Call High Enough
Have you been to a sales seminar or training course in the past few years? Consultative selling is all the rage and it seems like the wisdom is to call high. Sure they might direct you downwards, but start at the top. Become a trusted advisor. That is the path to sales success.
This is harder than it seems for so many reasons. First it's really hard to get the CEO's or a senior VP's time. They have gatekeepers. Then when you do, you have to be able to add value quickly, or they will push you aside for more pressing issues. […]
Partnering with Employees (ESOPs)
Continuing on the theme of partnering I wanted to look at an often overlooked form of partnership… partnering with employees.
Businesses and other organizations often talk about how their employees are their most important and valuable asset. Yet we often talk of partnering with other companies, partnering with customers and partnering with suppliers… but employees are often excluded or organizations “pretend” employees are partners.
For the sake of this discussion I am going to define employees as people employed, on the payroll or on a contract basis, by a business where both the business and the employee are benefiting from the arrangement.
Now based on my previous […]
Why Partner?
In my last post, I discussed what makes a good long-term partnership work. In this one I will look at the more fundamental question, “Why partner in the first place?”
The world is a big place. The amount of information available is growing rapidly. It’s become impossible for one organization to be an expert in everything. Even the largest companies have come to this realization.
For smaller companies partnering may be essential. It may be very difficult for a small company to provide enough breadth (skills and experience) to go against larger companies for big contracts. In many cases, if you […]
A Good Partnership
It sounds like a bit of a cliché, but in reality a good business partnership is a lot like a good marriage. This applies to individuals in a single business or one or more businesses partnering in the marketplace.
Since people have a propensity to look at the world through a "What's in it for me?" lens, this is also how most partnerships end up working.
In marriage, if you have a "What's in it for me attitude?" then I would suggest your marriage is doomed from the get go. Sure you need to get something from it, but the marriages […]
Business Long-Term Focus
Longer term business planning (strategic planning) is something that tends to easily get pushed aside by the realities of running the day to day aspects of a business. Three scenarios come to mind:
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When things are good you are so busy keeping up with customer demands and delivering on promises that planning for the future just doesn't seem important. Hey, "you are now successful and you've "arrived" at the end".
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When you are just starting up (assuming you don't have infinitely deep pockets) or if you've hit a bump, then you are focused on cash flow issues and it becomes hard to see past […]
Demand Models
Projecting the demographics of your workforce population becomes much more relevant when you tie the model back to your operational and revenue drivers.
The demand model basically ties your organizational size to your business requirements. In the case of a municipality, this would be related to the number of residents needing services and the expected migration and birthrates that would change those requirements. Capital projects would also come into play as they often have longer term staffing requirements associated with them.
With education boards, the demand is driven by the number of students entering the system. This then drives how many teachers and […]
Lest We Forget
Back in 1983 (is that really 25 years ago?) I graduated from high school and like most graduates going on to post secondary education, I was looking for a way pay for it all. So at my father's suggestion I looked at the Regular Officer Training Program, went in for all the tests and interviews and was surprised to get accepted. At that time I had a bunch of friends who were weekend warriors with the Reserves and my father was a career officer, so it didn't seem too foreign. So I accepted and went off to basic training, finished university […]
Remarkable People
It's easy to become complacent (take things for granted) and not notice remarkable things happening around you all the time. I was recently observing the behaviours of my team members and didn't really notice anything special. It took outsiders to really bring home the significance of their work.
If someone does a really great job on something, above and beyond what you were expecting, you are likely to notice and think "Wow, that was remarkable!".
If that person does a great job on a regular basis, above and beyond the average, you have a tendency to starting thinking that this is normal behaviour. […]
What Sticks
The human brain is quite remarkable. They are all similar and so different at the same time, so complex and so simple.
I think I mentioned that I play the fiddle in an earlier post. Today I was sitting in my office humming a tune over and over. You know how it is, you hear something catchy and then it sticks in your head. Well in this case it was a tune called "Forgetting the Lesson" that I had heard a couple of times at a session, but not recently.
Thing is, my brain memorized it. I didn't spend any effort […]
Mudslinging is Bad Business
Watching the political race in both Canada and the US is a sad thing.
All the parties basically try to put each other down. They go way back in history and try to dig up any dirt that can be thrown around… mudslinging. This happens all the time but is heightened during the campaigns.
Over the short-term a scandal or negative campaigning can have the desired effect of making you seem better than your opponent, supposing you are actually cleaner. Hey, they are much worse than me!
Have you ever noticed that in a mud fight, everyone gets covered in mud!
At the end […]