Do You Mean Business | Sales Aerobics for Engineers ® Blog

Do YOU Mean Business – Finalist, Top Sales & Marketing Book Awards 2012

December 6, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

The Monday after Thanksgiving, Jonathan Farrington told me that my book, Do YOU Mean Business: Technical / Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU, is named Finalist, Top Sales and Marketing Book, Top Sales & Marketing Awards, 2012. This contest honors finalists in 11 business categories for their contributions to the fields of sales and marketing. The winners of the award will be announced via a live, online ceremony, on December 18.

What an honor to be named a finalist for this prestigious award!
What an honor to be part of the consortia of 12 authors selected as this year’s finalists!
What an honor to have written a book inspired by my discussions with all of YOU. Our dialogues are very much a part of my book!

Tipping Dominoes

April 15, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

Remember what you were doing in September 2008? That’s when the sales paradigm, and the global economy, broke into a million little pieces. And all the kings horses and all the kings men are still re-assembling the component parts. But not the same way, ever again.

For those of you still waiting for things to go back to the post-industrial mindset economic halcyon days… they are over. Your expertise is needed. More than ever. To be part of the new business development paradigm. And that paradigm favors individuals who are comfortable working cross-functionally. Who are comfortable on both sides of the technical/non-technical table. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: collaboration, cross-functional mindset, Do You Mean Business, technical/non-technical collaboration

Jill Konrath’s Foreward – Do YOU Mean Business? by Babette N. Ten Haken

March 8, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

The sales process is tough. If you’re in sales, you know how much time it takes to set up meetings with potential prospects. They’re not receptive to your advances. They’d rather stay with the status quo than change. The budgets are tight and all they’re concerned about is price.

If you’re a technical professional who’s involved in the sales process, you’re under pressure to make pitches that convince prospects to do business with your firm. But for some reason, what you’re told to do just doesn’t feel right.

Sound familiar? The truth is, in the past few years your prospects have changed – radically. Since virtually everything they need to know can be found online, they don’t need to meet with you. Nor do they have the time. Everyone is crazy-busy, trying to handle more work and impossible deadlines with fewer resources.

As a result, their expectations of us, as sellers and technical professionals, have changed, too. They’re tougher on us. More demanding. We have to prove we’re a valuable resource before they’ll even consider having a relationship with us. But saying good things about ourselves or our company falls on deaf ears.

Despite all this, fewer than 10 percent of sellers have altered how they approach prospective clients, create opportunities, or differentiate themselves from competitors.

To be successful today requires a major rethinking of “what works.” In my first book, Selling to BIG Companies, I introduced new strategies to help sellers get their foot in the door of targeted accounts. In my second book, SNAP Selling, I focused on new strategies for dealing with frazzled, harried decision-makers.

Babette Ten Haken challenges stereotypes as well. I first met her seven years ago, when she called me with a question. Having recently taken on a sales role, she was perplexed at the divisions between the sales and technical functions. And, she felt like she was being pushed to do things that not only didn’t work, but also compromised her belief system.

She was right. And since that initial conversation, she’s been a woman on a mission to help sales and technical professionals be more successful with business development. In Do YOU Mean Business?, she challenges traditional stereotypes and shows you what actually works in today’s business environment.

You’ll find answers to questions such as:

What should your sales process look and sound like when you’re interfacing with prospects and current customers?
What resources are available to you as technical and non-technical professionals working together?
How can you become valuable resources to your customer’s decision making?

If you knew more about Babette’s background, you’d realize just how much she knows where you’re coming from. Trained as a scientist, she spent years facilitating left brain-right brain meetings as a marketing research professional in the pharmaceutical industry. Following that, she transitioned into total quality management and Voice of the Customer research.

To her, the cross-over interface between sales, business development, and engineering is fluid. For over 25 years, she’s been doing this “simultaneous translation” between technical and non-technical colleagues that resulted in very productive and profitable outcomes.

When you read Do YOU Mean Business? you’ll see what I mean. She’ll shake up your perceptions and then deftly guide you through what it takes to be successful. It’s well worth your time to read it.

- Jill Konrath, business strategist and author, author of Selling to BIG Companies and SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers

Receive a complementary audio download of an interview Babette Ten Haken gave about her book, as well as a download of Chapter 1 of Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU by clicking on the image of the book in the upper right hand corner of the DYMB site. Available on Amazon.com in April, 2012.

Filed Under: Angels, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Book Reviews, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Professional Development & Social Selling, Sales & Engineering Collaboration, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: babette ten haken, cross-functional mindset, Do You Mean Business, Jill Konrath, sales-engineering interface, technical/non-technical collaboration

Understand Your Clients’ Motivations – Part 2

January 25, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, I created the first part of this two-part series called Understand Your Clients’ Motivations – Part 1, on this blog site, Sales Aerobics for Engineers Blog. Part 1 focused on how we all make assumptions about the business development and sales process that we shouldn’t be making.

Today, the second part of this two-part series is published as a guest post on the award-winning CivilEngineeringCentral.com Blog. Part 2 focuses on how we never really understand our customers’ decision-making process. And it certainly isn’t ever made in a straight line.

I invite you to read the second part (and first if you missed it).

Let me know what you think.

Want to know more about how to develop business and have those sales conversations with potential clients – even if you are an engineer / technical professional? My book, Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU is coming out Q1. Learn more about it by clicking on the book title, above!

Don’t forget to connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook!

Filed Under: Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: business development, civil engineering, collaboration, Do You Mean Business

Everyone is a Customer of Everyone Else

January 16, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken Leave a Comment

Everyone has customers, both in the workplace and in the marketplace. The concept that everyone is a customer of everyone else, just like “do unto others,” should be a second skin we wear effortlessly, naturally. It’s not a shallow phrase we pay lip service to. Or a flavor-of-the-month concept that we apply-as-needed.

Serving our customers, and treating everyone we come into contact with as a potential customer, should be second-nature to the way we are hard-wired. It should become part of our personal core values.

Why is this such a difficult concept for so many of us to wrap our minds around?

Your customer includes everyone you come in contact with during the course of your workday, including yourself. When you think about it, your interactions with your customers, both internal (coworkers and colleagues) and external (revenue-producing entities that purchase or rent your company’s products, goods, or services), represent a continuous business development process.

Perhaps some of your internal customers are the folks at your company with whom you do not want to be associated! (But you need to work with them in order to accomplish project objectives.) Then there the internal customers, your colleagues, with whom you do your best work. The same holds true for your customer base: you enjoy creating deliverables for some of these folks while the relationship and process of working with other customers is right up there with root canal.

How can you create opportunities so your workday and responsibilities involve engaging more with those individuals and on those projects for which you produce your best output? And how can you gradually shift the balance of your workload away from the status quo order-taker colleagues and clients, so that you increase your level of innovation, collaboration and value?

How you define “customers” becomes your delivery of your vision and your professional expertise, and your ability to create value for your organization. It’s how you move from being perceived as an order-taker to serving your customers as an innovator and leader.

Think input, output and throughput. And for you sales professionals, think of a 4 x 100 meter relay race: from whom are you receiving the baton, what is the function of your particular leg of the race, and to whom are you handing off that baton?

Everyone is a customer of everyone else. It is just that simple.

Yet it is difficult to take this position with impending performance reviews, still more downsizing, and the tendency of some of our illustrious colleagues to treat the workplace with their own sense of entitlement (which translates into ‘do something unto someone else before they can do something unto you’). Not very professionally or ethically uplifting, I’d say.

If we perceive and treat our professional relationships as a matter of stewardship and paying forward to our colleagues and clients, our productivity and profitability might take a turn for the better.

We all are in this together. Think about how you can alter your role in the status quo so that your colleagues – even the ones you don’t care to work with – cannot help but have a positive outcome based on innovative collaboration.

Once you change your approach, the domino effect starts. It’s unavoidable. And you start to lead by example. The opportunities you start to create (or you perceive as “coming your way”) align more directly with your core values and capabilities.

You get on your customers’ A-list and they, in turn, are on yours.

It starts with moving yourself 1 millimeter outside of your comfort level and their status quo. It starts with your collaborating with your technical and non-technical colleagues, rather than competing with them (save that strategy for your marketplace competitors).

After all, the fulcrum for leveraging innovative business development is collaboration between technical and non-technical professionals.

What role will you choose to take?

Interested in reading more about technical/non-technical collaboration? Join the discussion at www.doyoumeanbusiness.com and receive updates and downloads about my book, set for publication in March, 2012!

Filed Under: Angels, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: business development, collaboration, Do You Mean Business, technical/non-technical collaboration

Looking forward to Monday Morning Meetings?

January 8, 2012 By Babette Ten Haken 2 Comments

Do you dread Monday Morning Meetings? Do you “turn off and tune out” until it’s your turn to speak?

By the time you read this blog post, you will be: 1) anticipating tomorrow’s meeting, 2) heading towards that meeting, 3) completing the meeting (or reading this blog post on your iPhone during the actual meeting because you have “tuned out”) or, 4) heading off to yet another one of those meetings.

Most of us perceive Monday Morning meetings as the Start of This Week’s Infighting. Someone rings the bell and we all start in again. Reinforcing the status-quo behaviors that keep our company, and us, spinning our collective wheels instead of moving ourselves forward.

Instead of battling our competitors, we are consumed by internal skirmishes.

It doesn’t have to be that way, you know. You can’t move forward, however, until you understand what is holding you back.

Think about having a Monday morning cross-functional team meeting that everyone looks forward to. What would happen in order to achieve that endpoint?

Work to dislodge yourself from the “Us versus Them” status-quo mindset.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had each other’s backs? In the status-quo Monday Morning scenario, everyone ends up at each other’s throats! Not a pretty picture. But one that is played out in countless companies, every Monday morning and on, into the workweek. It’s the way it’s always been done.

Aren’t you supposed to be a well-oiled team working towards unseating your competitors, instead of each other? Yes, I thought so, too. So what happened?

Understand why your functional role is not the same as your job description

Your job title may sound impressive but may carry little weight in terms of your functional role regarding decision-making and impacting your company’s revenue stream. Who are the real decision makers in your organization? What are their criteria for decision making? How can you become a positive influence on revenue generation?

And here is a clue card: if you are not impacting business development and revenue generation for your company, your job may not be as secure as you think it is – even if you are a technical professional.

Techno-babble and business-speak create barriers to collaboration and revenue generation

You can’t 1) have anyone’s back and 2) impact revenue generation if 3) no one understands what you are saying. Including your peers. Everyone tends to sling around professional lingo to show others that they fit in and can run with the pack.

Yes, we all know you are very, very smart and have a tremendous educational pedigree. By being exclusive, however, you are boxing yourself out from being an impactful collaborator and communicator. Think about that one.

Take the perspective of a CEO, and lead rather than “do” as you learn about business planning.

You are the CEO of your career. If you want your colleagues to ask you what you think, rather than if you can perform project tasks, start leading yourself first and foremost. Instead of criticizing management direction, learn to think like a CEO.

Understand the context of the decisions you always seem to be on the receiving end of. By learning about the business planning and modeling processes, you can start impacting those decisions.

Engage colleagues and customers in simultaneous translation: the ability to perceive, think and communicate to both technical as well as non-technical professionals.

Seeking engagement, rather than exclusivity within status-quo discipline driven corporate structures, means you’re collaborating. Becoming a productive and profitable member of your company’s business development process creates your value. And translates this value to your colleagues, company and customers as well.

It’s really a rather fluid set of business development dynamics in the long run.

Your thoughts?

Learn more about technical/non-technical collaboration, business development and your role. Opt-in to receive downloads from my book, Do YOU Mean Business? as we move towards the book launch date!

Filed Under: Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales & Engineering Collaboration, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: business development, collaboration, Do You Mean Business, job functionality

The Road We Traveled in 2011

December 20, 2011 By Babette Ten Haken 2 Comments

The two weeks of the Holiday Season leading up to the New Year are a time of reflection for many of us, although it sometimes doesn’t seem like it. We are lining up our road maps for 2012: identifying the referral network for our prospecting (because we’ve finally learned that cold calling and churning and burning through leads lists doesn’t work). We are trying to get projects completed and invoiced by the end of the year to insure cash flow. We are deciding whether the roads we travel on are leading us somewhere productive and relevant, let alone profitable.

It can become chaotic and overwhelming. Unless you take a step back to gain a greater perspective of what’s going on. And keep stepping back until you get a 10,000 foot eagle’s eye view of the situation.

What roads will we travel on, together, in 2012? We’ve certainly traversed some interesting technical and non-technical geography in 2011.

As I tee up for 2012 blogging about some great topics, including customer experience, sales and the technical professional, liberating yourself from your professional status-quo, and some tools for smarter selling, I’ve revisited the roads we’ve traveled on, together, this year.

It’s because of our collaborative dialogues, your feedback, and the professional inspiration you’ve given me that I have a book coming out in February! I’ve made some major pivots in the direction of my business this year as well. I am a life-long learner. And I learn from the folks I work with as well as work for. I am always expanding my sandbox, and this year was no exception.

In mentoring and coaching entrepreneurs (both start-ups and and mid-level funding companies), I have the same dialogue I’ve always had when working with manufacturers and engineering-intensive service companies. The venture capital venue provides some very provocative discussions with companies who recognize it’s time to move beyond “the way we’ve always done things” towards “the way we need to do things.” And since they are already “there,” these businesses are open to dialogue and collaboration. Which are very gratifying discussions to have since so many companies are resistant to moving one millimeter outside of their status-quo comfort levels.

In reflecting the roads more, as well as less, traveled together this year, I’d like you to take a look at the page on my blog called Top Blog Posts . I keep it updated based on your comments, re-Tweets, Shares on LinkedIn and relevance to the professional communities and target markets in which I work.

When you get some down time this week or next, or even for a quick momentum-boost, take a look at these blogs which your colleagues found the most intriguing and provocative in 2011.

Your Best Sales Partner May Be An Engineer

Think You Have All The Answers? Did You Ask The Right Questions?

Being Relevant To Your Customers

Do YOU Mean Business?

Are You Chasing Around Customers and Prospects Who Are In Crisis Mode?

Lessons Learned from Spinner Dolphins

Did You Write Your Own Instruction Manual?

So Has It Turned Out The Way You Thought It Would?

Are You Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid?

The Power of Your Personal Brand in Space-Time

Understanding Why You Work for Other People

Your Financial Plan is Your Business Pulse

Take a read and let me know what you think, as you move forward into the new business year. These posts range from business planning to career development to website design to core personal values. There’s a lot of good food for thought.

Thank you for your readership this year.

Most importantly, thank you for your collective and collaborative inspiration.

Looking forward to continuing our dialogue!

BTH

Filed Under: Book Reviews, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: business development, core personal values, Do You Mean Business, engineers, entrepreneurs, professional development

Do YOU Mean Business?

November 9, 2011 By Babette Ten Haken 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?