Quick notes to help you find new business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week.
In this issue:
- Thoughts on Adapting
- Being Human
- Random Stuff
- Back In The Day
Thoughts on Adapting
- Comp plans change. Especially sales comp plans. My advice to managers helping their salespeople deal with it is: let your team wallow. Let them kvetch. Then, later, ask them to come up with reasons why the plan changed and come up with ways to take advantage of the change. It takes a minute, but it works.
- The nature of problems is that the cause happened in the past. When the cause of the problem is located we can fix it, or adapt to it. Sometimes the cost and effort to fix something is more than the cost and effort of just dealing with it.
- All things come to an end. Whether it's my Wordle streak, or the amateur status of college basketball players. When we face change, don't wish for a return to the past. Adopt the spirit of the US Marine: improvise, adapt, overcome.
- A favorite saying in my early days of management was, "Try, Fly, or Die." Shorthand for the law of the jungle. Adapt, Migrate, or Perish. If we're not happy now, try harder, fly to the next opportunity, or sit still and risk death. The choice is ours.
Being Human – Did they ask for that?
There are only two rules for success:
(1) Never tell everything you know.
Years ago, I was new to a sales team. I didn't have success at my previous roles, but I learned a few things here and there. One of my lessons was to focus on what the best performer was doing and beat them at the things I could control. My top performer was a veteran named Vern. He was always #1 on the board. When new sales were made we rang a bell and everyone cheered. We started the day at 8 and by 8:30 Vern rang the bell. I didn't have a sales pipeline like he did, but I could show up a little earlier, make a few more calls each day, and stay a little later than him. When he did something, I noted it.
For example, this was back in the days of fax machines. Email use wasn't widespread and when prospects asked for more information, we'd make copies of whatever we needed to send and we'd fax it, usually with a cover letter, nice note, and maybe sign it for a personal touch. Not Vern. One day I went to fax some information and his old fax was still one the machine. It was one page, an invoice. At the top he wrote, "the information you requested," and at the bottom he put "sign here __________".
That was it.
I asked him, why don't you send a catalog or something, and he said, they don't need to know more than what I'm sending, it's all in the invoice. It seemed wrong, a little presumptuous, maybe even rude, but I was committed to emulating Vern so I started saying, "I don't really have much to send but a blank invoice and the detail of what you're looking for, is that ok?"
You know the end of the story. Most people said, "that's fine." I stopped wasting time at the fax machine and made more sales. Later, I figured out I didn't need to do more work than the prospect was asking for. I knew more than they did about how the product worked, but they didn't need that. They just needed to know enough to make a decision. And that was always less information than I had.
If they don't ask for it, ask yourself if you need to give it to them. Most of the time you'll find they need the additional information you have in your brain at a different time. Like once they are using your product. Save the extra information for then. Right now, take Vern's advice and only give them what they need to know right now. You'll both be happier.
Random Stuff
Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.
– Michael Crichton
Are you about subscriptioned out? I am. I feel bad for the next person trying to sell me on a subscription/membership/monthly payment. I may lose control.
Speaking of losing control. . .how about a murder mystery update?
I'm in the final stretch of the first draft. Since the day I mentioned starting the book (early February) I have added over 120,000 words. Way too many, but as author Amor Towles said, the first draft is for the author. I am luxuriating in the world I've built.
As of this morning, the murderer is revealed, the twist is applied, and now we're riding off into the sunset. Next comes editing. I need to chop 1/3 to 1/2 of the story off to make it readable for anyone other than my lovely bride. (and even she might not stick with it that long!) I budgeted six months for the editing, but that may be aggressive. There's a lot in there! I blame it on the setting. I put it in 1989 and I tend to get stuck in the details of that moment in time. Smoking is still everywhere. You can walk right up to the gate at an airport and wait for your friend to disembark. Cell phones are still a novelty. The list goes on and on.
When I started I thought it could be a multi-book series. Now I know for sure I have at least three. This one takes place in a college town, the next will take place in New York City, and the third will be grisly scene at the Hinterland Brewery across the street from Lambeau Field in Green Bay, WI. That murder can't take place until 2018 or so because that's when they moved in across the parking lot. Maybe 2017 if it happens during construction.
It will be fun to think of 2017-18. Guaranteed my characters will have one hundred fewer subscriptions to deal with than what's in my inbox today.
Back in the Day
What I was thinking about last year, five years ago, and ten years ago.
- Last Year: Right FIT #490 – This time last year I was thinking about how to make it easy for your customers to kick butt. The example I use is my digital SLR. The same camera I whipped out in Santa Barbara last weekend for wedding photos. I only used the AUTO setting. Not exactly kicking butt mode but some good photos nonetheless.
- Five Years Ago: Right FIT #281 – I used Try, Fly or Die in this one too. Must be something about entering the weekend. Also quoted UF Greg (the other one) about how to know when things are about to get serious. When someone says"Ok m&#$er f$#@er" to you, that's a clue.
- Ten Years Ago: Right FIT #19 – My autonomy and alignment grid. I used this in The Human Being's Guide to Business Growth and had more than one person ask me about it because I left off the labels that weren't part of my story. Unfortunately, both times I whiffed when trying to remember it. Embarrassing.
(I just read an article suggesting typos and grammatical errors were in vogue as evidence the writer isn't using AI. That's good. Even after checking this one I'm guessing you might find a mistake. I'm human!)
