Greg's Right FIT #473

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Prospecting
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Prospecting

• We're in a cold wave. The sun still shines, and our pets chase sunbeams through the windows on the south side of the house. I've started doing the same. There's a prospecting lesson there somewhere. 
• All pipeline opportunities have challenges. Yellow lights. Ignoring them and hoping for the best is a strategy, just not a great one. If an opportunity isn't real, it's not real. Finding out sooner rather than later is a moneymaker.
• We hold on to opportunities because it's easier than prospecting for new ones. To help, break down prospecting into three parts: prioritizing, preparation, and personalizing. "Right now let's just focus on prioritizing who to talk to next."  
• Finding smart people and making a place for them inside your organization works. One reason is because it forces everyone to focus on F.I.T., "Individual Strengths." The opposite is letting pre-determined solutions to problems color our recruiting. It may work short-term, but rarely long-term.

Being Human - AI and your boss

“The value of AI . . . augmenting human intelligence, enabling workers to make better decisions. . ." – Yoshua Bengio, Prof. at the University of Montreal

In the news this week is Oracle founder Larry Ellison saying something about AI surveillance being a good thing because it will put humans on their best behavior. I try to stay away from such rage bait, especially the kind that sounds like it's coming from one of my stoner friends, but I saw this after reading a similar comment. A consulting group predicts more advisory service work because "judgment and experience can't be replaced by AI." 

I'm about as accurate as anyone in predicting the future, (not) but I'll venture that business leaders who think their decision-making skills are unique might be upset with how things shake out in the near future. How far are we from a decision the leader makes being challenged by someone using AI lower in the organization? Are they confident the robot won't be able to outguess the leader? 

“All of this depends on the availability of data: this is how intuition develops,” said Danny Kahneman. “We develop intuition with the data we collect in a lifetime. AI will be able to do better. How will we live with that?”

Larry sounds happy with AI surveilling others, but what happens when the AI determines his actions are not "best behavior?" 

Random Stuff

“A man who can’t bear to share his habits is a man who needs to quit them.”― Stephen King, "Dark Tower"

When I first started professional work, I looked at everyone else's job and got a little jealous. Whether it was the product, their travel opportunities, their comp plan, or the company car, there was always something better on the other side of the fence. 

As the years went by, I was able to check off most of the perks I saw as an undervaluing of my talents. You probably know the rest, each perk wasn't as great as it seemed. Take travel, for instance. I was in a position where they thought we should be in the field two weeks a month. The kids were young so I tried to limit my time away with a regular weekly routine. Mondays in the office, out early Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. The flights from west to the middle of the country were limited in the afternoons, so I'd get up early Friday and be back in Omaha before noon, stop in the office and make it to whatever activities were happening on the weekend. Not terrible. 

Another part of the routine was staying at the same hotel brand. This was to accumulate points and, well, just know what to expect in a new city. I traveled up and down the western half of the USA, and in a week I'd stay at 2 to 3 of these places. These hotels were identical. They were built in identical areas of town. My salespeople worked out of the home, and most of them lived in the suburbs, especially in the largest cities. These suburbs were nearly identical. Same restaurants, same neighboring hotels, and well, just the same. Efficient. Homogenized. I didn't mind. Routine is comforting. 

This week I was visiting some friends and stayed at a hotel chain similar to the ones I used to frequent. It brought back memories. Most focused on me consistently trying to enter the wrong room. I would take the reps out to dinner and drinks, then head back to the hotel to be up and out the next morning. I'd stand in front of room 411 inserting my key card. Once, twice, three times. Then I'd add a door handle pull to see if that didn't do the trick. If it were a really good dinner I might even lean into things a bit.

I'd love to tell you that one time someone opened the door in their nightwear asking what my problem was.

It was more than once. 

I was more successful this week. As far as I know.

Really good dinner one night.