Garth's World

It’s 2010. Make a Decision Already!

2010-02-03T12:54:14-08:00

People that have never been in sales (particularly finance guys and lawyers, for some reason) always simplify the entire sales process down to the final stages of deal negotiation. They glorify your job as one money call after the other where all you have to do is hold tight on price, fend off the competition jackals and watch the money roll in. Oh to be so lucky. In my experience, the true enemy of the salesperson (besides self doubt, time, the IRS, head-in-the-clouds management, faulty products, traffic cops and the airline industry) is corporate inertia: where the customer just decides to do nothing.

When you are in a dogfight with the competition (assuming you both are reasonably well informed), it means that the customer is going to make a choice and actually buy something. Someone is going home with the PO. After the initial sting of receiving the call that is the customer’s equivalent of the “Dear John” letter wears off, I would rather have lost a deal to another company than to realize that I had wasted my time chasing butterflies. Sales Managers take note: if the “Lack of DM Decision” tab is your team’s favorite reason for deals exiting the pipeline, you’re in trouble. This ain’t hockey: a tie gets no points.

So how do you avoid this situation?

The same way you get any movement in sales- you ask questions. One of my favorite sales questions to ask during the discovery phase (but not the first cold call, jojo) is one that I repeat throughout the sales process. It is some variation of:

What are the consequences of doing nothing/remaining status quo?

Image by the justified sinner via Flickr

Recently I was involved in a large Jigsaw sale to a Fortune 500 company. I was working with the sales group primarily, starting with the district sales manager of the Bay Area. I asked him what his sales people would be using to find lead and target contact information if they remained status quo. He told me that they would continue to use the web (Google) and call into the contacts they already had in their home grown, very inaccurate and old CRM database. He then went on to tell me about a very important metric that would be affected negatively if they continued the way they did which they called “corrupted selling time,” which I referenced in every conversation with the company from then on. Not only did the customer eventually become one of Jigsaw’s largest customers, but I (and hopefully most of our salespeople) am now asking large companies if they keep track of “corrupted selling time.”

I’ll leave you with two quotes that motivate me while trying to get a prospect (or co-worker or partner) to take action:

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing”

-Theodore Roosevelt

“Make yourself a sandwich; drink a glass of milk... Do some f^ckin' thing.”
-Jimmy Serrano (the gangster from Midnight Run)

Sales is for Humans

2010-01-21T05:00:00-08:00

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Monday I celebrated the legacy of the great Martin Luther King Jr.by going to an afternoon movie (hey, at least I admitted it) called “Up in the Air.” I chose that film for two reasons: A) I read the book-on a plane, no less- and I wanted to see how much Hollywood would water down the sarcasm and satire of the original and B) because I have a man crush on George Clooney. Both inclinations were fully realized, although there was still a high enough concentration of corporate buffoonery for me to be entertained. Also, the screenplay was completely re-written to the point where every scene and character was new, which was a good thing, because the book didn’t bother with simple details like having a plot.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to give into the secret belief that all people who write blogs have that they really would be great film critics if given the audience. Any jack^ss with a gift for synonyms for the word “awesome” could fit that bill. I want to relate an idea in the film that struck the sales person in me as true, and if I can be so bold, important.

The basic story is about a consultant that travels 322 days a year to companies to fire people. His company wants to replace the “inefficiency of the human element of termination notification” with a web conference software and a team of inexperienced people who read from a script while informing the person that have been “let go- never say fire.” Clooney’s character is assigned to show the perky MBA architect of the system the process so she can perfect the simulations of all possible interactions into the workflow of the software. Much dark comedy ensues as she tries to get through the emotional drudgery of canning career employees from drab offices across the Midwest in winter.

Image by jimmyroq via Flickr

This is probably a stretch, but the scenes reminded me of the trend for some companies caught up in the whole Web number.zero technology transformation that are looking to completely replace their outside sales pros with a team of Generation Text (grudging credit to Jeffrey Gittomer) phone jockeys that think Facebook is the only business application necessary to run their work/life amalgam. Don’t get me wrong; I am a Sales 2.0 enthusiast of the highest order. But I firmly believe that face to face interactions will always be the best way to conduct business. Even as air travel becomes more and more unpleasant (we’re probably 5 years away from having to fly naked in hermetically sealed coffins), I think there will always be place for at least a few warm blooded individuals in every company that can put on a suit and convince another person sign on the dotted line.

At least I hope so - because racking up frequent flier miles is fun.

No Reprieve for the Infirm

2009-10-08T17:43:23-07:00

Is there anything that blows more than being sick as an adult?

On the home front, there are endless meals to be prepared and cleaned up, things to be fixed, stories to be read, fights to be broken up, the endless social calendar algorithm to be negotiated. I can almost forgive my wife for eyeing me with thinly veiled disdain (and every dad knows verbatim that “no sniffle you have compares to 10 months of being p

Image by ratterrell via Flickr

regnant”). It reminds me of my high school football coach who would blame every loss on the fact that the “walking wounded” didn’t prepare enough in the offseason to avoid getting hurt and couldn’t play in games. In public (I am currently on a plane) you can feel the hostile glances as you cough and sneeze into your elbow. I actually thought the automaton at the security line might call me out as a possible H1N1 quarantine candidate, until I realized she was much more concerned that her replacement was late returning from a break than actually detecting any public threat (must have only been a Level Mauve security day). And finally at work, particularly for the quota carrying salesperson, the ever increasing work pile yields to no personal affliction.

The entire corporate world is prejudiced against the ill. People that are “out sick” are always under immediate suspicion, as if all maladies were self inflicted like the “Irish Flu” or a social disease. I’m no better; I proudly state that I never missed work when I was in sales due to illness--meaning I showed my diseased face around one lap of the office, made a couple vital calls, and split, but then tacked all sick days off onto vacations or weekends. Like most Silicon Valley work camps, Jigsaw doesn’t even have sick days- you simply have a 15 days of personal time off (PTO). If you get mono? Too bad! No vacations for your family for a couple years. That’ll teach you to get yourself sick.

My point? I’m sick right now and I have to still be on a flight to some conference and write this blog and deal with hundreds of member issues and still keep my deals moving. I’m going to let my 5 year old copy this blog in the journal that we make him write in every time he says “No Fair.”

No, not really. As a companion piece to my hangover cures, I’m going to impart some of the (legal) remedies that have pulled me out of bed and got me up in front of clients for years now.

8. Sleep. Usually it is a lack of sleep that has at least contributed to you catching the latest bug, so prioritize what needs to get done and deal with it, then pick your favorite knockout drug and sleep like a high school kid.

7. Sweat. If you don’t have time to sleep (I’m sure 97% of you skipped over item 10), then hit the trail, pump iron, work the thighmaster- -whatever gets you going. If you can’t physically move, then find a sauna, steam room, or furnace closet. Try the conference room where all the engineers have “meetings.” I don’t care what the warnings say- -sweating works.

6. Take a shower. Even if it is your third one today (this week).

5. Drink Ginger Ale. Sprite isn’t the same. Supposedly there is something in ginger that settles your stomach, but I seriously doubt that Schweppes is putting enough root in there to do much. It might just be a placebo that stimulates memories from being sick as a kid.

4. Shut up. Many times the first thing to go for me when I catch even a slight cold is my voice, and there is nothing to bring back the audio portion of the Garth circus but silence. There used to nothing more useless than a sales guy that couldn’t talk, but thankfully we now have email, IM and texting!

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3. Alka Seltzer. There is a reason that they haven’t updated their brand since 1950, yet they stay in one of the most competitive businesses out there. Fizzing up the chemicals that fight cold and flu symptoms makes them work better.

2. Speed it up. Ephedrine used to be as close as the nearest packie store, but the meth nation ruined it for everyone. Allergy medicines like Claritin (you have to get behind the counter for the good stuff) can resuscitate your body enough to get you through a presentation or two. But you better not apply the defibrillator more than once (Clear!), though, or you will start sounding “like Pookie in New Jack.”

1. Test and Invest. Everybody has their own remedies, because they think that they felt better after taking them. I chalk this up to the power of the mind (yes, I lived in CA for 15 years). Try everything and go back to what works for you.

Good luck getting back on your feet- because illness symptoms are like dreams, everyone has ‘em from time to time, but no one wants to hear about somebody else’s.

Hey Thor, try using a Screwdriver!

2009-10-01T18:59:24-07:00

If you have been following this blog recently, you may have noticed that my attempts to spin together descriptions of daily business adventures, Jigsaw corporate branding and useful insights for sales people might becoming somewhat forced. The Jigsaw angle is obviously the red headed stepchild of the three. But this week I am happy to report that the bond is lock tight and, just like the superglue that I accidentally squirted across my brand new hardwood floor, will be obvious for all to see.

This morning my furious networking efforts landed me at a meeting of volunteers for the Professional Career Center that is being opened with funding from the governor as part of the

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Charlotte Regional Economic & Workforce Recovery Initiative. Normally I run shrieking from anything that sounds government- oriented. But after I realized that no law enforcement officials would be involved and that I wouldn’t be required to wait in line at the DMV (that’s next week), I decided to give it a try. As it turns out, I have access to something that people looking to rejoin the white collar workforce need (business contact information), as well as extra energy needed for motivation. In exchange I can meet other business execs that are similarly donating their time and resources to help get Charlotte back on track.

Low and behold, I also get to investigate that inclination in the back of my psyche (Bart Simpson realized it was his conscience) that wants to take a break from racing around in my own personal gerbil ball and actually help other people in a community.

Anyway, I will be speaking on the topic of online research, and showing job searchers how to find potential employers, referrers, investors and other useful individuals on the web. Jigsaw will be the starting point, but our links to other resources like Linked In, Zoom Info, and Google will be helpful as well. Best of all, because of Jigsaw’s business model, it is easy to allow free access to Jigsaw without costing any real value dilution to our company. In fact, it helps spread the word to companies and teams that the people become employed by- and the more people interact with the data, the more accurate it becomes. Everybody wins.

Quickly, here are a few things you can do using contacts you find on Jigsaw:

Image by mtsofan via Flickr
Get your resume “unstuck” from the web form application, corporate recruiter, or hr manager black hole. Jigsaw, particularly when used with Linked In, can help you find a referring employee. Companies always prioritize referred applicants.
Communicate with the real decision maker. Jigsaw can help you find the hiring manager, the SVP of Global Operations, Head widgetmaker, Compliance wonk, Taskmaster, Assistant to the Assistant General Manager, whomever you would actually be working for in the new job
Find out what the job is really like. Instead of the hiring company being in control of the information flow, you can contact potential future peers and ask them candid questions about what is going on.

So what about what’s in it for salespeople specifically?Jigsaw is particularly well suited for salespeople looking for a new gig (which describes every salesguy, all the time, or should) because salespeople are more likely to have the nerve to contact the above connections. In addition, any hiring manager worth his salt is going to ask you to prepare a territory plan as if you already have the job. Use Jigsaw to get the target DM title of every prospect company in your patch, listed out in Excel format, ready for upload into the company CRM system of choice at the touch of a button- if you get the job, of course.

How about them apples?