Unique World CEO Blog

Our corporate social responsibility has begun

2011-12-20T22:30:00.000+11:00

A very humbling experience recently. With colleague Matthew Lang, I volunteered at the Loaves and Fishes Restaurant in Ashfield, which is part of the Exodus Foundation.

The Exodus Foundation's primary mission is to meet the immediate material, emotional and spiritual needs of disadvantaged and marginalised people. And let me tell you, the people we saw were definitely very disadvantaged… It really makes you appreciate what you have and your priorities in life.

Matthew and I were involved in serving a hot meal to over 250 people. Many of them were migrants obviously struggling with the challenges of day to day life and seeking whatever assistance Australian society would provide. We met the volunteers who are there every Thursday and assist the restaurant operate and give food to the poor. These are amazing people that simply "want to give back".

It is amazingly honourable and courageous to volunteer every week. I would certainly struggle to do it weekly, so admire the people that are able to do that. One of the volunteers is an accountant that has his own practice and has been volunteering for the past 10 years… (amazing – wow!)

Here the people are lining up and beginning to find their seats. People come in groups but really keep to themselves. And although it is very difficult, a lot seem to have their dignity, which is very difficult under the circumstances.

All in all, an amazing experience, and one I will never forget.

This is another step in Unique World’s Community Service policy. For some time, we’ve been supporting a number of charities with donations, but I wanted to encourage our staff to be able to “give back” in a more practical way.

I’d like all Sydney staff to have the experience of volunteering at the Loaves and Fishes Restaurant to see what this is like. We will find something similar for Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane staff so that they too can contribute and "give back".

For more about Unique World’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities.

What a month!

2011-07-11T14:08:00.002+10:00

Not one, not two but THREE fantastic awards have come the way of Unique World in recent weeks, and we're over the moon.

It's always pleasing to be recognised for good work, but the most significant aspect of these awards is that they cover all aspects of our business; technical capabilities, business management and HR, and they all recognise our commitment to a collaborative culture.

The most exciting was global recognition for our work in Portals and Collaboration, a huge achievement. Unique World was awarded the 2011 Microsoft Portals and Collaboration Partner of the Year Award for its work with Telstra’s Enterprise Collaboration and Knowledge Management Portal, a collaboration platform providing end-to-end knowledge management across all core business processes. I’d like to acknowledge Jason Sharpe and the team at Telstra Enterprise and Government for their faith in Unique World, and their vision in wholeheartedly adopting a collaborative approach to business transformation.

The other global award recognised our achievements in implementing Open-Book Management. Unique World is the first non-US company to win an All-Star Award in the Great Game of Business (GGOB).

The GGOB and Open Book Management give our staff full visibility and understanding of all economic aspects of the business. All the numbers are shared, and everyone can see exactly how they’re tracking on the staff bonus scheme. It’s required an enormous amount of effort by all staff to change our culture and to educate and drive awareness around the whole organisation about what we can achieve.

The whole idea of Open-Book Management really fits the collaborative, inclusive culture of Unique World, but even so, I’ve been astounded at our success in such a short period of time.

Finally, in our first year in the survey, we were thrilled to be included in the BRW Top50 Great Places to Work. At Unique World, we’re not about perks or gimmicks for staff, we’re about creating a culture of involvement and collaboration. Part of this is our commitment to Open-Book Management. We’ve almost doubled our staff in the last 12 months, and I think our ability to attract great staff due in large part to our collaborative and supportive culture.

Of course, awards aren’t everything, but they have certainly caused a great buzz around Unique World. I’m so pleased our hard work has been recognised, but we won’t be resting on our laurels. We’ve set the bar high, and these awards will give us something to beat in 2012!

Transformative Power of Open Book Management

2011-05-24T19:50:00.003+10:00

I’m just back from a very inspiring and exciting trip to the US where I accepted an All-Star Award recognising Unique World’s achievements in implementing the Open-Book Management system of the Great Game of Business.

A highlight of the trip was the opportunity to visit other companies, and to share experiences with playing the GGOB. It was encouraging to see that Unique World is up with the best in terms of some aspects of the Game , but I was also able to learn from how others are really good expense forecasting and mini-games, both of which I am planning in implementing over the next 12 months.

I was interviewed on internet radio (the CEO Hour) while I was in St Louis. You can listen to the interview online. I was very happy to talk about our experiences, and to encourage others to consider Open-Book Management.

Open-Book really is an amazing system. It has revolutionised our business and with it our culture. It has transformed Unique World and delivered some outstanding results.”
This Award is recognition for a lot of hard work over the last 15 months since we started to play operating open book management principles. It’s required an enormous amount of effort by all staff to change our culture and to educate and drive awareness around the whole organisation about what we can achieve.

The GGOB and Open Book Management give our staff full visibility and understanding of all economic aspects of the business. All the numbers are shared, and everyone can see exactly how they’re tracking on the staff bonus scheme. We teach all staff to act and feel like business owners.
Everyone takes responsibility for forecasting revenue, and our consultants have become very good at that. We’re now achieving results each month within 1% of forecast. That’s a phenomenal achievement and a huge benefit for the company.

The whole idea of Open-Book Management really fits the collaborative, inclusive culture of Unique World, but even so, I’ve been astounded at our success in such a short period of time. It’s evidence of the commitment of all Unique Worlders to achieving great results for our clients and for our company.

IT Fund for Kids

2010-09-19T22:01:00.003+10:00

Unique World is looking forward to hosting staff and customers to the annual IT Fund for Kids dinners in Sydney and Melbourne this month.

Billed as the “ICT industry event of the year” these dinners are a great opportunity for the IT industry to “put back” and help kids.

The Fund was established in 2000 as a national fundraising initiative supported by Australia’s ICT community. Proceeds from employees and their organisations fund programs to improve the quality of life of children living with serious illness or disability. In the past 10 years the ICT industry has raised over $2.5 million for the Fund.

It should be a great night with corporate teams competing in a series of team brain teasers to ascertain which company is the ultimate Know IT All. It will also be a celebration of the ICT industry’s 10 year commitment to helping seriously ill, disabled and autistic children.

I’m proud that Unique World is again supporting this very worthwhile event.

If you would like to support the Fund, or attend the dinner in Melbourne (23 September) or Sydney (30 September), click on this link.

Social networking key to recruiting professionals?

2010-09-09T09:48:00.001+10:00

$2,000 staff bonus to recruit 18 professionals in tightening labour market.

Unique World has had a great start to the new financial year (2010/11), and with the hung parliament hiatus now resolved, I’m looking forward to a great year.

As a result of recent success, we’re looking for as many as 18 new, talented professionals to work on Information Management and Knowledge Management projects with high profile clients.

With the labour market tightening, we’ve decided to focus on social networks to find these new professionals. Instead of paying recruiters, we’re enlisting the help of our staff, offering a $2,000 incentive if they help locate new hires.

I know our staff are the best reference we have, and they’re a great resource to get the message out. If they tell people what a great place Unique World is to work, it’s a much more powerful recommendation than any corporate spiel.

As these projects grow, we expect to be looking at more jobs in the near future. We’ll continue to use social networks to find them, if this exercise proves to be a success.

Check out the details - http://tiny.cc/uwhiring

If you are keen to join an exciting company with enormous growth potential, apply now and join us.

Ready to play the Game

2010-03-16T23:11:00.002+11:00

Check out the Great Game of Business - www.ggob.com it looks like an awesome initiative for any organisation. The book is excellent with some very relevant and important areas to any company.

If you do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten!

2009-11-10T22:40:00.003+11:00

The title of this posting has never been true then in recent times. We have had people in roles where we simply replaced them in the roles and expected a better result. After trying this 2 times and failing I think it became apparent that it wasn't necessarily the person but the role and the structure. It was almost like the structure never allowed for its success.
So thinking about this concept I am applying it to many parts of the business. So it will be interesting as to how things go over the next 2-3 years and whether the decisions made now will reap success.

You have to try new things in different ways. Keeping on doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different result is probably insanity. Although its not obvious at first.

Does flatter mean fitter?

2009-09-07T21:47:00.002+10:00

I have been reading many articles around the topic of flat management - through a reduced number of levels from the CEO down, it should promote a leaner and more open organisation. Whilst many flat organisations are smaller in size than their larger hierarchical structure style organisations, I often wonder whether the larger ones that have many levels of hierarchy hide under performance.
I am all up for empowerment, delegation and accountability, however I wonder if a flatter management structure encourages that, impedes that, or neither...

Is a quick response considered "desperate" or "responsive"?

2009-07-22T00:00:00.002+10:00

We were in discussions today with various legal firms (they will remain nameless). We are looking to get some work done so we have briefed the work out to a few firms and looking to see what comes back.

I am writing about one of the firms we met up with. We met for an hour with a partner and briefed him on the work. We discussed rates and estimates at the end of the meeting and he offered to send through a proposal immediately. We thought nothing of it as we thought "as if we will get this straight away"?

Well we were wrong. We not only got it immediately, we got it within the hour :).
In the e-mail it stated the costs and that the partner was in a position to start in the coming days with the first draft of what we wanted next week. WOW!

So do I think that,
a) The firm is desperate for the work and I perhaps should be worried? or
b) They are super responsive and keen for the business and its an example of what I should expect from here on in?

Now in the current climate I should appreciate this behaviour as things aren't that full on for professional services firms, so when a client is there you want to impress them and get their business. But what behaviour is "desperate" rather than appropriately "responsive"?

I like the responsiveness and it always presents an opportunity to negotiate on rates anyway. :)

Anyone have any other thoughts/comments?

When is the right time to "place the bet"?

2009-06-14T21:46:00.003+10:00

No I am not into gambling or the horses for that matter. I am referring to the new idea, new region, new product that a company creates (referred to investment areas). During the growth of any business new products, regions and/or ideas are created and launched into. Most businesses that do this organically find it difficult to really invest in these products "properly".

Existing methods for "proper" investment are difficult to obtain and what's even more difficult is determining the internal investment. How do you focus on multiple "investment areas" effectively? How do you invest in them that can fully realise their potential but at the same time allow you to hedge so that the core business doesn't fail?

Is it possible to hedge and also ensure that each investment area has been invested in to the max?

I ponder about this all the time and wonder if we should "properly" invest in this no, no maybe not. Maybe we should in invest in something else or the next idea???

Some part of me almost would rather place the bet in an all or nothing approach that at least allows for no regrets. As they say no guts no glory... but sometimes it's the no guts that tells you that now isn't the time and this isn't the right idea, but you then go on with life regretting...

If I was to use Jim Collins' recommendations from Good to Great, it would be to invest BIG in the product you can be the best in the world at. I love it - simply but so powerful.

I guess I don't think I will stop pondering... but hopefully the pondering will stop soon and the betting will begin...

(BTW, I'm back to blog a little more)

Will KM be as important as ERP?

2009-03-11T21:59:00.004+11:00

The ERP is obviously a very important part of every organisations core systems. In the big end of town it’s referred to as ERP (aka SAP, Oracle, JDE, etc...) but most people will know it as the finance system.
The finance system is most organisations' core mission critical system. Without it, they can't invoice, process, trade, receive and basically operate the organisation.

The finance systems in all organisations have really only become the lifeblood because the traditional finance system of GL, accounts payable/receivable have been extended to major platforms (now known as ERP) and do a lot more. Take SAP for example - it has a portal, supply chain mgt, business process mgt, integration, etc... to name a few, so it’s obvious that this is the major platform for many organisations.

However the ERP platform deals with structured processes very well and transactions very well. There is still a massive gaping whole with unstructured systems. I am talking about e-mails, documents, web sites, images, etc..., the list goes on. This makes up for most of the data within an organisation but most of the time it is dumped on file shares (similar to the storage bin) and rarely recalled again.

Enter KM = Knowledge Management.
Knowledge Management as defined on Wikipedia is
"Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences."

Yes I know that doesn't state unstructured explicitly but that's the greatest challenge.

How do you capture, retain, reuse, manage information that becomes tacit knowledge throughout the organisation to then harness and compete on a far grander scale.

I believe organisations that embrace knowledge management as a key executive item on the agenda (i.e. hire a CKO) and invest appropriately will deliver tens of times bigger returns than their competitors. The reason is because their ability to gather, store, share and reuse will be so powerful it will get products to the market faster, more reliably and with greater competitive advantage. Knowledge will be retained within the organisation rather than walked out when staff leave.

Watch, KM will one day be as important if not more important than the ERP.

CFO's better realise this, and get on the bandwagon.

Librarians, records managers, knowledge managers, and everyone else in this industry - your career prospects are very exciting.

Bigger company <> Happy Staff <> Happy Customers

2009-02-08T21:53:00.002+11:00

To clarify, my posting is about whether a bigger company means happier staff and happier customers.

I know it's obvious, but the answer is no. It doesn't even mean happier shareholders and executives.

We grew pretty rapidly over FY07-08 and took on more customers and in turn more staff, and obviously our revenues and profits grew also, but if you ask staff and customers - were they happy with Unique World? Or "happier" with Unique World than previous years, the answer was more than likely No. I didn't ask them but I could certainly guess.

On the other hand, take the current times for example. Yes we have contracted and gotten a little smaller, but the engagement with staff has improved (still not perfect) and so has our relationship with customers. Actually the feedback from customers is very positive, so much so, that I cannot remember having so many satisfied customers with so few unsatisfied customers. There would always be a handful of challenged projects that needed constant management, but we have very few at the moment.

Maybe its us, the customers, the market, probably a combination - but one thing is for sure I am a lot happier now (yes its a challenging time and not easy) than I think I was 12 months ago. Of course the numbers were better then, but many things around me were a struggle.

Although the next 12 months are going to be an enormous challenge with the whole GFC, I think that if we stick to our guns, remain focussed and nimble, we will succeed and have very happy staff and customers at the same time.

Just ask Eddy Groves what he have rathered...

In this market (and always), stick to your core business

2008-12-08T23:21:00.003+11:00

The amount of times I have had discussions with people around "diversifying" and getting into new businesses/offerings because of the current times scare me.

Everyone has heard about "Stick to your core business" and you will succeed - there are countless management books and leaders spruiking this - so why, just because of the slow down is it a reason to get into "more businesses"?

I know all the obvious reasons, but I don't think that now is any different to the boom times when evaluating "new" businesses so why do people look more around this topic now than in the good times. It's because when business slows down in your core business you are often drawn to other business offerings that may be booming more.

I am not saying not to evaluate new business offerings but you should definitely think twice (or maybe even 1 times).

One of the fundamentals I have always learnt is to play to your strengths. So if the business is going well, work out what is working well and do more of it. Don't slow that down and do other things that will impact your ability to do more of what you do well.

Today the current economic conditions seriously test this theory about core business - but personally I think now is the BEST time to be doing more of what works, rather than the other way around.

If business is slowing, it doesn't mean you are not good at your core business - it means you have to go to either do more with existing customers, or find new customers - but DO NOT start new offerings and stop doing your core business just because things have slowed down.

Now is the hardest time to be setting up new businesses organically.

Go get more customers. (I know that is easier said than done)

I can personally vouch for this over the last 4-5 months. It has been a challenge that's for sure, and there was a time I really questioned our strategy and core offerings, but sticking to our guns has worked out - we just needed to speak to more customers.

Although the storm hasn't completed passed, I can see blue sky now.

Bird in the hand...

2008-11-03T22:58:00.002+11:00

I don't think there has been a more important time than now to truly appreciate the saying "bird in the hand is worth two in the bush".
With the current "financial crisis" (as everyone is labelling it) more and more clients are delaying projects. They aren't cancelling them they are delaying them. Which you would think is great news that at least they are delaying it rather than cancelling it, but that presents different challenges.
If the project was cancelled you would remove it from your pipeline and move on. Since it has been delayed it still stays in the pipeline as you need to have some sort of visibility across it, but you don't know when it will come back. Which means you can't plan for it.
So do you hold out and hope for the best or do you assume that the "slow down" will take a lot longer to turn around and manage the business that way???

With all these factors the way you price and compete is very important. Do you go in aggressively to sure up the business only to reduce the potential value you provide or do you stick to the "value" sell and position the cost appropriately, not necessarily sure up the business and take the risk?
It is a dilemma that's for sure. I think you take the most likely deal in the quickest time frame.

So my feeling is that in this climate (and probably other climates) you take the deal on the table based on what you know today and not what you "hope" will happen tomorrow. If other projects you have "sold" in eventually come in then deal with that. Don't hold out the delivery team for the "delayed" projects - they may never come.

I heard a great saying on the weekend from one of the Bourne movies which I think is very relevant in today's climate.
"Hope for the best. Plan for the worst"

Something that is imperative to do in this current climate, albeit difficult

Creating the Compelling Event in sales

2008-10-12T21:23:00.004+11:00

As most people know in Sales 101, in order to be successful in closing the deal, there are a number of factors that the sales person must find out about and focus on in order to close the deal. Some include what is the decision making process, who are the decision makers themselves, etc... But one aspect of a sales cycle sticks out like anything (especially now) and the need to get it right is the factor between closing the deal or delaying the inevitable.

It is all about the Compelling Event!!!

You MUST either have a compelling event created by the situation or client (ex. mandated compliance by a certain date, go live date across new Internet site to support a new product launch, etc...), however if the sales cycle doesn't have one created by the client you will probably struggle to close the deal.

So if the client doesn't have one you can either forget the deal, or the other option is to create the compelling event yourself.

The best sales people out there have an incredible and uncanny ability to create these events. I believe that while some clients can get excited about the strategy and business outcome, ultimately purchasing decisions are tactical.

Now the sales person doesn't have many options around the creation of the compelling event if the customer doesn't have one, but I have a couple of suggestions (they are obvious and tactical in nature) that may be useful.

They are:

Specific dates around key resources internally at your company that are available only within a time window and if the client really wants to use them they need to move quickly otherwise delay the project
Provide a specific discount if the project is approved and started within a certain time frame - say 10 days
Work with a partner to jointly "invest" in the project but again this is around a time window for the entire project
Invest another way to create it

Others that can be strategic are more around industry standards or business cases, but again not necessarily date driven.

Compelling events have never been so important as now - especially in this current market where lots of organisations are sitting on their hands and not doing anything, awaiting to see what happens around the world given these uncertain times.

I think it will be the difference between success and failure given the current times, so its the creative ones around deals that will win.

Fewer -> Deeper in an economic downturn

2008-09-02T23:04:00.002+10:00

I have blogged before and all my staff will know I talk about Fewer -> Deeper at length. So basically focus on fewer accounts with deeper engagements and the business will grow. That is absolutely the right strategy in a market that is growing with strong economic conditions. ie the last 2-3 years. Unique World has certainly prospered in using that strategy.

However, when those accounts you have been investing in begin to cut spending and tighten their belts no matter how much investment you do, sometimes nothing gives. You simply need to adapt and move on. (Someone remember the book, who moved my cheese?) Well the cheese has moved and with it we must also.

Anyway, when conditions are challenged and there is economic uncertainty you need to ensure that you have a list of clients from a diverse set of industries that can buck the downward trend, and where you have invested across all of these accounts. Now in a small business like ours, that is tough. You can certainly spread the risk and do commercial work and government but within sector is far more the challenging and costly.

So Fewer -> Deeper is still the right strategy just across a more diverse set of clients. We have learnt in recent times when the key clients are in a handful of industries and they re-prioritise projects due to uncertainty that you need to broaden your engagement and get out there more and diversify cross-industry.

Pick industries like financial services, mining, environment and public sector. When one contracts the others can potentially grow. Nowadays Health and Education are probably good ones as the Rudd government will certainly be spending big in that in the years to come.

Watch this space...

Strengths focus - further refined

2008-08-10T22:02:00.002+10:00

After my last postings in relation to strengths I was pulled up by a Sam (not his real name) saying that he didn't necessarily agree with my postings, where I said that focussing on your strengths was the way to go and that it would be the deciding factor in you being successful.

One small but important detail I forgot to mention is that strengths are linked to the the tasks you enjoy. So if you look forward to the task/activity, get a buzz out of it and look forward to it again, you probably have a strength in that activity. Once I explained and discussed this with Sam it was far more clear and apparent.

I have since been asking people about this, more specifically around "how much of your day do you actually enjoy?" To my delight it is greater than 50% in mot cases. I know many people would want that to be 100% but considering the national response based on Gallup is 8% I am pretty pleased.

Check out the web site also, www.strengthsmovement.com, it has more content around this topic

Scrapping Sales Commissions in a Constrained Environment

2008-07-07T21:26:00.004+10:00

Sales Process Re-engineering by Ballistix is something we are looking to embrace at Unique World. so mush so, is that we have scrapped sales commissions across the sales team for consulting projects. When you are selling to a constrained environment providing incentives to the sales team doesn't drive the right behaviour.
Rather than detailing my take on this, the article on the Ballistix web site is a great one to read to understand what I mean. see here - http://www.ballistix.com.au/cms/default.asp?CategoryID=1&MenuID=1&ArticleID=96

What are your strengths?

2008-07-01T00:56:00.002+10:00

The strengths movement is certainly picking up momentum but it still has a long way to go. Most people don't even know what their strengths really are. And many times people believe that their values are a strength, which is definitely not the case.

Often I will ask someone what they believe their strengths to be and they will answer with "I am a hard worker". How is that a strength? Would the person be a "hard worker" if they would be say collecting rubbish? Of course not - it has everything to do with "what" they are doing rather than "how" they are doing it?

Strengths must be specific, like "I enjoy meeting with large complex customers about a new project and determining the best approach." see very specific.

People can't say that they love "dealing with customers" and that's a strength. I am sure you can come up with many instances that dealing with customers was unpleasant and you definitely didn't look forward to meeting and dealing with the issues. See - you need to be specific. What were you doing when you really enjoyed that, etc...

Where as if you detail the specific nature and do "more" of that you are destined for success.
Well more likely anyway

Off to read more about strengths - check out Marcus Buckingham - simply awesome!!!

Focus on Strengths (v2)

2008-06-10T00:30:00.003+10:00

Back in March I wrote a posting around Strengths which was focussed on organisation strengths. So now 3 months on from that posting around what we were doing more of and less of and I have to say that playing more to your strengths is certainly paying off.
Anyway, that is not the reason for this posting.

I attended the Marcus Buckingham workshop in Sydney last Thursday (June 5, 2008) and wow was it brilliant. For those of you that haven't read about him - I suggest getting all over his site as a first and then go out and buy his books - this guy has the ability to revolutionise the way we think about our strengths and weaknesses which in turn would revolutionise the way our entire education and social systems are made from.

The simple concept that you MUST invest more and more across the things you do badly rather has been turned on its head and is now all about focus on the things you do really well and keep focussing on doing them really well and improving and then "neutralise" your weaknesses through them. I know that sounds obvious but our entire social and education systems are focussed on the opposite. Keep doing more of the things you do badly to improve your skills there. But they will simply go from very crap to maybe just crap. It doesn't work!!!

If that doesn't make sense - go out and see him if you can and read his books.

I have already begun to put some of this messages into practice and I love it!

(Apologies for not writing for a month - things have been a little hectic)

Are you focussed?

2008-05-13T23:32:00.003+10:00

In my last catch up with Ilan Kogas (my mentor) he ran me through a simple exercise that I also saw at the Verne Harnish growth workshop back in Feb and it is very powerful.

Basically depending on whether your role is in the business of revenue generating or service delivering or even cost saving, the exercise is to list the 10 things you did say yesterday and determine how many them helped you deliver on your role/KPI's.

So if you are in the business of sales, and you listed the 10 things you did yesterday I wonder how many of them are revenue generating. Most people I have found have about half.

If you are in the business of service delivery, again, list the 10 things you did yesterday and determine how many of them are service delivery focussed.

My list was as follows (based on an ordinary day) - judged by business growth

Event Marketing (YES)
Sales Meeting with sales execs (YES)
Executive Meeting (NO)
Project Analysis (NO)
Meeting with Finance (NO)
Said no to new business (YES) :)
Called 3 customers to ensure they were happy with things (YES)
Met with staff member around some external client concerns (YES)
Meeting with external partner (YES)
Worked on some budget analysis (NO)

As you can see I had around 60% alignment - what this raises is - are you spending the time in the right places and is your team and/or peers.

I know you canargue that some can go one way or the other, but that is where your disgression comes into play in the context of the specific meeting/task you completed.

Try it out for yourself - you will be amazed.

No Pain - No Gain

2008-04-22T23:03:00.002+10:00

Founder of IBM, Thomas J Watson, believed that to increase your success rate you need to increase your rate of mistakes. law of nature dictates this in equal measure.

So the faster you make the mistakes the faster you are more likely to succeed.

Now one doesn't mean the other, but it certainly assists and increases the likelihood of success.

It is clear that the most successful companies got there after many changes and mistakes before they got it more right then wrong. Which is basically a formula for success. Do more right things then wrong things and you are more likely to succeed and prosper.

Its the organisations that don't change or that are scared to make mistakes that wither and die.

In the last 9 years of Unique World we have made hundreds of mistakes, but as long as you know where and how, so that you can learn from them and apply those lessons to new things you will succeed. You need to have self awareness and be able to reflect and determine where it went wrong and right.

Stop, pause and reflect - you will be amazed as to what you will learn.

So make the mistakes quickly and learn from them. That's what life is all about isn't it...

Qualification destroys value

2008-03-31T00:24:00.003+11:00

Sales qualification in the oldest sense, meaning determining the basic aspects of a sales cycle, like budget, time frame, decision making process etc... is very important when it comes to selling, but it does destroy value.

Which is interesting considering I run the sales team at Unique World. You see, when a sales person qualifies the opportunity and gets the basics of the sale from the customer like budget and time frame (you must have both to really kill value) for purchasing then it simply becomes a compete situation. So all your energies go into differentiation of you against your competitors and it stifles innovation for the solution sales stage and forces a sale with reduced value due to its competitive nature.

When you talk to a customer around a project/program/engagement and look to understand their business requirements and how you can add value you are doing so with no inhibition. Basically you are looking to advise and bring value to the sale and the organisation through your experience and what your company can deliver. However the moment they tell you the budget and time frame, you immediately buckle up and go into sales mode and competitiveness.

This is natural and only forced by the customer due to the nature of the opportunity. The opportunities with the basic facets like budget and time frame locked down are the ones you should walk away from, because it just becomes a shoot off, which you never end up winning nor making as much as you initially thought you would.

Although competition is great, it should only be introduced as a measure against the value you have brought rather than ones credentials. Credentials should be what gets you to the table in the first place rather than someone using that to evaluate your experience.

Too many clients use references at the end of the sales cycle, where they should be doing that at the beginning.

Sales Process Engineering

2008-03-18T23:32:00.002+11:00

I was in an all day workshop today with Ballistix. Justin Roff-Marsh ran the day around applying the theory of constraints (TOC) to the sales process. To read more about TOC, you must read the Agi Goldratt's book called The Goal - read all about it here

Anyway, the concept is all about applying sound process and division of labour principals to the sales process. We all know that the sales process and the sale itself is black magic. Every sales guy under the sun will say how what they have is special and that only they know how to close a deal - this means that the traditional sales function is hard to manage and all but impossible to scale.

The modern sales function resembles production, as it would have been, prior to the industrial revolution. The workshop talked about a method for engineering the sales function into a measurable, manageable and scalable process.

We are only day 1 of our journey to truly understand what this means - we are certainly not doing this to grow the sales team and function, it is categorically focussed on driving consistency in the entire sales process and have it manageable and focussed in the manner we need it to be, without the hundreds of variables that exist today.

I can't wait to see it in action - albeit it will take us around 6-9 months to really see it through.

Watch this space...

Play to Strengths

2008-03-10T21:55:00.001+11:00

As everyone probably knows by now, I am a big fan of Verne Harnish. Following on from a great conference I attended in mid Feb, one of the messages I kept hearing was that people should play to their strengths rather than their weaknesses. I know that this is obvious but not many people do this.

Many people and companies invest the time and $$$ into the areas that aren't going so well to improve their position and offering (which is obvious and important). The amount of time and money they put into their weaknesses to improve the service/process/offering is huge but the pay off isn't very much, when you compare this to the pay off when you invest further in your strengths – which can be HUGE.

Take a swimmer for example. They can swim strong freestyle, ok backstroke and poor butterfly. Should they invest the time and energy into becoming strong in backstroke and butterfly to be the world's best in the medley, which would be very difficult and painful, or do they sacrifice that dream and say freestyle is my strength, lets invest all my time and energy into freestyle and be the world's best freestyle swimmer.

This is something that has never been more apparent to Unique World than now. 12 months ago where we did Information Management, web site design, SEO, custom .NET, EPM, BI and any other technology that our people could potentially learn. Now we just do one thing - Information Management. (FULL STOP).

I know that many would be scratching their heads, but it has made so much sense and the company has never been so focussed and our clients have really appreciated that. Now it's time to further focus around engagement model, client type, industry, etc…. This should never stop I think.

We will select our strengths and invest further in them so we can become the best in the world (part of the hedgehog concept – thank you Jim Collins) in Information Management. Or in layman's terms, we assist organisations cleaning up their information mess.

I know the future will be challenging, but at least I know the journey will be paved to focus on our strengths.