Greg's Right FIT Newsletter #238

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

In this issue: 

- Techniques for FIT
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Techniques for FIT

• Evidence comes in four flavors. You may have heard me say this before, and the flavor we start with is No Evidence. Knowing an absence is knowledge. Good knowledge. 

• Seeing the tech giants testify before the US Congress this week brings one item into sharp focus. Data. Your company's data is valuable, get interested in it. 

• Starting next week, ask 10% more questions. One way is to repeat the last part of what the person you're talking to just said. "We need to talk about Q4," she says. "Q4?" you reply.

• Ethan Hunt (Mission Impossible) has a secret power:  real-time data. If you're waiting 3-5 days for month end reports, ask your people to work on improving that gap by 10%. 

Being Human - The sales team of the future

"Change your life today. Don’t gamble on the future, act now, without delay." – Simone de Beauvoir

In an interview with Alec Baldwin about working with acting legend Sean Connery on The Hunt for Red October, Baldwin offered up a lesson he took from the box office pro. He recalled how during the time they worked together, Connery kept asking him if he was going to watch the "rushes." The rushes are unedited, raw visual and sound footage from the day's shooting. Baldwin said no because he couldn't offer the filmmaker any value, then asked why Connery went.

"How can you expect to get any better?" he said. 

Watching the rushes is like athletes watching game film or like your sales team listening to recordings of presentations. We do it because it makes us better, even if it's painful. Companies hire me to sit through these presentations and offer 3rd party input, just like athletes and actors use coaches. 

When I look at the sales teams of the future, this kind of feedback loop is what will drive it. We're seeing this happen with inside sales because the phone calls and webinars can be transcribed, analyzed, and improved. Outside sales isn't there yet, but it's coming. The more data your sales system is generating, the faster your people's performances will improve. 

This new world of sales data will drive the need for more data scientists. As one executive just said to me, "I can size up a company just by asking how many data scientists they have on staff. If it's zero, one, or two, I have an idea of how far behind they are."

Your business development and customer service people are generating a ton of data with every customer interaction, and this will continue over the coming years. Are you going to be in a position to use it? Will your competitors? 

Random Stuff

What did one grape say to the other when the elephant stepped on it? 

Nothing. It just let out a little whine.

I read what I can about the nature of memories. The way they're formed, the way we recall them, how reliable or unreliable they are, I find all of it fascinating. Nowadays, our memories are backed up by data, evidence of what objectively happened. We can see recordings, we can search archives, or we can check in with third party sources tracking our movements.

It's still not enough though, is it. So much of what we remember is tied into the feelings of the moment, the smells in the air, and the sounds we hear. This is why memories are built on the stories we tell ourselves. Want a different memory? Alter how you tell yourself the story. 

I assume this is how my lovely bride, lover of all things furry, will deal with accidentally stepping on that field mouse as we walked the other evening. 

Change the story, change the memory.

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