Accountability

I was thinking about devoting this post to a whole ‘Goal-setting’ thing, which is the kind of subject one should be giving thought to as we hurtle towards another year.

However, I reckon they’re will be loads of articles, features, posts, tweets, texts and emails about focusing on SMART targets and so will not be bothering.

No, what I’d like to do is talk a little about what has gone badly this year and what lessons you’ve learned, for it is from what we cock-up that we increase wisdom. As Roger Black MBE, Olympic champion once said ‘any fool can win a gold medal: it is one’s mistakes from which one learns most.’

Take time to review your year:

• What went badly wrong on the business-front and why?
• What were the consequences?
• Whose fault was it or perhaps more accurately, who was accountable? (It’s always you by the way)*

*Yes it is.

Ask people what percentage of their life over which they have control and the vast majority say 80%.  They believe that the other 20% of what happens to them is beyond their control: dictated by forces over which they have no control.

Others say its 70/30 or 60/40 or even 90/10.

I don’t.  I choose to believe that I have control over 100% of what happens to me: I prefer it that way.

Now the key word here is ‘believe’ because whether one is actually in control of all or none of what occurs is immaterial; it is what you believe that matters and that in turn is a choice. You choose your beliefs and I find that believing that I am in control or perhaps more accurately, ‘accountable’ for what happens in my life is empowering because it means that I have control over what happens to me.

You see, I just don’t like the idea that other people are deciding what happens in 20% of my life.  It might be that they are; it’s just I don’t like the idea.

I was having a chat about this with a close friend some years back and she said, “Yes, but what if a terrorist blows up a tube train when you’re on it! Surely, that’s not your fault: you cannot be held accountable for that?!”

However, I choose to look at it this way: I live in a country in which terrorist attacks occur (I could move). London is and has been the focus of attacks and the tube a major one.  I am aware of this and yet I choose to work in London (I don’t have to) and I choose to use the underground (I could get cabs) and I therefore take the risk that I might get blown up. And therefore I am accountable if anything horrid should occur to me.

And that is much more empowering a thought than believing that some nutter is dictating what happens in a fifth of my life!

How odd.  I had genuinely intended to make this post about reflecting on last year but have ended up talking about beliefs and choosing to be accountable.  Oh well, spontaneity and flexibility are good attributes to possess when you’re out there developing business.

Happy New Year

Focus on people rather than percentages

When you are tasked with bringing in business you’ll have a target, either in terms of number of units/items sold or amount of revenue but probably both.

Having a target is essential if you are going to succeed because without one you’ll have no idea where or how to concentrate your time.  However, a target can become like a millstone round your neck if you allow it to dominate your thoughts.

I’ve seen sales people obsess over targets; breaking down their annual goal in to ridiculously small parts, to the point where they know how much they have to do each week, divided by 5 working days, divided by the 4.3 appointments that they on average manage to complete each day.

The sales meeting in the first job I had was every Friday.  Each Friday the 8 reps responsible for covering the north of England and Scotland would meet above a dentist’s surgery, in what remains to this day the most unsanitary, down-at-heel ‘office’ I’ve ever witnessed.

The first topic of conversation was always what sort of week we’d each had; good, bad or indifferent?

I knew if I’d had a good week.  I measured this by how many full-page ads I’d sold.  Sure, there were loads of other sizes of ad and ‘displays’ available to flog but it was the ‘full-page’ that did it for me.

However, many of my colleagues would go on to enquire as to what percentage of my target I’d hit and therefore, what fraction I had left in order to achieve the year’s quota:  but I never knew!

Others did.  They could rattle off precisely what they had done that week, that month and that quarter and how much they had to therefore do over the next week, month and quarter, if they were to be successful. And I have to tell you; they seemed more focused on these figures than on maximising what they could secure every time they sat in front of a prospect.

My approach then and still remains, to take each meeting with a potential customer, one at a time.

I don’t give any thought to what I need to do this week, this month or even this year because if I did it’d worry the hell out of me and that anxiety would surely come across to everyone I met.

I take each meeting one at a time, making sure that my entire focus is on maximising the potential at that moment, with that prospect, in that room.

If it results in business; great!  If it results in agreeing to meet up again; great!

You must have a target.  You must know what you want and what you have to do to achieve it but you’ll stand a far better chance of hitting it if you focus on the meeting you’re in rather than what percentage of your target you’d achieve if the guy in front of you bought something.

Persuasive persuading

Sales people sell: it’s what they do and what they signed up for.  They enjoy the thrill of the chase and know what they’re after. They are masters of influence and persuasion.

The vast majority of people in work aren’t sales people.  They didn’t sign up for anything remotely like selling and what’s more; they’ve had no training and yet find themselves in roles where the development of business is just expected.

But here’s the good news; in common with the sales people, you too are masters of influence and persuasion.

Yes you are!

Course you are.  You are persuading and influencing friends family and close colleagues all the time.  And what’s more, you don’t give it a second thought.  But I want you to. I want you to think about what it is that you do to win people over to your point of view.

How did you manage to persuade your girl friends to have a curry and go to the flicks; when they said that they fancied a girlie night in with a bottle of Pinot, a ‘Tesco Finest’ meal and Patrick Swayze?

What did you say to your mates to change their mind and spend the day on the beach when they’d originally set their minds on going down the pub for a few pints and a couple of frames of snooker.

Before I tell you that which you instinctively do already, I want to point out what you don’t do.

You don’t send out a meeting request email to the four of them; detailing that you want everyone to meet at 10.30 on Tuesday and to set aside one hour to discuss the subject of the meeting, which is: ‘Leisure time strategy for weekend commencing the 9th of December (mission critical)’

You don’t, once the meeting is ‘accepted’, then email out an agenda, detailing what specific subjects are to be talked about on Tuesday:

1 Venue selection strategy (taking in to account environmental impact and alignment with the core values of the group.)

2 Hunger management solutions – possible options (Chinese/Indian/Thai/ Fusion – ensuring adherence with our current CSR and diversity policy)

3 Transport logistics for the event.

In other words; you do not use logic to persuade your friends. You use emotional arguments. You appeal to senses rather than the logical, reasoning part of their brain.

Imagine going about persuading people you know well, to go for a Chinese rather than an Indian by detailing the calorific difference between the two cuisines or the levels of saturated fat.  Think about producing a riveting PowerPoint presentation, replete with graphs, dialogue boxes and tables, all of which address the environmental impact of travelling to each, using either a bus, train, car, walking or cycling?  It’s nonsense isn’t it and yet that’s precisely how you and countless others, attempt to influence and persuade the people with whom they work.

Neither do you set aside a prearranged time and date on which to do this.  You may have emailed, then phoned or exchanged a few texts, all of which may have been over a few days.  You realised that trying to get others on board with a plan is not something that is always accomplished at a one-off meeting.

Your friends trust you and attach credence to your opinion.  And it’s the same two factors that are necessary in the workplace.

If you are to persuade those who ultimately decide whether your knowledge management function continues in its current form or even exists at all: CREDIBILITY & TRUST are the brace of ingredients you need.

Negotiating: anchors

‘Choose a number higher or lower than I million that you think represents the number of cans of Coke sold in the UK each week’

Thought of a number?  Go on, make an educated guess.

Ok, now answer this one:

‘Choose a number higher or lower than 20 million that you think represents the number of cans of Coke sold in the UK each week’

What answer did you give in response to the first question?  Was it less than that which you gave to the second? Or did the second question suddenly make you think that your first answer must have been way off?

For the vast majority of people the answer is ‘yes’.

Why is that?  Why, when asked this kind of question do most of us pick a lower number when we are asked to chose one either side of a low (1 million) figure, than when asked to opt for a number higher or lower than a higher (20 million) figure?

You can choose the same number in answer to both questions and yet people don’t.

And the reason they don’t is because they are mentally fixed to the guideline number of either 1 or 20 million.

Psychologists have a proper name for this figure; they refer to it as an anchor because that is the effect it has on us; it acts like an anchor in that it fixes our mind on to the figure we see first and once we’ve seen or heard it, we find it very difficult to move away from it.

This phenomenon is the reason why the motor industry displays the price of second hand (sorry, ‘previously enjoyed’) cars in dirty great big numbers on the windscreen.

It’s why TV ads for furniture stores first show you a high number followed by the ‘massive reduction’ smaller number.  It’s so that you look at the latter relative to the former and thus believe you are getting a better deal, notwithstanding that – as it says right at the foot of the screen in very small print -  that the sofa in question was only actually at that higher price for 21 days.

Anchors are very useful and powerful things when it comes to pricing whatever it is you are selling because any discount you subsequently offer will be viewed against the back drop of your initial quoted price.

It’s also something you should always bear in mind when negotiating.  Unless you are woefully ill-informed, in other words, have not got a clue as the value of the product or service you are wishing to negotiate for, you should always make the first offer! You go first because the figure you put on the table will act like an anchor, which the other side will find it almost impossible to ignore.

Luxury v Budget

Louis Vuitton recently opened its second largest store in the world on Bond Street, London.  I had cause to go in there a few weeks ago and it was packed full of people buying some very expensive stuff – £150 for a key ring!

Those people who run the Orient Express train also do equally posh holidays, in addition to other suitably exotic cross-continental train journeys.  One of their senior directors informed me that their sales were up by 30% last year.

There’s a waiting list for certain types of Rolex watch.

Profits at Burberry are through the roof.

At the other end of the retail spectrum there’s Primark (sometimes referred to as ‘Primarni’ by the more discerning fashionistas).  They are building one in Edinburgh’s Princes Street at the moment and they need to because if the one I was wandering round in Bristol last week is anything to go by; they won’t be short of customers.  There was a huge queue in the kids department and 14 tills open!

Aldi, Lidl, Sports Direct; all these pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap places are doing a roaring trade.

The picture is clear then.  Whether you are at the very top end or very bottom in retail; you’re doing exceptionally well.  There’s money about and the public are prepared to spend it but they want to know what they are getting; be it luxury or budget.

The tricky place to be in the high street is the middle.  Habitat, Jane Norman, BHS, Debenhams, Next, Top Shop et al, because it’s in this crowded middle-ground where it’s difficult to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

We can all spot the difference between Burberry and Primark but between BHS and Debenhams?

So my message is this.  If what you are offering the client is hardly distinguishable from that which your competitors are, you need to think about how you are going to stand out, particularly if you are selling a service.

And that’s going to come down to how you interact with potential clients.  Lots of people connect with others – email, letter, seminar etc – but fail to make that all important ‘emotional connection’.  In endeavouring to come across as professional, far too many people simply appear earnest.

Lighten up and let your personality flood out.  At least in that way potential clients can see how you’re different from your competitors.  And if you want an example from the world of retail you need look no further than John Lewis.  In many respects very middle-of-the- road but in terms of making an emotional connection with the customer, superb.

Negotiation: allowing them to let off steam

 

My neighbour is a nice enough bloke.  Not terribly exciting but nice enough and completely inoffensive.

 

Doesn’t like my kid’s footballs coming over in to his garden though and won’t throw them back; preferring to wait until there is a knock at the door accompanied with a “Please mister, can we have our ball back?”

 

A couple of months ago he felt he had cause to shout at one of my lads because of ball -related activities.  Nothing to serious (the shouting, that is, or for that matter, the ball-related activities)  So I went round to listen to him.  Not shout, not rant and rave nor really talk; just listen.  To hear things from his point of view.

 

I was there for about 40 minutes and all was most convivial.  Points were made, differences of opinion expressed but things were left cordial and with an agreed plan to prevent further ball incursions in to his pride and joy.

 

However, a couple of weeks ago, he approached me, as he was leaving with his wife for a weekend away, to tell me that he didn’t feel our plan was working.  I agreed: there were 6 balls in his garden; how could I not.

 

I suspect he was expecting one of two reactions. An immediate back down and contrite apology coupled with a “I’ll stop them playing football in their own garden straight away.” or a disagreement served up with a side order of argument.  What he actually got was:

 

“I completely agree and that’s why we are having a fence built. However, I am not telling my own children that they are not allowed to play football. They’re boys: it’s what they do.”

 

Assuming that this would be the end of matters I made to turn away, when he went on to inform me that my children were too noisy and that he and his wife were not able to sit and enjoy a quiet glass of wine in their garden of a summer evening.

 

Now, my first thought was; ‘that’s because we live in Scotland and it never gets that warm.” but my second was to fly off the handle and have a go at him.

 

Instead I let him go on and have his say, allowed him to get it off his chest, to vent his spleen.

 

However, I did something further.  I asked him the following question:

 

“Are you seriously saying that my children are noisier than any other children you’ve ever heard?”  

 

To which he replied “yes”.

 

These two approaches are great in any form of negotiation, whether it be in the commercial world or the domestic.

 

The first; allowing the other side to let of steam works because if you let off steam at the same time or counter with your arguments, you simply end up with a screaming match, with neither party listening to the other and becoming more entrenched in their respective position.

 

However, it’s also very effective because it is impossible for someone to stay that angry for very long: they simply ‘run out of steam’ and it’s jolly difficult to be angry with someone who is not being angry back.  In the end you begin to sound ridiculous even to yourself.

 

And the other tactic, of getting the other side to confirm their view or position; to actually say it out loud, seeks to box them in to their own, often equally ridiculous, corner.  So that once they are in a calmer state they begin to realise that what they’ve said is not realistic or preposterous.

 

Why do all this?  Why just not have an argument?  It’s simple: we’re neighbours.  Irrespective of what happens in the heat of an argument, the fact remains that once the dust has settled, we have to live next door to one another.  Much in the same way, that when you negotiate in the commercial world, it’s very often the case that you have to continue trading, if not with the other side, at least in the same market and it’s a small world, and one in which word soon gets round that you are awful to deal with whenever things don’t run smoothly.

 

 

 

Keeping Your Nerve: Part Two

Hello, I thought it might be sensible to follow up on what has happened since my last blog, which was about keeping one’s nerve when you feel that your business is stuck in the mud because of a lull in orders/requests for business/bookings.

As was fairly clear from that post, I was in the doldrums a few weeks back due to a lack of any communication by any means from any body about any form of possible paid work.  Not that I hadn’t experienced such a lull throughout my years in sales before, it’s just that a chap starts to lose sleep and question his ability to still bring home the bacon. (or meat substitute for the veggies among you) if it’s all gone quiet on the orders front.

Well, t’was as I had predicted: and all came good.  Business is back on track and the diary is once again filling up with an assortment of exciting assignments all over Europe and even North Africa!

Is this luck?  Were the Gods smiling down on me when the email began to ping and the phone started to ring?  No.

I think it was some smart-arsed (but terribly perceptive) golfer who replied to the comment, “well, that was lucky”, made by a member of the crowd on witnessing him sink his ball, “It’s funny, the harder I practice, the luckier I seem to get.”

And that’s as applicable to winning work as it is to playing any sport.  Except for one thing.  Working hard developing business is only going to bring dividends if coupled with working smart!

Professional sales people are lazy.  I know; I was one.  We like to generate as much money as possible as quickly as possible and with the minimum amount of effort.  And that means targeting a market and devoting all your time and effort in making a connection with the right people within it and raising your profile. And of course doing what is my unwavering mantra – following up on everything!

If you are currently experiencing a dry spell orders-wise, keep the faith and, if you know deep down that you are making those calls, sending the emails, writing the letters, attending the networking events and speaking at the right events, as well as following up, you’ll be able to sleep at night and suddenly become very lucky.

Keeping your nerve

Funny thing developing business; it’s never constant.  Well, ‘the developing’ bit should be but one never knows with the ‘business’ element: it comes in fits and starts and that can be very disheartening if your income depends on it.

Take this April for instance.  No, please, take it!  It’s been a nightmare of a month in terms of business coming in. The sooner Wills and Kate have left in their glittering carriage, all loved up and honeymoon-bound, the better because it signals the final ‘working’ day in what has been a month of never ending holidays and absences.

I worked out the other day – as many other parents will have – that my lads will have spent about 81/2 days at school this month!

This has meant loads of people being away from work and therefore not in a position to make decisions about placing orders or committing to business with clients.  I sense there has been a great deal of ‘let’s put this off until after Easter’.

And let’s not forget that at the start of the month there was a definite inertia around committing to things because it was, for many at least, the end of the financial year and the start of a new one. This means lots of budget meetings and final pitches for tranches of cash for various departments. With people far to busy to place orders or commit to expenditure.

My regular reader will know that I have been in sales for 23 years and self-employed and therefore responsible for the generation of my own income for the majority of those.  And I can tell you that the pressure – even when things are going well – to continue to win new instructions or secure new orders  never leaves you.

Whether you are running your own business or responsible for developing business as an employee or partner, you need to understand that business development is a long game: there will be periods of feast and those of famine.

There are stretches of time when you feel your business has reached that much trumpeted ‘tipping point’, when business is coming in from all directions; some of which are completely unexpected and you are convinced that, at last, ‘you’ve cracked it!’

And then, just as you are mentally spending all that promised cash, it stops. Dead.

And you lie awake at night thinking ‘OK, what happened there? Why has no one emailed or phoned to ask if I can help with this that or the other?’

And doubt creeps in: self-doubt.  The kind of nagging doubt that eats away at you.

Anyone who has been in sales will tell you that this is just part and parcel of being in the BD game.  It’s not ‘you’.  You’ve not lost your touch.  You are still good at what you do and there are people out there that love what you do.

Keep steady.  Stick to the basics of business development – phone calls, emails, and letters and chase up EVERYTHING!

It’ll pick up and before you know it you’ll be snowed under again.

So, roll on Friday and the Royal Wedding for it marks the end of what must be the month with the least amount of time spent at work that many of us can ever remember and one in which the biggest decision anyone made was whether to have another BBQ.

Bring on Monday, a new month and………..oh, another bloody Bank Holiday!

Belief in what you are selling

A few months ago I published a post that talked about the fact that you don’t need to know all there is to know regarding a potential customer and their business before going to see them, in the same way that you don’t need to know everything about selling in order to be doing it.

Well, this post addresses a different but similar issue, namely the idea that you do not need to be offering the perfect product or service before trying to persuade people to purchase it.

The reason for opting to consider this subject is as a result of coaching a very experienced guy in a professional services firm a few weeks ago.

Allow me to set the scene.

He was off on a business trip at the invitation of a potential client with whom he had spent sometime establishing a friendly relationship and one that had resulted in a little bit of work going each way (they had done a bit of stuff for him and he, in turn had done a bit for them)

He was going to attend their annual conference, at which he would be brushing shoulders with many of their clients over a period of several days, as well as getting a one to one meeting with some people within the firm who had it within their gift to appoint his organisation as preferred supplier and therefore access to a stream of some very juicy, long-term work, right across Europe.

Hurrah!

BUT; there was a problem.  A tiny problem in many respects and for many people but a very large psychological block for this guy: belief.  Belief that what he and his firm were offering was perhaps not as perfect as it could be.

And there’s the thing: does whatever you are selling/offering/persuading people to buy, have to be 100% perfect?

Of course not!  How can it be?  How can anything be perfect?  Things can always be improved.

Even before launching a wonder gadget that kicks the pants off everything else out there, Apple’s techies are already working on making it better.  It’s the same with the chef and her menu, a car manufacturer with their latest vehicle or Dyson with one of his dual-cyclone, multi-coloured, transparent, vacuum cleaners.

I asked my client to illuminate; to be specific regarding his cause for concern.  He said that in the main, what his organisation could offer was superb but that department ‘X’ was not always as quick to respond as others and that team ‘Y’ could occasionally get bogged down in too much detail etc.

We talked this through.  In particular how he felt about the overall service which his company could provide and how it compared with the other alternatives available to the client and more specifically, how it measured up to what the client was currently receiving.

It was only then that he realised that he could look this potentially massive client in the eye and say “Yes, what we can offer you is superb and it’ll help you business run more efficiently”. In other words, he had reconciled himself to the fact that he would never be able to offer anyone a perfect product or service but that the one he had was one he was proud to be associated with.

And so should you with regard to your product.  If not, improve it to a point at which you are proud of it, whilst recognising that improvement is a continual process.

I

Talk more. Type Less

‘The King’s Speech’ and ‘The Social Network’

Between them, these two films have won every award the film industry could possibly bestow. The people involved in their production, direction, along with actors themselves are going to need a stack full of Duraglit to maintain the lustre on all the trophies, which must now adorn their mantelpieces.

But here’s the odd thing: neither of these films are what one would call action-packed Hollywood Blockbusters.

No car chases. No perilous cliff-hangers.  No horror. No chase scenes.  No escaping from life-threatening situations.  No CGI.  No 3-D.  No romance.  No love interest.  No break-up and make-up.  No explosions.  No guns.  No robots and no stunts.

One of them is essentially a film about two men in a room; the other about some people in a few rooms. That’s it, so why the attraction?

What is it about these two films that grips cinema audiences and film critics alike?  Communication is what: people talking to each other and the relationships that develop because of their interaction.

We are enthralled and engaged by nothing more complicated than watching other human beings relating to one another and that’s because we are social animals.

In the courses I teach, coaching I provide and speeches I  deliver at conferences, I am constantly banging on about people spending too much time ‘communicating’ via electronic means with people, most of whom are only a few feet away from them.

Email, text, Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter are all great in their own way but absolutely no substitution for picking up the phone and talking to someone, which in turn doesn’t even come close to the impact of actually getting up off your backside and going to see them.

My son joined Facebook yesterday. This morning he came downstairs to the breakfast table and proudly announced that he had “64 friends.”

A partner I met in a law firm last week told me that she was “connected to 235 people” via Linkedin.

A few months back, someone else I met at a conference, pointed to the keynote speaker and said – in a kind of hushed awe – “He has 7686 followers on Twitter.”

I don’t mean to be rude but my son does not have 64 ‘friends’, he has one close one and 5 other lads he hangs about with at school.

The partner probably has the names and addresses of numerous ‘contacts’ but she hasn’t got a relationship with the vast majority of them.  Actually, she probably has a handful of people with whom she has a very close working relationship, all of which have taken years to forge over countless face to face chats, lunches, coffees and the odd glass of wine here and there.

And the keynote speaker may have 7686 people who have ticked a box that links them to his, no-doubt fascinating 140 character-long tit-bits but you can bet that 7600 don’t actually know the guy, let alone have what one might refer to as a ‘relationship’ with him.

Face to face conversation beats the hell out of anything that can be achieved via a computer or app on a smart-phone.  The two best movies this year are about people talking to each other. Make sure you are doing more talking in 2011 and less typing – it’s far more interesting.