The Old Dutch Open

We have an event in my family started by my uncle Jim 32 years ago called the Old Dutch Open. The Old Dutch is a Frisbee Golf tournament that is held every spring on my Great Grandparents farm in Southern Ohio. Every spring around 20 participants gather, along with many additional family and extended family members, to celebrate life.

Official Sponsor of The ODO

I have learned many life lessons at this event, and as I often do, I’ll share some of them with you here and explain how they make sense to me.

The first lesson I learned was give everyone a chance to join. There are a lot of different kinds of people who play, and that makes it more enjoyable. Some of them are family that I have known all my life. Some, friends of the family that I’ve know my whole life as well. Some went to college with my Uncle, I have known them since the start of the tournament 32 years ago and are now like family. Then there is everyone else, friends of friends, one time players, school friends of the children of the players, work friends, it goes on and on.

Why was this important? When I started working with salespeople, I found them like players at the Old Dutch. Some I were closer to, some not so much, but I had to play with all of them. Not only play with them, but compete at a high level. Learning coping skills for different personalities helps a lot. Everyone in your organization needs to be given the chance to join in and win.

17th Green

The second lesson is truly a life lesson. Sometimes you are leading, sometimes in last. Some days things come easy, some days not. Luck may be with you, or playing against you. Guess what? You still have to play. Grip your Frisbee, look where you want to throw it, wind up and let it go, watch it fly, keeping your eyes on it because it rarely lands exactly where you aimed. Walk to the Frisbee and do it all over again. Sometimes you don’t have a good throw, or a good option to make the next throw so you have to make the best shot you can, because you do have to throw.

Just like life. Make a decision, see the results, make the next decision based on your options. After the game is over you can look back at the bad decisions or missed opportunities, while you are playing you have to think about the next shot. I have seen salespeople struggle with this as well. You have to do what you can with what you have in the sales process. You can visualize the perfect sales process, but you have to sell in the one you have.

The third lesson I’ll share today is have fun, it is a game. This doesn’t mean don’t try, or don’t care, it means if trying and caring make you forget you are playing you need to reverse the order. I have been playing when I was near the top of the leader board and all of the sudden I get ultra-serious. The first thing that tends to happen when I do this is my game goes to hell. My shots get erratic. I then get even more serious and frustrated. I also stop having fun. If the game isn’t fun why are you playing?

Same with work. If it isn’t fun, why not? Why do it? Money is always the answer, but few of us have a position that pays so well we can’t get close to it doing something we like to do. Life should equal fun, if not, look at your life.

So close...

So I’ll be throwing a Frisbee over the hills of Southern Ohio this week, having fun, with my extended family, hoping everyone else in the world gets to experience happiness like this.

Rude Dude

We have all heard horror stories of rude French waiters. When people found out my wife and I were planning a trip to Europe they all seemed to have a war story of rude that they, or someone they knew, had to endure. Armed with a blanket of protection made out of hearsay and fear, we proceeded. Guess what? Not a single rude encounter across 3 European cities including Paris.

As a student of human interaction, (a people watcher), I have discovered three things I think have led to the rude waiter syndrome.

I'm Rude

1.       Different customs were the first thing I noticed. In Paris, if a seat is open, you can sit there. You don’t need to ask or check, just sit. If you ask, the waiter may seem dismissive as they point towards the open seats, that isn’t rude, just annoyance because you didn’t understand the custom.

2.       Taking care of repeat customers. The hotel we stayed at was in a semi-residential neighborhood. There were a lot of regular customers in the restaurants who lived in the area. Did they get preferential service over the tourists? Of course, and rightly so. They are a recurring source of income for the business. Again, not rude, just smart business.

3.       Being left in peace. The number of times an American waitress at an Applebee’s will ask you if you need anything over the course of a 30 minute meal, 37. The number of times a waiter in Paris will ask if you need anything over a 2.5 hour meal, 3. If you need something, just get their attention and it will be taken care of, don’t expect them to chew your food for you.

As a student of sales, I connected the dots and wondered how many of us lose sales because we are not understanding our customers, or they are not understanding us. Do we think they are rude, do they think we are? Is that rudeness really just misunderstanding or priorities?

I'm Rude too...

How do we solve this? Set expectations. If you are selling, tell the client how your process normally goes. We have a meeting, a demo, I present a contract if it looks like there is a fit, we have another meeting to get the signed contract. If you state this to the client, they will not be looking for pricing right away, they may ask for it, but they won’t be expecting it. If buying, do the same. Set expectations. This is how we buy. We want a proposal, then a demo, then you can meet the stakeholders, then we will expect a hands on trial, then we buy. If the salesman doesn’t want to sell that way, he can pass, if he does want to sell, he will know not to call the CEO on day 3.

Oh, the food and beer, were awesome…

Business Travel Demo

Let’s say you are packing for a business trip and you can only take a carry-on. I can see the guys nodding yes and the girls wondering what they are going to do about shoes. Right away we can see a difference in how people pack. What you think is essential, I see as optional at best, and frivolous at worse. So what are the essentials? Well, it depends…

 What kind of meeting is it? Formal? Casual? Business casual? Where is it? In the South? North? West Coast? Winter? Summer? Every one of these items may effect what you pack. It is the same with your demos.

For every demo, there is a perfect combination of things we should show and things we shouldn’t. In 25 years of demoing, I’ve had that happen maybe a dozen times. These were the times the demo was packed just right. Most of the time I forget to pack something, or drag out that old sweater I never seem to need but can’t leave at home. Just because the demo isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, or even great.

What makes the difference between a demo that is perfect, great and good? Thinking about the demo and packing correctly. As I said before, packing perfectly is hard, but there is a trick you can use. When I pack for a business trip I always do two things. One, I travel in business attire, I have had airlines lose carry-on luggage before. When you land at midnight and have a seven o’clock presentation, I can tell you there are no stores open, and wearing a Black Sabbath tee shirt, shorts and flip flops will give you less credibility than you would think… Two, I pack an emergency kit. It is a little bag that has a little bit of everything in it. Safety pins, duct tape, eye glass screwdriver, couple of wire ties… lots of stuff… It has saved my trip, let it save your demo too.

Now maybe a wire tie will fix your demo, but what I have in my demo emergency kit are workflows. Smooth, slick, logical workflows. These workflows are generic enough to cover a lot of bases if your “custom” demo script missed the mark for some reason. You may have packed for San Fran and ended up going to San Antonio.

Plan your trip, check the weather, pack your bag and plan on something to go wrong and your trip will always be successful. 

Mowing Sales

As those of you who read my blog regularly know, my blog ideas can come from anywhere. Today it came from mowing the grass. I’m an efficient, conservative, effective worker. Some, like my wife, might say lazy. So I mow my yard in the easiest way for me, which is having the longest straight lines possible. That is diagonal in the front and horizontal in the back.

While paying attention to cutting the grass, I realized I like to sell like I like to mow. NO, not lazy… And they call me a smart aleck… I was thinking efficient. Taking the longest path possible before I have to stop or turn. That makes the process efficient with less stops and starts.

While this is fairly easy with your yard and the mower, how can you see the “grass” you have to cut in your sales process? Ask. When you are doing your evaluation, needs analysis, checklist, whatever you call it, ask about their process. Don’t be surprised if they lie or omit some of the truth. Based on what you have discovered about the prospect, based on what you know about customers who use the product or service you are selling, and based on your experience, you should be able to have a good idea on the long path.

Sometimes it is top down, sometimes bottom up, sometimes it starts with a demo, and sometimes never showing the product. Whatever the longest path to the nearest obstruction is, take it.

Self-propelled, push, riding, reel, rotary, mulching or bagging, take the longest path you can to get done the quickest you can. Oh, and watch out for the gnome…

iPad Patty Cake

Apple had an event today to reveal the new iPad, not an iPad 3, just the latest iPad. They didn’t invent fire, they didn’t create magic. I heard some good comments about the display, and 4G, and video speed, but where was the Wow?

Apple is in a tough spot with the iPad and the iPhone. Both of those products were new, unique, game changers when first released. When you are adding features to an existing product like the iPad, how much iWow can you get? No feature will make it a new product, without a new product you won’t get a Wow. Now what?

Without releasing the next big thing, Apple can only do what they can do, and that has three prongs. Power, style, and expectations.

Power

Faster is always better. Keep finding ways to make it faster. Download faster, run faster, display faster, present faster. Investing in the technology needed to keep making the iPad faster will always pay off.

Style

Apple has style. Even if you don’t like them, you have to give them that. Style, in the iPad case, the iOS User interface, packaging, everything. New style updates in the iPad will pay off huge. I think the simplicity of UI is huge, it should work like you think it should, and I think the iPad does that. That isn’t to say that Apple should get ilazy, there is always a way to make things better, they should do it.

Expectations

No one, not even Apple can get people excited if you don’t meet their expectations. If the consumer expects a 10 and you give them a 9 they will not give you a Wow. Apple has always been very closed lipped about their product releases, and this can be good, or bad. Good if you present a homerun, bad if it is less than expected. Apple should do a better job of setting expectations for their events.

Apple plays a game of patty cake with us every so many months. We know it is going to happen. We know how the game is played. We act surprised and get excited when it happens.

Media Rush

Rush Limbaugh, love him or hate him you know about him. He has been master of self-promotion and leveraging people and events to further, well, him. He is currently in hot water due to some comments I won’t repeat here, but you can read the story here. Self-promotion. It is a doubled edged sword. How much is too much? Is there too much?

I don’t know about too much, in the words of a friend of mine, “Always be pimpin’…” But this event does point out an important issue about how you promote yourself, and where you promote yourself, and what you do to promote yourself. Rush Limbaugh is a media guy, his job is talking and he screwed it up, how easy can it be for you?

So if we break down the issue, Rush Limbaugh’s problem was not so much what he said, but that Rush made it personal about someone. Most people who are convicted for stock and securities issues are actually convicted for lying. Rush Limbaugh is being convicted in the court of public opinion because he did not rectify the issue immediately and to the injured parties’ satisfaction. How often do we fail to do that, even with non-social media issues?

I’m a firm believer in sharing. I have one public identity on many different platforms.  Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, I even Blog ;-). I rarely post to a small group of people, I make my comments public. I guess I am who I am.  The world is changing and it will be harder and harder to do business without a social presence.  So my guidelines?

• Post. A lot, about everything you are interested in. People like to do business with people they like. The more they know about you, the more they can like you.
• Believe what you post and be ready to defend it.
• Create most of your own content.
• Treat a social media comment the same as you would deal with a customer face to face. Be respectful, apologize if you have done wrong, and ask what you can do to fix it.

Whether you do or not is a business decision, ask Rush Limbaugh how that is working out for him? 

Late Snow

Here it is March Eve. Leap March Eve even, and now it snows. I know I live in Upstate NY. I know it can snow till 4^th of July, but still. Thanksgiving? No snow. Christmas? No snow. New Years? No snow. Valentine’s Day? No snow.  Leap Day? Yup.

Some will say better late than never. Some will say it could have skipped us this year. I say there is a sales lesson here, in fact a life lesson. Stuff doesn’t always happen when you expect it to, or need it to. Big shocker, but one we forget until it snows and ruins our Leap Day celebration. So Steve, what is the big lesson here? I can hear you saying it, you know I can.

Big lesson. Plan like there is no plan. Some say plan for the unexpected. If it is unexpected, how can I plan for it, but I can plan like I don’t have one. I expect to hear back from my contact about setting a meeting by X, and when I don’t I’m going to do Y. I expect to be named VOC next week, so when I haven’t heard from them on Thursday I’m going to do this.

Don’t expect stuff to work. Hope it does. Try and make sure it does, but don’t plan on it.

Primary Sales

Do you sell like a politician? How about someone running for the job? I have been watching the Republican Presidential candidates fight for the chance to run for the office and I wondered what would happen if you tried to sell that way?

If we were instructing the candidates to sell themselves, we would never allow them to do what they do while campaigning, and isn’t it the same? I prefer to sell using a consultative sales process. I don’t think there is any way you could call what they do, consultative.

They bluster, they exaggerate, they hide, they obscure, they misrepresent, they lie, then they start talking about their opponents. OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, and this is not a party politics thing either, all of them do it.

So there are obvious differences between a sale and an election, but there is a lot the same.

You need people to:

• Like you
• Agree with you
• Understand you
• Want you
• Believe you
• Trust you
• Vote for you

So you should be selling like you are campaigning, just without the mudslinging.

Happy Anniversary to Me

 It has been one year today since I posted my first blog post. This was a journey I started with only one goal. I had to post on a regular basis. I was not going to start a blog where I posted once a week, then once a month, then once a year. I have averaged a post every other day.

Mission accomplished. All of the other benefits I have gained were really only bonuses. I have found writing to be a great form of therapy. It could be even more helpful in its therapeutic value if I were writing a different type of blog. My blog content has evolved, and will continue to evolve as I write because I evolve.

I want to thank you who are reading this right now. I would still write my blog if no one were reading, it is part of me now. But to know there are people who feel my writing is worth taking some part of their day is humbling.

Stay tuned for more excitement as I start writing some blogs that are a little different for me, like my guest blog for Looks Cloudy. I’m also sure that when I land with a new company, I will have a lot of new material for my blog.

So I’m off to celebrate 365 days and 186 blogs seen in over 10 countries,  by writing a new blog post..

Three Simple Words

In the spirit of the day, please let me talk about romance and getting the special someone to respond to the three little words you want to say to them. Oh, it isn’t those three words...

The words you really want to say to the prospects you are romancing is, “Please Be Mine”. Getting them to respond with I Love you is great, but you want them to be yours.

A sales process is very much a romance. We meet, exchange pleasantries. If we discover we have something in common, we spend more time to get to know each other better. One party generally gives gifts or pays for diner. Then that magic moment arrives when we pop the question, and what we are asking is, pick me, be mine.

You can never feel a customer’s love, until they are a customer. So you need to close the deal, but without closing their heart, kind of like dating.

French is all Greek to Me

I never learned a foreign language. I wasn’t required to in high school or college. I did learn quite a bit of American sign language one summer with a girlfriend who had a deaf cousin. I have decided that I’m going to learn some French before a trip to Europe this spring.

I know I don’t really need to. Everyone speaks English, even the English..well sort of. I know I can download a hundred iPhone apps that will say phrases for me in any language. I’ll tell you why I really want to learn some conversational French.

On trips to Montreal I can almost understand, if not the words, the meaning of the conversations. It is like listening to the radio with the volume just low enough that you can’t quite make out the words. I can tell if the speakers are happy or sad, excited or reserved, serious or playful, speaking to me or about me, almost.

Almost understand, almost know, almost good enough.

So what is the foreign language in your business? What do you almost know? Almost understand? Almost grasp, and is it enough, or do you need to get the Rosetta Stone for your “language”?

Learn the language, get a translator, or don’t complain when they bring you snails for breakfast.

Phil’s Shadow

Groundhog Day. It is a perfect holiday. Made up and everyone knows it, knows it doesn’t matter, but needs to know anyway. Do you have any Groundhog days in your business?

You know those things that you worry about, think about, obsess about, but really mean nothing? Maybe you have a “thing” about employee time off, or personal internet use, or whatever, is this really what makes your business special or unique?

In your mind right now, list the top 5 things that take you to the next level. Is your Groundhog Day on that list? I bet not. Top 10 or 20 list even? I would say no. So maybe if you took the effort you spent looking for shadows and applied it to items 1 through 5 you would be better off.

Don’t let Phil’s shadow distract you from heading to the light.

On a Personal Note, Part Two

It was less than 2 months ago that I shared the news with you that I had decided to pursue a new career, leaving Autotask after nearly 6 years to join Bradford Networks.

The decision for me was not an easy one, as I had built many friendships and ties into Autotask, their customers, and the industry, but I felt the need to grow personally and professionally.

The great news was that I would get to build a brand new channel with my friends and peers in the MSP/IT Services space. This was a true win win for me.

The more I explored the needs of the SMB channel for the security features that a NAC solution could offer, compliance checks, guest management, dynamic vLans, etc.,  I saw a huge potential for Bradford and the channel as I have shared with many of you.

Sadly,I am no longer with Bradford.

To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I saw, and still see, such a need, as well as a business case for these solutions in our marketplace and for our customers.

My biggest disappointment? Not being given the chance to fail. By that I don’t mean that I would have failed, in fact I think it would have been a huge win, but the chance. Isn’t that all any of us want? A chance. To win or lose, succeed or fail, but just a chance.

This has left me with a hunger, a feeling of incompleteness that feels worse than failure. I have been feeding that hunger with lessons learned, the good and bad. So as in all things in life, the only path worth taking leads forward.

Now it is time to get back to work and feed that hunger with a new challenge, a new goal, a new position.

DOD Approves Android Devices

Security and technology just don’t play well together. Is that what you think, or have heard? Well they can, with limitations it seems. If you have never had to deal with Department of Defense (DOD) or Department of Energy (DOE) security, count your blessings.

Neither of these agencies slack when it comes to security. Before I moved over to software companies, I held security clearances for many government agencies in order to access and repair hardware and software inside facilities secured with men carrying automatic weapons.

I used to call it the place where time stood still. That has two meanings. First, anything you could do at an enterprise client’s site in an hour would take 6-8 hours. Hours to check software in, hours to get it approved, hours to get approval to install it, hours to get an admin to login so it could be installed. Second, employees were never allowed to have a radio inside, let’s not even talk about a cell phone.

So the times they are a changin’. I read post about the DOD allowing Android devices on their network, sort of. You can read it HERE. The short story is, 1 OS (Android 2.2), 1 device (Dell Venue). No access to classified data, no access to the Android Marketplace.

The first thought was are you kidding me? My experience has taught me that this speed of getting this type of device in the building is a huge step forward in the blending of technology and security.

Merry Christmas Blog

I want to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas. For me, Christmas is a time of memories. Who doesn’t remember stories and memories from years past? I saw a picture of my brother and me from a Christmas many years ago, so long ago I don’t even remember. Even that picture triggered memory after memory.

Memories are an important part of life. We discount memories in business and think only in terms of process and performance. I am here to tell you, that memories will serve you better that data alone.

Data is cold, and Scrooge Liked it. Well, if not Scrooge, that is why business likes it. It is not emotional, it evokes no feelings. But if you are in sales, you know emotions drive you, teach you, keep you moving forward.

When you feel the ghost of lost deals past calling, do not shut them out. Take those feelings and emotions. Remember all the events, just like a Christmas past. Use those memories to make better decisions.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good deal!

The Perfect Drink

What is your perfect drink? If you said water, stop reading now. Imagine your favorite drink. Now tell me why.

That is hard isn’t it? We can start to list some things like sweet or tart, cold, refreshing, strong, but it all blends into some odd muttering that ends with the statement “you know?”

So the answer is it is everything that makes it our favorite. Even some things that aren’t in the drink make it special. The memory of a moonlit beach with that drink has a lot of power.

How do we expect to make or keep ourselves as our customer’s favorite drink? If they can’t tell us why it (we) are their favorite, how do we make sure we are doing what it takes?

Provide the right ingredients, mix it well, and provide the right kind of experience, and how could it go wrong? Every interaction you have with them builds the experience, whether it is a moonlit night or a typhoon.

Democratic Support

Do you treat your customers like Kim Jong Il treated North Korea? Well maybe that is harsh, but do you give them just enough to keep them happy and keep them in the dark?

I was watching the news stories showing film footage of distraught women sobbing over Kim Jong Il’s death. All I could think was if you only knew what we know you wouldn’t be shedding a tear.

If you went away from your customers lives, would they shed a tear or jump for joy when they discovered what they had been missing?

We cannot run our customers networks like a closed society. You cannot be a choke point of information. We should have the Voice of America attitude. More information. More choices. More work. Happier customers.

Democratic support works for everyone, when it is done right.

BYOD = Bring Your Own Device

Of course it could be BTOD or Bringing Their Own Devices. Whether you want them to or not, they are bringing them. They bring them, you have to manage them, it isn’t fair, but it is true.

So if you are a service provider, how do you manage this unmanageable situation? I recall some adviceI heard once. “Always give permission for people to do what they are going to do anyway, that is how you stay in control”.

Say Yes, not no. IT should not be a barrier to getting business done. No is an absolute, yes can have conditions. Yes, but...

So put in place the tools you need to easily control these devices and their unmanageable users. You owe it to your clients, their employees, and yourself.

Problem Solving verses Business Solving

I love engineers. Logical, straight forward problem solvers. That is really what I have been for many many years. Problem solvers look for solutions, get excited about a challenge, want to fix stuff, even if you shouldn’t.

Shouldn't might be harsh, maybe isn’t economically feasible is better. An Engineer’s time is valuable. Far to valuable to be spent on a problem solving excursion for a low probability prospect. Instead they should be Business solving. What is business solving you ask?

Business solving is monetizing your problem solving skills. In some circles it is call consulting. If you find yourself giving away your time and ideas and you are not charging for either, stop. You should be able to tell someone how you can help them fix their issue without giving it all away.

Give your engineers big juicy problems they can solve, but after the check has cleared.

Run It Out

How you ever heard this phrase? It is generally yelled by a coach near the end of a play when it looks like you are too far away from the action to make a difference. What the coach knows is sometimes you are close enough to make a difference.

In sales you may often find yourself running after a deal and falling further behind. This may be a time when you need to run it out. Keep pursuing the deal, don’t quit. It is not unusual for the deal you are chasing to slow down or double back and when that happens you will be right there.

This doesn’t mean you should run blindly after every lost deal. You need to be protective of your most precious resource, your time. You do need to run out every deal till you are sure it is totally out of reach.