March 2009 Entries
As managers, we often forget that salespeople have a very high ego-drive (how is it possible to forget that?). As we tighten budgets while at the same time demanding more from our people, one of the simplest things we can do is make a personal effort to “reward” our staff with guidance, kudos, and enthusiastic compliments. For example:
1. Express Appreciation. When management recognizes and expresses thanks for their efforts, personal and group morale will rise. How hard is that? So when your people make noteworthy contributions, express your appreciation promptly, often, and with sincerity.
2. Don’t Praise mediocrity. But be careful, recognition applied improperly...
I take my inspiration from many sources. Today’s message was triggered by John Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School, who recently posted a piece on the HBS Working Knowledge site entitled “Marketing after the Recession.”
In it, he outlines recommendations for how to plan ahead…for AFTER the current recession. (The points are his; the comments primarily mine):
1. Focus on high-potential customers: Focus on building good relationships with your best customers and prospects. Don’t overlook the importance of amazing customer service and networking. Call some customers to let them know that you feel their pain, and are there for them whenever they are ready.
2. ...
In sales, I have found that you generally encounter three kinds of people:
STALLERS: those empowered to stall by asking for more information, to delay, to send you on a wild ride to answer all their questions (based on the old saw: “the prospect is always right.”)
Those who SEEM to stall, because they do not have the authority to say YES.
And a small number of prospects who are actually authorized to say YES.
Generally, there is little chance of moving a prospect from one category to...
The world is now better. Google announced yesterday that they are adding some much needed enhancements to their Gmail system:
PROBLEM: You click SEND and then realize that there is a mistake (or incorrect address) in the email. Gmail has solved your dilemma: if you realize you want to cancel an email within 5 seconds, you can UNDO SEND. Cool. That can save some uncomfortable situations!
PROBLEM: You send an email referencing an ATTACHMENT, and you forgot to attach it. DUH! Gmail has solved this issue by installing the capability to identify the word “attachment” in the body, and “bounce”...
From Wikipedia: A pivot table is a “data summarization tool found in data visualization programs such as spreadsheets. Among other functions, they can automatically sort, count, and total the data stored in one table or spreadsheet and create a second table displaying the summarized data. Pivot tables are also useful for quickly creating cross tabs. The user sets up and changes the summary's structure by dragging and dropping fields graphically. This "rotation" or pivoting of the summary table gives the concept its name.”
What pivot tables do is shift --- or change --- the perspective of data, creating a new view to...
In his classic book, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter outlines five forces that shape competition:
· New competitors enter the market
· Rivalry among existing competitors intensifies
· Substitute products arrive
· Buyers use their buying power to squeeze margins
· Suppliers assert greater bargaining power
Porter's book studies the reasons that some industries are destined to be more profitable than others. This is useful for businesses that can easily exit their original industry and dive into another, more profitable sector - but it doesn't give much hope to those of us who are...
Once again I ride the Seth Express to jump start my blog. He just has such great --- and timely --- ideas.
We’ve all been hit by decreases in our revenue and projects, often leaving us with open time in our schedules. Of course, we need to use that time for additional business development efforts for when things open up again, but even that effort sometimes doesn’t take up the day.
So what are you doing with your “slack time”? What can you “build” over the next year that will put that slack to good use, and create an “asset” that you'll own forever?
Godin offers...
Ayn Rand? Provoking your customers? Social networking, redux? Hurry up and wait? Tom Peters?
These are all subjects I planned to write about this week. But didn’t. My excuse is that I have been busy…a POSITIVE excuse in these slow times. But I still feel guilty.
These subjects are now closer to the front burner. Watch this space…
“They always say time changes things, but actually you have to change them yourself."
--Andy Warhol, American artist