The Daly News April 2007 Volume 20
I had the honor of speaking at the International University of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) in late March, and what an event it was. Many of the recipients of this newsletter are members of EO and realize what a tremendous organization it is. For those of you who are not familiar with EO, I highly encourage you to “take a look” – www.eonetwork.org . I’ve now had the privilege to speak at ten Universities for EO and while many members are enjoying and realizing the value of local Chapter membership and Forum Groups, far too many are “missing out” by not attending these International Universities. The Universities are attended by the “best of the best” and when it comes to idea sharing and building friendships, these events are without parallel. Beyond that, they are terrific social events, taking the members to places they could only dream of going on their own. As a serial entrepreneur myself, whenever I’m invited to speak at these events, I always carve the time from my schedule to attend the full University. Accordingly, as a tease, I thought I’d share just a couple of the sessions I attended and some of my “take-aways”. Keep in mind, these are just two of the many great learning events.
First, here’s a look at Rod Beckstrom, author of the best selling THE STARFISH AND THE SPIDER. Talk about being provocative! As Rod says, “The rules of the game have changed”. The trend today is towards decentralization, while the key is channelization through “communities”. Think Craigslist, Youtube, Wikipedia, Alcoholics Anonymous…
The absence of structure, leadership and formal organization, once considered a weakness, has become a major asset. Seemingly chaotic groups have challenged and defeated “more powerful and established” entities.
A spider has eight legs coming out of a central body. If you chop off the spider’s head, it dies. That’s precisely what happens with a centralized organization. The starfish, on the other hand, is decentralized. The starfish doesn’t have a head. The major organs are replicated throughout each and every arm. Cut any part of the starfish off and the part grows and replicates. It’s self sufficient. The smart business model, then, is actually a combo: part starfish, part spider. For a real attention getter, Rod took us through Al Quaeda as an organization. The key is to understand how to leverage your business with such principles, as well as best strategies for taking on decentralized organizations. This is “provocative stuff”, and it is our recommended reading for the month.
Next is a WOW! Let’s start with this thought: The brain operates at its best when working within a context and when provided with structure and meaning. Now, with more spice. My wife Bonnie and I have taken several cruises, seen many far away places in the world. The cruise experience that really put us back on our heels and WOWED us was the Windstar cruise line, in particular with one very impressive “move”. By dinner of the first night, all staff on the ship that had interface with the customers knew each by their name! When that happened, I thought, wouldn’t that be impressive to have for a company interacting with its customers. How about a sales force and customer service team knowing people by name after first sight? Or, owners of businesses and the leadership team with all their significant interactions?Well, after spending just an hour and a half with Scott Bornstein (actually won me over in the first 15 minutes!), I’m convinced “there is a way”! Scott is a leading expert in the field of memory training and learning solutions. I encourage you to check out Scott’s website – www.memorypower.net- but even more effective, check him out whenever you get the opportunity.
I personally am “memory challenged”. It seems the older I get…you know how it goes. Scott showed me, and everyone else in attendance, that it just doesn’t have to be that way. Sharpening your recall skills, saving time, and making long-lasting first impressions is all out there for us. Scott not only proved it to us, he had us involved and engaged, and we proved it for ourselves.
Scott shared a quote from Winston Churchill that I thought framed the challenge all so well: “We are shaping the world faster than we can change ourselves and we are applying to the present the habits of the past”. It no longer needs to be so, there is a better way.
What a terrific University. The more I learn, the more I confirm I have so far to go!
TAKE ACTION!
Last month I stated that all the training in the world is not worth its time and money without implementation. It’s all about “taking action”. Here’s another “Jack Daly participant” putting things into action. I always say, “Things that get measured get done”.
And, the key to better results is to not only track those results, BUT, to track the KEY ACTIVITIES needed to generate those results. Here’s a sample of what KALOUTAS PAINTING is using to track its weekly sales activities. Have you implemented your key activity tracking system?
2007 SALES WORKSHOPS SCHEDULE
Long Island – APRIL 18, 2007
Smart Selling WorkshopLong IslandMarriott 101James Doolittle Blvd Uniondale, NY
CALL TODAY!
- June 15-Orange County, CA
1/2 Day Smart Selling
- August 24-Belfast, Ireland
Full Day Smart Selling
- October 19-Toronto, ON
Full Day Smart Selling
- October 23-Ottawa, QB
Full Day Smart Selling
- November 9-Washington DC
Full Day Smart Selling
- December 7-Vancouver, BC
Full Day Smart Selling
2007 MANAGEMENT & SALES SUMMIT SCHEDULE
June 28 & 29-St. Louis, Missouri October 4 & 5-Cleveland, Ohio
We found tremendous success this year with our two day Management and Sales Summits. Our clients asked for a full day of management training and we responded by offering our Summits. As we expand internationally this year, we have fewer single day sales workshops so we have added an additional Summit as a win-win for everyone! It’s best if your management attends the first day and your sales staff joins you on the second but you can attend either the management or sales day individually. Register early. They will sell out quickly! www.jackdaly.net or call Jennifer at 888-298-6868.
After listening to Rod Beckstrom – The Starfish and The Spider – I recalled a short piece in FAST COMPANY magazine a couple months ago about Cameron Hughes building an $8 million and growing business, with no inventory or equipment. Here was the essence, and maybe this will stimulate others to re-look their business for potential (plus, there was a winning sales move in there as well).
Hughes buys wineries’ excess wine, which his winemakers combine to make limited-edition premium blends. He outsources the bottling and sells directly just to Costco, eliminating middlemen and multiple markups. Here was the “sales move”: “It took me three months to get the Costco buyer on the phone. I said, “This is a $40 bottle, and we can sell it for $9.99. Let me give you a sample, and if you don’t buy it, I’ll never call you again. I sent half a bottle of Syrah, and the next day he called and said “I’ll take everything you got.”
What new approaches to your business are you looking at?
FIGHTING CANCER, TWO WAYS!
If you are reading this after April 16, I have now completed the 111th Boston Marathon: Hooray!
As most of you know, I ran for the cause of fundraising for the benefit of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Thanks to all of you who generously donated to this great fight, and if you’d still like to donate, here is the link to do so. As of April 4, we raised over $9,700.https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=186498&lis=1&kntae186498=4CEA40C71960401AB332366FD1CC6006&supId=152295090
A second way to “do battle” is through blood platelet donations. The only cost to this is a couple hours of one’s time! For years I donated blood to the Red Cross. Along the way, I noticed a small group of folks under blankets watching DVD movies in individual beds. When I asked about it, I was told they were giving platelets.
Platelets are necessary to help blood clot. During chemo for cancer treatment, platelet levels drop drastically, and without platelet transfusions, patients could bleed extensively. A limited supply of platelets is available at hospitals, since the blood components must be transfused within five days of being harvested from a donor.
On several occasions when I’m donating, I’m told they have a perfect match waiting for me and without my donation, they might not have made it through to the next day. There are many ways to get joy in life, but I don’t know of many better ways to generate such levels of satisfaction!
Anyone interested in donating platelets can do so through Red Cross or their local hospital. It takes about 2 hours in total. It takes 5 to 10 units of whole blood from a blood bank to make the equivalent amount of platelets that a donor can give in a single platelet donation, and with whole blood donation, it’s a 60 day wait before an allowed donation, whereas platelets can be donated about every 2 weeks. So, how about taking in a movie and “making a difference”?
OLDIES but GOODIES
For the past 6 years we have historically produced a newsletter from Professional Sales Coach, Inc. With this Daly News newsletter as replacement, we wanted to remind our readers of a feature each month pulled from the archives which continues to be content rich. Professionalism requires life long learning.
GOOD STRATEGIC THINKING BEGETS LUCK–Part I
Take a closer look at your organization to better
your chances of Success!
When we last left off on this topic, we were beginning the process of re-looking our efforts and plans initially established at the start of the year. We call this mid-course correction and refocus. We hope you’ve made some progress here, and let’s now go deeper in the process.
WHO ARE “US”?
What are you selling? Or, put another way, what are your customers buying from you?
Where are your priorities: are they with product, your price, or your service? What relationships are important to you? What are you doing to maintain/grow them? And how do you define service? Is it just fast turnaround time, or is there more? If so, what?
Brutal honesty is a key to the strategizing process. In building your business, you’ll need to sell benefits rather than products to your customers. In order to do that, you’ll need to clearly identify the benefits they will receive from you. All too often sales people get overly bogged down in the product features.
How would you describe the business you are in? Is it retail? Wholesale? Service? Do you use in- or outbound telemarketing? Direct mail marketing? To what degree? Finally, what is your attitude towards internal competition, or competing against yourself?
ARE YOU PRETTY OR UGLY?
What do you look like to your customers? What do you do right? What do you do wrong? Can you clearly define your core business competency or area of excellence? If you were a customer, would you do business with you? If the answer is “No”, why would you do business with a competitor? Do you have any competitive advantages- either present or potential? How can your company exploit those competitive advantages? What should be accomplished in each functional area of responsibility to make the most of them? Can you clearly articulate the company’s value-added offerings-from the customer’s viewpoint?
WHO ARE THEM?
Where do you compete? Where should you compete? What is the market, precisely? The more specific you can be, the better. Is this market worth your efforts? Is the market growing or shrinking, and how do you stand in terms of opportunities and threats in the market? Can you clearly state your competitive differentiation? How does the competition take business from you? Whatever your situation, you should explicitly take account of the competition-by listing competitors and looking at their strengths and weaknesses.
WHAT ARE “THEM” GOING TO DO TO YOU?
Can you measure market share by key business unit? Are you gaining or losing share? What happens in different economic scenarios? If you don’t like the outcome, what is the contingency plan?
CAN YOU GET “THEM” BEFORE “THEM” GET YOU?
Have you had key customers rate your company against competition in terms of cost, capacity, delivery and service? How will you fare if there are more competitors, less competitors? What and where is your competitive advantage? Can it be matched, or beat? What are you doing to protect it?
ARE YOU UP TO THE TASK? ARE YOU SURE?
What makes the difference between success and failure in the business? Do you have the necessary resources, and how will you commit them? What are the benefits and what are the costs? Do you have a complete and effective market development and management program?
CAN YOU LIVE WITH FAILURE?
Do you have a clear-cut exit strategy?
CAN YOU LIVE WITH SUCCESS?
Remember, it’s when you’re really successful that you create future trouble for yourself. We sometimes refer to this as “living off your own fat”, and we all know that can kill! Since tomorrow will be different than today, what made you successful today may not meet the challenges of tomorrow.
IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT TO BE?
A good exercise is to describe in 50 words or less your principal personal goals for starting, operating, or expanding your business. Doing this regularly leads to strategic renewal.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Strategic planning is preparing to take action in order to change your current situation and to achieve your objectives. Start with strategic brainstorming of your business. Next, distill those discussions in to a written business plan. But to be most effective, your plan must have an ongoing process of review, with in-flight corrections and regular revisions to reflect changes in the environment. Strategic planning must be an ongoing process in order to work. A plan itself is not that important; but the process of planning is. Planning doesn’t ensure success, but it does reduce the number of surprises. Good strategic thinking thus begets luck.
If any article in this newsletter would be of interest to your co-workers, customers or clients we would
appreciate having you forward it along. Thank you!
