The Art Of Magazine: Volume 13

Old Way or New Way? Only One Way Works.

The New Way. Jeffrey Gitomer

Four Hacks to Building Stronger Personal Relationships Keith Ferrazzi

Why Your Colleagues Don’t Get You Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson

The Fine Art of Body Language & How to Hack it with Authenticity Mark Bowden WIN 15/16 Price: $7.95

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CONTENTS FEATURES 13

OLD WAY OR NEW WAY? ONLY ONE WAY WORKS. THE NEW WAY. Jeffrey Gitomer

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FOUR HACKS TO BUILDING STRONGER PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Keith Ferrazzi

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THE FINE ART OF BODY LANGUAGE AND HOW TO HACK IT WITH AUTHENTICITY Mark Bowden

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WHY YOUR COLLEAGUES DON’T GET YOU Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson

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Q&A WITH DANIEL PINK Scott Kavanagh

ARTICLES

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IN ORDER TO SCALE YOU MUST BE OBSESSED WITH DELEGATION John Jantsch

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ATTRACTING AND KEEPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SALESPEOPLE Tristan Bradley

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ACTIONABLE SUMMARY: THE REAL-LIFE MBA

BY JACK & SUZY WELCH Justin Gasbarre

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JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT Peter Aceto

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THE FOUR OUTCOMES OF CONTENT Mitch Joel

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YOU JUST SUCK. ADMIT IT. James Altucher

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MOBILIZING THE MOBILIZER Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson

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BEWARE THE TECH TRAP: DO’S AND DON’TS Adriana Girdler

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COLD CALLING ZOMBIES Tibor Shanto

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GRAPHIC RECORDINGS FROM THE ART OF LEADERSHIP TORONTO Carolyn Ellis

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YOU BE THE CAPTAIN NOW… LESSONS FROM THE ART OF LEADERSHIP Ron Tite

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THE MARKETOONIST Tom Fishburne

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WHAT ENGINEERING A REVERSE INNOVATION LOOKS LIKE Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan

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HOW TO IMPLEMENT PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT INTO 2016 Bill Williams

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STEAL DOMINO’S IDEA... PLEASE! Stephen Shapiro

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OPENING SOONER: WHY ASK “WHY SHOULD I CHOOSE YOU?” Ian Chamandy & Ken Aber

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FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS Daniel Pink

Page. 36

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author of To Sell is Human, Drive & A Whole New Mind

Keith Ferrazzi

Page. 17

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Who’s Got Your Back & Never Eat Alone

Jeffrey Gitomer

Page. 13

World-Renowned Sales Expert & New York Times Bestselling Author of The Little Red Book of Selling & The Sales Bible

Mark Bowden

Page. 19

Bestselling Author of Winning Body Language & World Renowned Communication Expert

Founders’ Letter “Successful people become great leaders when they learn to shift the focus from themselves to others.”

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JUST TELL ME

WHAT YOU’RE GOOD AT.

By Peter Aceto When I returned to Tangerine in Canada, from spending time at the Tangerine US business (then known as ING DIRECT), I discovered that certain people were taking all the opportunities to speak in key meetings while others just sat there, silently. They’d been told, or sensed, that they should keep their mouths shut. Just because it says VP on your job description, do you get to talk and a

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director doesn’t? We’re all “associates” when we walk into a room for a meeting, and I want all ideas and voices to be heard no matter where they come from.

Eliminate the hierarchy. Nothing screams hierarchy more than job titles on business cards. We have never had titles on business cards or on email signatures. Everyone at Tangerine has a job description with the goal of providing

clarity and accountability. However, employees also have permission and are indeed expected to reach out further and broader than the words written on a piece of paper. Clarity and accountability are absolutely required, but job descriptions are artificial and can be extremely limiting. We are lateral thinkers, problem solvers: these are the people we need to take us further.

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A job title on a card is an element of traditional hierarchy from the past.

We don’t want to be there. When an employee is in a meeting, she’s the leader of our business, our ambassador, and I expect her to behave that way whether she’s got the big title or not.

Vice president, manager, who cares?

A partner or a vendor will soon figure out that he is sitting across from the representative for our company, the best

“It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.” person we can send for that meeting.

I don’t know what the title is that fits my job description. I can’t put a title on it. My accountant, the insurance guy and even the government don’t get it. It doesn’t mean anything. What’s always been more important to me is to find the right way to tell a story. If you’re a customer, I’ll find the right way to tell

your story. Who cares that I’m a CEO? If it says you’ve done something on your CV, why would I check your core competencies? It says you know how to program, analyze, whatever. I’m okay with that—I start every relationship at a full tank on the trust meter. And if you can’t do what’s on your CV, I will find out and soon.

I’d rather look at people, not paper.

If the system only worked on paper, most of my staff—me included—would be doing something else. I don’t want to talk about organizational charts and who reports to whom. Hierarchies have always been outside our philosophy, as much as possible. Increasingly, the worldwide trend in business is moving away from hierarchies. I think we are ahead of the curve.

Every year an employee comes to me and asks to revisit the issue around titles on business cards, etc., and every year I listen, and every time I absolutely refuse. We don’t have titles on our business cards, and that’s that. This causes some issues around clarity and accountability; but how does a little line on an organizational chart solve big issues? It doesn’t.

John Wooden, the influential basketball coach at UCLA, said, “It is amazing how much can be accomplished if no one cares who gets the credit.”

Working hard just to achieve a title is just another form of seeking credit. My

approach to work and people is this: Why don’t we work together, you and me, and get the job done? Be open, honest and flexible.

In some cultures or industries, you have to know who’s No. 1, who’s No. 2, who’s No. 3. In my view, you’re a person: Just say what you’re responsible for. Tell me what you’re good at. And if you want to, tell me what you don’t do, don’t know and aren’t good at. When our people say I’m responsible for the products in the bank, or I’m running our channels, they aren’t tying themselves to a general title without specifics. It’s in their nature not to get caught up in titles and descriptions.

People do like to go home to their loved ones, their parents, their friends, and say, “Look what just happened: I’m the CEO of that, or the manager of this.” I get it. It’s easy for me to insist on no titles as the person in charge, and we do have people heading our various departments.

If you want to put your title on your CV or tell your family, I don’t care—but I don’t want it on the bottom of your email. It sends the wrong message.

If we have this discussion in 2025 I might have a different view of some of the things I’ve done, but I don’t give up on my core beliefs or decisions because I read something different in a book. I don’t even give out my business card anymore. Give me your card and I’ll send you my ecard with a nice message.

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.”

- Andrew Carnegie Peter Aceto is a globally recognized and respected business leader. He is the president and CEO of Tangerine (formerly ING DIRECT) and a change agent for leadership. Peter is the author of the Globe and Mail bestseller business book Weology: How everybody wins when “we” comes before “me.”

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THE FOUR OUTCOMES OF

CONTENT

By Mitch Joel President of Mirum

Why does your content exist? Who is it reaching? What business purpose does it solve? Is it any good? Does anyone care?

If you weren’t the publisher of your content, would it be the kind of stuff that you would be interested in? The list of questions is long, arduous and intimidating. We live in a world that marketers (like me) had hoped for (lots of people, creating lots of interesting content in lots of different media formats). Well, “be careful what you wish for,” as the saying goes. Long before it became a reality, many writers (like me) discussed the idea that content anywhere and everywhere would create a rapid devaluing of

it. Like advertising, content shifted from a model of scarcity to one of abundance. Content is media. Content is seen and pushed into the world as the marketer’s be all/end all for true success in connecting with consumers.

Again, what is your content trying to do?

Brands are often thinking about the channels that the content will appear on, or what the actual content will be, without having a clear strategy and vision in place, as to what the net result of creating, producing and distributing

all of this content is for. It’s not a generalization. Look at any one of your many feeds. Study - with some depth - the type of content that brands are trying to pass off as valuable and authentic. Is it really doing that? How can brands CTRL ALT Delete their strategy around content? How can they better think about what matters most when it comes to content?

expected flow with something that grabs their attention. Paying to promote it is, typically, par for the course. I define this type of content as “the new banner

ad.” If you are producing content that is bought, sold and seen like a banner ad, admit it and work within those parameters.

substance that they truly want to read, and are comfortable/happy with the idea that a brand created it and shared it. Editorial content is journalism. A real story that attempts to give facts over opinions, or opinions with multiple

angles. The outcome of this content is that a consumer reaches their own conclusions about just how smart the brand is for creating this kind of content.

Think first about the outcome. Here are the ideal four outcomes of what brand content should do:

IMPRESSION This form of content is created to simply create an impression. It’s fast. It’s passing. It’s a distraction from whatever the consumer is doing. It breaks up their

EDITORIAL This article is editorial. Any form of content that is being used to tell a story that is not directly about the brand’s products or services, but serves an editorial function. The outcome of this content is to provide the consumer with

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TRANSACTION Transactional content is used to encourage consumers to buy something.

It’s looking to push the consumer to a direct response. This could be the

implementation of customer reviews, or it could be the development of YouTube videos that highlight the products features and benefits. It’s hard

for content to drive directly to response, but content can be created with the sole purpose of pushing to a transaction.

doesn’t just push a brand’s notoriety, it can be an additional revenue stream.

Yes, being paid for content is a much tougher business than it has ever been,

but many still make a great living (and many businesses have built solid revenue lines) by creating content that people will actually pay for.

REVENUE Content so good, that consumers or publishers will pay for it. Writing books, publishing articles, selling reports and more. Selling content - in an of itself -

Don’t mix them up. Create your content with the outcomes in mind.

I can’t tell you how many times a brand has produced Impression-outcome content, and is then frustrated with its inability to increase sales. I’ve seen brands also attempt to sell glorified press releases

as editorial content to a magazine, and then been frustrated when it gets rejected.

Content is not a catch-all. Understanding what the outcome needs to be - from the start - is a sure-fire way to increase the

content’s success in the marketplace, and that happens long before anything is created or the platform that it’s going to be distributed through is chosen.

If you don’t know what you really want your content to do, why are you publishing it in the first place?

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OLD WAY OR NEW WAY? ONLY ONE WAY WORKS.

THE NEW WAY.

By Jeffrey Gitomer

THE OLD WAY OF SELLING IS DEAD. The only people who don’t know that are other sales trainers, recently released old-world sales tactics books that are still trying to convey old messages, and several million salespeople still trying to cold call, pitch the product, overcome

objections, and close the sale. Oh, and don’t forget their managers who force them to use an uncomfortable “system,” and a non-sales helpful CRM, and hold their salespeople “accountable” for their actions and numbers. It’s over. Dead and over.

WHAT KILLED IT? WHO KILLED IT? The Internet and customers immediate access to any information – including anyone’s reputation – the economy, Google and online search-ability in general, social media, smart phones, one-click buying, Amazon feedback and other ratings sites, and smarter customers and consumers both B2B and B2C. WOW!

THE ONLINE AND SMARTPHONE EVOLUTION HAS BECOME A SALES AND SOCIAL SELLING REVOLUTION. WINTER 2016

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THE NEW BIG PICTURE OF SELLING IS QUITE SIMPLE. HERE’S WHAT TO TRAIN AND TEACH YOUR SALESPEOPLE: Teach why people buy rather than how to sell.

My mantra and trademarked phrase is, People don’t like to be sold, but they LOVE to buy.

Teach customer loyalty, not customer satisfaction.

Customers may never be satisfied but will continue to do business with you based on your perceived value.

Teach salespeople to “ask” questions about the customer rather than “tell” about their product.

The old way of selling doesn’t work anymore. And no one is more aware of that than an informed customer.

Teach social selling and attraction, not cold calling.

Teach salespeople to sell value, not price.

Teach salespeople to be responsible for their actions instead of being accountable for their activity.

HERE ARE 4.5 NEW WAYS OF THINKING, ACTING AND SELLING RESPONSIBLY: 1. FIND THEIR WHY AND THEY WILL BUY. Uncover your customer’s intentions and motives for purchase before

or during your sales presentation. Do online search’s for why they might buy, and ask emotionally revealing questions.

Their “why” is your order.

2. TALK ABOUT THEIR OUTCOME NOT YOUR INCOME. Share with him or her how they produce more and

profit more AFTER purchase. Explain what happens after they take ownership Talk about how they win, not a bunch of boring crap about you that the customer could have found in less than two seconds on Google.

3. DON’T BRAG ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT, PROVE YOUR VALUE. Get several of your existing (best)

customers to do video testimonials to corroborate your claims. When you say it about yourself it’s bragging, when others say it about you it is proof. Voice of customer is the proof you need to convert selling to buying.

4. DEVELOP AND MAINTAIN A PRISTINE INLINE REPUTATION. Not just your company and your products – you personally. Information and reputation arrives before you do. Google yourself right now. That’s what your customer sees before you arrive.

4.5 BEWARE AND BE AWARE OF THE INTERNET OPPORTUNITY. It has changed and continues to change

the face of selling, and the lives (not to mention the incomes) of salespeople. EXAMPLES: Retail sales, banking, trading stocks, buying cars, traveling, and, most important, the ability to research the opinions and outcomes of others. Get Internet savvy. Get Internet fluent. Create your own Internet presence. Then stay there and build.

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A few months ago I wrote about the difference between aggressive selling (old way) and assertive selling (new way).

That difference is pivotal in the company’s philosophy of selling, salesperson’s method of selling, and the customer’s decision to buy your product or service.

Here is the CliffsNotes™ version of the difference: • Aggressive salespeople “tell.”

• Assertive salespeople “ask.”

• Aggressive salespeople “go for the sale.”

• Assertive salespeople “go for the customer.”

Aggressive salespeople sell the old way. They talk, they brag, they give a demo, they manipulate to close the sale, they send proposals, and in general they fight. They fight to get an appointment, they fight price, they fight competition, and they fight for the sale – a sale that even if they win they have lost profit.

The assertive presentation challenges you, the salesperson, to bring forth a combination of your knowledge and value as it relates to customer needs as well as a superior ability to connect both verbally and nonverbally with the person or the group you’re addressing.

You’ll know your assertive strategy is working when the customer or the prospective customer begins asking questions to get a deeper understanding about the value and difference your product or service offers. This changes monologue to dialogue and creates the power of engagement, or should I say assertive engagement.

A FEW MORE WORDS OF CAUTION: The new way of selling requires more work on the part of the salesperson. More research, more preparation, more knowledge, better presentation skills, more value differentiation, and more proof.

This accentuates my rule of, “the more the more.” The more research, preparation, knowledge, enthusiastic presentation skills, value differentiation, and proof you bring to the sales presentation, the more sales you will make.

Which type of salesperson are you?

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of twelve best-selling books including The Sales Bible, The Little Red Book of Selling, and The Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude. His real-world ideas and content are also available as online courses at www.GitomerLearningAcademy.com. For information about training and seminars visit www.Gitomer.com or www.GitomerCertifiedAdvisors.com, or email Jeffrey personally at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2015 All Rights Reserved. Don’t even think about reproducing this document without written permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

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Four Hacks to Building Stronger Personal Networks

By Keith Ferrazzi

In the years since writing “Never Eat Alone,” I’ve been building on the de facto title of “one of the most connected people in the world” to delve into how to turn those connections into relationships.

After all, it’s relatively easy to create a network by collecting cards and sending

out email blasts. But those networks are broad and shallow. There’s virtually no “there” there.

Converting the superficial “contact” into a friend, ally or lifeline requires more effort. You have to discover how you can be generous to others, where you can

partner and what you bring to the table that’s unique and beneficial. Luckily for you, through trial and more than a little error, I’ve discovered the following hacks to help smooth the way to strengthen your network through developing deeper relationships.

1. TAKE CARE OF YOUR PRIORITIES FIRST I usually get some pushback on this, but if you’re going to have a robust network you need to prioritize the relationships. You already do that because the Facebook friend you haven’t seen since high

school, but occasionally like their photos, isn’t going to rate as high as your spouse, so don’t be afraid to assign the same kind of priorities to your network. Who’s an A-level top priority versus a C-level

casual acquaintance? Knowing this will streamline your efforts to taking care of all of them and open up opportunities to be of service.

2. BLEND, DON’T BALANCE, YOUR WORK-LIFE DIVIDE For a lot of us, our work is our life, so separating the two can be difficult, and yet we still tend to see the day as a whole that needs to be broken into distinct segments, or “balanced.” But what if we

smudge those distinct lines? Or better yet, make the day into a series of Venn diagrams. Find where your personal interests overlap with a new professional contact’s and invite them to join you.

You still get to enjoy a good boot camp workout or a Dodger playoff game, but you also get to develop that professional relationship over shared interests.

3. MAKE YOUR ASPIRATIONAL CONTACT’S GATEKEEPER YOUR BEST FRIEND You can’t just will a relationship to happen, especially if the person is someone everyone wants to know. You have to prove your worth before you

can even get in the door. And the best way to prove that worth is to befriend and partner with that person’s executive assistant. Make yourself available

to them for help or advice. Focus on working with them. They’ll remember how you reached out to them when it’s time to get that meeting with their boss.

4. PARTNER WITH COMPLEMENTARY CONTACTS TO PLAN A CO-BRANDED EVENT Although it may seem counterintuitive on the surface, your weak ties are often your greatest allies in developing a diverse network since you’re less likely to have the same interests and people in common. Finding where you do overlap

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and planning an event around that helps you both strengthen your relationship and open up your respective networks to new people. It can be something as simple as a dinner party, but make sure that those involved have enough in

common to make it worth their while and are different enough to generate new collaborations.

These are just a few hacks that can help you develop that deep, strong and diverse network of relationships.

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The Fine Art of

Body Language and How To Hack It with Authenticity

By Mark Bowden

We all want to be sold to by somebody who seems “real” to us. Maybe this is in response to a history of feeling generally disenchanted with our leaders—some of us out there can’t help feeling that we are often being duped!

Leaders and followers alike associate authenticity with sincerity, honesty, and integrity. When we feel someone is “authentic” we often follow a skewed logic that says that person is without doubt “The Real Thing!” The reversed bias can mean that when we feel unsettled around another’s behavior, then there is something that feels “inauthentic” about them.

This mode of thinking has become a covert shorthand for not “liking” another’s presence when they are leading or selling to us: we end up saying, “they don’t seem authentic” rather than “I just don’t like their ideas! It’s not a fit.” However, this thought process is predicated upon an utopian ideal whereby if everyone were 100 percent authentic with each other all the time we would all get along fine.

Accordingly, this thinking renders our reality where pretence is an imperative social skills, a dystopia. In this way, the current concept of authenticity is often fudged—many assume that authenticity is an innate and binary quality.

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However, I would suggest that what defines our authenticity is at least in part what others see in our behavior alongside what we see in our own. It’s a collaboration of perceptions that produces an ongoing idea of you. This makes authenticity more of a developing work of art than a finished object.

So for the people that I help in leadership and sales to communicate with more impact—to stand out, win trust and gain credibility—the question becomes, “what idea of ourselves do we want to co-create with those we lead or sell to?” Now, if authenticity were purely an innate quality, there would be little you or I could do to manage it and, therefore, little you could do to make yourself more effective. For some of us, we often seek to be recognized as more than who we and others think we are or should be. If you are one of those people, then the challenge is managing your authenticity not to hold you back from opportunities, but to assist you in reaching your desires or dreams, paradoxical though it may undoubtedly sound.

When I work with individuals and organizations, we look at choosing purposefully what behaviors we express that will amplify the attributes we already have—or to bring out in

ourselves qualities that we recognize in people who inspire us—in order to effectively influence and persuade not only those around us as to who we are, but ourselves too. I have found the most effective method to intervene in how we normally behave is the use of nonverbal communication—body language! For me, adjusting and augmenting our body language can cut straight to the stimulus for the ideas we can have about ourselves and consequently that others have of us.You change your behavior and you change your mind—and that or others around you.

Yes, of course this is a manipulation.

It’s manipulating what skills and tools we innately have to work better for us at helping us get closer to how and what we want to be. It’s starting from where you are and then choosing to do the things to help you be who you could be. As one of my heros, Jim Henson said via his alterego Kermit, “Take what you got and fly with it!”

Great leaders and sales professionals (including Kermit) are good at making clear decisions about which of their traits they should reveal and amplify to whom and at what points. They furthermore make strategic decisions about what more to reveal (and when) and what to leave

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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

-Kurt Vonnegut

concealed. Putting any morals aside, I always say “There is no bad behavior; just results you did or did not want.”

Successful leaders and salespeople remain focused on their desired outcomes but never lose sight of the behaviors they need to employ, with whom and when, to get there. They are behaving on purpose rather than by accident, cognizant of their responsibility for the successes or for the fall-outs. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

I am not advocating “fake it till you make it”. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Even Picasso knew that the effect of the art was ultimately more important than the artist. Picasso would even call out known fake canvasses as real Picassos and then some of his own pieces of art as fakes, all because they did not have the desired effect regardless of his authentic hand in them.

What I am suggesting is “behave like it—so you are it”. Leaders and sales professionals who know how to manage their authenticity in this way will be all the more effective for it. So here are my top body language tips to help you take more control of the idea of who you are by choosing to employ those behaviors that help you realize your goals.

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DISPLAY YOURSELF When speaking at a large event have a lavaliere or handheld mic and step away from the podium. If sitting with a client, pull your chair back from the table—in short, display more of your body to your audience. Your audience’s instinctual “reptilian” brain needs to see your body and your body language to decide what they think your intentions and feelings are towards them. Place your hands in what I have trademarked the TruthPlane, the horizontal plane that extends 180 degrees out of your navel area. Show your palms open with nothing in your hands to let others know that you mean no harm and are speaking for their benefit. This is a universally recognised ‘friendly’ gesture. Bringing the audience’s unconscious attention to this vulnerable area of your body makes them feel that you are very confident. By assuming this physicality, you will feel really confident too even though you may have felt like you were bluffing it moments before.

ATTRACT RECOGNITION Keep your gestures symmetrical. The brain understands symmetry in the body more easily than asymmetry, and we find it more appealing. When giving a complex message, avoid complex asymmetrical movement—so no fiddling with your pen even though it feels comfortable for you! It is hard for the brain to decode complex verbal language when it is concentrating on complex nonverbal behaviour.

Although the message may be complicated, keep your body language simple.

STOP READING—START LEADING It is instinctual for us to unconsciously read other’s body language in order to form theories as to how they feel and what they intend towards us. It’s truly “authentic” to judge others and feel that our judgements are spot-on accurate.

With this in mind, be more inauthentic and stop trying to read other people’s body language consciously. Generally, most of us stand little more than a 50/50 chance of getting it right. But generally most of us think we are really good at it. Instead, concentrate on influencing your audience to mirror your simple and positive nonverbal behaviour, and they will be extremely likely to trust and engage with you every time you communicate.

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James Altucher ”So...tell me what you are NOT good at?

What do you need to do better?”

The trick question in the interview. Does everyone lie? I certainly used to lie when asked that.

I said something like, “Well, I’m a perfectionist, I need to work on that.”

What a lie.

I’m often afraid to be honest. To take off the mask. What if everyone figured out what a fraud I was?

What if they figured it out and the mayor

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had a big award ceremony for the person who yelled “Fraud!” the loudest. What if I was forced to present the award and everyone laughed?

I used to go on TV quite a bit. The one phrase you are not allowed to say is “I don’t know”. Else they never ask you back.

We’re trained to “put our best foot forward”. To be perfect. To know everything.

When we start dating someone new we are on best behavior. We’re THE ONE

she/he was looking for (for three months.

Then I start to reveal the crazy. Claudia is taking awhile to figure that out).

But flowers only grow in shit. Warmed by the heat of the sun, roots buried snuggly into the Earth. Only then can they blossom.

I know what I’m weak at. If you’re ok with what you’re weak at then...you’re ok.

LACK OF CONFIDENCE I’m scared all the time before I meet people. What if they don’t like me? I

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“Sometimes it’s good to get a little out of your comfort zone.” want people to like me.

Before I give a talk, I’m nervous.

Everyone else is more impressive than me.

Sometimes I cancel meetings at the last minute because I’m afraid I will contribute nothing worthwhile. That the fraud will be revealed.

And then I feel like a jerk for being so unreliable.

Is this ok? I don’t know. It’s just true.

PROCRASTINATION

procrastinate on and then I work on my Plan B. A lot of Plan Bs get done.

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN I could say, “I don’t like doing things that take me way out of my comfort zone.”

I start to shake when I get out of my comfort zone. Or be easily annoyed. It’s always a test.

Like the time I forced myself to ask for

a 10% discount at the local coffee shop (thank you Noah Kagan).

Sometimes it’s good to get a little out of your comfort zone.

All future Art is right outside the comfort zone of the prison we’re locked in. Our heads are pressed up against the prison bars, the art, the innovation, the creativity, just slightly out of our reach.

Even though the prison doors are unlocked.

But if I have to go way out of my comfort

I simply don’t like to do what I don’t like to do.

At a job interview I should say that.

“Don’t ask me to do something I don’t want to do. Because then it will never get done.”

Why would people NOT procrastinate?

Who wants to do menial tasks that they don’t want to do.

13 years ago I ran a Stop sign. I got a ticket. I never paid it. My license got suspended. And everything got worse and worse. Now I have to take a whole driver’s ed course and take an exam, etc.

I don’t think I’m ever going to do it. I have other things to do.

All because I procrastinated.

But is that so bad? Lots of things I procrastinated on ended up saving me 1000s of hours of not having to do stupid menial tasks and only doing the things I like to do.

Here’s my procrastination strategy. I always have a plan B-Z. “Ok, I will call someone I like first instead of calling someone I don’t like.”

Or, I will be silent and look at the river for an hour instead of going into the city for a meeting that will be useless.

Every day I try to find the things I can

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21

zone, forget it. Take little steps. Why make something hard when it can be easy?

One time I was addicted to a particular drug. If I tried to cut it off cold then I would go crazy.

I had to cut a tiny bit at a time. It took years. It was out of my comfort zone every day. The drug made me comfortable.

I try to do 1% a day out of my comfort zone. It feels like practice then.

LAZINESS I like to actually do work ... for two or three hours a day. After that, I’m lazy.

I don’t return calls or emails or texts. I might play some chess online or take a walk.

It’s hard to work hard all day long. I’d rather take a walk around the block with a friend.

This is true whether I had a job or when I work for myself. When I had a job I would take 30 minute bathroom breaks.

Right before a two hour lunch. And then, of course, gossip on a cigarette break (I ate licorice while everyone smoked). And then leave early.

They’ve recently assigned a mental illness to laziness. They call it ADHD and even give medication for it.

If you like to daydream instead of focusing on boring stuff now you are officially mentally ill. People cling to this. “THAT’s WHY I can’t do neurophysics!”

But what if you daydreamed about traveling through time on a skateboard and having secret powers and seeing colors that don’t exist and then trying to paint or write or create it?

Will your boss yell at you?

FEAR OF FAILURE What if I start a company and I raise money and I hire people and then I lose it all and have to fire everyone and everyone hates me.

Ok. I did that.

Every day I got dressed in my clown costume and pretended to be a CEO. I would sneak into my own office and lock the door.

I don’t want to be embarrassed by failure. I don’t want everyone to think I’m a fool.

People (me) say, “you only learn from failure”.

Maybe. Maybe. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be afraid of it. And, to be honest, sometimes failure is just failure.

POOR PLANNING Someone asked me the other day, “How can you have no goals? Doesn’t everyone need a goal?”

I don’t need one. What am I going to plan? Am I going to plan what I should be doing when I’m 60 years old? I might be dead then.

There’s a saying in chess, “better to have a bad plan than no plan at all.”

“I don’t know anybody in history who has been passionate about the same thing for their entire careers.”

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Fine, I’m good at coming up with a bad plan, just so I can do something this moment. I’m going to plan to publish this post. I hope my plan works.

One time I planned to make a hundred million dollars. Instead I went broke.

For my first thirty years I planned that I would have a life of no kids. Instead now I have (gratefully) two beautiful kids.

I’m going to plan on crushing one of my kids at tennis in a few hours. She’s only 13. I hope she loses and cries. But this plan might fail.

I planned to date for awhile after I got divorced. Instead, a year later I was married.

I know that everything I plan for has a tendency to not come true.

Thankfully.

I HAVE NO PASSION FOR ANYTHING Every few months I seem to have a new

thing I am passionate about.

I don’t know anybody in history who has been passionate about the same thing for their entire careers.

Often the key to success is to build upon multiple passions to create something nobody has ever seen before.

I get interested in one thing and I will obsess on it and read, watch, study everything about it for two weeks, three months, maybe a year or so.

Sometimes it’s another person. Sometimes it’s a game. Sometimes it’s work.

And then it’s over. Then I get bored and move on.

People say, “I still haven’t found the ONE thing I have been put on this Earth to do.”

Who put you on this Earth? Why did they pick you to do that ONE thing?

“I’m special,” people say. One person out of seven billion. One organism out of ten trillion. Blah!

We live in a great time where we can explore many passions.

There’s a story about an ad agency that got a new big client. The boss said, “I want everyone to come up with ONE great idea.”

The boss left and came back an hour later. Nobody had any ideas.

He said, “ok, I want everyone to come up with 20 ideas!” Within an hour everyone had 20 ideas.

Don’t let the search for one searing passion force you to miss out on the 20 things you can love.

--“I’m not really that good at anything,” I could truthfully say. The learned man knows everything. The wise man knows nothing.

I hope. I made up that line so I will sound good.

Maybe one day I will be good at something. Or maybe not.

The only thing I can do is serve this one moment. By hitting Publish. For me, this is how to be authentic.

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MOBILIZING THE MOBILIZER

By Matthew Dixon & Brent Adamson (When we think of it like this,) it’s no wonder that star-performing sales reps seek out Mobilizers. After all, they’re the individuals inside the cus- tomer organization most open to change in the first place. They’re looking for new ideas, willing to consider alternate courses of action, and, crucially, able to win over others’ buy-in to that alternate point of view. That’s not to say, of course, that Mobilizers are necessarily looking for a supplier—or even less likely, a particular supplier—but they are at least (grudgingly at times) willing to entertain a conversation with a supplier should they believe the supplier might have something worthwhile to share. Simply put, star performers—recognizing that they first and foremost sell change— very carefully target those individuals most open, or least resistant, to that change in the first place, and then lean on those individuals to drive that change elsewhere across the organization. One sales executive called it the “new physics” of sales: “Mobilizers,” she told us, “allow me to minimize inertia and maximize momentum.”

That said, if we think back to the three-step model of a customer purchase we introduced in chapter 1 (see figure 3.1), those physics will play out in different ways at different points across the purchase process.

From Phase 1 to Phase 2, a supplier must first convince someone inside the customer organization that change is even necessary. Remember, the goal isn’t so much to convince someone to buy a solution but, rather, to persuade them to change their behavior. Just because someone might be predisposed to favor

change in general doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be willing to support the specific change advocated by a given supplier. So the way that supplier’s message is constructed—the way it’s designed to make the case for change— really matters. As one head of sales told us, “Look, I might be a Mobilizer, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to mobilize around every new idea put on the table.

Context really matters.” And he’s right.

Setting a Mobilizer in motion across that

first shift from Phase 1 to Phase 2 requires a convincing vision and credible evidence that that change is even worth it in the first place.

Still, that’s just the beginning. For just because the Mobilizer is open to change doesn’t necessarily mean any of the other 4.4 are at all. That Mobilizer now faces a real uphill battle building a bridge from “me” to “we” across the chasm from Phase 2 to Phase 3. And the support suppliers provide in that effort can make

all the difference in whether the Mobilizer is both willing and able to successfully champion change across the rest of that buying group.

Now, just to make things even harder, none of this happens in a vac- uum. You’ll remember, CEB customer research has additionally found that customers are contacting supplier sales reps later than ever before across a typical purchase process. That’s the 57 percent we reviewed ear- lier: customers proactively seek out sales rep input at 57 percent of the way through a purchase. That single statistic renders this entire three-phase process significantly much more difficult. For, just because sales reps aren’t necessarily there to see it happen doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to happen nonetheless. Just the opposite. It means customers are now left to figure it out on their own.

Now, there are a number of things sellers can do to regain access to the earlier part of a purchase (we’ll look at one idea in particular, “social sell- ing,” later). From a supplier’s point of view, at the very least, the 57 percent number tells us that much of the identification and motivation of a Mo- bilizer may not happen through person-to-person sales interactions at all, but rather through broader-based marketing channels designed to connect with customers far earlier. The lesson being, without tight inte- gration between sales and marketing, it’s unlikely a supplier can predict- ably influence any of this change process at all.

But let’s consider for a moment why customers are delaying contact with sales reps for as long as they are. The answer is simple but rather instructive: because they can. In fact, based on all of

Customer’s PHASE 1

Customer’s PHASE 2

Customer’s PHASE 3

Customer’s Status Quo

Individual Willingness to Explore Alternate Course of Action

Group Consensus for High-Quality Deal

FIG. 3.1. Purchase Process Overview (illustrative)

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our research, we’ve come to postulate a sort of “golden rule” of customer-supplier engagement: Left to their own devices, customers will always engage a supplier as late as they possibly can.

In other words, much of the reason why a customer engages a supplier 57 percent of the way through the purchase rather than earlier is that they don’t believe that the supplier has anything valuable to contribute to the conversation.

At least nothing they couldn’t get off that supplier’s Web site on their own, without having to speak with a sales rep. “So if I reach out to a supplier,” the thinking goes, “all they’re going to do is drone on about their product or service and ask me lots of open-ended questions that I don’t need their help answering. It’s biased information, and it’s never really about helping my business, so much

as selling theirs . . .” Who wants to sit through that? In a world of information accessibility, customers can get all of that on the Internet. Talking directly to a supplier feels like a waste of time. Let’s face it, many of us reading this book sell for a living, and we likely feel exactly the same way about people who sell to us! Why talk to a salesperson unless you really think you have to?

That’s exactly where teaching comes in, convincingly proving to customers— and especially Mobilizers—that they do have to talk to you.

But now we can better appreciate the very specific, and rather compli- cated, context within which we must deploy that teaching. In this world, suppliers’ teaching must: 1. Capture the attention of a Mobilizer, in a way that 2. Motivates them to champion a change in behavior, leading them to 3. Rally the support of the other 4.4, around a vision that 4. Leads that customer back to their unique solution.

That’s a very high bar, indeed. In fact, we have a name for this very spe- cial kind of content. We call it Commercial Insight. The reason we find Commercial Insight so powerful is that it’s the only kind of teaching we’ve found in all of our research that can impact customer buying behavior across all three stages of that buying process irrespective of where it’s deployed. Whether it’s winning the willingness of individual stakeholders to mobilize in the first place, or equipping those Mobilizers to win over the other 4.4 who are potentially even less inclined to change. That’s because Commercial Insight is designed to change what customers are currently thinking regardless of what that thinking might be—whether it’s to do something different or, just as likely, to do nothing at all. In a world where every supplier is selling change, producing content with that kind of impact really matters.

But for Commercial Insight to have that kind of broad influence across the customer purchase, it must follow a precise set of design principles. For only a small fraction of the content most suppliers produce today is designed to drive that kind of behavior change. Chief among those design principles is the idea that effective Commercial Insight isn’t designed to teach so much as to unteach.

Reprinted from The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results, by Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon, Pat Spenner, and Nick Toman with permission of Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) CEB, 2015.

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Why Your Colleagues

DON’T GET YOU Have you ever felt that the people you work with don’t really get you? Of course you have - because they probably don’t. But the really vital question is, why? Why is it so damn hard to get other people to understand who we are and where we’re coming from?

The answer lies, in large part, in a simple fact: The human brain is the Ebeneezer Scrooge of organs. It sits on reserves of mental energy and processing capacity, like Scrooge sat on his mountain of money, unwilling to spend much of it unless it really has to. To keep from having to work too hard, the brain relies on simple, efficient thought processes to get the job done – not so much out of laziness (though there is some of that, too), but out of necessity. There is just too much going on, too much to notice, understand, and act on for the brain to give every individual and every occurrence its undivided, unbiased attention.

So when it comes to perceiving you, your colleagues are (without realizing it) relying heavily on assumptions – the miserly brain’s favorite shortcut. They guide what the perceiver sees, how that information is interpreted, and how it is remembered – forming an integral part of his or her perception of you.

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Assumptions come in many varieties.

Two of the most powerful and pervasive of these are confirmation bias and the primacy effect.

CONFIRMATION BIAS When other people look at you, they

see what they expect to see. If they have reason to believe that you are smart, they will see evidence of intelligence in your behavior - whether or not there is any.

If they have reason to believe you are dishonest, they will interpret a lack of eye contact or awkward body language as evidence that you have something to hide – as opposed to evidence that you are shy, or distracted, or in gastric distress.

In a nutshell, people will interpret your current behavior in a way that makes it consistent with your past behavior – and they will tend to play down or completely ignore evidence that contradicts their existing option of you. And they will have no idea that they are doing it.

Confirmation bias is shaped by many factors. Stereotypes about the groups to which you belong, your apparent similarity to other people the perceiver knows, and culture (yours and theirs), are among the most consequential.

And of course, their own past experience with you, if they have any, plays a major role.

That last part seems fairly logical, as far as assumptions go. If you have been gregarious, or pessimistic, or hotheaded in the past, it’s reasonable to think you are likely to continue to be so in the future, and to interpret your behavior accordingly. If you say something that could be considered offensive or humorous, and I know you to be a jokester, then I’m more likely to go with the latter interpretation and to see the humor in your off-color remark. My past experience with you helps me to make the right call.

The problem, however, is that our early impressions of a person can hold far too much weight, and can lead us astray when they paint an inaccurate picture.

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By Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson

THE PRIMACY EFFECT First impressions matter most. In other words, information we get about a person early in our observation of them influences how we interpret and remember everything that comes after.

Imagine two children – each taking a thirty-question math test. On the first half, Timmy gets fourteen out of fifteen correct, while John gets only six.

In the second half, the scores reverse – with John getting fourteen, and Timmy only six. Objectively, these two children have both performed at exactly the same level – getting a total of twenty out of thirty problems correct. So rationally, anyone watching would conclude that they have the same level of mastery in math, right?

Only that’s not what happens – not even close. In study after study, researchers find that Timmy is perceived – even by experts, like math teachers – to be the more talented of the two. This is because performance on the first half of the test exerts a far greater influence on judgment than performance on the second. In essence, when the test is only halfway finished, the perceiver has already concluded that Timmy is smart and John is not. What happens afterward does precious little to alter those initial impressions.

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The implications of findings like these for “late bloomers,” or anyone who struggles initially only to excel later, are terrifying.

It’s not impossible to change these initial impressions, but it really tough. John would have to present overwhelming evidence of his math ability in order to

override it, while Timmy can happily coast on his early success for quite a while.

The problem for John is that he may not even be given the chance to override that impression, if he is placed in a remedial math track, or discouraged from pursuing math altogether.

(Incidentally, the primacy effect is also the reason why your parents still treat you like you are twelve even when

you are forty. In their eyes, you are still the person they first knew you to be – naive, inexperienced, and more than a little foolish. My mother still insists that I am disorganized and scatterbrained, despite the fact that I literally make my living writing and speaking about planning and time management. She constantly tells me that I should “learn to write things down.”

So now that you know about the confirmation bias and primacy effect, what should you do?

-For starters, try really hard to make an accurate first impression. Often, this means making your thoughts and intentions more clear – don’t leave people to make “guesses” about what you are like or what you want, because they may guess wrong, and then you’ll have a very steep hill to climb to undo the damage that’s been done.

-Second, recognize that confirmation bias is a formidable foe. To get someone else to not simply see what they expect to see, you’re going to need to go out of way to do something attention-getting. If your boss thinks you are a procrastinator, turning a few things in on time won’t help you. Turn in everything early for about a month or two, at least, and you’ll be on the right track. Evidence has to be hard to ignore to get past the confirmation bias.

After all, it took three ghostly visitations to get Scrooge to part with his pennies – so think big. (But not quite so scary.)

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BEWARE THE TECH TRAP: Do’s and Don’ts Technology has changed modern life as fundamentally as fire impacted the caveman. Fire changed how primitive men lived—it extended their day, and their existence, beyond sunset. Likewise, technology has changed how we live as well. It has allowed us to do more, and expanded our knowledge and ability to learn beyond anything we ever imagined.

But has technology actually improved our ability to work? Does today’s technology make us more, or less, efficient at work? With the advent of instant mass communication over the last decade, it’s easy to fall into “tech traps”

where technology can actually work against us. Let’s take a look at some do’s and don’ts when it comes to technology in the workplace.

DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY BECOME A DISTRACTION. Twitter didn’t exist 10 years ago, and now you can’t escape some people’s thoughts and life experiences. Posting updates and photos to your Facebook page takes time away from daily obligations.

Texting and social media have created a 24/7 electronic world…and how can you not check out the “cute puppy and cat cuddling” video on YouTube, sent to

By Adriana Girdler you and about 100 others…after which up pops another “squirrel waterskiing” video, and so on and so forth.

DO BE SOCIAL WHILE USING ELECTRONIC MEDIA—IT’S FUN TO BE TIED IN. But, realize that social is for outside work, and the workplace is still for work. Think of social media as a cocktail party. Unless it’s the annual holiday get together, cocktail parties don’t happen at work.

Social media is an interactive medium, not reactive like listening to the radio.

Being hooked into social media at work impacts efficiency and productivity.

Does today’s technology make us more, or less, efficient at work?

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Before you know it, you might struggle to catch up….and your employer will begin to notice.

DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY BECOME AN INTRUSION. How many times have you emerged from one meeting, all set to go back to your office to actually do some work, when you find you’ve been booked into another meeting starting right away? How many times have you been caught in an endless chain of emails from people replying to all to say they’ll attend a meeting?

That ‘ping,’ or flashing light, causes you to realize that someone, somewhere, is sending you a message. Some studies show people check their emails more than 500 times per day!

DO UNPLUG ONCE IN A WHILE. It’s OK—you won’t miss much and you can catch up in an hour or two. If you’re working on a project plan, budget or an absolute must-do with a deadline, eliminate those electronic distractions.

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Put your phone away—and not on vibrate! Close your laptop window to both emails and the Internet. Focus on the project you are doing; chances are you’ll be much more efficient and get the job done in half the time.

DON’T LET TECHNOLOGY BECOME A DEPENDENCE. A server outage, a lost smart phone, a crashed website, an expired domain name…these kinds of snags cause many of us to stop functioning; we may as well rock in the fetal position in a dark closet until order is restored!

It’s natural that we’ve become dependent on technology—that was the whole idea, but too dependent almost suffocates us from producing, interacting and engaging as we’re meant to.

DO BECOME INDEPENDENT FROM TECHNOLOGY EVERY NOW AND THEN. Change your approach at work and see how much more efficient you could

become. Once per week, go “old school” and work like you used to. Take a hard copy of a report in your hands and read it. Make notes all over it. Underline.

Draw silly faces if you wish.

At the beginning of each week, write down a To Do list and keep it in plain view on your desk. Cross off the items as you complete them and you’ll feel a great sense of accomplishment as the week progresses. You just don’t get that same feeling with assignments buried on an electronic calendar.

And, instead of firing off that email, walking over and discussing an idea in person might be a refreshing approach for all employees.

Just as fire probably burned the caveman in the beginning, we are in the developmental stages of learning how to work efficiently and effectively with newer and newer technology. As we understand how it can help us, it’s also important to recognize some technology dangers and traps, and how to avoid them.

31

THE

LIST

10 BOOKS ON OUR R ADAR

CONNECTED COMMERCE

WHAT ENGINEERING A REVERSE INNOVATION LOOKS LIKE

By Amos Winter and Vijay Govindarajan When a company investigates a new product opportunity, it is important to define the problem, and the requirements that will dictate a viable solution, independently from the company’s existing lines of similar products or preconceived ideas of what a solution should entail. This is especially true when businesses are considering entering emerging markets or aim to realize opportunities to create highperformance, high-value products and services that appeal to consumers in poor and rich countries alike.

For example, clean cookstoves, many versions of which have been

designed for developing countries to reduce harmful emissions from the combustion of biofuels, have had questionable impact on the quality of life for many users. These issues are not technical in nature — in laboratory tests, many stoves make significant reductions in carbon monoxide and particulate emissions. However, usage practices, how families value the stoves, and the fact that many cooking operations are not done on stoves, have affected their integration into, and impact on, peoples’ lives. These issues indicate that the full set of design requirements have not been addressed to provide users with

healthier, affordable cooking solutions.

The primary challenge to creating products for emerging markets is delivering solutions of adequate quality at a price affordable for the masses.

Companies may have to deliver 70-100% of the performance of their Western product equivalents for a tenth to a thousandth the price. Determining the performance required by a technology (in the case of cookstoves: emissions reduction and usability) and the price at which it will be adopted is the critical first step in creating products for emerging markets (Lines 1 and 2 in the graphic below).

Engineering Reverse Innovations How a disruptive technology in a poor market becomes a high-value platform in a rich one.

1

1

2 -

-

PERFORMANCE

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1

2 +

Disparity between what existing technology can provide (blue curve) and the performance and price constraints and requirements dictated by an emerging market (lines 1 and 2) SOURCE GOVINDARAJAN AND WINTER

PRICE

+

PRICE

+

PRICE

+

-

-

PERFORMANCE

2 +

The constraints drive innovation (black arrow) towards a disruptive technology (red circle)

-

-

PERFORMANCE

+

The disruptive technology becomes a high-value product platform that can be transfered from poor to rich markets through reverse innovation (darker blue curve). © HBR.ORG

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After these core technical and socioeconomic requirements are defined, then a company can contrast what their existing product line can offer, and whether it can satisfy the new market requirements. Any product family, or family of related technologies in an industry, will have performance that scales with price (the existing technology curve in light blue in the graph on the left). The “Ferrari” solution will be at the top of the curve (the bleeding edge), and the “Tata Nano” solution will be at lower end of the curve (the trailing edge). If a company finds that the performance and price of their existing technology intersects their core requirements, then there is no reason to reinvent the wheel; simply adapting an existing product to be cheaper might be a viable solution.

Procter & Gamble figured this out when they packaged the exact same shampoo sold in the West in small, low-cost, single use sachet packets.

In many cases, challenges faced by emerging markets will require innovative solutions that deliver a higher comparative performance at a lower cost than what existing technology can provide. For example, no family in the developing world will say that they are happy to accept dirty water, a higher infant mortality rate, and polluted cities just because they are poor. The reason so many development challenges persist that impact billions of people is because obvious solutions do not

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exist; if our Western solutions could be easily adapted to poor consumers, they would have been already. To solve these challenges, which often have unique technical and socioeconomic factors behind them, we as designers cannot simply adapt; we have to disrupt.

Engineers are very good at solving problems they know are problems.

Visualizing the disparity between what existing technology can provide (the existing technology curve above) and the performance and price requirements that a new product must deliver (the red circle in the graph in the middle) will produce innovative solutions. The cliché that “necessity is the mother of invention” is absolutely true in the engineering community, and it can be seen in numerous examples in history such as saving the Apollo 13 astronauts by hacking together a device to remove carbon dioxide from the Lunar Module, the creation and dissemination of the polio vaccine in the 1950s, and the rapid decrease in vehicle emissions realized over the past decade.

The constraints imposed by developing and emerging markets have formed a fertile bed for novel product development and academic research, which will drive the innovation of high-performance, low cost technologies (the black arrow in the graph in the middle).

Realizing that a disruptive leap is necessary to hit a product target gives an organization insight into how a new product could impact an emerging

market, but also how the technology could be disseminated worldwide.

A product that delivers significantly more performance at a lower price may become the basis for a new product platform, which can have features added or removed to adjust its price and performance to the specific needs of wealthy or poor markets (the dark blue Reverse Innovation curve in the graph on the right). GE Healthcare has demonstrated this idea with the customization of its low-cost ultrasound and electrocardiogram machines, which started as emerging market products and then evolved into valuable devices for North America and Europe.

Companies can envision the process of engineering reverse innovations before any metal is cut, plastic is molded, or prototypes made. By charting performance and price constraints in a market, and the solutions that existing technologies provide, companies can envision a global product line around a new technology platform, and use benchmarks of other products in the market space to understand how it can undercut competitors while delivering as good or better performance to consumers. By scoping worldwide market opportunities, and understanding the unique constraints and requirements in emerging as well as developed markets, companies can engineer reverse innovations to impact markets and consumers worldwide.

35

QA &

with

Daniel Pink What prompted you to write To Sell is Human?

It was a mix of factors. Perhaps the greatest was just looking at my own calendar and realizing that I was spending much of my day doing things that kinda, sorta looked like selling.

Another was feedback I’d received from

readers after writing the book, DRIVE (which argued that certain types of widely used motivators often backfire).

People asked about sales commissions - and I began looking into that topic.

Finally, having written about business

for nearly two decades, I’d interviewed lots of salespeople and almost none of them conformed to the stereotype. That always puzzled me and I wanted to find out what was going on.

Why do you believe we are all in sales?

The evidence is pretty clear. We’re not all selling products and services directly.

But if you look at what white-collar workers do all day on the job, a huge

portion of it is persuading, convincing, cajoling, and influencing other people.

One study I conducted shows that on average, people are spending about

40% of their time in this activity. Even though money doesn’t change hands and the cash register doesn’t ring, it’s very much like selling.

How has sales changed and what does this mean for everyone in a sales capacity?

The big change has been information.

Most of what we know about sales comes from a world of information asymmetry - that is, the seller always

36

had more information than the buyer.

When the seller has that kind of edge, the buyer is at a big disadvantage because the seller can take the low

road. However, in the last ten years, the information asymmetry that defined the sales relationship has begun disappearing. Almost every

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market for everything has moved toward greater information parity. In

that world, the buyer and seller are more evenly matched - and the seller

can no longer take the low road.

Can you explain the new ABC’s of selling?

This move from information asymmetry to information parity means that sales has changed more in the past 10 years than in the previous 100. I wanted to know how to succeed on this new terrain, so I went to large body of social science. Turns out there are three key

personal qualities that seem to matter most. First, attunement: Can you take another ’s perspective, see the world from their of view, and find common ground? Second, buoyancy: Sales is an ocean of rejection. Can you stay afloat in that ocean of rejection? Third,

clarity: It used to be that having access to information gave you an edge. Today, everyone has access. What matters now is being able to curate information - to make sense of the welter of information buyers now confront.

What makes the best salespeople?

The conventional view is that extroverts make the best salespeople. But that is flatly wrong. There’s no evidence — none at all — that strong extroverts are effective salespeople. But that doesn’t mean that

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strong introverts are any better. What the evidence shows is that the most effective salespeople are “ambiverts” — those somewhat introverted and somewhat extroverted but not strongly one way or

another. Ambiverts are more effective in sales because they’re more attuned. They know when to speak up, but also when to shut up. They’re ambidextrous and therefore more versatile and effective.

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What role does ‘art’ play in sales?

I’ve been saying for a long time that artistic thinking is one of the most important cognitive abilities in today’s workforce. In particular, the rewards now go to people who can give the

world something it didn’t know it was missing, which is what poets, painters, and composers do. The same is true for sales. What’s more, the skills of improvisational theater have been

extremely important in sales. In fact, most of us would be better off skipping conventional sales training and taking an improv class instead.

What is the importance of problem finding vs. problem solving?

This is really important. In the old days, sales was partly about being a good problem-solver. But today, if your prospect or customer knows exactly what his problem is, he can probably find the

solution himself. Where does he need you? When he’s wrong about his problem or he doesn’t know what his problem is.

So the premium has shifted from the skill of problem-solving to what’s know as

“problem-finding.” Can you identify hidden problems, surface latent problems. look around the corner and anticipate problems?

This is now a key skill throughout whitecollar work, including in sales.

What advice do you have for salespeople that are struggling in today’s business landscape?

In many respects, some sales is still a numbers game — so be persistent and stick with it. (A look at the research on buoyancy will give you some tips).

Also, be sure you’re playing today’s

game, not yesterday’s. Don’t try to be a glad-hander. Strong extroverts don’t make good sales people. Don’t rely on privileged access to information.

Everyone has access to information.

Instead, focus on understanding the prospect’s perspective and building expertise to become a better information curator and problem finder.

What are the biggest changes you have seen in the sales profession?

There are two of them, both brought on by the explosion of information and the automation of routine functions. The first, which we’ve already discussed, is the move from problem-solving to

problem-finding. The second, which is related, is the heightened role of expertise. Especially in business-tobusiness sales, you have to be a genuine expert in whatever you’re selling.

What’s more, you have to be able to go into that company and, in some sense, know their business better than the prospect him or herself.

ARE ARTISTS BORN OR MADE?

MADE. The Art of Learning will assist you in making sure you get the best from your best. We will work with you to identify training and development needs throughout your organization. We will set a plan to address your requirements and then implement a program that clearly and effectively tackles the issues you face today - and help remove the roadblocks of tomorrow.

To find out how, visit www.theartof.com/learning or call 1.866.99.ART.OF

How to

IMPLEMENT PERSONAL & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Into 2016 The Do’s and Don’ts of choosing an effective program

By Bill Williams It’s the beginning of a new year, and that means making plans for 2016. Perhaps it’s the same ones you have every year, lose weight, spend more time with family, learn something new…. But what about your corporate plans? These likely involve some sort of challenging sales objective – meet or exceed quarterly sales target of X, or obtain at least X new customers per month.

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It’s easy to not follow through with New Year’s resolutions or corporate plans, but what if you set a development program in place to keep you on track?

We know it’s important to be good at our jobs. But what would it take for you to be great? What if you could actually meet corporate objectives and exceed expectations?

Improvement and learning is about

behaviour change. It only happens when people stop doing things the old way, and start doing them the new and better way. If someone does something the same way over and over again, they can’t expect different or improved results. We know that we want better results this year, so what is the best way to use a development program to achieve these desired results?

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1. PICK SOMETHING YOU’RE ALREADY INTERESTED IN AND CAN BE EXCITED ABOUT

baseball could be taught how to hit left handed, too. But, wouldn’t their time be better spent enhancing their hitting skills from their natural side?

For a development program to be effective, you have to believe in it and stay committed to it. The easiest way to do this is to make sure your program aligns with your passion and goals. If you’re doing what you love, you will feel more fulfilled, be more productive and more motivated. If you’re not interested in or motivated by an aspect of your job, a training program is not likely going to fix that.

3. TAKE A 360° APPROACH

2. DOUBLE DOWN ON YOUR STRENGTHS In Tom Rath’s Strengths Finder, he shares that people who use their strengths every day are 6 times more likely to be engaged on their job and are 12.5% more productive. Similarly, if it is the part of your job you hate, forcing yourself into it could be detrimental to your morale.

So, by choosing and developing the ball that you already have in motion you will only increase how far you can take it.

You shouldn’t waste time fixing your weaknesses. A right-handed hitter in

Ask colleagues and your previous managers what your hidden strengths are. Consider interviewing the next leader you would want to work for and ask them what they are looking for and what skills they need.

This is a big investment; you are investing in your own success. Make sure that the program you choose is directly aligned with your goals, and where necessary, choose a program that is customizable to you and your organization.

4. BE PROACTIVE ABOUT YOUR LEARNING Meet with your manager before starting the program and explain the expectations you have and what you hope to learn through the program. Discuss how you can apply the results of what you are about to learn, and make sure that you get the most out of your program with those intentions in mind. Be sure to also

clear your schedule for the days of your program. You will want to focus your energy with minimal disruptions.

When you catch yourself saying “that would never work in my organization”, challenge yourself to find 3 ways that it will. Remind yourself of the benefits, and why the program is necessary. As Tony Robbins once said, “There are only two options: Make progress or make excuses.”

5. FOCUS ON APPLYING ONE KEY INSIGHT Try to narrow it down to the one insight from the program that will have the BIGGEST impact on your success and be realistic. Too often people try to implement too many things when they get back to the office, and end up doing none of them. Chances are you will be busy with emails and meetings, so the long list of solutions you intended on implementing could fall through the cracks. A study by David Meyer, a cognitive scientist at the University of Michigan, reveals that humans actually have distinct bandwidth challenges, so by devoting your attention to one thing, you can drastically increase the chances of succeeding with that one thing.

Let’s sum it up...

DO’S • DO choose something you’re already interested in and passionate about • DO choose to enhance your strengths • DO take a 360° approach – get input • DO be proactive about your learning • DO focus on applying one key insight

DON’TS • DON’T pick the part of your job that you hate and aren’t good at • DON’T just sign up for the first program you’re interested in • DON’T fall victim to excuses • DON’T be over ambitious

There is a lot to gain from investing in corporate training programs for your own personal development and your team’s development. However, it is not enough to simply implement a program; you need to be strategic about it. Ensuring you follow these tips will allow your company to maximize the ROI of an effective program.

Bill G. Williams has 20+ years experience developing leaders across North America. Bill is a Partner & Vice President with The Art of Learning. For more information on The Art of Learning you can visit: www.theartof.com/learning or email Bill - bill@theartof.com

STEAL

IDEA...

PLEASE! 3 weeks ago we had all of our belongings boxes and shipped from Boston to Florida. The movers still haven’t arrived and we don’t know where our items are and we don’t know when they will arrive.

I find this incomprehensible.

Domino’s Pizza can tell me where my pizza is in the cooking process, who is cooking it, and when it will arrive. The pizza tracker is awesome. Aside from being informative it is fun to watch.

Every company should have a “pizza” tracker. I want to see exactly where my belongings are in their transit from Boston to Florida. I want to see where the truck is. And I want to know the estimated delivery date and time.

Hey, I even want to know the truck driver’s name.

Pure Insurance, a concierge-style homeowners and automotive insurance company has their own version of the tracker. When you place a claim, you can see how the claim is progressing through the system. This claims tracker helps you see exactly where everything stands. It’s

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awesome. And, this was indeed inspired

by Domino’s.

My parents had their house flooded after a burst pipe this winter. They had no clue when their claim would be processed. Their claims adjustor changed several times. It was a big black hole… until the check eventually showed up.

Clearly my parents did not have Pure Insurance!

The best ideas typically come from other industries.

Just because your insurance or moving company competitors don’t offer a tracker doesn’t mean you shouldn’t.

Back in 1991 I did a project with UPS where we launched what was called “Groundtrack.” Up until that time only air packages were tracked; about 700,000 a day. Then, UPS decided to offer tracking on ground packages; over 10 million packages a day (I hope I have my numbers right; this was a long time ago). It was a complicated procedural effort. And back then the technology was not as sophisticated as it is today, so it was a huge investment

on their part. But here’s the interesting thing: ground package tracking was not developed to improve delivery or help UPS do its job. They were already wildly efficient and knew where packages were.

Ground tracking was offered because it gave customers peace of mind through greater transparency. Back then this was a radical move.

Today, customer expectations transcend industry. Therefore your innovation has to go beyond the best practices of your industry.

This morning we had another example of where this would be helpful.

We just started a water service in our house. The cooler and 5 gallon bottles were supposed to be delivered between 8am and 10am. 10am rolls around and no word. So we called and found out that there was a delay, but they would definitely be there by 10:45am.

Predictably they did not show up until 11:15. If we had the tracker we would know that. And if you can’t do a realtime tracker, at least have the courtesy of calling or sending an email/text message

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By Stephen Shapiro

letting us know of the delay.

The applications are limitless. It can be used for many processes.

I would love it if the Accounts Payable department of my clients had a pizza tracker to tell me when I will

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get paid. The concept can even be used for internal processes to keep other departments/teams informed. Create a tracker for your innovation efforts.

Someone told me that they recently saw this same idea on a video slot machine,

indicating the status of your drink order!

So please‌steal the pizza tracker idea. Your customers will thank you.

Or at least I will.

And now I need to go track down our belongings‌

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OPENING SOONER

WHY ASK, “WHY SHOULD I CHOOSE YOU?”

By Ian Chamandy & Ken Aber In our first meeting with John Panigas, he was cataloguing his frustrations as owner and CEO of his company. DG Ltd. installed retail shelving and counted some of the biggest of the big-box chains as its clients.

“I know we do things differently,” he said. “But every time I open my mouth to try to explain to somebody why we are special and why they should hire us, it comes out so banal. We end up sounding just like our competitors when we know in our hearts that choosing us should be a no-brainer.”

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Fast-forward about nine months, and in that short time, the world had changed for DG Ltd. It was now called Interiors Inc., and John was sharing with us some incredible and unexpected successes he had achieved since we worked together on his company’s new strategic Blueprint.

“I was having my annual review lunch with one of my biggest clients (a major North American chain),” John said.

“We were reviewing projects that have been completed, what worked and what needed to be improved, and discussing expectations for future projects. Near the end of the meeting, and really just as an afterthought, I decided to tell him about my Blueprint.”

“I explained to my client that the Blueprinting process challenged everything that we did, how we did it and what we believed in as a company,” said John. “The process got interesting when we started talking about how, because we have been in business for three generations, we are developing techniques and processes that enable us to complete projects significantly faster than our competitors. As we were having these Blueprinting conversations, my son Michael said, ‘You know on our signs where it says, ‘Opening soon’? I want ours to say, ‘Opening sooner” John’s client was taken aback by the phrase “Opening sooner.” In disbelief, he asked what John meant. The next part of the conversation went like this:

JOHN. We can get you finished faster.

CLIENT. How can you do that?

JOHN. You know how, when we do a store renovation for you now according to the current specs, it takes 14 weeks?

We’ve redefined the specs, and if you let us do it according to the new specs, we’ll get it done in seven weeks—half the time.

You can imagine that if John’s company finishes the store a week or two sooner than its competitors, the store will open sooner, and that is another week or two of retail sales. For big-box stores, that can represent $1 million a week or more in additional revenue.

The conversation got much more detailed over the next hour, and when it was done, John left the meeting with $2.5 million in new business. What was supposed to be just a year-end review became the most successful sales meeting John ever had.

John didn’t walk into this lunch expecting to get business, but he walked away from it with a big score.

His story was so inspiring that his client didn’t need to hear anything more. John finally had his clear, concise and compelling answer to the question “Why should I choose you?” and his client eagerly responded with “I want me some of that.”

The process of Blueprinting will tell you what changes you have to make and how you have to make them. It starts by identifying who you are your core—at the DNA level of your company—and uses that to guide everything you do and everything you say going forward. Clarity about who you are as an organization transforms your company in six ways:

1. It gives you a strategic focus that guides every decision you make and every action you take.

2. It gives your leadership an elevated confidence to lead more boldly into a bigger future.

3. It gives your employees a focus for their thinking that makes them more innovative and creative.

4. It reveals new opportunities for revenue you never knew existed.

5. It gives your employees a sense of purpose that inspires them to perform at a higher level.

6. It gives you a clear, concise and compelling answer to the single most important strategic question in business: “Why should I choose you?”

Adapted from Why Should I Choose You? by Ian Chamandy and Ken Aber © 2015.

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Ian Chamandy and Ken Aber are the co-founders of Blueprint Business Architecture.

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GREAT INTERVIEW...

GREAT INTERVIEW...

HAT HAPPENED? w wHAT HAPPENED?

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IN ORDER TO SCALE YOU MUST BE

OBSESSED WITH

DELEGATION The difference between someone that thinks they are a business owner and someone that thinks they are an entrepreneur is one of mindset mostly.

A business owner looks at the work to be done and asks – how can I get all of this done? An entrepreneur looks at the same work and ponders – how can I get someone else to do all of this?

I know that may seem simplistic, and it certainly is, but if you create a business, and you do all of the work – especially

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if you do all the work because you currently have the time – you are bound to fall into the trap of business.

And that’s a trap that some find impossible to escape.

From the very beginning, you must understand that there are very few things in your business that it makes sense for you actually to do. Of course, that can be very hard to wrap your head around when you’re still trying to gain enough traction to call what you do a business, but it’s crucial.

In my experience people who start businesses that do something they don’t know how to get this the most

John Jantsch

because they must.

Think about it. Let’s say you are a consultant, and you see a huge opportunity to help people do something like tax planning, but you know nothing about accounting or the tax code.

You would be forced to go out and find people who could do the work, right?

Now let’s say you are a marketing consultant, and you start a marketing consulting practice. Well, by gosh you know how to write a good ad and you know just enough about SEO to have an impact and after watching a few videos you can customize a WordPress theme and guess what – you’ve created a job!

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JOBS ARE VERY HARD TO SCALE AND EVEN HARDER TO SELL. If you want to grow your business, you must become obsessed with delegating all but a few things. (Oh and delegation and abdication are not the same things – there’s a right way and a wrong way to delegate – more on that to come.)

If this idea has you intrigued, let’s take a look at how you get started.

TAKE INVENTORY The first thing you must do is take a look at all of the tasks you currently do in your business. If you’re a solopreneur, there’s a good chance this is a very long list.

The point of this exercise is to start understanding what you can and should delegate. Take a look at this list and start categorizing the work by importance.

Mandi Ellefson has a handy little Scalable Toolkit that offer some forms you can use for this exercise. She emphasizes thinking about work in the context of things like work you hate, you must do, and you can’t do.

From this list start assigning value.

There’s value to the business and cost to have someone else do it. Don’t underestimate the output of someone far better at something than you either.

I have a bookkeeping VA that charges

$65/hr. That may seem high to some, but I hate this kind of work so much that it takes me far longer to do it than someone who strangely love this work.

The output vs. cost is significant.

Chris Ducker has a great list that might help you get started – 101 Tasks You Can Outsource to Virtual Staff.

OWN FEWER THINGS Now that you’ve made your list and hopefully a commitment to outsource and delegate it’s time to figure what you can’t delegate.

Even if you put together a killer internal team, there are a few things that CEOs/Business Owner simply can’t delegate. (How you approach them might change, but you’ll always own them so why not start doing just that right now!)

FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW THINGS IN YOUR BUSINESS THAT IT MAKES SENSE FOR YOU ACTUALLY TO DO.

• VISION – you must have an idea of where you are going and why you are going there and what difference you going there is going to make in the lives of your customers, staff, and community. You can’t ever delegate this, but many never go here in the first place.

• CULTURE – the core beliefs, operating standards, and core story are something you have to continue to nurture, uphold and teach no matter how large your staff grows. Eventually, this is lead by example, but it must be intentional.

• CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS – You may have project managers (I hope you do), but how your clients feel about your business, understand the results they gain by working with you and grow to appreciate what your business means in their life is something of great value to your business and must be guarded and practiced.

• RAINMAKING – So this one is a little tricky. At first you will be the rainmaker, the person who brings in the big contracts, constructs the sales playbook and monitors feedback throughout the sales process.

But, at some point, if your business depends on you for this, you’re stuck – you have to build a sales system that others can easily operate before you can become totally free.

• MONEY MANAGEMENT – I already mentioned that I don’t like bookkeeping, so I delegate every element of it. I have an accountant for tax preparation as well. I even work with a coach who is focused on the growth metrics inside my business, but I insist on staying on top of key performance indicators and managing the money inside the business.

FOCUS ON HIGH PAYOFF Once you understand the things you must own, it’s time to start creating priorities and managing your days, weeks, months and quarters based on doing more of these high payoff activities.

At first this may well include spending a great deal of time documenting how the work is done and recruiting, hiring and training internal and external team members to 50

take over more and more of the work.

Perhaps then you can free up more time to go sell more work and start to create processes that allow you to train others to sell more work.

Then, maybe, just maybe you’ll find a day or two here and there where you can lock yourself away and come up with a new product or service innovation that allows you to step into and conquer an entirely new market.

And soon enough you’ll find yourself in your lab designing marketing experiments aimed and tackling new channels and entirely new ways to generate clients.

That my friends is how scale happens.

Sure, there are two hundred and seventy-three million steps in between, but it starts with this mindset – how can you get someone else to do everything that needs to be done.

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ATTRACTING AND KEEPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF SALESPEOPLE Tristan Bradley Special Correspondent for the CPSA 2015 marked a huge milestone: according to StatsCan, for the first time in Canada’s history, the number of persons aged 65 years and older exceeded the number of children aged 0 to 14 years.

The proportion of the population that is aged 65 and older will climb to 20% as baby boomers reach retirement age in the coming years.

This massive demographic shift is already being felt in the Canadian sales industry, with many companies struggling to replace their tenured staff before they retire.

WHO IS THIS NEW GENERATION OF EMPLOYEE? Millennials have been brought up in a hypercompetitive technologysaturated environment. These young workers, born generally between 1980 and the mid 1990s, value work/life balance, flexibility, and collaboration.

They seek a higher degree of personal fulfillment in their work than their

parents did, and seek a level of authenticity from their brands and business relationships that older demographics can have a hard time grasping.

The Canadian Professional Sales Association recently collaborated with Teneo Results on the Evolve

Sales Think Tank where a number of senior sales leaders discussed how to recruit young people into the ageing Canadian sales workforce and the changes needed to help them fit in better. Here are just a few of the insights we gleaned to help companies succeed with millennials.

WHO IS THIS NEW GENERATION OF EMPLOYEE? Millennials have been brought up in a hypercompetitive technology-saturated environment. These young workers, born generally between 1980 and the mid 1990s, value work/life balance, flexibility, and collaboration. They seek a higher degree of personal fulfillment in their work than

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their parents did, and seek a level of authenticity from their brands and business relationships that older demographics can have a hard time grasping.

The Canadian Professional Sales Association recently collaborated with Teneo Results on the Evolve Sales Think

Tank where a number of senior sales leaders discussed how to recruit young people into the ageing Canadian sales workforce and the changes needed to help them fit in better. Here are just a few of the insights we gleaned to help companies succeed with millennials.

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KNOW YOUR COMPANY’S CULTURE AND BE TRANSPARENT DURING HIRING It’s a common complaint that today’s young workers don’t stick around. There are a number of reasons for this, and most of them go beyond preference or boredom, but one of the things we learned from the young people at our conference was to be open about your company’s culture.

Many managers think that millennials have a blanket preference for hypercollaborative startup cultures with the perks and flexibility that entails. Thinking an entire generation of people born at

different times from all sorts of different backgrounds don’t have a variety of their own individual and unique tastes is a big mistake.

Want to make sure that the recent graduate you just hired is going to stick around? Be honest with them about what the culture at your company is like during the hiring process. Some managers try to entice young talent to their company by saying their culture fits a certain mold when it actually doesn’t.

It’s okay if your company is a

straightforward 9-5 office environment, and if you still do things in traditional ways. They may be harder to find, but there are millennials who are into that, and being transparent about what working at your company is really like saves you and them a lot of headache and ensures they are more likely to stick around. Workers of all ages appreciate transparency, even if what’s being disclosed isn’t what they want to hear. At the very least, it builds up your brand among potential hires and could lead to recommendations.

REALIZE WHERE YOUNG WORKERS ARE COMING FROM One thing we heard at the conference was that young people feel dismissed by the older generation, and looked down upon. Many sales leaders have said they consider millennials entitled or coddled, with many questioning everything from their social skills to their work ethic. But statistics show that young people have had to face a far tougher economic climate than their parents did.

What does this mean? That we shouldn’t be so quick to apply the entitled or coddled label, and to realize

that much of the on the job training and coaching baby boomers may have taken for granted, young people have had to do independently, if they’ve received it at all. As mentioned in an article for Macleans, the Conference Board of Canada found that companies’ spending on annual learning and development declined by 40% between 1993 and 2013.

Another common complaint heard at the Evolve Think Tank was that young people are asking for starting salaries that many consider high.

It may be that what managers have considered entitlement is actually just a product of today’s economic reality for young people. Costs for food, transportation, and housing have all gone up, with tuition tripling in the last 20 years. According to a report published by Statistics Canada, today’s young people make 13% less in real terms than their parents did when they were the same age . When all these factors are taken into consideration, that “high” starting salary doesn’t seem so high anymore.

HOW TODAY’S SALES COMPANIES SHOULD RESPOND Be transparent about your company’s workplace culture and goals, especially during the hiring process Though it may make it harder in the short term to find that ideal candidate who meshes with your company, the long term gains in productivity, retention, and happiness make it more than worth it. Even if millennial candidates decide your business isn’t for them, you will gain their respect, and their super-connectedness could

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land you the referral of someone better.

Be open to collaboration Today’s young worker understands just like any other that certain decisions are the purview of management, but they expect to know the reasoning and process behind those decisions, and to at least be heard out if they see any potential issues. It may be more demanding, but it also presents an excellent opportunity for communication and mentoring,

resulting in more committed, more productive team members - and importantly, the detection of problems or innovations you may not have considered.

Focus on mentorship and training Many companies are hesitant to invest in training because they think that investment will just end up producing a good employee for another business.

Though it is a legitimate risk, a millennial

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is far more likely to stay if they believe they are being given real opportunities to contribute and advance be it through mentorship, individualized incentive plans, or leadership training. There is always a risk an employee will leap for something better, but today’s young workers are eager to gain experience, become more competitive, and leave a mark. If they believe that they are being given the knowledge and preparation to do this where they are, they will be far more hesitant to jump at the next offer.

Make sure incentives are truly competitive It is not enough to just offer compensation based on what is competitive

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in your industry. Companies have to consider other factors such as location, commute, and flexibility. Remember that millennials may not have the financial resources to draw upon that their parents did at the same age. It is a lot more difficult for them to stomach moving costs, and many cannot afford cars - so if you’re a company hiring out of the suburbs or in a rural area, be cognizant of these obstacles and devise strategies to mitigate them.

Be open to exploring and embracing new technology You don’t have to be on the bleeding edge of technological innovation, but a company that isn’t looking to get

the full value out of today’s tools will strike a millennial as unproductive and destined to fail. The good news: even if your company is behind in this regard, millennials will relish the opportunity to help you change it, and collaborate with you to find tools that work. And they’re generally pretty good at it.

Though much fuss has been made about millennials and the gap between the generations, remember that these demographic shifts are a cyclical phenomenon that businesses have always had to deal with. Hopefully, the tips above will help salespeople to attract and get the best out of the techsavvy fresh faces appearing in offices everywhere.

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CTIONABLE SUMMARY

Summary written by Justin Gasbarre

In sports and business alike, the players are in it to win” - The Real-Life MBA, page 2 .

Jack and Suzy Welch have teamed up to write The Real-Life MBA: Your No-BS Guide to Winning the Game, Building a Team and Growing Your Career. The book is broken down into three sections: IT’S ABOUT THE GAME: Jack and Suzy examine business today from a number of different angles, giving the reader a holistic view from their experiences.

IT’S ABOUT THE TEAM: This section explores how we can become better leaders in today’s marketplace and build the type of “WOW” team that is set up to succeed!

IT’S ABOUT YOU: In this section the authors help us to get clear on the direction we want to pursue in our life and career. Jack and Suzy have done quite a bit of work in this space and give some great insights into how to overcome “career stalls” and position yourself to fulfill your individual potential!

What Jack and Suzy Welch have written is an applicable, actionable blueprint for any business person to become a better contributor, teammate and leader in today’s new business environment.

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The Real-Life MBA, By Jack & Suzy Welch

Purpose Think of Yourself as the Chief Meaning Officer” - The Real-Life MBA, page 17 .

Jack and Suzy Welch struck a major chord early on in the book when discussing the topic of purpose and the role that a leader plays in communicating the organization’s purpose. This mentality is one that companies with healthy cultures understand. Their mission and purpose is very clear from the CEO all the way down to the front line employee. Per Jack and Suzy, “Leaders

exist, in large part, to give purpose to their teams; to relentlessly, passionately explain, ‘Here’s where we’re going.

Here’s why. Here’s how we’re going to get there. Here’s how you fit in. And here’s what’s in it for you.’”

When you really step back and think about it, most people spend 40 hours a week for 40 years of their lives working.

That thought right there is mind

blowing in and of itself. If, as a leader, you aren’t helping your employees make meaning of that investment, you’re wasting their time and lives.

This is the foundation on much of the leadership dialogue that takes place in the book. The discussion is always bringing it back to what’s the purpose of your organization, your team, and your people.

The Trust Dividend People may not always want to hear the truth, but they tend to trust the people who deal in it, demand it and display it at all times” - The Real-Life MBA, page 130 In my work as an organizational development consultant, this topic of trust is often discussed through a leadership lens and rightly so. It’s the foundational competency that every successful and effective leader needs to be good at. Easier said than done through, right? Jack and Suzy, however, give us the easiest and best way to

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effectively build trust with your peers, subordinates or others that you report to.

Simply listen. While I’m sure we would all agree that this skill is an important one, Jack and Suzy emphasize that it’s vital to listen, especially when it’s hard to do. For example, during a crisis, during an acquisition or during some period of uncertainty. By letting people share their

thoughts and perspectives and reflecting on them genuinely, your people will feel that they have been heard. This will act as a “trust enhancer whose effects will last long after the crisis passes.”

Genuinely listening to others will help you to build a more trusting relationships when done consistently and sincerely.

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Hiring 101 You do have a hiring checklist, right?

- The Real-Life MBA, page 143.

Having leadership responsibilities usually means that you have some input and say in the hiring decisions that are made for your team and organization.

As Jack and Suzy say countless times throughout the book, “Great teams start with great players”. That’s why hiring

the right talent is so critical to your success as a leader.

This brings us to a tool that the Welch’s live by when making hiring decisions – the hiring checklist.

Simply said: “Good hiring checklists – are inextricably linked to your

organization’s mission. Deeper still, they are linked to the specific skills and behaviors that you’ve ascertained will achieve that mission”. Here are a few recommended questions from Jack and Suzy to have on your hiring checklist:

• Make sure the list includes IQ. In today’s business environment, the playing field isn’t level. It’s titled toward the team with the smartest people.

• Personality matters. Even a bad one. Negative energy can infect your team and your organization.

• Check references!

In short, whatever your process is, make sure you have one and that you constantly refine it over time.

Jack and Suzy Welch have created a complete, practical business book that covers topics that are vital to winning in business, becoming a more effective

leader and finding out what your true purpose and passions are in your career.

Whether you read the book cover to cover or use it as a just-in-time reference guide to addressing challenges and hurdles that you’re facing, The RealLife MBA is a great one to have on your

bookshelf. I love the last line in the book, “Because work is great. It’s life. It’s what we do.” Reminding ourselves of this really pushes us to evaluate if what we’re doing is really what we’re “meant” to do.

Is your career giving you the purpose and impact that you want?

This book summary was written by Justin Gasbarre on behalf of ActionableBooks.com

COLD CALLING ZOMBIES

By Tibor Shanto The debate as to whether cold calling is a viable means of engaging with potential buyers and prospects has been raging since the phone was created, probably before that. If you have been selling for a time, you have lived through many cycles and variations of the familiar cry “cold calling is dead”.This mantra resonates among those who were and are reluctant to use this proven and effective way of engagement.But as with the ever popular zombies, no sooner someone declares cold calling dead, it seems to 58

come back to life; till the next challenger comes along and tries to kill it again, current contender being social selling.

There a number of reasons for people wanting to kill cold calling, but it is important to remember that more often than not, it is about avoiding doing something specific.It is easier to blame the thing you can’t or won’t do, than to be accountable and disciplined enough to put in the effort it takes to succeed.

It is easier to blame the diet or fitness routine than the fact that the last time

you were at the gym was when you bought your membership.

The fear and paralysis brought on by cold calling is not lost on the many pundits and product vendors whose main value prop is “use our product and you won’t have to cold call”, music to many sales people’s ears. Yet like many pieces of fitness equipment, after a few days and spent energy, people revert back to their lazy ways, and gain back the pounds as they stuff their AB Machine under the steps.

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“COLD CALLING IS NOT DEAD, IT JUST SMELLS FUNNY” Let’s be clear, I don’t like cold calling any more than the next sales person, but success is not always about only doing what we like, but doing those things that work and make us successful.

And because cold calling (meaning tele-prospecting) does work, it should be PART of any successful B2B sales professional’s repertoire, along with, not instead of, other great tools, including social selling tools.

The problem with cold calling is the way people do it, as I have said in the past “Cold calling is not dead, it just smells funny”. And that smell is coming from the way people are executing. It starts with attitude, many do it with the flair, enthusiasm, and finesse of a zombie. When you watch them making their calls, they remind one of a lethargic group of unwilling participants in forced labour. I get it, not fun at all, but as a seller we need to look past some of the discomfort, and focus on the results, and by extension the possibilities and benefits those results will bring. Is that not what you expect from you clients, especially those who can truly benefit from your product, but just refuse to make the effort involved in change. Good enough for the buyer, why not the seller?

Another challenge is that most sales people, and many trainers only focus on half of the success. The part they focus on is content, (more on that below), and completely ignore the dynamics and the environment around the call.

Consider these two important elements often overlooked. First, most people we are calling are already trying to pack 16 hours into a 10-hour day. The effect of that is that they are constantly

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behind schedule, and are focused on getting the things on their list done, if what you sell is not at the top of that list, you need to compensate for that. No matter how good your product, value prop and message are, if the message doesn’t land, it won’t count.

Second, think for a minute how many calls you intended buyer gets every day.

When I ask this of a group of sales people I will get a range from 5 – 10 calls per day.

Let’s go with the low end, five; that’s 25 a week, in a 48-week year it’s 1200. If they have been doing the job for five years, that 6,000 calls. Take that in for a minute, and as you do, ask yourself, what am I going to do to sound different?

In terms of content, most sales people go into a call with two things, a) a blurb about their product or value prop, usually tied to notion of “solution”; b) an overwhelming desire to avoid objections.

When one of those goes out of balance, so does the call, and their success rate.

This just further convinces them that cold calling does not work as their fear of rejection grows.

By design both these things will fall apart, not only because of the dynamics described above, but the makeup of the market. Broadly speaking across various sectors, at any given time, 10% of your market is actively looking; another 20%, is passively looking, they know they need to make a purchase decision, but have the ability to defer that decision for 6 – 9 or more months. The remaining 70%, the infamous Status Quo, is by definition not looking. So when you call, and talk about your solution, using the same phrases that the other 6,000 callers did over the last five years, you are basically asking

for a rejection, and 99% of the time, they will oblige.

Stop trying to avoid objections, instead prepare yourself for them, manage them, and transition them to a conversation. How? Start with your messaging, forget need and pain, 70% don’t have them, the rest – leave to inbound. Make it about their objectives, not the outcome you deliver, but its impact on their business. This will generate a different reaction, not much more positive, given the dynamics, but predictable. Rather than hoping objections will not come, prepare and deal with it with greater command.

Most initial objections are conditional responses, remember they have developed habits and practices over the aforementioned 6,000 call. Again, the path here is to refocus on objectives and impacts you have delivered. It certainly is not what most sales people do, which is either getting into a debate with the prospect, we never win; or asking to be a “back up” to the current provider. (e-mail me at tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca and I’ll send you a complimentary copy of my Objection Handling Handbook).

Leveraging buyer objectives will allow you to manage and convert objections in to sales conversations.

Done right cold calling is not only alive and well, but alongside other tools, is helping sales professionals engage with more buyers and accelerate their sales cycles and make no process concession in the process.

It need to be part of the kit along with other tools. The key is having a proven methodology, process, and discipline to do what has to be done.

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GRAPHIC RECORDINGS FROM

THE ART OF LEADERSHIP TORONTO

by Carolyn Ellis

VINCE

MOLINARO

CHESTER

ELTON

CAPTAIN

PHILLIPS 60

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Carolyn Ellis brings a unique set of skills and training to her clients as a visual facilitator, international speaker, award-winning business coach and author. Combining her deep intuitive abilities with her Harvard-trained brain and life-long love affair with colorful markers, Carolyn helps inspire, clarify and unleash the brilliant potential within individuals and organizations. Visit: www.brilliancemastery.com

AMY

CUDDY

EXECUTIVE

PANEL

JOHN

MACKEY WINTER 2016

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YOU BE THE CAPTAIN NOW… Lessons from The Art of Leadership Based on the speeches of Vince Molinaro, Chester Elton, Amy Cuddy, Captain Richard Phillips & John Mackey.

By Ron Tite

Great leaders live in the moment. And we had some amazing moments today. As a leader, you have an obligation to make things better. Good leaders first become good servants. The big powerful you is generous. Just find the strength to do what needs to be done. You are stronger than you’ll ever know. The reaper is going to find you and then you’re going to die so you might as well suit up and do the best you can while you’re here. Still, it’s not what you do. It’s why you do it. I shouldn’t read your values.

I should experience them. If your team would rather get a different boss than more money, you’re not doing it right. Hey, you can start change but you can’t sustain it on your own. Don’t believe me? Just ask yourself, who’s got your back? Treat your people like Rock Stars. Manage by outcomes. Keep some perogies in the fridge. Be a conscious leader. Set the example by being an example. Teach don’t tell. Help people grow and evolve. Take a gut check every once in a while. Keep your promises. Remember, it’s crew, ship, then cargo. Engage. Enable. Energize. Don’t fake it ’til you make it. Fake it until you become it. Good intentions aren’t good enough. Business isn’t about money.

Great enterprises have great purposes. So do great people. You need to have vision.

You need to have a higher purpose. And once you have it, communicate, communicate, communicate. Your stories are far more important than your data. Crisis is a wonderful growth opportunity. Failure is only final when you give in or give up. So strike your power pose and take your power back. You be the captain now. You will never have a more important guide than your heart. Leadership is a decision. Make it. Leadership is an obligation. Step up. Leadership is a community. Connect. Leadership is hard work.

Get tough. Believe your own story. Be you. Be honest. Be real. Be present. Be all in.

And never trust a pirate.

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