of strings and jerking chains that are impacting my Client’s decision to purchase a solution or product, from me or anyone. And I figure if I can get a handle on identifying these factors, and ask good questions up front that allow that individual or team to understand the ducks they need to have in a row, I bring value to our relationship.

Making a decision is the hardest thing we ask our customers and prospects to do.I need to understand the decision making process better. This decision making process is not selling, or closing the sale. It’s everything that precedes the actual sales process.It’s why folks decide to place a solution in the first place. It’s why folks decide to put making that decision on hold.

After all, my customers and prospects are the ones with the answers, not me. They best understand how their internal systems work. And I need to understand how to understand their internal systems. Because it impacts their decision making processes and my business development cycle.

A bit complex, yes.

That’s how I am rocking my own boat in 2010.

What are you doing to rock yours?

 

 

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , , , , ,

Are You Putting Yourself In Your Customers’ Shoes, First?

January 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Whether you are involved in business development (aka “sales”) or technical development (aka “engineering / IT”) you need to revisit where the customer fits into your equation. I’m not the first, nor will I be the last, to address this situation. And it’s more important as we crawl out of recession into “where the economy is going.” Because we are the ones impacting that direction. A sobering thought.

Traditionally, business development continues to be all about directing the customer / prospect towards the solution that your company provides. As though that’s the only solution that’s right for them. As though that’s the only thing they have on their minds. I don’t think so.

Traditionally, engineering / IT has focused on emphasizing why their solution offers superiority, flexibility and all answers to all questions compared to what currently is in place or what the competition has to offer. As though the customer is in search of the “next greatest thing.”

When’s the last time you made a decision to upgrade your home internet service? Did you upgrade all of your peripherals at the same time? Did you assess the impact the upgrade would have on all the other gadgets you currently do or don’t have in place at home for hi-def, ISP, communications? Did you do a fair amount of thinking prior to making the purchase, in terms of the economic impact the decision to purchase this solution might have on the State Of Your Home Electronics situation? Or did you run out and blindly purchase the next greatest thing because everyone else had it, or you had to keep up technically?

When’s the last time you made a decision to purchase a new car or truck? And finance it? Based on your current credit score, the lending environment and your perception of your job security?

OK, now let’s get back to business development. And please put yourself in your customer’s and prospect’s shoes. They are the same shoes you wear. Every day. They have a lot more on their minds than what you are selling or the services you offer. They have to factor in a lot of stuff that’s happening behind the scenes in order for them to make a decision to solve their problems and perhaps purchase a solution.

If you are not factoring in the behind-the-scenes stuff into your business development strategy, and “simply” trying to justify why your solution fits their needs, you need to go back to the drawing board. You can identify “needs” all day, and drag the customer over the coals to emphasize how great their need is. But like most individuals, they have made do with and will continue to make do with, the status-quo. Because it’s a known entity and comfortable. Because they may have internal resources committed to making the status-quo continue to work. Not because your solution doesn’t really offer them what they need. It probably does.

There are a lot of behind-the-scenes factors impacting decision making on investing in solutions. By taking into account these factors during your initial business and technical development discussions, you may shorten your sales cycle. And yet this has nothing to do with “selling” or with product or service placement.

It starts by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. First.

How comfortable are you with this strategy?

Think about it.

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