Category Archives: Guest Column

Why consultants need to think like Dick Fosbury

By Patrick Lefler

Patrick Lefler is a member of my Private Roster Mentor Program

A recent mention by Alan regarding high jumper Dick Fosbury and how he changed the sport by focusing on what really mattered—clearing the bar, not perfecting the popular jumping technique at the time—prompted me to write about why it’s important for us think like this Olympic champion.

Manifestations of innovation come in various sizes and shapes and many are the result of attempts to exploit changes in the environment. In the area of track and field, the 1960s were a period of unusually rapid change due to the introduction of high-tech, lightweight materials that were used in everything from running shoes to vaulting poles—and as the environment changed, innovation followed with lightweight shoes and new techniques for running and throwing. But perhaps the most significant innovation during this period had nothing to do with these more obvious high-tech changes; rather, it was the result of a simple (low-tech) change in the composition of the landing surface that high jumpers used to cushion their falls after jumping.

Up until the early 1960s, the landing surface for most high jump venues was piles of sand or sawdust. Because of this, high jumpers all used similar techniques—the Straddle, the Western Roll or the Scissors Jump—designed to give the jumper the best opportunity to clear the bar and land on his or her feet after the jump was completed. This was essential to prevent injury because the landing surfaces had one thing in common: they were hard—not soft—and landing on anything other than one’s feet was the surest way to get a back or neck injury. But as the decade progressed and an increased emphasis of safety permeated the sport, deeper piles of foam replaced the hard sandpits and sawdust. With this safety change, the sport of high jump became ripe for innovation.

Enter Dick Fosbury. As a 16-year-old high jumper from Medford, Oregon, Fosbury was a below-average jumper who used the traditional Straddle technique. Hungry to improve, Fosbury began experimenting with different technique and over the next two years improved his jumping height from 5 feet to 6 feet 7 inches. His secret? A new way of jumping that allowed Fosbury to go over the bar backwards, headfirst, curving his body over the bar and kicking his legs up in the air at the end of the jump. This required him to land on his back, but he was able to land safely thanks to the new deep foam matting. This new technique was soon dubbed the “Fosbury Flop.”

In 1968, Fosbury used his new technique to win the NCAA championship and qualify at the Olympic trials. At the Summer Olympics in Mexico City, he won the gold medal and set a new Olympic record at 7 feet 4.25 inches, displaying the potential of the new technique. Despite the initial skeptical reactions from the high jumping community, the Fosbury Flop quickly gained acceptance.

Almost immediately after Fosbury won gold in Mexico City, the Fosbury Flop became the most popular style among high jumpers worldwide. As the world record for the high jump has progressed since then, all record jumps have been made using Fosbury’s innovative style. And today, it’s rare to see any jumper—man or woman, elite or non-elite—use a style other than the Fosbury Flop.

So why does this matter for consultants? The answer is that like Dick Fosbury, we need to have the ability to recognize and act on changes—sometimes dramatic and other times quite subtle—in the operating environment of our clients. While his competition focused on refining existing techniques and higher-tech innovations such as lightweight shoes, Fosbury recognized that the change in the landing surface (foam replacing hard sandpits and sawdust) was the real catalyst for a game-changing innovation.

As consultants, we need to think like Dick Fosbury. Are there shifts in the environment that others have missed; subtle changes that could be potential game-changers for our clients? Don’t be satisfied to run with the rest pack – think different (as Apple likes to say). Today’s changing environment—regulatory, demographic, technology, etc.—is ripe for innovation, but the real winners will be those who can exploit value from changes that others have most likely have overlooked.

© 2012 Patrick Lefler. All Rights Reserved

Patrick Lefler is the founder of the Spruance Group—a management consultancy that helps growing companies grow dramatically faster by providing unique value to clients’ most pressing product and pricing strategy needs. He has previously held leadership positions at a number of different firms including Goldman Sachs, Citibank and Wall Street Systems. He is also a former Marine Corps officer and a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School. Patrick can be reached at (908) 500-0613; email at plefler@spruancegroup.com or visit his website at www.spruancegroup.com.

Dave Gardner is a member of the Private Roster Mentor Program Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame.

How to use social media to connect with large companies

By Dave Gardner

People seem to think that social media is about attracting followers, “friending” people, liking this, that or the other, or spending hours trolling Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. It doesn’t have to be that way.

What if you use social media to simply attract big companies to you? Let me show you how to do this.

My understanding comes not as a result of a carefully crafted social media strategy but as a result sitting back and watching what has happened. Coming to this understanding was my 1% for a day. I hope it will be for you as well.

There are 2 potential avenues to be aware of when leveraging social media:

1. The big company you are targeting is most likely monitoring social media
2. The public relations (PR) firm used by the big company you want to connect with is also likely monitoring social media

Here’s my story about how I’ve been able to leverage these 2 avenues.

I have been a Dell customer since 2004. Back in 2009 and 2010, I experienced a few Dell business execution issues. I heard another story or 2 and decided to write about it on my Fast Company Expert Blog. I wrote the article on a Friday afternoon and pushed the article to Fast Company that evening to be published the following week. I chose a provocative title: “Dell used to be a fast company,” probably not the title that Dell would wish for in Fast Company! The article wasn’t mean-spirited or ranting—it simply pointed out areas where Dell had stumbled and could improve.

A Dell social media person contacted me via email about 90 minutes later—before the article had even been published by Fast Company—and asked if we could talk the following week. I said, “Sure.” Soon, I was invited to be a member of Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel (DellCAP). Dell felt I had insights that would valuable as they sought outside perspectives to improve their business by learning what real customers are experiencing.

Was it important that the article was in Fast Company? Not at all! None of the other 29 social media folks invited to participate in DellCAP blogged for a prominent media outlet like Fast Company. Dell, like many big companies today, trolls the Internet to find out what’s being said about them so they can reach out and help as well as implement corrective action.

PR firms are also on the lookout for their clients and troll the Internet. A few weeks later, Dell’s PR firm contacted me about meeting them in their San Francisco office. Knowing that I blog for Fast Company, they offered to make introductions to senior executives who come into town for pieces that I might want to write, they see that I’m invited to media events—often paying my travel and accommodation to attend, and they said they would look for opportunities within Dell to make introductions. All of these things happen with regularity. I enjoy a wonderful relationship with Dell’s PR firm.

In a Fast Company blog post called, “What Dell is doing to create customers for life,” I challenged a PC World survey that was unfairly critical of Dell and HP. HP’s PR firm contacted me the same day the post was published to thank me for defending HP and offered to make introductions to anyone I wanted to meet. This is when I reached the conclusion that social media monitoring is not an accident—the big companies do this with great discipline and follow-up as appropriate.

Here’s another example of using social media to help with my mission of meeting prospects within Dell. I recently authored a Fast Company blog post called “If I sell you my company, will you respect me in the morning?” This piece, which I strategized with Dell’s Consumer, Small and Medium Business internal PR team before attending a major media event, enabled me to meet and interview the heads of 4 recently acquired business units plus the Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy. I wanted to meet these executives and see if I could learn about the “secret sauce” of Dell’s merger and acquisition process. The article research opened the doors. I doubt I’d be able to pick up the phone and get these people to sit down for an interview. This piece forged relationships in a fun and exciting way.

Do you ever see areas where a prospective client could improve that you could write about? Of course you have! Social media can be a terrific way to create your superhighway into big companies. You have to use the right bait:

Talk about what you’ve observed,

Be provocative, and

Encourage them to do better.

Then, when you hear from the company or their PR firm, begin to create an enduring relationship. This is a very effective way to create marketing gravity.

__

Dave Gardner is a graduate of San Jose State University (BA) and Santa Clara University (MBA). Dave is also a member of the Society for the Advancement of Consulting (SAC); he is Board Approved by SAC in “Configurable Products and Services Strategy & Implementation.” Dave is a member of Alan Weiss’s private roster mentoring program. In 2010, he was inducted into the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame. Dave is a Fast Company Expert Blogger in the area of Business Execution and a member of Dell’s Customer Advisory Panel. He can be reached through his website at www.gardnerandassoc.com and Twitter @Gardner_Dave

Bill Zipp is a member of my global Private Roster Mentor Program.

Accelerate Sales Now: Four Powerful Steps

by Bill Zipp

“Russia,” Winston Churchill once said, “is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” The same could be said by the typical business leader when it comes to understanding sales. Most view it as some magical world of superstars and rainmakers and are held hostage by these so-called magicians, who, more often than not, fail to pull a rabbit out of the hat. The end result is inconsistent revenue generation and limited business growth.

The truth is, sales is not magic. Like production, accounting, and customer service, sales is a process that can be recorded and tracked. And since it can be recorded and tracked, it can also be improved. Dramatically. Here are four sales accelerators that solve this riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Use them to grow your business in the new year, or, if you are a business consultant, to help your clients grow their business.

ACCELERATOR ONE: Strategic Sales Triggers

Most salespeople approach one account one way and another account in a totally different way, with no rhyme or reason for each. This lack of a defined sales process creates gross inconsistencies and severely limits revenue generation. From first contact with a prospect to satisfied customer, your company’s sequence of sales events must be written down step by step. And, like a great recipe, it must be worked, re-worked, and worked again until it’s perfect.

This, however, is not what will accelerate sales. Here’s what will. Analyze your sales process and look for places where the buyer can take action in it. That’s right, the buyer. In most sales interactions sellers take all the action until it’s time to close, and then the buyer is asked to act. This is wrong-headed. At every stage of the sales process there should be specific, reasonable steps of action a buyer is asked to take that leads logically to the close. These steps are what I call sales triggers.

Here’s how triggers accelerate sales. First, by taking action as soon as possible and not  just at the close of the sale, buyers become engaged with your products and services and, as a result, are much more likely to purchase them. As they become engaged with your products and services, your competitors’ options become less attractive because they’ve had a real, tangible experience with you. Third, buying objections are minimized because you’ve been dealing with them little by little with each trigger and not as one big roadblock at the end of the sale. And fourth, time in the sales funnel is dramatically reduced because buyers are actively involved in the process, driving it with you.

Additionally, by asking your buyers to do something, not just say something, you learn how serious they are about actually buying. Sales conversations are rife with politically correct statements made by buyers to sellers so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings. Sales triggers eliminate this silliness. If a buyer does not take a reasonable action that you request as part of the buying process, you learn something about their true intentions, freeing you to pursue more viable opportunities, also accelerating sales.

Effective sales triggers are varied and creative. Here are some proven ideas: a graphic artist asking a buyer to start a clip file of logos they like, a leadership consultant conducting an up-front assessment, a software provider offering free downloads and complementary training in using the software. A sales trigger could even be a low or moderately priced item, like a book, a teleseminar, or a set of rendered drawings, that leads logically to a larger sale. In this way you actually get paid for marketing to your economic buyer.

ACCELERATOR TWO: Train to Your Sales Triggers

It’s not enough to have sales triggers in place, all your sellers must be trained in using them so they are executed flawlessly. This is where most sales training goes awry. Whenever I am asked by a client to provide sales training, the first question out of my mouth is, “Tell me about your triggers.” Why? Because sales training that’s not focused on helping salespeople move buyers through the process by their taking action is a profound waste.

Effective sales training, then, begins with analysis of the sales process and the strategic steps of action buyers need to take to keep them engaged. Generic, off the shelf sales training, or sales training with a predetermined system irrespective of your process, just will not do. You’re wasting your time and you’re wasting your money. Effective sales training continues by practicing the talk tracks that motivate buyers to take the actions being asked of them. In most cases this will mean handling objections, albeit small at first, with grace and firmness. And, finally, effective sales training stays the course until your triggers are fully mastered, not jumping to the flavor of the month that the sales industry produces en masse.

ACCELERATOR THREE: Market to Your Sales Triggers

Let’s be honest, marketing and sales rarely work together. They live in two different worlds, the artists and the hunters of the tribe. In some companies they’re mortal enemies. What a waste! While marketing and sales are different professional disciplines, for the sake of your business’ health, they must get married and they must get along. The fact of the matter is, sales needs marketing. Sellers without good marketers struggle to get first appointments and waste valuable time on labor-intensive outbound activities (known as cold calls). Not only that, but marketing that is coordinated with established sales triggers keeps buyers fully engaged in the process, and, as a result, closes more sales.

And that’s the role of marketing, to bring qualified leads into the sales pipeline and to keep them there until the deal gets done. Every dollar spent on it must be evaluated by this criteria: did it increase sales? Millions of marketing dollars are wasted every year trying to make companies look hip, cool, and funky in the mind of the general public. Don’t do it. Know exactly who your economic buyer is and exactly what grabs their attention. Talk to them honestly and authentically, and they’ll return the favor. Then spend the rest of of your marketing money on keeping your current customers satisfied, generating even more sales through referral business.

ACCELERATOR FOUR: Forecast from Your Sales Triggers

Most businesses, if they look at their financials at all, use lagging indicators instead of leading indicators to determine their financial health. That is, they rely on what’s happened in the past and not what’s going to happen in the future to run their company. That would be like driving a car by looking at the rear view mirror instead of through the windshield. Well-defined sales triggers change all that. It allows you to create accurate forecasting formulas based on a percentage grade given to the trigger multiplied by the dollar size of a deal in the pipeline. For instance, a $10,000 deal with a client who’s completed an informational webinar may receive a 75% grade, or $7,500 of forecast revenue.

When you do this consistently for every trigger and every deal in your pipeline, over time you develop extremely accurate sales forecasting formulas. You also remove subjectivity from the forecasting process. You’ve heard words like this a thousand times, “I just know this deal will close. I’ve got a good feeling about it!” Good feelings are not the basis for running a business. Either a buyer has taken action or they have not, that’s what moves them along in the process. End of discussion.

Using formulas like this, I have a client who knows 60 days from now within 5-10% what sales revenue will come in to his company. This is powerful information. He used to know just the last week of the month what monies were coming in and couldn’t do anything about it. Now he can manage inventory when sales are high and allocate resources to meet demand. He can also adjust when sales are low and ameliorate its impact on the business. An accurate sales forecast based on well-defined sales triggers provides an important leading indicator to run your business and accelerate sales. Like taking your blood pressure or knowing your pulse at resting, it’s one of the vital signs that can help you monitor your company’s financial health.

Bill Zipp is an expert on the growth of small and medium-sized companies. Bill helps these firms become thriving, successful organizations by sharpening their focus on strategic essentials, expanding their leadership capacity, and accelerating sales. You can listen to his weekly podcast, Zipp on Sales at http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bill-zipp/id478985121, and read his business blog at http://www.billzipp.com/blog.

A Risk Management Nightmare: What You Should Learn from Penn State

By Dan Weedin

The nightmare in Happy Valley last week involving the sexual abuse scandal at Penn State cost legendary football coach Joe Paterno and the University president their jobs. It has severely tarnished reputations; incited riots on campus; will cost others their jobs; initiate civil lawsuits; and most likely hurt the university in recruiting students (both academic and athletic) to its campus. The collateral damage may be devastating to that institution and take years to overcome.

Don’t think for a minute, however, that this case study is limited to a major college football program. There is culpability that has a 360-degree scope, including the board of trustees, administration, students, and coaches. Heinous behavior can occur anywhere and in a myriad of forms. The tragedy is with the victims. The biggest crimes here were in the failure to properly report and respond. Basically, the ability to respond to crisis and poor risk management procedures doomed this institution. How prepared are you to respond to crisis?

Let’s take a look at two scenarios involving both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.

Your business.  If you spend any time reading the newspapers, you know that bad behavior exists in the workplace. Discrimination, harassment, abuse, workplace romances gone awry, and employee theft all have the potential to blow up and cause at best a distraction or at worst a lawsuit and loss of reputation. Small business owners are often caught unaware of percolating issues because the pressures of business keep them focused away from these matters and squarely on staying alive. Unfortunately, not being aware of potential dangers leaves you vulnerable to crisis.

Larger businesses may have a board of directors. This adds a higher level of accountability. The bad news is that many times the board doesn’t find out about problems until they are full-scale wildfires burning out of control. I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that this may be what the board of trustees at Penn State faced.

Non-profit boards. Most business leaders at some point find themselves serving on a non-profit board of directors. This normally starts as an altruistic act, yet in most cases board members don’t have the needed expertise, or the proper training to deal with challenges that face the organization they serve. When the board is the ultimate decision-maker, this can be a recipe for disaster. As a school board member myself, I know it’s taken me two years to get to a point that I think I know what I’m doing! Consider the boards you serve on and the responsibility you have. What risks are floating out there that you don’t know about?

Solutions – Be visionary. If you have people in the role of administration or employee, you have tremendous risk for bad behavior and libelous actions. Reputation damage can be more harmful to your business than the actual occurrence; just ask BP. Regardless of whether you’re the boss, the CEO, or the board, you must be vigilant in crisis leadership strategies. Here are 5 strategies you can implement right now…

• Get training. If you really want to get fit, you hire a trainer because they will maximize your performance and get you stronger faster. No matter how savvy you think you are, you will never reach the same level of execution and preparedness as a group because there just isn’t the same knowledge level.
• Ask questions. To often, the lack of asking questions due to apathy or ignorance come back to bite you in the derriere.
• Be prepared to have fierce conversations. Be collegial; but also be demanding. There is too much at stake.
• If you’re a board member, make sure you carry Directors & Officer insurance. If you’re a business owner, carry Employment Practices Liability. These are risk transfer techniques that may save your bacon.
• Have a crisis plan. This one may be most important. In the face of chaos and turmoil, it’s better to be in crisis management than crisis mode. Decisions made in real-time often stink and have long-term ramifications because the shrapnel from the explosions just keeps hitting people. Develop a plan on how you respond to any crisis and you and your organization will be better off than about 95% of your peers.

The world often gives us warnings through the misfortunes of others. The Penn State tragedy is a nightmare for the victims and the university. Many innocent people have been hit by that shrapnel and it was all avoidable. Take responsibility of your business or organization and build your response to crisis before you find it burning all around you. You, your organization, and its people will be thankful you did.

© 2011 Dan Weedin. All Rights Reserved

Dan Weedin is a Seattle-based crisis leadership consultant, speaker, and mentor. He helps executives and organizations turn their business risk into rewards by helping them prepare to respond to crisis. He is also one of Alan’s Master Mentors and a member of the Mentor Hall of Fame. You can reach Dan at 360-697-1058; e-mail at dan@danweedin.com or visit his web site at www.DanWeedin.com.

(Stuart Cross is a member of the Mentor Hall of Fame, a graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting® College, and one of 30 global Master Mentors. He is based in the U.K.)

Don’t Get Stuck In The Ruts Of Success

by Stuart Cross

Nothing fails like success.

Many companies struggle, not because they are bad at what they do, but because they are great at what they do. Kodak’s decline, for example, hasn’t resulted from the company being poor at film processing, but because it is great at film processing.

Or take Olivetti. It is now a small, loss-making subsidiary of an Italian telecoms business because it was great at making electronic typewriters, not because it was bad at it.

The problem that these and countless other competent companies have faced is that things change; markets change, the economy changes, technology changes and customer tastes change. Unfortunately many companies are either unwilling or unable to change their offer or their organisation as quickly as their external environment changes.

It is the same for consultants, trainers and coaches. Relying on your past and current successes – whether they are particular programs, services, clients, or capabilities – for your future growth is likely to result in a performance plateau and an eventual decline.

I know of a consultant, for instance, who published a book five years ago and had tremendous success in selling related training and development programs. He was so successful that he has come to rely completely on sales of the book and programs for his income even though, over time, interest and business has waned.

You have no option but to constantly re-invent yourself and your business. Here are 5 steps you can take to ensure that you don’t get stuck in the ruts of success:

1. Continue to set new and higher goals. Decline often starts with satisfaction with your current level of performance. You must continue to raise your sights and your expectations and then find new ways to achieve them. This doesn’t simply mean setting financial goals. Chad Barr, for example, recently stopped me in my tracks by saying that, as consultants, we shouldn’t be focused on reinventing our business, but on reinventing our clients’ businesses. That statement has made me completely re-evaluate the work I should be doing. What new goals would enable you to break out from your current sources of success?
2. Pursue adjacent markets and services. You don’t need to reinvent your business in a single leap – you can take a series of incremental steps. If you develop strategy, for instance, you could offer implementation services, and if you coach executives you can offer team coaching. What adjacent markets, clients and services could you pursue?
3. Invest in yourself and your capabilities. You should build on your strengths, but that doesn’t mean simply relying on your existing skills. How can you further build your capabilities to enable you achieve more for your clients and to reach new markets?
4. Embrace technological change. At a recent Million Dollar Club meeting with Alan we discussed the growing importance of “wisdom-on-the-go”. Our clients want access to ideas and insights at their convenience, and not just when they are sitting at their desks. The future of technology is mobile, as demonstrated by the explosion in apps. In what ways can you provide your value in more convenient ways to your clients?
5. Be prepared to fail. The key to success is not to avoid failure but to fail as quickly and cheaply as possible. What are some immediate, low risk steps you can take to test new ideas and see what works so that you can rapidly develop new income streams?

Stuart Cross is the president of Morgan Cross Consulting, where he helps clients including Avon Cosmetics, GlaxoSmithKline and Alliance Boots to dramatically accelerate growth. His new book, The CEO’s Strategy Handbook, is out now. You can find out more by visiting his website at www.morgancross.co.uk.

© Stuart Cross 2011. All rights reserved.

Bill Ringle is a member of Alan’s Private Roster Mentor Program and the Society for Advancement of Consulting.

Don’t Let Lesser Priorities Distract You from Your Goals

by Bill Ringle

Meet Paula. Paula ran a successful events management company until she sold it, and now leads a consulting firm specializing in human resource development. She explained that she had had a few tough years with the economy, but was now ready to make some big things happen and increase her company earnings. Paula met a coach who said he could help her grow her business. Within a few coaching sessions, Paula had a clear idea of who she needed to reach out to, what she needed to say, and how to track her progress.

After a few weeks, Paula had more leads for project work with good clients than she had in the previous year. Marketing was working and work felt fun again. But there was a small problem: Paula wasn’t getting any new contracts. Instead of following up with a lead, Paula went to a book club meeting one morning, because she was “already committed to going.” Instead of making time for an important conference call, Paula postponed it so she wouldn’t miss her yoga class that she enjoyed so much. Following a client meeting Paula planned to return to her office, write a proposal, and have her coach review it before sending it off to the prospect. Instead, she got a call from a friend who asked her for a ride home from the airport, which then expanded into a longer visit.

Paula missed her window of opportunity and lost the momentum with several prospects. All of her plans to grow were being undermined by one crucial factor: other things were getting in the way of what Paula knew she needed to do. But it wasn’t really “other things” that were responsible for Paula’s plans running afoul, as you well know. It is all about the choices that Paula made.

Haven’t you ever experienced that? I’ve been there. Maybe it was making a sales call. Maybe it was writing a report or having a difficult conversation with a colleague. We all have our own specific tasks that trigger the “avoidance flurry,” as I call it. Avoidance flurries are brought on by a host of different factors that can be minimized over time. A consultant, coach, or colleague can help you identify any areas where you have “settled in” or lowered your standards for your business or your personal habits.

The important thing to recognize here is that each of us, first person singular, is in control of the choices we make, and the choices we make determine the results we produce.
Your Steps to Success

Here’s how to get started with this growth principle.

1. Get crystal clear on what your most important priority is for today. Once you know that getting the proposal sent is your number one priority, you can recognize what activities move you toward its completion (having it open on your computer is a good sign) and which take you away (checking Facebook for news falls into this category).
2. Allocate more than enough time to make progress. This is really important. If you expect it will take an hour, set aside two hours to allow yourself time to finish. It’s generally counterproductive to create artificial pressure and many leaders do this poorly, anyway. Instead, reward yourself for finishing early when you do and enjoy that you’ve created some discretionary time in your day.
3. Plan to succeed by making sure you have all the resources you need to stay focused. The better you can anticipate and prepare your environment to support you, the better you can focus on your priority without having to pop up from your seat to get more water; raise or lower the heat, air conditioning, or shades; or grab a notebook, pen, etc.

Implement these three steps and you’ll be well on your way toward overcoming minor distractions that prevent you from making progress on major objectives.

______________________________
Bill Ringle is a CEO coach and business growth strategist to high performing executives and entrepreneur owners/founders. He is the author or contributing author to four published business books and has over 400 articles online and in print, and has provided leaders with business growth assistance around the world through his consulting, speaking, and coaching programs. For more resources, ideas, and tools designed to help you grow your business, please visit www.BillRingle.com.

Todd Ordal is a member of Alan’s Private Roster Mentor Program and a graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting®  College.

Herding Cats

No Win Assignments

By Todd Ordal

As I came upstairs from my basement office the other morning for Round 2 with the coffee machine, my wife yelled, “Come here, I need your help!” I dutifully responded and found her wearing exercise garb and straddling her bike just outside the front door. “You need to go tell Ike to come home,” she said. “He’s over there about to get into a fight, and I’m late for my exercise class!”

“Are you nuts?” I said as she rode off. But Ike was making demonic noises about 3 feet away from my neighbor’s window, and it was 7 a.m. So I felt obligated.

As you probably guessed, Ike is a cat. We adopted him from the Humane Society, and he was a hurricane cat. By that I mean the Humane Society rounded up animals during hurricane Ike and sent them around the country, ergo his name Ike. The society must have found Ike in a dark alley beating up some other cats (maybe even some people), because he has the heart of a lion and the temperament of Attila the Hun.

Back to my cat-herding assignment … I hadn’t shaved, my hair looked like Kramer’s from Seinfeld and I was wearing a T-shirt that a Salt Lake City friend sent me, emblazoned with “Polygamy Porter/Bring Some Home for the Wives/Why have just one?” I find it a terribly funny T-shirt, but I’ve been told not to wear it in public (I was not told to refrain from talking about it in public). Off I went to try to reason with Ike to drop his belligerent behavior and come home. You can imagine how successful I was.

No-win assignments are handed out all day long in most companies, resulting in wasted talent, squandered dollars, frustrated bosses and even more frustrated workers. I now have the luxury of working with only those whom I chose to work with on assignments with clear and achievable objectives. I’m self-employed.

Those not at the top of the heap are sometimes asked to “catch a hurricane,” and there may be situations where they cannot change that. However, the most successful executives whom I work with, whether CEO or a notch or two down the ladder, have a “self-employed” attitude, even though a company employs them. This doesn’t mean they’re not committed. It does mean, however, that they expect rewarding, ethical work where they can add value. And they’ll do what they can to ensure that this takes place, even if they have to leave the firm.

What can you do to minimize no-win assignments? Ask three penetrating questions:

1. Clarify objectives. “Exactly what are we trying to achieve, and how does it tie to our vision and strategy?”
2. Define how to measure success. “How will we know if we won?”
3. Ask, “What value will we achieve?” Remember OMV: objectives, measures and value. A brilliant guy named Alan Weiss taught me this simple concept years ago, and it helped me dramatically increase my clients’ levels of success. If you can instill this discipline in your company, you’ll achieve the same.

Copyright 2011 Todd Ordal

Todd Ordal is President of Applied Strategy LLC. Todd helps CEOs achieve better financial results, become more effective leaders and sleep easier at night. He speaks, writes, consults and advises on issues of strategy and leadership. Todd is a former CEO and has led teams as large as 7,000. He is a Certified Management Consultant® and a Certified Professional Coach. You can reach Todd at 303-527-0417 or todd@appliedstrategy.info

Andrew Miller is a member of my Private Roster Mentor Program, and a member of the Mentor Hall of Fame.

Unlocking Hidden Value in Your Company

By Andrew Miller

Business owners take note: there’s a treasure trove of value just waiting to be found in your business. What, you don’t believe me? Well, read on and let’s see.

Most companies are so focused on one or two key opportunities or challenges that they tend to overlook many of the obvious ways to increase profitability.

Raising Prices

Why are so many companies hesitant to raise prices? Too many business owners avoid price increases because they undervalue their products and services (and themselves). If you doubled your prices tomorrow, would you lose more than half of your customers? Probably not. So why not do it? Of course, you might consider doubling your prices extreme, so how about a 10% increase? Or 20%? People will pay for value. Provide value, raise prices. End of story.

Commercializing Intellectual Property

What about all of the intellectual property you have developed over the years? Do you think that has any value? Of course it does. An acquaintance who recently sold his medium-sized business told me that the one thing he regrets is not commercializing the proprietary software he had someone develop for his company’s internal use. Had he done so, he would have had another asset to sell to other businesses, creating new customers. Instead, the software was included in the sale of his company. He left value on the table.

Reducing Labour Intensity

Do you think reducing labour intensity can improve profitability? I hope your response is “yes.” What if you could find two more hours per day to focus on business growth, customer service, or product development? Wouldn’t that be valuable to you? I can do that for you. Every activity carried out in your company must add value. That means that you should be able to answer “yes” to at least one of these four questions:

1. Does the activity directly impact profitability by increasing revenues, reducing expenses, or both?
2. Does the activity improve customer loyalty and satisfaction?
3. Does the activity help attract and retain the top employees and business partners?
4. Does the activity help with the sustainability of the company (ie. regulatory compliance, etc.)?

If an activity or process is not adding value in any of these ways, stop doing it. Take a close look at the day-to-day running of your business and you will see how much time can be freed up to pursue growth by halting activities that are not adding value. You will feel like you have been freed from the shackles that have been hindering your success.

Developing Talent

Talent development is another area where businesses often fail to make the connection between profitability and performance. But bad decisions cost your company money. It is imperative that management be empowered to make decisions and provide the right level of support. Of course, not every decision is going to be the right one, but good leaders are willing to take risks and learn from any mistakes they make. Are you empowering employees to make decisions that are in the best interests of your customers? If not, you will have challenges staying afloat. Good employees will leave because they don’t feel wanted or respected. Customers will leave because they don’t feel appreciated. Instead, instill a culture where trying something new is encouraged, not punished.

I have worked with a lot of executives and business owners over the years and have heard a lot of different excuses for not pursuing opportunities that could improve performance and profitability. My response has always been, “If you are not pursuing opportunities to increase the profitability of your business, why are you in business?” It is easy to make excuses for poor performance or put off doing what you know you need to do, but that won’t add value. I have just given you four ways to increase profitability. Some of these ideas wouldn’t cost a penny to implement. So what’s your excuse for not moving forward with at least one of them?

Andrew Miller is president of ACM Consulting Inc. (www.acmconsulting.ca) and works with organizations to generate dramatic operational and financial improvements and increase their performance and profitability. He can be reached at 416-480-1336 or andrew@acmconsulting.ca.

© Andrew Miller 2011. All rights reserved.

Dorie Clark is a member of my Private Roster Mentor Program and a graduate of the Million Dollar Consulting College.

How I Got My Book Deal, and the Lessons I Learned

By Dorie Clark

In June, I signed a book deal with Harvard Business Review Press. Because the process of landing a book contract can be so opaque and discouraging, I wanted to share the story of how I did it.

In 2009, I got serious: early in the year, I drafted two book proposals (I figured more was better, though I’ve later come to learn that publishers get freaked out if your focus appears to be scattered, so stick with one). My kind mystery writer friend hooked me up with her agent, who plunged into pitching the book/s.

Though friends assured me that the hard part was landing an agent, and I’d surely get a deal soon, none was forthcoming. The pundits­ (aka acquisitions editors) claimed to love my writing style but deemed one proposal  “too narrow” and the other one “not differentiated enough.” Oh, and I wasn’t famous. One editor said he regrettably had to decline, because Ivanka Trump was publishing a book on a similar topic.

By the following summer, we’d exhausted most of the usual publishing suspects. But I had a brainstorm: a friend of mine used to share office space with a small international publishing house that might be a fit. Sure enough, my agent sent it over and they quickly responded, calling me in for a meeting with their full staff. I was on the cusp of a contract, I felt sure, when they asked me to revise my proposal to add more international examples (I spent a week furiously researching). But mysteriously, the process dragged on and on. We eventually surmised that the American editor liked it, but the boss in England didn’t–and he ruled the day. After two months of foot-dragging, they finally called off the courtship. No contract.

Discouraged (and agentless, after we mutually agreed she’d exhausted her contacts), I realized the only way to break through the clutter was to work on the “famous” thing. So I made it my mission to reach out to prominent business publications and see if I could blog for them. This wasn’t too much of a stretch, I thought, because in my pre-consulting life I’d been a professional journalist and had won awards for my reporting. You might think online business editors would like good content for free–but you’d be wrong.

I thought I’d have an inside edge with one publication, where I was friends with a regular monthly columnist. With her permission, I emailed the blog editor and declared in the subject line, “[Columnist] suggested I contact you.” No word. I waited a few weeks and tried again, but still nothing. Finally, it was my good luck to meet the editor-at-large for this publication, and I explained my predicament. He told me I could use his name, so I emailed my target again: “[Editor at large] and [Columnist] suggested I contact you.” That seemed to work quite well, and within minutes, he emailed me back and asked to hear my blog ideas. I researched them feverishly and the next day, responded with well-thought-out pitches. To no avail. Once again, he went dark, and I never heard from him again.

I knew plenty of people who blogged for another major business magazine. It turned out (amazingly!) that until last year, literally anyone could sign up to blog for them. It was my bad luck, then, that I literally missed the cutoff by days; they had just decided to start vetting bloggers. No problem, I thought–except that their online editor (who did OK my pitch and invited me to submit several articles) would let months go by before responding, leaving me pathetically to send “follow-up” inquiries. Eventually I stopped hearing from him, too.

That might have been the end of it if I hadn’t wanted to sell my bike, a gorgeous Cannondale I no longer needed. Enter the woman who ended up buying it on Craig’s List (and who, quite pragmatically, researched me online beforehand to ensure I was legit).

“I see you’re a business consultant,” she said. Then the magic words: “You know, I work at the Harvard Business Review.”

It took time, and a few follow-ups, but she agreed to show my proposed blog post to an editor there–and he liked it. Several posts later, one caught the eye of a bigwig, and they hunted me down in Costa Rica over Christmas and asked me to expand it into a piece for the magazine. Once the magazine piece hit (on “Reinventing Your Personal Brand”), everything changed. Three agents contacted me out of the blue seeking to represent me, and one of them actually used to run Harvard Business Publishing. I figured that was a good sign, so I turned the article into a proposal and in less than a month, we received an offer.

These days, I’m blogging for the Harvard Business Review (thank you, my bicycle-buying friend!) and the Huffington Post, and guest-blogging for many other outlets. My book What’s Next: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand is coming out next year from Harvard Business Review Press. And I learned the following lessons in my quest to land a book deal:

• Work with an agent who specializes in business books. As with the rest of life, it’s about personal connections (specifically, which editors they have a track record of selling to).
• Blogging is a terrific way to build your platform. Seek out places to feature your work, and don’t let jerky online editors get you down. If you persist, you will find a place that seeks out and values your work (at a minimum, you can create your own blog to get started).
• Look (and prepare) for opportunities. It was sheer luck I sold my bike to an HBR staffer, but I was already prepared with blog ideas and pitches thanks to my initial work reaching out to other publications.
• Brand matters. By now, I’ve written for lots of media outlets, but the response you get from a piece in the Harvard Business Review outshines them all.

What are your best strategies for building your profile and/or winning a book deal?

Dorie Clark is CEO of Clark Strategic Communications and the author of the forthcoming What’s Next?: The Art of Reinventing Your Personal Brand (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012). Listen to her podcasts or follow her on Twitter.

© Dorie Clark 2011. All rights reserved.

Successful Advisors and Executives Aren’t Nice!

By Todd Ordal

From the minute we engage with other humans (and even pets!) our parents tell us, “Be nice!” This is intended to be a catchall for don’t hit, scream, cry or make someone else feel bad. “Now look at what you did! Little Lisa is crying! Be nice!”

As we get older, we’re rewarded for being nice. When my kids were in elementary school, their teachers frequently complimented them for being nice, as in, “He hasn’t turned in any of his homework and has failed the past three tests, but he’s such a nice boy!”

As adults, we continue to be rewarded for being nice. My wife is nice. When someone knocks on the door trying to sell magazine subscriptions or cookies or trim our trees, she happily has a meaningful conversation with whoever interrupted dinner. Even when she says no, she says it nicely and only after much justification as to why she doesn’t need the trees trimmed or another subscription to a magazine full of ads for $6,000 couches.

There isn’t much harm in all of this except for lost time and too many Girl Scout cookies in the pantry. However, when we advise or lead and manage others, being nice is ineffective.

There’s a substantial difference between being nice (“Don’t make Little Lisa cry!”) and being kind. In the words of a friend, nice is borne out of fear and kind is borne out of love. Now I’m not going to get all mushy on you (that wouldn’t be kind), but he’s spot-on. You tell someone you love that he or she is making a big mistake, even at the risk of offending the person.

My wife doesn’t want to offend the salesperson, so she sacrifices her time to alleviate any possible rejection on the salesperson’s part. However, a key resource that salesperson has is time. Spending inordinate amounts of time with nice people who’ll eventually tell you no only after they’ve gotten to know you is not kind. A kind response might be, “I’m not interested and don’t want you to waste your time on me because I’m not purchasing anything.”

When my two daughters were still living at home, I could count on them to be kind and tell me that I looked like a nerd when I pulled on some old clothes. I appreciated that. I also appreciate it when someone tells me I look foolish with a piece of spinach in my teeth rather than their hoping it’ll come out before I get home and look in the mirror.

Let’s take this nice versus kind behavior to the work environment. Nice managers will always find something to compliment. Kind managers will tell you what you need to know to succeed, even when the message is that you’re screwing up. Nice leaders don’t want anyone to feel bad but, in the end, many do—especially the shareholders. Kind leaders know that leaving weak people on the team means it won’t succeed as quickly or as well. Nice leaders don’t enforce the rules if someone will get upset. Tardy behavior is allowed and work product is weak because to change behavior would require uncomfortable conversations. Kind leaders know that pushing people to be better, pointing out weaknesses and strengths and having difficult conversations as soon as warranted leads to much more success and, ironically, makes most people happier in the long run. They don’t worry so much about the poor performers who can’t handle kind and assertive conversations. They kindly escort them out of the company and allow them to find a nice place to settle.

In my work as a strategic adviser to senior executives, I’ve seen far too much nice behavior cause tremendous problems. Avoiding conflict, allowing weak people to impact others, being nice to vendors who don’t deliver, telling board members and senior executives what they want to hear rather than the unvarnished truth — this is not kind behavior. In fact, it destroys value, hampers employment and creates weak performers. Being nice is not kind.

Is your organization nice or kind? Here are some diagnostic questions:

1. Do people speak their minds or hold back because of what others will think?
2. Do weak performers stay employed even though they add no value?
3. If you’re the CEO, do you hear about problems before they’re catastrophes, or is everything just fine until the doo-doo hits the fan?
4. According to your performance reviews, is your company like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, where everyone is above average?
5. Have you ever reorganized a department to “work around” an ineffective person?
6. Is healthy conflict not only allowed but also encouraged?

The world is full of nice people, but only kind ones are effective advisors and executives.

Copyright Todd Ordal, 2011

Todd Ordal helps senior executives lead better, profit more or sleep soundly…without narcotics! He can be reached at 303-527-0417 or todd@appliedstrategy.info.