Greg's Right FIT #509 – This week: Effort, Solutions, Gametape

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

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Effort
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Effort

• "Just make sure you show up on time, ready for work, and sober. That's 90% of success," said one of my first managers. The sober part is funny, but it disguises the challenge of being ready for work. What can you do to help your people show up ready to go.
• "Never begin the day until it is finished on paper," said Jim Rohn. That's one definition of being ready for work. At one of my startups, we made Friday afternoons optional. The only caveat was having everything on our lists done and Monday's work planned before we left. It worked well.
• Consistent effort, or sustained momentum, gets results. As USA founding father Benjamin Franklin said, "Energy and persistence conquer all things." Have patience. Success is not so much the result of lightning bolt moments, but little edges gained from every day effort.
• Even as an old man, my dog still chases squirrels around the yard. He's never caught one, but he's always pleased with the effort. I'm guessing there's a lesson in there somewhere.

Being Human - Where solutions get their power

“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” – Charles Kettering

Solutions were a common theme in conversations this week. A startup talking about their new solution, a job seeker looking to be a solution for a new company, and old solutions losing their pricing power. As if it were planned, a copy of my old retailer sales guide from Mad Gringo tropical shirts showed up in a search. A nice example of "the value of the solution comes from the size of the problem."

We started as an online only tropical shirt seller, direct to consumer. A friend who owns an independent mens clothing store asked for some to sell, and sold out over a weekend. As he described it, they were always looking for reasons to up-sell customers. A brightly colored shirt in the window brought people in the store. The story of Mad Gringo was an easy conversation point, the price was right (not too much, not too little), and the margin was good. He said there weren't a lot of these product opportunities around anymore.

The value of the solution came from the problem. An online buyer might have a problem like what to wear on a beach vacation requiring one or two brightly colored tropical shirts. The mens store's problem, on the other hand, required dozens of tropical shirts to solve. One store went as far as opening a Mad Gringo themed showroom that mimicked the story elements.

A big department store approached us. They heard great stories from the small retailers, and they were ready to order. The thing was, they didn't have the up-sell problem. Their "test" order doubled our season's sales, tripled everyone's workload, but there were challenges. There would be no one there to tell customers the story, the shirts wouldn't be featured in windows, and the price point wasn't unique. I never found a problem beyond their need to test new brands. My solution met the need, but it wasn't a recurring problem. We didn't sell through fast enough at a high enough margin, so no re-order.

Our solutions are cool. We love talking about them. Our customers love talking about them. The problem they are trying to solve, however, is the key to how valuable our solution is. It's the key to how fast our sales cycles are. It's the key to pricing and contract length. It's worth worrying about when we can't describe in detail what it is.

I ran a regular opportunity development workshop years ago. It taught techniques and tactics to identify problems that need solving, help prospects quantify the extent of the problem, and find resources to solve it. As I said to the companies I delivered it for, opportunity development is simply the easiest way I've found to increase the size of opportunities and shorten sales cycles. It's good stuff.

To put more power in your solution, learn more about the problem it solves.

Random Stuff

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

I received a copy of my presentation in Salt Lake City. It's jarring to hear a recording of yourself. It's more startling to see a video. When I work with people on their sales presentations, we use recordings to get better. I advise them to plan on listening a minimum of three times. The first time is full of cringes, the second time you can hear areas for delivery improvement, and the third time you can judge the content. As many times as I've sat with other people going through this exercise, I still struggle to do it myself. Taking my own medicine is hard.

I remember sitting elbow to elbow in a little office outside my high school's basketball practice facility. The coaches recorded games and we had to sit and watch. Embarrassing but useful. Before that, I was video taped at a shooting clinic in grade school, sitting with the coaches as they critiqued my form. (basketball was serious business in my youth) Prior to that, I used to record myself. The Schlegel's lived across the street and their boys had a garage sale. I bought their used Radio Shack tape recorder and it was game on. I recorded myself. I recorded my sister. I recorded the radio. I recorded everything.

I don't remember spending much time reviewing my work on those tapes either. It might explain some things. No matter. This changes today. I am going to dedicate time to watching myself, taking notes, and prepping for the next time. Every journey begins somewhere, right?