Leaders Forgetting What It's Like‍

Many of you know that before starting this marketing firm eleven years ago, I was in the television industry. Like a lot of sales organizations and similarly structured companies, there is a tiered system in place. From the men and women pounding pavement on the proverbial street to the “big wigs” looking out from the top, most sales-driven, big businesses operate the same way.

This isn’t a knock against that way of organizing a sales force. After all, I’m not sure there is another way to do it. Instead, it is an observation based on my own experiences as a salesperson, a sales manager, a director of sales, and a person that reported to plenty of vice presidents of sales.

The further you get from the frontlines, the easier it is to simply tell people how things need to be or should be done. Sounds simple enough. It’s just that this approach is completely backward.

A Simple Solution to Improve Relationships‍

A seller who is meeting routinely with clients (whether face-to-face or on Zoom calls) may not have the sales experience or acumen of a VP of Sales for a big organization, but you can bet they get much more truthful feedback. They hear what’s actually happening and encounter real objections and hard-to-answer questions.

When I was a local sales manager, I went on sales calls on a weekly – and sometimes daily – basis. As I progressed in my management career, I noticed it was harder to leave the office and visit clients. There were too many obligatory reports and meetings. As a director of sales, I would manage to make it to sales calls every week or every other week, but nowhere near as often as when I was an LSM or an account executive. Rare were the times I saw our general managers make calls. In fact, in the twenty years I spent in the sales business and almost a dozen more as a client, I can’t recall a VP making their way from corporate headquarters to the storefront of a local or regional client.

Why is that?

If you want a better, more authentic business and you want to find out what people really think, how they genuinely want to conduct business, and how to win “on the street” – you can do it. Encourage your upper management and company leadership to regularly interact with all levels of customers. And don’t stop there. Get those VPs in front of real, hard-to-sell, and full-of-questions prospects, too. It doesn’t work to put them in front of the cupcake people, show those further away from the frontlines what it's really like and do so as a routine.

It’s the only way to uncover the truth. It’s the only way for those VPs to get honest feedback and to help make the organization better. Out of the ivory towers, folks. Take it to the street – or even to the Zoom call – and, once again, listen.

And learn.

Simple Observations for Business Growth‍

Over the years people have asked me how I decide what to write about in our monthly columns. Often it is noticing something basic and then pondering how it fits into marketing or business operations.

I have a teenager, which means I have to deal with the constant cycle of updating, repairing, and replacing of mobile phones. My normally sure-handed young man occasionally drops his handheld device and, after a few such instances, I found myself at the local iPhone repair store. As I observed the owner working to make the little hand-held computer we call a telephone function properly again, I noticed two pretty obvious things:

To fix something as intricate as a mobile phone, you’d better have a lot of knowledge and you best have the right tools to help you get the job done. That day I realized the same principles hold true in commerce.

Knowledge & Tools for Improvement‍

Have you ever heard the story of the plumber who charged a customer $150 to fix a clogged pipe?

He went to the house, gathered the information needed, pulled out a wrench and forcefully hit the broken pipe. Before the customer knew it, the pipe was fixed and the water was flowing again. The tradesman gave the customer the bill, prompting the homeowner to ask, “How can you charge me $150 just for hitting a pipe?”

The confident plumber replied, “Well it's $50 for the call and $100 for knowing exactly where to hit the pipe and how hard.”

The iPhone repair guy figured out what was wrong with my son’s phone, pulled out a minuscule instrument from Apple, and proceeded to fix it. He knew what to do and he had the proper tools to make the repair.

It’s the same in your business. Employ people who can help you fix what is broken, give them the knowledge they need, and make sure they have the pieces on hand to take care of the job. If you decide to fix something yourself – you’ll need to follow the same basic steps.

While this may seem pretty obvious, it’s the simplest observations that frequently make the biggest difference in business, marketing, and operations.

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Pay Attention to Attract Attention‍

My friend Bill from Toledo told me a story once and it has stayed with me for more than twenty years.

At the time, he was in broadcast television commercial production and, as a Black man living in America, he had a very different perspective than I did. He recalled being a kid in the early 70’s watching television and seeing a person of color portrayed in a local commercial. He raced to the kitchen and shouted excitedly to his mom, “There’s a black man on TV!”

The occurrence was pretty rare back then, though in many cities (Toledo included) the African American population was a significant part of the market. For a variety of reasons, most likely starting with the fact that most commercial production workers were white men, there was very little ethnic diversity on TV.

As a result, and for decades, advertisers were missing the mark with their messages.

Match Your Audience for More Success‍

Perhaps as a part of the many social justice movements or the expanding base of talented producers – many of whom are women, Hispanic, Asian, or Black – commercials now look different. And they should.

It’s not uncommon these days to see a tapestry of people represented in advertising now. If you read magazines, watch enough TV, or glance at billboards while driving down the road, you’ll notice same sex couples, bi-racial families, and all kinds of images of people.

That’s because most of us desire to be able to relate to those we see in advertising. Incorporating client testimonials, patients, actors, or models who represent your core audience creates a connection. Determine who you are doing business with or what part of the market you’d like to serve, and then be intentional in selecting the images you use. Whether it is a print ad, digital billboard, website, social media post, or your new TV commercial, it’s important to utilize talent who match society. It’s a simple tactic, but an important part of representing your business and doing business successfully.

Bill’s story may be 20 years old, but the lesson is completely relevant in 2020 – and moving forward.

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You Know the Ones

Before I became a business owner eleven years ago, I was a sales manager. Before I was a sales manager, I was a seller out in the field. Early on I decided I didn’t ever want to be “that kind” of a salesperson. You know the type – the ones who don’t listen and care for their clients and who do not value the work of the Account Executive, Account Manager, or Account Representative. They’re usually referred to as “slimy” salespeople.

It’s true. There are some of them out there and they’re pretty easy to spot.

As I worked with hundreds of sellers before, and over the past decade consulted with hundreds more, I realized salespeople generally mean well. While there are people only in it for themselves, they typically do little harm outside of giving the rest of the industry a bad name.

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Selling is Still Essential

I’m not saying your friendly neighborhood salesperson will have banners hung that read “Heroes Work Here” any time in the near future. I can safely say – especially in times of economic recovery – there is a significant place for relationship building, problem solving, and considerate purveyors of business to business services. As America ramps up and adjusts to the ever-changing climate, here’s a perspective for everyone in the professional sales world.

Few people want to be sold to. People want to be heard.

No one has time to waste. Prospects make time for people who care and help.

Don’t make it about yourself. Focus on the problems your clients have.

Cookie cutter answers rarely work. Once you’ve listened, the real work begins.

Tonality, timing, and value will serve you. Don’t go barging in where you haven’t been invited.

Don’t just sell. Fix. Solve. Help. Build value.

The recipe to landing on the good side of sales is pretty simple. The good ones simply pay attention to what works and they take a breath before starting that sales process, or contacting that prospect. To those of you who sell professionally – you may not be heroes, but you are, in fact, an important part of the economic revival this nation is craving.

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Communicating in New Ways‍

Some of us have thrived for years in the environment of the face-to-face meeting. It’s meant we’ve been able to read a room, notice body language, and maybe build rapport with someone based on the photos in their office or by identifying with the university on their displayed diploma. We were able to look our employees in the eye and tell if they were up or down or scared or happy.

The fancy language describing this is emotional intelligence. Lots of us have used that to our advantage to lead, manage, sell, buy, present, and any other number of key business transactions.

For the past month or two, those abilities have been back-burnered for the majority of us in almost every situation.

Instead, we are WebExing, Zooming, LinkedIn-ing, Teaming, calling, or messaging. Those activities require a whole different set of skills and abilities and, frankly, too often too many people are ill-equipped for human interaction that doesn’t include actual human interaction.

How do I know this to be true? Let’s take it back to the basics and talk about email.

Tend Before You Send‍

I’m pretty sure I’ve made every mistake one could make in electronic correspondence. True as that may be, I can tell you there are some rudimentary things you can do to help get your message across, practice decent decorum, and leave a better impression.

In anxious times like these most people are so focused on getting their points made and their to-do lists cleared that they “shoot” emails out without regard to how they may be received. Lately we’ve seen some interactions with people who are perfectly kind in person or on the phone but send some emails that actually felt like a punch in the stomach. It happens every once in a while, but when it happens routinely it’s easy to see the sender just isn’t being thoughtful. They’re actually being selfish.

Decorum and decency should be a regular part of commerce and – in times such as these – even more so. Unfortunately, tonality is often absolutely ignored, and hastily written emails are sent.

Consider these simple tips:

• Send that email to yourself first. Come back to it, read it, edit it, then decide if you actually want to deliver it to the intended recipient.
• Read it back – slowly – to yourself before hitting send.
• Put a delay delivery on it. Just because you are working at 1am on a Sunday night doesn’t mean the person who is now working from home, nervous about circumstances, or tethered to their email has to read it and respond at 1am.

Polite engagement needn’t be saved for in-person communication. It’s appropriate with a keyboard, too.

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Heard it All Before

“Misery loves company.”

“It is what it is.”

“This too shall pass.”

“Take it a day at a time.”

“The sun will come up tomorrow.”

My English teacher in high school called sentences like that colloquial language. I learned that meant ordinary, expected, or very commonly spoken phrases. For the last few weeks people in a daze are speaking trite and expected sentences. They are using language that reflects the often dulled senses that accompany horrific seasons such as this. These are painful days no doubt and this isn’t a quick message about watching our vocabulary.

There’s a reason people know these phrases and speak these statements. Read them over again.

The reason they are said so often is that they are soaked in truth. We do feel better knowing we aren’t the only ones navigating these unknown waters. When a worldwide crisis like this happens, people realize they can’t change the circumstances that encapsulate them. It helps to know it’s a season and that the next season won’t just be hotter, but more hopeful. Keeping a short account, checking in on friends and loved ones, making sure you are breathing – these are the things that are best done in quicker and more regular time intervals.

Comfort in Tomorrow

How do I know this to be true?

The new day that comes after today always comes. It may be rainy, it may be windy, but the fresh start that the dawn brings means new opportunities await us. Every day a new day comes.

Sure, it feels like the world will never be the same. And like post 9/11 and other significant events, things will change. True as that may be, we will also find a pattern, a routine, a regular pace to life again. Baseballs will be pitched and hit. Movies will be released. New sitcoms will be produced. Another type of automobile will be invented. Handheld mobile phones will get bigger and smaller and be able to do more. Babies will be born. People will fall in love and some will get married. Life will return to normal. Not a new normal, but a normal-normal.

You’ve heard it before – the sun’ll come up tomorrow. It rings true – because it is.

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