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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 Unintentional Entrepreneur

April 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever thought of starting your own business? Perhaps you feel you can do things much, much better than your current employer. Or you are an academic or a student with a great idea and a path to commercialization by participating in an entrepreneurship program or entering a business competition.

Then again, some of you are unemployed. Or, as I like to say, “displaced,” due to the economy and, perhaps, some gaps or shortcomings in your skill set as well as the ability of your former employer to generate revenue.

You become an unintentional entrepreneur. Then again, you view your displacement from the labor pool as an opportunity to become your own boss and follow your own vision.

Follow it.

With passion, commitment and discipline.

Here are five items which should be at the top of your to-do list when starting your own business. And revisited at least annually as you move forward.

  1. Your Business Model is critical to the future success of your company. Although you may have started your entrepreneurial endeavor from your kitchen table, garage or basement, start with the end in mind. What is your exit strategy? Are you going to license your technology, franchise your idea, start a small and enduring business, or get bought out by a larger entity?
  2. Your Business Model is yours, not theirs. Many older entrepreneurs base their business on companies they worked for in the past. You have an opportunity for a fresh start. Make sure your business model isn’t based on the dysfunction, workarounds and baggage rampant in many mature small businesses. What is going to make your small business successful involves what works for you and your business goals, not what was present (and possibly not working) at your former employer’s facility.
  3. Participating in business plan competitions with your local business incubators can provide a means of polishing your messages and value propositions. These competitions are also a means of receiving some timely pro-bono consulting from the mentors who are assigned to your company. And learning what matters to investors is a valuable experience in growing your business acumen.
  4. Where are your customers? While it’s great to hang out your shingle and start your own business, you need folks to purchase your products and services. Avoid being seduced by former customers who tell you they look forward to working with you at your new company. They won’t. Not because they don’t like you. Because change is uncomfortable and disruptive. You are changing venue and, as a result, are asking them to change their choices as well.
  5. Learn how to have customer conversations that provide value to prospects. This is perhaps the most difficult aspect of entrepreneurism that most people have. And it’s because of their personal experience with the sales process in their former lives. Sales and selling comes at the middle to end of the business development process. Business development is part of everyone’s job description, technical or not. And it starts with customer conversations that focus on industry, trends, technology and economics – you know, the subjects you are most comfortable with anyway. Business development doesn’t sound like a door-to-door peddler. So get rid of that mental image and take responsibility for learning to have those conversations yourself. Don’t leave the most critical part of the success of your business to someone else who may be coming from an outmoded sales paradigm with a status quo sales spiel.

Have I just described you? Let me know.

Keep in mind: you may be an unintentional entrepreneur. However, you are not alone.

 

Filed Under: Business Development, Business Plan, Entrepreneurship, Sales, Small Businesses Tagged With: , , ,

Got JOY? Innovation at Menlo

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had coffee this past Easter Monday with Richard Sheridan, President and CEO of Menlo Innovations, a software factory located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Menlo Innovations isn’t another pretty face in the software universe. The company, the founders, and their unique spin on software innovation, have been featured in Forbes magazine, the Wall Street Journal and earned a spot on the 2007 Inc. 500 List of Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.

Whoa. What’s up with this?

Menlo’s Mission is to “end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology™.”

You know something’s up from the get-go with a mission statement like that.

Menlo gives form, function and strategy to project sponsors who, on their own, would run out of funding and patience. Menlo gives joy to end users, compared to their traditional experience of  being used as a beta test group for most software innovations. Menlo teams work from 9 to 5: no overtime, no missed vacations or family celebrations or broken relationships and unrealistic expectations on the road to projects which go nowhere.

You know you’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, when you walk into the innovation space Menlo Innovations occupies. It’s open. No cubicles. No hierarchy. No corporate silos. No bull. Just a whole lot of collaboration and learning and synergy going on. Based on Thomas Edison’s 120 year old model for his Menlo Park, New Jersey “Invention Factory.”

The most unique aspect of Menlo Innovations is that creativity, innovation, programming, coding, and quality work hand-in-hand, in concert throughout the creative process. With rapid product iteration, validation, testing, and client collaboration, projects move forward at warp speed compared to the status quo of companies trying to accomplish these daunting tasks with  internal resources.  

Mission critical at Menlo Innovations are the High-Tech Anthropologists®, who translate customer needs and provide the unique interface between programmers, software designers, and the real life end users and clients. It is an atmosphere like none other. And the energy is palpable.

Plus, it’s just plain fun to observe. I can imagine what it’s like to be an active participant. And that’s the real essence of Menlo Innovations. It’s all about JOY.

The team culture at Menlo sets them apart. Yes, the company has the right folks for the team. Yes, there is a crazy level of teaching and challenging by these very right people. So everyone gets to the finish line together, with a synergy that should be trademarked. Everyone learns to lead and to follow and to teach and to challenge.

And you thought you created value for your customers. Take a page out of Menlo’s book. In fact, take a training course from Menlo, since “creating value is our passion.” The transparency of their creative process sometimes can create creative tension. Sort of like decision-making plate tectonics. That’s what clients come to Menlo for: to learn how to make the hard calls that result in breakthroughs, enlightened thinking and fluid processes.

I told you it was a culture like none other. And a joyful one.

Software developed by Menlo for its clients is designed for everyday people by Menlo's High-tech Anthropologists®, built to last by Menlo's world-class agile software development team, and managed by a set of professional project managers listed among the nation's 50 Most Prolific by the Project Management Institute.  Sheridan and Menlo have won numerous awards and honors, and he and his team regularly are invited to present nationally and internationally sharing the secrets of the Menlo Software Factory™ with all who wish to learn how to build a Learning Organization that can keep pace with today's advances in software and design.

You can find out more about Menlo Innovations on their website, www.menloinnovations.com. Check out their YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/MenloInnovationsLLC.

 

Filed Under: Collaboration, Customer Focus, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Sales-Engineering Interface™ Tagged With: , , , ,

Selling Your Relevance, Not Your Product

March 30, 2012 By 6 Comments

Have you ever listened to yourself speak with your prospects and customers? If you’ve gone through any type of sales training, the goal of your discussion usually is finding out what your prospective customer “needs”. Then it’s supposed to be a straight-line shot to showing them why your product or technology is the only solution.

So what?

That’s the spiel your current and prospective customers are expecting to hear.

If you are an engineer, and your current and prospective customers call you directly (trying to avoid this commoditized sales scenario), listen to yourself as well. If you’re an engineer, the customer has you from “hello”. You immediately respond by problem solving and offering up solutions. Even if the person on the other end of the phone or computer is shopping your solution – and your willingness to give it up. Even if this individual has bigger fish to fry than the project they are using to vet you, and your company.

So what if you solved their problem in 10 seconds flat? Sort of like engineering roping and hog tying.

Your customers and prospects want a dialogue. A conversation. It isn’t a contest to see how many solutions or suggestions you can come up with. Or how clever you can be responding to questions they throw at you.

Why are you wasting their hard-to-get time?

The best conversations you can have with customers are those conversations even they didn’t know they wanted to have with you. The relevant conversations that involve industry and marketplace dynamics, economies of scale and nations, the context in which they are (trying) to make a decision, and the chaos of their business model.

Bet they didn’t teach you how to have those discussions in business school, sales training or engineering school.

These are the relevant conversations that stick in customers’ minds long after they have them with you. Because they know you took the time to build up your knowledge base beyond the status-quo of selling your solution. Because they appreciate the breadth and depth of your vision. Because they understand how your perspective helps them run their businesses. Because they are grateful for you taking the time to speak with them.

Relevance could be the definition of “value” that everyone’s been throwing around lately. And value’s just a noun in need of a descriptor.

Relevant value.

I like the sound of that.

Filed Under: Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

Do You Develop Your Customers?

March 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Now that’s something to ponder. Since so many of us go forth each day to thrash about the bushes searching for prospects for our products and solutions.

What would happen if the target of our desires wasn't product or solution placement as much as it was  developing prospects into becoming our customers. Our loyal and retained customers. How does that happen?

  1. It starts with customer conversations. About them, not you, your product, your service or your invention. About who they are and what goes on inside their heads. Not that deep-discovery stuff about why your solution is, well, the only solution they would ever need. Maybe you’re convinced. But your customers remain skeptical.
  2. Your customers don’t want your products, services or invention. At least not yet. Because they haven’t heard themselves articulate how your "stuff"  fills some void in their “intangibles”: behavior, lifestyle, job, you name it. Even if your customers and prospects are currently using your competitors’ products. It's not a decision they can make. Yet. Because it's not a discussion they've had, yet, even with themselves.
  3. Your market should be based on who your best customers are. Best customers may not be the folks who currently buy your product. Your best customers are the folks for whom your product or service is designed, based on your knowledge of (you guessed it) customer conversations, early adopters, validation and vetting, design and redesign. Even if you are a mature company.
  4. You business is about modeling what you do to align with the folks you do it for: again, your customers.

The best companies, entrepreneurial or not, start the customer conversation and never end it. Ever. Even if the conversation isn’t pretty. Those are the best kinds of discussions. They are honest. If a customer is telling you exactly what they think – because you’ve asked them to, in partnership and in dialogue rather than as a frustrated rant - you’ve earned that honesty. Congratulations. There’s an opportunity to make your product or service better.

The best customer conversations may talk about products and services outside of your industry segment, and how their attributes successfully fill the void in those customer “intangibles.” Listen, instead of jumping to problem solve. You may pivot towards an even better concept than you started out with. Yes, you’re the expert. But your customer is expert at being the customer. Listen to them. Be open to what they are telling you.

The best business model incorporates customer mindset throughout. All of the customers that are involved from winning the order to receiving payment.  The dialogue involves your internal customers as well as your external ones. Talk to them, constantly. Make them part of your journey. They are the target, as well as the vehicle, of achieving your objectives.

Think what a loyal and retained customer base means to your business model. It starts by working with your customers and teaching them what it means to be part of your business. And they, in turn, will teach you what it means to be their supplier.

It all starts with that first, not-to-be-avoided, customer conversation.

What are you waiting for?

Learn more about customer development. Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU is available on Amazon.com, April 2012. Click on the book title and enjoy!

Filed Under: Business Development, Collaboration, Customer Focus, Entrepreneurship Tagged With: , , , ,

Nancy Nardin and the scoop on software tools

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Nancy Nardin, Founder of Smart Selling Tools, is passionate about sales tools and the impact they can make on business, because it’s hard to separate the two these days. Smart Selling Tools is the interface between software buyers and software providers. It's a destination website for any individual involved in business development for their company: they can find software-based tools to help them remain productive throughout the business development cycle.

I spoke with Nancy recently about how today’s business owners need to develop greater understanding about software tools and how these tools impact revenue generation – regardless of the size of your business. This blog post summarizes the top talking points of our discussion.

To listen to the audio download of our conversation, click here.

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Talking Point 1: The biggest issue for buyers is that they don’t really care about buyer tools.

Nancy Nardin and Smart Selling Tools is in a unique position: she works with vendors to enhance communication to buyers and she works with buyers to better articulate their needs and increase their knowledge base of software selling tools. 

Businesses are busy. And Nancy perceives it’s hard for them to keep up with running their business while staying on top of technology trends. Technology isn’t what they turn to first, as a solution, because it's an unknown and they aren't comfortable.  Nardin feels that businesses turn to their reps (or engineers who sell) first and try to squeeze more out of them: make more calls, get good leads, see more people, generate more revenue.  It's an old model.

Talking Point 2: There’s this little thing called sales capacity.

Nancy emphasizes there are only so many hours in a day for a squeezed sales rep to remain engaged and productive. There is a limited capacity. If you want to increase productivity, you have to look at it from the perspective of capacity. If you want reps to go on more calls, you can’t ask them to get more involved filling out sales reports.

In addition, entrepreneurs and small businesses usually have one person covering multiple functions. The owners and employees are constantly running out to sell their services or products, design or produce output, assemble the final outcome and ship it, and invoice their customers. They lose the flow of business development while they are “doing.”  Nancy feels that sales productivity tools can help with this situation.

Entrepreneurs and start-ups tend to be risk-takers by nature, so they may be more apt to try sales tools. On the other hand, they have fewer resources. These companies tend to focus on the basics, such as setting up email and perhaps online meeting services or collaboration platforms. Nancy encourages them to think about appointment scheduling tools that do away with all the back and forth "busy" activity, as well as marketing automation tools which identify trigger events, create content marketing, and generate leads.

She doesn’t think certain industries are more savvy than others in using selling tools, but everyone needs to start looking at how business tools can help them – no matter how small your company is.  In the next year, companies using these tools will have an advantage over those that don’t.

Talking Point 3: Sales Tools are software productivity services that help you develop business.

Most entrepreneurs are technologists and engineers: they have brilliant minds to create amazing products (even software applications!) but they don’t understand the sales environment. Nancy feels that sales productivity tools help small business owners and start-ups learn about the sales process. 

Most of what is coming out is Cloud-based, where you subscribe vs. own the software outright. Most people think of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) when she talks about sales tools, but there are a lot more out there.

Automating even the appointment-setting process or CRM, allows you to keep your fingers on the pulse of leads and where you are in terms of the sales cycle. It’s not about waiting for people to call your company. You have to define a way of being proactive and reaching out to potential customers.

Talking Point #4: Sales productivity tools help you identify where companies are in the buying process

People are busy. There are sparse opportunities to sell face-to-face.  Nancy feels that  pressured vendors end up pitching products rather than determining what product will solve a business issue. Many buyers come to the vendor already having researched what it is that they want to buy. As a seller, you want to avoid this situation because, otherwise, you don’t have any power.

Nancy suggests implementing  marketing automation technology. It puts code on every page of your website. Then offer content, say a webinar, something to entice someone to complete a web form. Once completed, you can track when the visitor returns to your website and where they searched. If you visitor has visited your website three times in the last week, and the last time she went to the pricing section,  you can set up alerts so this visitor becomes a high priority.

Talking Point #5: Be aware of trigger events.

Nancy offered the example of OneSource software, which allows you to set up alerts based on triggers. If you sell office furniture, you may want to set up alerts when your best accounts set up new offices, for example, so you proactively contact that company before they start searching for a supplier.

(Babette’s note: let’s say you are a custom manufacturer of aerospace mil-spec components, and company X was awarded a sizable contract from company Y. Now you can contact them and congratulate them before they create their component vendor specs. Spec yourself in!).

Trigger events allow you to be ahead of the trends and on top of industry information. It becomes a differentiator for you. So instead of showing up and starting to pitch away to the customer, you can offer insight from the buyer’s perspective, instead.

Talking Point #6: There’s a chasm between where businesses “are” and where vendors think they “are.”

Nancy emphasized that vendors (even entrepreneurial start-ups) think differently than buyers do. The vendor is thinking about their solution. The buyer is thinking about their business problem. Vendors think they should sell electronic solutions software. Buyers are thinking: “Why are my contracts taking so long to close?” Vendors have so little time with buyers that they are trying to squeeze too much information into these meetings.  Instead, take the time to understand the buyer’s perspective instead of prematurely pitching your solution.

Nancy feels a big disconnect is that vendors think buyers know what their technology needs are. They don't. Vendors rush to tell all about their product,  but they don’t do so much showing, to determine if the software even meets a buyer’s need.

Talking Point #7: Nancy Nardon’s “Show and Tell” series bridges the buyer-vendor knowledge gap.

Remember how exciting “show and tell days” were in kindergarten? Why? People need to see how something works before they have “aha!” moments. Since Nancy receives so many demos from her vendors, she thought: why not offer them to buyers? In her virtual online show-and-tell webinar series, she asks vendors questions and buyers can ask questions online.

Nancy thinks the sales process is a lot like dating. Vendors are ready to sell their product now! Sellers are pressured to close sales quickly without establishing a relationship. Buyers aren’t ready for that. First the buyer has to acknowledge they even have a problem, and then that it’s urgent, and then that there’s a downside to doing nothing.

Register for upcoming Show and Tell webinars at this link: 

February 21st:   Front Row Solutions - Easy sales activity reporting by mobile phone with 95% compliance

February 23rd:  DocuSign - Have customers sign your orders electronically. See how easy it is to get deals signed faster.

Nancy Nardin, and Smart Selling Tools, is giving away $100,000 of software licenses in 3 different categories generously donated by six different vendors.There are 12 month licenses with no strings attached via random drawing. Go to her site and register. You may win  software for your company!

In serving the technical and IT communities, I’ve found there is a gap in what these communities know and don’t know about the various sales tools out there to drive revenue. It's one thing to design software solutions, it's another thing to implement them for your own revenue generation! We can all learn from one another. Sales Aerobics for Engineers blog will feature updates to the “Show and Tell” series, so stay tuned! The fulcrum leveraging innovative business development is collaboration between technical and non-technical professionals.

 

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

Are Mature Small Businesses 2nd Stage Entrepreneurships?

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had coffee last week with one of my colleagues, the CEO of a venture capital firm.

We compared our experiences working with student and adult entrepreneurs and ended up wondering out loud if mature small businesses were similar to second stage entrepreneurships.

Read on….

What would you show me if I asked you for your business plan? If you have one, it’s probably the document you put together to gain initial funding from a financial institution (compared to an angel investor or a venture capital fund, as is the case with high tech entrepreneurs, for example). Is this crucial document, the manifesto of your idealism and business passion, now collecting dust? Many mature small businesses figure that if they have a positive cash flow, are winning contracts, have a back log of work and can make payroll, they are in good shape. And so it goes.

Perhaps you own a business or are thinking about starting one. Some of you have been in business for 10 or more years, and have weathered – and successfully survived – a financial storm or two. Well done! So what is/was your business plan, other than a great idea that has some durability?

A business plan is a diagnostic tool for your business, like an annual physical exam. It lets you know whether your company is in good shape to move forward, diversify your product mix, purchase capital equipment to target a new market or technology, or partner with another company on a larger project.

Flash forward 3-5 years. When I ask clients what their “business looks like” they describe the environment built up to support their habits so they maintain positive cash flow – whether it makes sense or not.

They describe their status quo, not a business plan.

And if they have a business model to begin with, guess what it looks like now? Yup, their status quo, or the way things function to maintain their current rate of cash flow. What happened to that start-up passion and idealism?

Once cash starts rolling in, that status quo mindset is preserved at all costs - even if it prevents growing your business to the next level.

Second-stage entrepreneurial ventures have been in business for a while, too. Investment groups require these companies to fulfill milestones to protect anticipated return on investment. Their business plans are not allowed to collect dust and their business models pivot during this process. Ideally, these companies are coached to stay on task.

These second stage entrepreneurial ventures have products, sales coming in and peaks and valleys in cash flow, focus, marketing, business development, supply chain, and just about every aspect of running a business. The CEOs of these mature start-ups wear their sales hat to win business, swap that hat for the engineering hat to design the solution, put on the General Manager’s hat to outsource for production, and put on a firefighter’s hat when there’s a quality issue or when they have to take their place on the assembly line to get the product out the door. Oh, and then they put on their accounting hat to invoice their customer, pay bills and create payroll. It’s not always smooth sailing.

Does this sound like your own company – and I’m talking about small businesses with 3-20 employees and annual gross revenue of less than 1– 7.5 million USD.  That's a wide business range, but the profiles are similar.  If you looked at your financials and business model for the past years you’ve been in business, would you find yourself in the same place or ahead of the game…. And by how much, really?

We can all learn a lesson from the technology start-up community. These companies are coached so they don’t fall into those bad habits  reinforced when cash starts to flow. Yes, they still get tsunami’d by all the stuff they have to do to stay afloat. But their business plan and model is always part of the goal.

Perhaps you should be asking yourself “what does the status quo look like for my business?” You may find your loyalty to preserving the status quo holds you back from achieving the next stage of business growth.

Your thoughts?

Interested in learning more about how the status quo may not be the formula for perpetuating your career or your company? Go to www.doyoumeanbusiness.com and sign up to receive updates for my book, Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU, scheduled for release March 2012.

Filed Under: Business Plan, Entrepreneurship, Small Businesses Tagged With: , ,

Do YOU Mean Business?

November 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

Do you dread those Monday morning cross-functional, technical / non-technical meetings? It doesn’t have to be that way, you know.

You can start by asking yourself how you impact your company’s revenue stream. Which generates your paycheck, by the way. If you feel the responsibility for generating business is up to someone else -traditionally the sales guys and gals - I’ve got news for you. It’s up to you, as well. In collaboration with everyone in your organization who touches the customer. Even if you are a technical professional.

Now that’s something to think about…

How capable are you participating in today’s business development continuum if you are unable to put yourself in your customers’ shoes? And that includes your internal customers from other disciplines, seated across the table from you in those dreaded Monday morning meetings.

I was interviewed on November 4 about my book: Do YOU Mean Business? Technical / Non-technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU. For those readers who do, as well as those who do not, know my platform: I have a firm belief that successful business development is fueled by businesses, organizations, and institutions which value synergy between technical and non-technical professionals.

Have I just described your workplace? Or how you were educated and trained? There’s a rather large gap between the ideal and the real, I’m afraid. So how can you, as a technical or non-technical professional, span that conceptual, discipline-driven communication and collaboration gap?

Businesses are losing revenue because of lack of collaboration across technical and non-technical disciplines. Especially those businesses organized with a traditionally siloed infrastructure. Which describes the majority of business models. In this type of vertical organization, there isn’t much opportunity for lateral flow of information across departments or even disciplines.

I’ve been a “simultaneous translator” between technical and non-technical disciplines for most of my career. Even though I came from very technically focused training, I have always worked across disciplines. I eventually became the “go-to” individual for my company, due to my bringing a broad-based perspective to cross-functional team meetings. Oh, did I tell you that this perspective was productive and profitable for the companies I’ve
worked with and for?

I’ve had the privilege of working with manufacturers and technical service companies over the past few decades. And I am a coach and mentor for some very bright, yet very frustrated, engineering and business school graduates working for major companies. I can tell you that this cross-functional disconnect fueled by our professional disciplines is very much alive and well. Why am I hearing the same stuff I heard when I was a corporate newbie?

I sometimes spend more time untangling the misconceptions of discipline-driven status-quo, or “the way things are” mindset, than I do working on pointing mentees, companies and start-ups in the right direction. Something has to change.

My book takes what I know, that “simultaneous translation” not-so-soft pretty powerful skill set, and teaches it to you. You can’t move forward until you understand what is holding you back. This book gives you a 50,000 foot eagle’s eye view of the business development landscape so you can develop the mindset and communication skill set to increase the value you provide to yourself, your clients and your organization. Oh, and we work on business development and revenue generation skill sets, too. After all, that’s the main event.       

This book was inspired by my clients, colleagues, mentees and my network. The book is written for business owners,  C-level executives, VP's of Engineering, Sales or Business Development, Sales Engineers, recent technical or non- technical graduates and entrepreneurs who want to be “more than” rather than the “same as.”  And it’s written for technical and non-technical professionals who are beginning to understand that all the degrees, certifications, and expensive education that you have invested in are not going to make you bullet-proof and your job secure in this competitive global environment.

If you’d like to hear the complete audio version of my interview about my new book, Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU  click on the book title link and opt-in to receive the audio download, updates about my book, and some great gifts I will be providing as we move towards the launch date of February, 2012.

What are you waiting for?

 

Filed Under: Books, Business Development, Do YOU Mean Business, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Sales, sales engineering, Sales-Engineering Interface™, Simultaneous Translation, Startups Tagged With: , , , ,

Understanding why you work for other people

February 16, 2011 By 2 Comments

Not all of us dream of owning our own businesses .  Not all of us have a personal goal of working for ourselves.

Then, again, some of us have been displaced or have watched our businesses become less and less profitable over time.  Out of necessity, practicality and a need for cash flow in our lives, we are working for someone else.  Either for the first time or once again.

Let’s face it. Employment is good and some employment is better than other employment.  You may be recent engineering and IT/technical graduates looking for your first opportunities, newbies experiencing your first engineering jobs, or “seasoned” individuals currently employed under contract or as a permanent employee.  Regardless of your place in the continuum, understanding why you work for other people can be an important part of your career development and the value you bring to your company’s  table.

The nature and concept of the workforce is changing.  Contractual employees as well as virtual employees may become the norm for certain industries, per my recent January 27, 2011 post.  And you just may have the persona that lends itself to creating a successful career as a productive serial employee. ( A caveat here: I’m not condoning those employees who have a history of not being able to hold a job. There are other factors at work in this latter scenario that are outside the scope of this blog.)

US engineering schools are looking at a globally diverse undergraduate and graduate student composition. And they are trying to retain these graduates as a means of human resource / asset management. Otherwise there’s a big brain drain. (“Global and Virtual Teamwork”, Aditya Johri, J Eng Educ (Washington, D.C.) 99  no1  Jan 2010). And that works for engineering and technical needs going both ways across both oceans.  This aspect needs to be a strong consideration of business planning for companies hiring permanent and contracted employees.

With this changing employment paradigm within the technical communities, ask yourself why you want to work for someone else.  Surely working for others reduces your personal and professional overhead.  The employer assumes most of the risk (including liability), even if you don’t receive benefits (unless you’ve negotiated those benefits).  The employer has an established business base from which to draw revenue, which saves you the trouble of rustling bushes and beating the pavement, email and phone to establish your professional reputation and win business.  You have defined responsibilities, against which you should excel.  While you may be on a set contract, you should use this opportunity as a means of fine-tuning the aspects of business and technical expertise which are of interest to you, while not short-changing your employer in those areas which aren’t your cup of tea.

We have all have been in a situation where we grow frustrated working for others.  We want “something more” and look outside the box for answers. We feel we could do a better job of running the business. For those of you in this situation, I encourage you to understand ALL that is required to finance and implement a business before you make that judgment. There’s a lot on business owners’ plates from the git go. You don’t just set yourself up as a figurehead leader and expect things to fall in place.   If you are frustrated,  learn about the infrastructure, dynamics and discipline of running a business instead of getting sidetracked by personalities and water-cooler politics.  

The contracted technical workforce should always looking for their next job opportunity because there is no guarantee of the contract turning into permanent employment.  Even if you work for an agency which places engineers and technical professionals. No matter what your current employer told you. In fact there is no guarantee that permanent employees are guaranteed their jobs, either.

It’s up to you to identify available resources who will help you develop the knowledge and skillsets which provide value to your current employer as well as future employers.  Engineers and IT professionals with business acumen, who have cross-trained as undergraduates and graduates, and who are comfortable working virtually and globally may have a distinct advantage as the paradigm of the workforce changes. And this goes for community college graduates and individuals attending technical training schools, as well.

And besides, having a broader context in which to place your technical expertise can only be a plus if you decide, after all, that you have entrepreneurial tendencies.

Think about it.

Filed Under: Business Development, Core Capabilities, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Job Functionality, Sales, sales engineering, Startups Tagged With: , , , , ,
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