Motivational Experiment
It is easy to write-off an average performer. Yes, some folks won’t buy into the (company’s) philosophy. I’m not talking about them. This is about those that seem intelligent yet just can’t bring home the goods.
But there is a switch that turns them back on. Here is my situation:
A sales guy on my team has 3+ years industry experience with an MBA and is personable. But after joining my employer in ‘05, he still hasn’t booked the numbers expected. Newcomers overtook as well. This is a result of not bringing a new hire into the fold ASAP. He was left out on his own.
So silly me tried speeches and most old-school tactics. Then a HUGE bulb lit up when I found out how he organized himself. He used an age-old tool to track sales calls. Bear with me as I explain this: he was in account sales, i.e. selling to get on the vendor list. But today he is in service sales, i.e. serving those accounts by staffing their projects. Very different deals.
Both are sales call, by the way. The fundamental difference is account selling calls for a deep call penetration. The other is shallow, quick and many. Within a day of this switch, the results were visible. But he had also tweaked it and was immediately reined in by me. First, I told him, get on the bandwagon. Then make it your own.
Conversations
At first I drafted a comment to Mike Sansone’s post - wonderful article, BTW. But it soon fleshed out as a post keeping the conversation alive – exactly what tools like blogs and emails do well.
Not being a real-time conversation does not devalue blogs (emails are not real-time too). Comments or TrackBacks are ways in which the discussion goes on. Newsletters and email blurbs are passe. Having a blog either instead of or part of the company website lets a potential (or existing) client spend more time looking at your material than other distractions. They’re people like you and me subconsiously seeking an ROII for their time.
Think of it this way. The ability, interactivity and longevity in conversing on a topic increases as the medium becomes more interactive. So the value chain looks thus (excluding face-to-face):
Radio < TV < Website < Podcast < Phone < Email < Blog < Whatever-is-next
(fit the other tools you can think of, into this chain and then pick what works best for your specific need)
We’ve gone from single to multi-way media and it drives conversations and growth. Example: my employer grew from less than $0.5M in revenue in Year 1 to $10M+ in Year 3 just through phone, email and of course in-person sales. We’re just getting our feet wet in blogging so I’ll report back in the coming months about how it provided value in keeping the conversation alive.
Newsletters
It is funny that Tom posted on newsletters and cob-webs. Just yesterday at work, we talked about creating a quarterly to be circulated to clients. We had also been talking about blogs (for weeks!) and now will go Pro at Typepad.
Newsletters are passe; part of the push culture without no place in the future; would you listen to what xyz did, either on paper or PDF in 2020?
The Web has added that element of dynamicity to our ideas. Static sites (and I don’t mean non-Flash), newletters, email blurbs are extensions of the boring old push strategy. For the moment, blogs are invaluable as they facilitate transfer, conflict and discussion. I wonder what’s next?
Knowledge is not created or shared in a mute world.
