I am reading a very good book on learning about your customer before you ever talk to them (Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling) . This is in part based on what is also in People Buy You. Customers buy a solution to a problem they have. Your job as a sales person is to learn beforehand what problems appear to be occurring, so you can speak about their company and not yours.  Doing anything less, means you are doomed to the losing sales numbers game.

The sales numbers game, if you do not know.(Where trickle down is not pretty).

• Corporate sets a target of 10% more sales this quarter ( We never know where this comes from)
• Each sales guy realizes with  his  10% closing rate, that a 10% increase is multiplied by ten. thus he needs 10 times f2f presentations.
• Inside sales realizes that with a 5 % response rate to prospecting, their outbound calls have to increase by twenty times – and there is no more staff.
• The entire department is already busy – they are not sitting around

This is a losing game, because it does not address the huge losses embedded into most sales systems.  Sharon Drew Morgen, Mitch Gooze and Michael Webb all are up in arms about the tremendous wastage in sales, where such low rates are common.  A few process trainers have ideas about bumping up the percentages a bit with different behaviours.  But that is just icing a flawed cake

No one in senior management recognizes that this is a much bigger issue (yet fairly logical to address).  If you present a solution that solves a real customer problem, that he can recognize easily,  your sales cycle shortens.  You need to start to remove the obstacles to selling that you have created yourself.

In using our sales and marketing framework Rocket Builders find big self made linked obstacles/inefficiencies  in many places in companies, such as:

• product management
• marketing management
• channel management
• executive management but
• rarely in sales management

The blind spot is that if an executive does not know what they do not know, where would they find out? In your company, do not be content with accepting long sales cycles and a decreasing return based on using the numbers game.  You have created these yourself and you must find the root causes (Its your job as CEO) . If you are on a Board of Directors, you should be asking lots of tough questions. Do not know the questions to ask? Give me a call!

• Knowing What to Do vs. Doing It: Successful Selling Requires Knowledge AND Action (thecustomercollective.com)
• Selling Gets Harder Every Day (frontofficebox.com)
• People Buy You. The real secret to what matters most in business. Jeb Blount (regnordman.com)
• Video: Why Sales Fail (customerthink.com)

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Mojo. How to get it, how to keep it, how to get it back if you lose it. Marshall Goldsmith. 2009. ISBN 978140132327.  Thank you MaryEllen for recommending this author. Famous as the coaches coach, Goldsmith certainly deserves the title.  I found this little book to be chock full of extremely useful immediately  applicable insights. His writing style is simple, concise and direct – yet he comes across as just so Da,,,mn useful.  For me the lighthouse point was his comment that there really is no use for you in getting upset at people being who they are. They can not help it.  Once you realize this you can forgive them for being who they are. And move on to change what you can.  Good read, great book, terrific summer recharger.  check out more including the smartphone app at  Mojothebook.com

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Now for something completely different – A river cruise in the South of France.

My better half, the tour specialist alerted me yesterday to a great experience she found out about. A river cruise starting May 28th from Arles to Lyon which is front ended by three days in Barcelona ( May 25-28) and ends with three days in Paris (June 4-7).  You would leave Canada May 24.

This is a first class  five star, white gloves, gourmet wining, dining , touring experience.  These things are wildly popular, with small numbers on a small river boat which sell out almost a year in advance. We were lucky to get what we found.  We have a hold on  5 rooms for 5 couples and can take reservations now. When they are gone they are gone, likely in a month from now.  check out the links:
Canadian Organizer
http://www.exclusivetours.ca/index.asp?sec=rc&nav=france&prod=france4

Boat and company
The Swiss Pearl
http://www.amawaterways.com/ships.asp?ship=fr
Trip overview
http://www.amawaterways.com/itinerary.asp?iticode=FA10
Map of trip
http://www.amawaterways.com/inc/popup_map.asp?iticode=FA10
Detailed itinerary
http://www.amawaterways.com/itinerary.asp?iticode=F
Videos  about the AMA cruise line
http://www.amawaterways.com/video/video.asp

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People Buy You. The real secret to what matters most in business. Jeb Blount. 2010. ISBN 9780470599112. The person behind SalesGravy.com and Sales Guy audio and video on selling, Blount knows what he is talking about. As he was looking at current thinking on sales he realized that many long held sales beliefs were myths that needed  debunking. Myths such as :

1. Friends buy from friends
2. People but from people they like (But they don’t buy from people they dislike)
3. You have to sell yourself

Rather you need to:

1. Be likable
2. Connect
3. Solve problems
4. Build trust
5. Create positive emotional experiences

His solving problems chapter is one of the better ones I have read lately.  This is a short , concise and clearly written book.  And it is true, people do buy you.  Younger folks would do well to read his section on Brand You.

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The Millenium Trilogy. Stieg Larsson. 2008- 2009.  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ISBN 9780143170098. The Girl Who Played With Fire. ISBN9780143170105. and The Girl |Who Kicked Over the Hornets Nest. ISBN 9780670069033.  Perhaps its my Swedish heritage (there is even a Nordman character in one of these books) , and my predilection to mystery novels – but I really liked these books. Good thing Canada Day was cloudy – I burnt through these guys over a three day period.  You need to read them in sequence and read all of them- it is a well planned out trilogy.  The most modern heroine, Lisbeth Salander – is the  antithesis of a cuddly girl – which makes for lots of steamy plotlines and twists. The hero Mikael Blomkvist, sleeps his way through his relationships as he plies his unique method of investigative journalism. Most of the locations are in Sweden, and I recognized a few from when I was there. The reflections on Swedish culture – which has been called very liberal are quite interesting. It does make North Americans look quite uptight all the time! Too bad the author passed away after writing these, they do make you want for more.  Each book will keep you going on a four hour plane ride!

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Team of Rivals. The political genius of Abraham Lincoln. Doris Kearns Goodwin. 2005. ISBN 9780743270755.  754 pp 9 point type of absolute wonderful insights into the man, the times and the context.  It follows Lincoln from being the very outside choice of the brand new Republican party through to his assignation as the Civil War is being won.  He built his Cabinet of the very people who most strongly ran against him for the job! As you are drawn back to those times you see how ‘messy’ democracy is.  I  was most interested in the roots of the Democratic Party in the South as the pro-slavery party. Not til Clinton were the democrats truly brought to the Liberal centre.   The Republicans started out as the Liberal, pro reform party.  How things have changed.  what has not changed is the awarding of lucrative posts,  contracts, political rewards, personal lobbying and so on. It is quite amusing to hear the liberal “goody goodies” complaining about corruption on a grand scale in Asia and the Middle East, when the Union itself was as full of the same things.  This is a book for leaders, politicians, history buffs and those interested in why Americans do what they do.  Thanks to David Moulton for lending it to me.

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Different. Escaping the competitive herd. Youngme Moon. 2010 ISBN 9780307460851. Sub sub head , Succeeding in a world where conformity reigns but exceptions rule.   This author has really nailed todays marketplace.  In her words, “ Differentiation is a way of thinking. It’s a mindset. Its a commitment  …It is not a tactic. It’s not a flashy advertising campaign; it’s not a sparkling new feature set ”

I enjoyed her indentification of types of brands:

• Todays vast all the same stuff, Minstrel marekting – the pursuit of maximally agreeable ( from Grant McCracken
• Breakaway brands , like Swatch or AIBO
• Reverse -positioned brands like Google
• Hostile brands like Red Bull or Marmite

Her identification of aggressive competition and endless market data forces companies to become more and more alike as they pile more and more features ti create more

• Hyatt-like hotels
• Boring airlines
• A plethora of choices for a TV

So that working like crazy to beat the competition does exactly the opposite – making the product mediocre and more like the competition.

If you are responsible for a product of any kind or want to become a more aware consumer, this is wonderful book for you. It starts differently, from the uneven cut pages,  and avant garde layout. Yet the content over delivers, with an easy insightful read, that will grip and hold your attention.  This is the 2010 marketing book so far.

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Get Unstuck and Get Going… on the stuff that matters.  Michael Bungay Stanier. 2009. ISBN 9780978440718. This is a very inventive book, from its intriguing three flip panel design to its content. It is creative and though provoking and causes you to challenge your assumptions to do your great thing.  I also found it to be playful, very suitable for execs who want a restart to their thinking. Today’s busy execs will appreciate the concise and pocket style format. I would suggest this is a good cottage book when you have some thinking time.