Adventures in Leardership

When business owners and executives make a decision to buy your product, there are many things that influence that decision.  Initially, the decision is a rational one based on economics, studies and efficiencies.  It is important to note that there are irrational aspects to decisions as well.  In April  2007, Jack Morton Worldwide did a survey of what influenced executive buying decisions. Over half  (53%) of respondents listed word of mouth and comments by friends as a strong influence on the decision. The next group of influences were listed by only 35-40% of the people responding and these included sales representatives (39), meetings and conferences (38%) and the internet at 37%.  This survey has some very interesting implications in managing a sales effort.  I will list a few but would be interested in how you would interpret and use this data in your own sales effort.

1. colleagues and friends are the strongest influence on a sale. It is difficult to influence friends but you should go into a sales appointment with a list of colleagues that are happy with your product or service.  That may be testimonials or people the prospect can call to find out how your offering worked for them.

2. Sales representatives and colleagues are the strongest influences. Maybe your sales staff needs to present themselves more like colleagues. Gain the trust and confidence of the prospect by giving honest insights into both the strengths and weaknesses of your offering.  Afterall, that is what their friends would do! It is why their friends influence 53% of sales and the salesman you are paying only influences 39%.

3.  Meetings are a strong influence which may indicate that there is confidence in numbers. Although common thinking is that it is difficult to sell a group as opposed to an individual, convincing the group may be more important to getting the individual to make a decison to buy your offering than you thought. A selling funnel that starts with a general presentation to the team and ends up with a focused presentation to the decision maker may influence success more strongly.

4. The internet has a strong influence on decisions.  In fact, the internet influences about as many of the decisions as your salesman! As a salesman, you should be reviewing and updating the internet message frequently. Get feedback from prospects on what caught their attention in your website. Develop a strong relationship with your webmaster and keep the site informative.

5. Finally, there are many influences on decisions and you can never predict which one will be the tipping point. Exposing a prospect to colleagues, websites, meetings, tradeshows, advertising and PR will all have an impact.  Patience and persistence pays dividends and this data reinforces that as well.
What do you see in this data that will help you sell more?

Frustration in business. Frustration saps more productivity from a business that any other cause yet most businessmen tend to ignore the untapped potential. If you look around there is frustration everywhere. It permeates from top to bottom. I will offer a few examples but the key is to write down your own frustrations. OwnersLeaders of businesses have many frustrations that come from within and outside the business. In some cases the frustration is from employees that require extensive communication in order to function. In other cases it is from employees that cannot do the job to the level expected. Sometimes customer’s demands seem unreasonable or their complaints relentless. In still other cases the magnitude and consistency of the barrage wears a person down and becomes frustrating. ManagersOften managers are very frustrated due to a lack of empowerment. When a person is given responsibility but not the necessary authority, he is put in a frustration building pressure cooker. Other managers are frustrated by the clash in personality with subordinates and superiors. EmployeesEmployees are faced with a myriad of challenges that are often poorly defined. They are expected to overcome these challenges with tools that they perceive are inadequate. They are under funded and over supervised in their quest to achieve success. Everyone Life balance is a concept that has arisen with the X-Generation. Boomers were not allowed life balance but as they enter their moneyed years they feel they can afford some at this point in their career. When strains and demands at work conflict with the strains and demands at home, there will be immense frustration on one side or the other. This life balance requires funding that some people do not have and others perceive is inadequate. Whether that comes as not having enough money to pay the rent on the house or to make the payment on the yacht, it is frustration. As a consultant, frustration is one of the greatest reasons that I am hired. Surely no one blames it on that. It is always blamed on cash flow, employee turnover, over work, poor productivity and the like but I would not be hired if these issues did not degenerate into frustration. Overwhelmingly the answer applied to frustration falls into the following categories:

• Tough it out
• Ignore it

Winning@Businessâ„¢ is one proven way to overcome much of the frustration in business. It is a methodology to focus on the greatest frustrations in the business and overcome them. Some of the keys to success in overcoming frustration included are:

• Communication
• Problem solving
• Meeting Technology

Team management Teamwork is very important. It helps people take ownership of their own assigned frustrations while unburdening them from the general frustrations of others. The focus is on the present and what needs to be done. You can fantasize and even lie about the future. You cannot do so in the present and that is another key to success. When you start overcoming your own frustration your approach to work improves. Your ability to work with and through others improves and your productivity increases about 30% in most cases. Multiply that 30% across the board in your business and you begin to see the potential that Winning@Business and team management can bring to an organization.What is your greatest frustration? What do you do to overcome frustration? Let me know by posting here or through our website at (www.management-one.biz)

I have always recognized a great need to get team members motivated to do what I needed to get done. Sometimes getting the goal accomplished meant it happened in ways I didn’t expect, but in the end that was fine. Better even. Sometimes what I wanted the team to get done didn’t happen and I was always interested in why. I really think there were two reasons for differing responses by the team to my efforts at business development depending on the stage of my career that I was in.

When I was a young manager I thought I knew more than I did. I would develop a plan and then start organizing people and telling them what each one was to do according to my plan. Sometimes it worked but often the results and dedication of the team were less than desired.

I was then moved from assistant paper mill superintendent to pulp mill superintendent. In the pulp mill there was an assistant I had, Harold Tanner, who was much older (and wiser). He would always corner me and say, ” why don’t we think about this for a minute?” We would then begin to communicate our views and reach a consensus on what WE should do. Suddenly things started getting done! I learned a lot about the importance of consensus and communication from Harold. He was the one that showed me how team management could work on the job!

I put a lot of Harold into the Winning@Business process that I developed to help others manage their business more effectively. The lessons included:

• Communicate clearly

• Listen

• Adapt

• Get commitment

Easier said than done you might quip and you would have a good point. The fact is, however, that these aspects of business development are critical to long-term success. When teamwork becomes ingrained in your management process and culture, employee turnover goes down, motivation rises, commitment and dedication increase and you start seeing happier customers too. Always remember that your people will support what they help create.

Evan Wise

Managing Director of Management One Consulting

I have worked on team management and business development in everything from a mom and pop haberdashery to a running a paper-mill; from managing a leading worldwide research and development center to the startup of Management One®, a company that implements team management and business development for client companies. The one thing that I have observed as a continuum through all the many different environments in which I have worked is the importance of teamwork through effective team management to success. When I started out working in 1968, the norm was the old command and control style of management. As a worker I hated it but there was no alternative. There was no team management; only a seasoned boss that shouted orders.

The environment is much different today. Business owners, department managers and even executives of large corporations are working with a different workforce than existed even 10 years ago. You are selling to a different customer than you did 10 years ago. The amount of information available, the flexibility that both customers and staff have to come and go as they please is so much greater and the level of competition is so much higher that it becomes imperative that you get everyone working together on your team. The issue that many face is how to do that effectively!

This blog will be about how team management and Winning@Business concepts help businesses to survive and prosper in this new environment. I may not give you all the answers you seek or need but I hope to make you think about your staff, your customers and your business in a different way. Often I will refer to Winning@Businessâ„¢, which is the process that we have developed to help businesses to implement the effective methods to achieve success in this new environment. I will share a lot of what I have learned over the last 17 years of moving my own departments, companies and clients to the 21^st century of profitable business. This process works and has been proven in youth groups, the Geneva Illinois High School football team, a rock group, retailers, manufacturers and service businesses over the past 17 years.

Please feel free to contribute, respond and participate in the discussion. If you would like to contact me directly you can do so through www.management-one.com or evan@management-one.com.

Evan Wise

Managing Director