Archive for the ‘spoken post’ Category

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I don’t get it… can you draw me a picture?

Friday, May 11th, 2007

A few years ago, I was working on a large sales opportunity with AT&T. During our first meeting with them we had a lot of discussion about the requirements for the project, what the users were trying to get out of it, technical details of the systems & integration points & so forth. I spent most of my time at the white board sketching out a rough diagram, the way our new system would interconnect to their existing systems. The diagram was recreated in Visio and became a feature of every subsequent meeting, the basis of every discussion about integration and interconnection, with changes continually incorporated. And reviewing the diagram became the way we’d orient new people to the project.

After that, we required a similar diagram be created for each project and be included in every proposal.

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Posted in communication, sales, spoken post, tools | Comments

The power of business relationships: an example

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

During my junior year in college (1983), I applied for a summer internship at IBM. Like more than 90% of the people who applied, I was turned down via form letter. When I told my dad this, he said, you know–I know somebody who might be able to help. My dad was a car salesman and one of his customers happened to be a Human Resources executive at IBM. A week later I had a phone interview, & a week after that I had a job offer. It might’ve changed the course of my career, & I have networking to thank for that.

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Posted in networking, relationships, spoken post | Comments

Dream becomes reality–the anything maker

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

When I was a kid I had a recurring dream that I had a special machine. I loaded plastic pellets into the machine, then if I designed something on paper & fed it into the machine, it would create what I had imagined.

Now I find out that such a machine exists. See the following link. (Thanks Ilya Vedrashko for pointing it out.)

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Posted in New York Times, innovation, spoken post, technology | Comments

Don’ forget to love your own company’s brands

Saturday, March 31st, 2007

I had a web hit from someone at Microsoft today, and what I thought was funny was that the searcher used Google.com. That reminded me of a story.

Way back I got my dream summer job, an internship at IBM, and my first day in the office my boss asked me to make a copy of a bunch of documents, so I went to one of the other people in my office and I said, “Hey, can you tell me where the Xerox machine is?” He responded, “We make copiers here.”

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Posted in branding, spoken post | Comments

Here’s how I’m using Spin-my-Blog

Friday, March 16th, 2007

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been doing occasional posts using the Spin-my-Blog voice blogging service. What I’ve found to be the best approach is to use it as a place to post ideas. Things that I would otherwise write on a sticky note, instead, I speak into the phone. The system translates them to text and sends them directly to my blog listing as draft posts, where I can then edit them, expand them, add photos and tags and prepare them for publication.

It’s highly convenient, saves typing time, and I don’t lose any ideas (which, I suppose, is not always a good thing).

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Posted in blogging, blogs, mobile, spoken blogging, spoken post, technology | Comments

Cold calling with dignity (yours and the prospect’s)

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

I had to do some cold calling today, so naturally I worked from Jeff Thull’s script. It’s simply the best approach I know to keep the dignity of the customer intact while you’re interrupting them with an unsolicited pitch. And since I hate getting cold calls, when I do my own cold calling I try to keep that in mind. Here’s Jeff’s 20-second pitch, outlined nicely in his new book Exceptional Selling.

Convey professionalism by identifying yourself and your company straightaway. “I’m John Caddell with Caddell Insight Group.” (Don’t ask how they are doing today.)

Give the prospect an easy way out, and show respect for his/her intelligence by admitting that you don’t know if they need or want what you’re pitching (note: you should have done sufficient preparation and qualification to believe they very well might need your solution). “I’m not sure if it’s appropriate we should be talking.”

Show relevancy by connecting what you do to companies like the prospect’s. “We work with companies like yours who are developing breakthrough technology products…”

Connect more deeply by referencing a generic problem they might be facing. “…and occasionally have difficulty getting their sales forces to embrace the new product.”

Ask for permission to continue. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

There’s lots more to the method, especially if they say, “Yes, I’d like to talk more.” But you’ll have to read the book for the rest.

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Posted in psychology, reading list, sales, spoken post | Comments

Are CEO’s powerless to lead?

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

That might be the conclusion you draw from an article from last week’s Wall Street Journal Business Insight section entitled “Leading from Below” (free link). The authors, James Kelly and Scott Nadler of consultancy ERM, write:

…The truth is that at most companies, senior managers are increasingly hamstrung by the demand from investors and analysts for immediate results. If change is going to come about at these companies, it will be because the managers below the CEO (and below the whole “C suite”…) take the initiative and risks to drive the company in a different direction. Change will have to come from those leading from below, rather than relying on leadership from the top.

Excuse me, but in this scenario, what are the “C levels” doing every day? Going to Davos or TED, I guess.

It sounds as if the authors have seized on a point discussed by Bower and Gilbert in their recent HBR article (link) “How Managers’ Everyday Decisions Create – or Destroy – Your Company’s Strategy,” but, in the case of “Leading from Below,” middle managers crafting and executing their own strategy in large companies is a feature, not a bug.

The point of the article may be that senior leaders should foster leadership throughout the ranks, and not micromanage. All well and good if that’s the case. But if that’s what they meant, I wish they had written it.

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(Picture by lckidwell via stock.xchng)

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Posted in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, leadership, spoken post, strategy | Comments

Salespeople as Parents – prescription for failed sales

Thursday, March 1st, 2007

Have you ever spoken to a sales person & felt they were treating you like an idiot? We, as sales people, tend to have these types of conversations when we’re trying to close a sale, even if we don’t realize it.

Jeff Thull, in his book Exceptional Selling, calls these Parent/Child interactions. We as parents treat prospects like children, persuading, lecturing, pleading. The prospects, sooner or later, shut down. (Like me talking to my six-year-old.)

An adult conversation, where we and the prospects could talk like businesspeople, would be more effective, wouldn’t it? (Sorry–didn’t mean to lecture. Strike that last sentence.)

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Posted in communications, psychology, reading list, sales, spoken post | Comments

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