Chopping down the tree

I do not know about you, but, I am a huge fan of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In fact, kind of like Kouzes and Posner's book, I have written a number of posts about Stephen Covey's marvelous book. Click here and here and here

Today, let us remind ourselves of habit number seven.

Apparently, Abraham Lincoln once said something to the effect of, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Stated differently, it is important to stay sharp.

This is the 7th habit, according to Stephen Covey, “Sharpen the saw.”

As an entrepreneur, I make a lot of cold calls. And, I am always amazed by how quickly I become rusty. I mean, I would like to consider myself a fairly intelligent person. But, it only takes a couple days-off to practically forget how to make effective phone calls.

Recently, I was somewhat reassured to hear something a Realtor friend of mine said. My friend's name is James. He makes an obscene number of cold calls. And, James said that after one day-off he has completely forgotten how to do his job.

I have found this to be true. I have also once heard cold calling guru Jarrod Glandt say, “It takes one day to get rusty.” For this reason, I try to make cold calls every single day. This is pretty much the only way I know of to stay sharp.

You can also stay sharp by role-playing. But, it can be hard to find consistent role-play partners. So, personally, I like to categorize my prospects into three lists: primary, secondary, and practice. Whenever I feel the rust, I simply call my practice list.

Discipline over Motivation

In entrepreneurship, choose discipline over motivation.

It is consistently more effective!

( If you need help – click here – click here – click here )

The paradox of the flawless record

Why do people fail to pursue their dreams? I think the answer is two-fold: Fear and Doubt.

So, really, the answer is Focus. Meaning, whether or not a person pursues his/her dream is a function of what he/she chooses to focus on.

If you focus on short-term failure, you might feel afraid, and you will likely give up. Mistakes and embarrassment can knock people out of the game.

However, if you focus on long-term failure, the feelings of failure you experience at the end of your life, you will also feel afraid. But, this time you will persist.

This is something Gary Vee talks a lot about. He talks about legacy and your end of days. Somebody once asked him for a few words of motivation and he said, “You are going to die.”

Starting, and sticking with it, is also the subject of The War of Art. I would suggest this is the main idea Steven Pressfield is known for. It is about overcoming Resistance.

It is the idea behind Richie Norton's book The Power of Starting Something Stupid.

It is why Guy Kawasaki wrote The Art of the Start.

And, helping people overcome their fear and doubt is one of the main topics to which Seth Godin has turned much of his attention.

Recently, I read a short, little blog post by Godin. And, it struck me as rather important.

The post was titled, “The paradox of the flawless record.” Here it is:

If your work has never been criticized, it's unlikely you have any work.

Creating work is the point, though, which means that in order to do something that matters, you're going to be criticized.

If your goal is to be universally liked and respected and understood, then, it must mean your goal is to not do something that matters.

Which requires hiding.

Hiding, of course, isn't the point.

Hence the paradox. You don't want to be criticized and you do want to matter.

The solution: Create work that gets criticized. AND, have the discernment to tell the difference between useful criticism (rare and precious) and the stuff worth ignoring (everything else).

I will leave you with one last conceptualization. To put Godin's idea a slightly different way, I think I once heard Robert Kiyosaki say, “Some of the biggest failures I know are people who never failed.”

Do you really want to come to the end of your days with regrets? What are you focused on?

Entrepreneur = Salesperson

What do salespeople sell? For the most part, innovation.

In this way, “salesperson” is largely synonymous with “entrepreneur.”

You are an entrepreneur if you sell innovation.

Sorry Realtors and car salespeople. But, if the prospect already understands what you are selling, you are not selling innovation.

Over the last few weeks I have covered the topics of innovation and sales.

(Click here for yet another article)

This cute, little cartoon sums it up fairly well:

Exceptional Selling - Part Two

As promised, today is the second, and final, part of my notes on Jeff Thull's wonderful book Exceptional Selling.

Part two of my notes:

The mind-set that supports Value Diagnosis is characterized by five traits and capabilities: p58

1. Value relevancy

2. Change leadership

3. Mutual self-esteem

4. Mutual self-interest

5. Emotional maturity

The value of your solutions is only rarely obvious to the customer. p58

(it is a) connect-the-value puzzle. p59

These maps represent the same kind of diagnostic strategies that physicians are taught. p60

Promise to follow up as conditions change and move on to another opportunity. p61

If value relevancy expresses the sales process in the rational terms of observable and quantifiable gain, change leadership is about expressing it in emotional terms. p62

We should be working smarter, not harder. The smart way to create change in other people is to develop their awareness of the elements that create discomfort and dissatisfaction with staying the same – that is, focus on the emotional side of change. p63

Successful selling is also about managing the customer's emotional acceptance of change … This all dovetails nicely with the work on value relevancy. Indicators of problems and the absence of value establish and clarify the customer's negative present and provide the incentive to change. p64

The sales process has to reveal that the cost of staying the same is too high not to change, p64

Customers should always be fully involved, but they aren't qualified to lead. p64

There is no one better qualified than the sales professional and his or her team to guide the change process. p65

Be prepared to guide the customer along a more mutually productive path. p67

Professionals protect their self-esteem by respectfully refusing to participate in sales that devalue their offerings and abilities. p68

How hard should you be hitting the customer's pain? The danger is that you are insinuating that the customer doesn't know what he's doing … Our challenge is to make customers fully aware of their situation without insulting them. p69

Help customers focus intently on problems and costs without accusations and blame, separate problems from people. p70

Always be “going for no.” We want to identify as quickly as possible if there are any conditions that exist that indicate that both our customers and our companies won't succeed. p71

(Instead of “Always be closing” it's) “Always be leaving” p72

It always comes back to odds and opportunities. p72

Emotional detachment is a critical necessity. p73

Interact with integrity and discuss and solve problems as mature human beings. p74

Just as form follows function in good design, the sequence and phrasing of credible conversations is determined by your system or process. p77

It looks something like this: The sales professional locates a prospective customer and makes some preliminary assumptions about the problems the customer is experiencing and the value his company could deliver relative to those problems. He contacts the customer to discuss those assumptions and determines if the customer is willing to invest the time to prove or disprove the value assumptions and discuss the ramifications and potential solutions. If the customer agrees to proceed, the salesperson works with the customer to diagnose the customer's situation in greater depth, determining the extent of the risks and their costs. If the costs are serious enough to act on, it's time to conduct a similar inquiry into potential solutions and determine their parameters, alternatives, and costs. With the problems and the solution defined, the salesperson prepares a discussion document for review followed by a formal proposal, and if it is accepted, implements the solution and ensures that the customer receives the value that was promised. p78

What are the salesperson's goals in this process? They are: (1) to quickly and effectively identify the customer who has the highest probability of purchasing the offering; (2) to provide the customer with the incentive to change; (3) to provide the customer with the confidence to invest; and finally, (4) to ensure that the value promises made are fulfilled. That's the four-step, sequential process to complex sales success: Discover, Diagnose, Design, and Deliver. I call it the Prime Process and it is the subject of my first book, Mastering the Complex Sale. p78

A memorized script sounds canned … The Prime Process offers a conversational strategy … It gives us a mental map to follow without imposing a fixed route. p79

Make sure that our customers are rationally and emotionally prepared to buy. p80

The initial contact with a prospective customer is the most critical and no doubt the least forgiving stage of the sale. You are considered guilty until proven innocent and you must strike the relevance and credibility cords simultaneously and instantly (within 25 seconds) out of the box. p83

Face-to-face selling isn't mass marketing p85

Start with symptoms, not solutions. p87

The symptoms (are) the physical evidence of the absence of our value. p88

We are never covert; we are always open, honest, and straightforward. p89

Make a few phone calls to the victims. p89

Follow the symptoms to value relevance. p90

You can check for the absence of value with your customer's customers who often represent the most valuable source of relevance. p91

(in the beginning) You should be solely focused on the existence of the symptoms of the absence of your value. You shouldn't be asking who buys your offerings or who might be interested in learning more about them. p91

There is no reason to sneak around. p92

(The) goal is to earn the “keys to the elevator,” that is, to achieve conceptual buy-in on the value assumptions, gain the sponsorship of the executive of our diagnosis, and receive access to individuals within the customer's company who we will speak with to continue our process. p93

The substance of the engagement conversation is also anchored in symptoms. p93

This is a significant departure from the traditional approach where the first contact is all about you. p94

We need to create engagement conversations that are actually engaging. p94

I recommend you open every engagement conversation the same way (he has a script that includes, “I am not sure if it's appropriate for us to talk”) p94

None of the CEOs complained about getting sales calls. What they did complain about were calls that weren't relevant p97

(As you move toward a diagnostic agreement) it is time to test your value assumption. p97

If this (the problem) isn't a priority, this company isn't a viable opportunity. p98

(Jeff basically states that hot leads can burn you, and he recommends that you take prospects through a full qualification process) p101

Truly viable customers are impressed by and attracted to this approach (what he is saying is that the diagnostic process attracts rather than repels) p102

When customers are unwilling to answer questions, they are usually telling you something very important. They may not be ready to take a serious look at the problem or, if they are serious, they may well be working closely with a competitor and need some ammunition to support their choice. p102

Choose to pursue better opportunities. p104

In the Discover conversations, the sales professional is raising the customer's consciousness with regards to the incentive to change. p105

(Chapter Five is titled Diagnosis Trumps Presentation Every Time)

Customers need to be psychologically prepared before they decide to buy. p108

(they are wondering/asking) What should I change? p109

Our goal is to move them to the state of crisis. p109

Customers can decide that they have a problem without having a solution in mind. p110

Crisis lives in the negative present, not the positive future. p110

The real reason customers don't buy is that they don't actually understand the scope of their problems or the consequences of those problems. p111

Do not allow the customer to self-diagnose … Even a doctor treating another doctor would double check the diagnosis before prescribing a treatment. p112

A full investigation of each impact (is what you should be aimed at) p115

What are the consequences and costs of the absence of that value? p116

(You want to establish) a credible, compelling portrait of the customer's negative present. p116

No matter how many times you repeat it, there in one fundamental format for the diagnostic conversation. p116

The diagnostic conversation is a dialogue with the customer that progresses from job responsibility to indicator to cause to consequence to priority. p117

This dialogue is driven by questions. Questions are the levers for change. The answers we get to the questions tell us the viability of the business opportunity we are pursuing. p117

The A to Z Question goes something like this, “Let me start out by asking you this: As you look at the entire process of creating an effective safety training program for your offshore employees, starting with identifying the primary behaviors that are creating the risk and ending up with an accident-free environment, even though it's all been going well for you, which part of this process concerns you the most? … The answers represent the major challenges. p121

Cast members not only tend to cooperate, they are very open to discussing problems … You'll never get all the votes in an election. p122

(Sometimes the customer will use loaded words and you need to clarify and define them. Otherwise you may misinterpret what they are saying) You need to transform loaded words into crystal clear communications … When we clarify, we should be asking for help (never be challenging nor confrontational) p124

When you and your customer have reached the level of process or subprocess where the detailed symptoms of the absence of value exist, it's time to begin asking indicator questions. Indicator questions are used to check the customer's experience and/or knowledge or problem symptoms. They enable you to drill down into an issue to confirm that the symptoms exist, and to determine their causes, consequences, and priorities. p125

– Could you tell me more about....?

– Could you give me an example of....?

– When did you first notice....?

– What seems to be the key contributing factors to....?

– How has this affected....?

– Have you had a chance to look at what this might be costing the business in terms of....?

Always start by asking for observations rather than opinions. p126

We are always moving from indicators to causes to consequences to financial impact and priorities. p127

If there are no indicators, there is no absence of value. p128

When our customers reach the crisis mind-set, they have made the decision to change/buy. p129