Here you’ll find more than 1500 articles and mini-sagas on entrepreneurship, leadership, creativity and simply how to distinguish yourself.
You REALLY should subscribe to our newsletter too - you will get exclusive content that is NOT featured on this blog once or twice a month. It's even 100% free!
I have always believed that everyone is always selling – whether they are in the profession of sales or not. So the topic of sales has always been fascinating to me. Everyone is selling but not everyone knows that they are selling – especially those that are selling their ideas or selling themselves. The times we are facing now makes it mandatory for everyone to learn to sell. My long-time friend Paul D’Souza has a series of blog posts on the topic of selling in a recession. The topic is timely and I am sure you will find several things interesting in the list.
I had dinner with a close friend this evening and we talked about a number of things for hours. Over the course of our meeting my friend shared his recent unsatisfactory experience with a vendor. Being curious, I had more questions and clarifications. I wanted to understand what went wrong.
After a while I got an understanding of that particular vendor’s worldview. I have not done business with this vendor but after this whole incident something changed in my mind. The vendor moved from “Innocent until proven guilty” status to “Guily until proven innocent” status.
Of course, the vendor does not know this and that is precisely the loss he would never know. In other words, the vendor lost mindshare in his “secondary network” and in some cases it may be a loss that he cannot recover from. For instance, in this case if I don’t do business with that vendor I may not go and announce to him that this was the reason for not doing business with him or her.
Secondary networks are an important referral source for any vendor. Secondary networks trust the primary networks for initial information and screening. You mess with the primary network and you might lose a part of your secondary network – a loss that you may never know.
So, the point is that your primary network is all you have – so please take care of that.
Sometimes the discounts we see on the “special sales” don’t account for the additional costs…
The Sale
Jack didn’t want to miss those “early bird specials” on Friday. Doors opened at 5 in the morning. Jack had to be there at least by midnight to save $50. After some thought, Jack decided to drop this shopping adventure – his time was worth more than $10 an hour.
===
Note:
1. A mini saga is a story told in exactly 50 words. Not 49 or 51 but exactly 50.
The terrorist attacks in Bombay have left me sad and shocked. 11 places attacked almost simultaneously, over 100 people killed and over 1000 people injured.
It is sad that some people think “killing innocent people” will solve their problems or make a statement of some sort.
The world is facing unprecedented problems today - This is a time that all of us have to come together to face the collective threats (Poverty, Global Warming, Healthcare, Economy etc.) in front of us.
How will have the capacity to fight the bigger threats if we are busy fighting amongst ourselves?
My prayers are with families of more than hundred people who lost their lives for no fault of theirs.
Recession opens up many opportunities – one of them is the ability to find good bargains from other companies. You might be able to get a great deal from a company that BADLY needs the deal.
You might even be able to strike a deal which is unfair to the other party.
But the question is should you do it?
One approach is to view this as “all is fair in war and love and business” and go ahead and take advantage of anyone and everyone you can take advantage of. The problem is that you will gain this bargain at the cost of the mindshare. The moment situation changes with the other person or company, you are no longer their favorite customer.
In the changed situation, you will really get what you paid for.
Summary: Bargains are good but not those that come at the expense of mindshare.
Stories make it easy to communicate something but if the stories are flawed they can just communicate the wrong thing – and, in a compelling way. In other words, stories can help and if you are not careful, they can hurt.
Think about what happened last week. You heard stories from political leaders, you heard stories from media, you heard stories from your boss, you heard stories from your colleagues and you heard stories from even your family members.
Stories are just that – stories. You can make a difference in your life if you can understand the story behind the story.
I am a big fan of Guy Kawasaki. Take the story of Truemors, one of his startups. There was a mixed response for the startup. Guy used the story of how he built the startup for less than $15K. Guy explained how much he spent on everything in great detail. The presentations were engaging (It was Guy who was presenting – so they had to be). In a way, Guy did what he did best – evangelized his new startup. And, it worked. The company saw a big growth in traffic numbers and was finally sold.
I happened to attend one of the presentations and listened to the Truemors story. There was an important point that was missing (not intentional but Guy must have thought it was too obvious to state) – that was the story behind the story. The background story was the story of the price that Guy had paid via his work over 25 years to build his brand. The truth is that Guy and his brand played a VERY big role in how Truemors fared in the marketplace.
It would require a lot of LUCK for someone else (without a brand like Guy’s brand) to attempt building a company like Truemors for less than $15K.
Subsequently Guy added that part of the story in the updated Truemors story in his book “Reality Check“. Honestly even after Guy mentioned that background story explicitly, there will be people who will skip through that and read only what they want to read – and try to repeat what Guy tried to do. Good luck to them.
My first job was a journalist (between ages thirteen and sixteen) and I wrote stories for a local newspaper. I was told repeatedly that I had to introduce “drama” in my writings. My boss would say that if the stories didn’t have drama the newspaper won’t sell.
Drama plays a big role in most of the stories that you hear – so much so that the story behind the story gets completely buried.
It is your job to uncover it.
==========
Note 1: For links to the other 199 entries in the “Distinguish yourself” series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic: Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself
Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
I have always believed that there are only two kinds of relationships – those that are “long term” and those that are “very long term”. Yes, I am exaggerating a bit but when you approach your relationships and put them into one of those two boxes, your perspective on relationships shift.
In reality though, some relationships have to end in the short-term.
Let us look at one such situation:
Yes, you want to build long-term relationships. But the other person may not want that. If you are building a relationship with someone who thinks “every relationship is there only for his or her advantage” then there is trouble. Unless you want to be “taken advantage of”, maintaining a long-term or very-long-term relationship with this person would be meaningless.
What do you do when this happens?
You can end the relationship kicking and screaming or you can exit gracefully. Most people choose the former approach as they want to “get even” and ensure that the other person “gets the message”.
If you think and stop for a minute you will realize that more often than not, the above logic of “getting even” does not make sense. You have already decided that there is no point in maintaining a long-term relationship with the other person. So, how does it matter whether the other person “gets the message” or not. The time you spend “getting even” is throwing good money over bad money. The other person’s biggest loss has to be you and your relationship in the future. If the other person is reasonably smart, he or she will recognize that. If the other person is not smart enough, trying to teach him that will be even more costly for you anyway. How much time do you want to spend on something that is totally ‘past’ you?
Time is the ultimate scarcity for everyone. You are no exception. When you exit gracefully from a relationship, you just found yourself some “extra” time on your hand. You can decide to use that time however you want. When you decide to keep going back to the past (whatever be the reason) you lost some precious time. Time that you could have used to invest in someone with whom you want to build a long-term relationship.
You are smart – so you make the choice!
==========
Note 1: For links to the other 198 entries in the “Distinguish yourself” series, please visit my Squidoo lens on the same topic: Squidoo Lens: Distinguish yourself
Note 3: My latest manifesto on ChangeThis was published on August 6, 2008. This is a photographic manifesto featuring 15 of my mini sagas (stories in exactly 50 words). Here is the link:
Everyone is unique. You are unique. I am unique too. We both know that.
The sad story is that rather than capitalizing on that uniqueness, many will struggle to conform to what’s around them. But with the same vigor, they want to be treated differently too.
That leads to a complex situation, a dilemma actually – there is a need to the same in the eyes of the members of a group but at the same time there is a need to “stand out from the crowd” from members outside the group (and may be even from members within the group)
How do you break out of the stalemate situation?
By remembering that the while the group likes conformity what it requires more is “value” to the group. If you can provide “significant value” to the group, a bit of non-conformity is forgiven. If you bring no value to the group, conformity alone won’t get you extra points.
You “stand out” not just because you want to stand out but because of the “value” you bring to the group. Unfortunately, you can’t wish to “stand out” – you have to act!
I bet you do but I am sure you like them only when they are positive.
Your clients, partners, friends everyone will like a positive surprise. So why not plan for them?
You want a bit of inspiration, watch this short video clip. This is a clip from the show (“Britain’s Got Talent”) and the star is Suleman. Enjoy the week ahead!
If you are running a Professional Services Firm or a PS Division, you might be interested in this.
My friends Jeanne Urich and David Hofferberth at Service Performance Insight published “The New Professional Services Maturity Model — A Roadmap to Achieving Professional Services Excellence”. Both the maturity concepts and the benchmark have met with incredible success. Over 500 firms are now using the Service Maturity Model to benchmark their organizations and work toward optimization. The 2008 PS Maturity Model has become the industry standard for professional service organizations.
In case you haven’t heard of “The Professional Service Maturity Model” I have attached a recent whitepaper describing the maturity model concepts and results.
Service Performance Insight is in the final stages of accepting participants for the upcoming PS Maturity Benchmark report which will be published in January, 2009.
If you complete the survey and return it by Monday, December 1st, you will receive a FREE copy of the entire 2009 benchmark report ($495 value).
SPI Research is now working on the report, which will be published in January, 2009. To date, over 135 firms have participated in this year’s survey. They would like to reach 175 participants by the December 1st deadline.
If you know someone who runs a Professional Services Firm or a Division as they will benefit hugely from this report
Recent Comments