Fill Your Funnel - A Sales Blog

Customer Intimacy

2010-09-01T08:35:00.000-07:00

In my work as a sales coach and mentor I often speak about Customer Intimacy For many, Intimacy is an awkward word to use when referring to your customer (or prospective customers) relationships. Awkward in the sense that most people are uncomfortable with the dynamic of intimacy in their personal lives. For most, Intimacy is actually an element they seek to avoid or extract from their

Stop Using The B-Word!

2010-06-10T13:29:00.000-07:00

One of the common barriers for sales professionals is understanding if (and how) a prospect intends to pay for our product or service. Unfortunately, most attempts to qualify prospects default to using the dreaded B-Word! Typical questions include: - Do you have budget? - What is your budget? - Is there a budget established? - Can you share how much you have budgeted? These are ridiculous and

Oh Great...He's a 'process' guy!

2009-12-21T04:50:00.001-08:00

When I begin a relationship with a new company, it doesn't take long for people to get the sense that I am a ‘process’ guy. I place the term ‘process’ in quotes because I believe it is often misused and even more often misunderstood. Most of the time, coming on board as a 'process' guy generates equal amounts of euphoria and dread - both of which are unnecessary and usually a result of bias -

Don't Ruin your Twitter Rep!

2009-11-24T05:10:00.001-08:00

A nice piece from the Bit Rebels

Guy Kawasaki on Social Media Marketing

2009-11-23T06:07:00.001-08:00

How to Get Found Guy Kawasaki (Alltop) Oct 27, 2009 Brian Halligan is the founder and CEO of HubSpot, an Internet marketing software company that helps small and medium-sized businesses get found on the Internet and converts website visitors into leads and customers. He is also the author of Inbound Marketing: Get Found In Google, Blogs, and Social Media. It used to be

Private Versus Public Online Identity - Do you really have a choice?

2009-11-19T17:48:00.000-08:00

There is an emerging debate about the boundaries (or lack thereof) between an individual’s personal and private online identity. The questions on many people’s minds (jobseekers in particular) seem to be: - To what extent do current (or prospective) employers have a right to view (and make judgments about) my private online identity and - How do I adapt to this

Digital Trust Fund

2009-11-08T15:58:00.001-08:00

You have started saving for your kids college right? You probably have family heirlooms you plan for them to inherent some day. One of my former business partners has even purchased 10 acres of Colorado land for his two year old son. But my guess is, most people reading this haven't started investing in or planning for their children's digital future.... I am referring to the reality that more

Think Your Resume Looks Good?

2009-11-08T08:50:00.001-08:00

It doesn't matter! Nobody is gonna read it! Surge in jobseekers frazzles resume responders

Leadership Training with 9 year olds

2009-11-07T12:11:00.001-08:00

Spent most of this morning at the Lafayette YMCA for kids hockey games. My 9 year old wandered into the 'padded gym' room (hard to explain so just check out the photo below.) Of course a bunch of other kids followed. MY FEARLESS TEAM Naturally, my pathological consulting instincts kicked in so I made up a leadership team building excercise. The rules of the excercise were simple... - one

Comments on Three Sins of Selling

2009-10-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

I posted my last blog - The Three Cardinal Sins of Selling - as a question on LinkedIn (primarily as a shameless marketing ploy) and received a deluge of responses: Thought I would post them here... It is always interesting to see how people think: 1) No marketing strategy 2) Lack of good management 3) Lack of good customer service --- 1) Recruiting the wrong people for the sales roles to

The Three Sins of Selling

2009-10-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Sales organizations make three basic and critical mistakes on a regular basis: 1) Failing to appropriately pursue prospects Prospects arrive from a variety of sources ranging from trade shows to inbound inquiry (web forms, downloads, SEO, Adwords, etc) and including outbound prospecting (cold-calling.) Obviously, various entry points represent varying degrees of accessibility. i.e An prospect

A Personal Brand Anecdote

2009-10-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was working with one of my Get a Job in 30 Days private clients. I work with folks in a one-to-one or group setting to teach them (and help them implement) an extremely effective method for job hunting. In a typical 'session' with me, participants secure anywhere between two and three interviews where, in many cases, they had gone for months without a single response to their

Do you have a Closing Problem or a Prospecting Problem?

2009-10-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

The conversation most clients and prospects I speak with lately want to have is how challenging it has been for them to convert interested prospects into buyers. Rather than commiserate about economic conditions, I typically ask them what they believe their sales team could do (or should be doing) about the situation. The response is usually something along the lines of: 'We need to get better

What if I don't know what my passion is?

2009-10-15T11:30:00.000-07:00

Just watched Gary Vaynerchuk's Big Omaha keynote. He was asked what question he has a hard time answering and responded: 'What if I don't know what your passion is?' I sent him a quick email and thought I would share my answer here as well: Pick Something! Why? Because ‘discovering your passion’ is NOT a mental exercise!’ Life is NOT a spectator sport! Most people think they will

A social media marketing epiphany (of sorts)

2009-10-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of an epiphany today... or maybe it is better described as a distillation of all this crap I have been sorting through. The ONLY question everyone seems to be asking about Social Media Marketing is: 'How do I use it to make money?' The short answer is this: social media marketing is NO different than traditional marketing...it just provides more venues and high scalability. My

Dinner with my old Forum

2009-10-08T07:15:00.000-07:00

Had a great time last night meeting with my old Forum. For those of you not familiar with Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), the Forum is your working group of peers (other CEOs, Founders, and Principals) with whom you meet on a monthly basis to share experiences, insights, and frustrations associated with running a business. I left EO almost two years ago but still keep in touch with my Forum

Fired up about Sean Ellis (and not in a good way!)

2009-10-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

Received a link this morning from the CEO of one of my clients to an infomercial-blog by Sean Ellis.Never heard of him but apparently he is famous...His headline indicates his approach (I quote) "has evolved over 12 years of taking several VC backed startups to market including two that filed for NASDAQ IPOs."But wait...a glance at his bio says: "...including two where I ran marketing through

Social Media Marketing

2009-10-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been diving head first into the empty concrete pool of social media marketing. Most of this weekend was spent trying to understand how to best integrate and effectively leverage my 'network' which looks a lot like this: - 375 LinkedIn Contacts (not including groups) - 380 Facebook Friends - 56 Twitter Followers (really not getting the Twitter thing) - 597 Address Book entries -

The Magical Marketing Fairy... Coming to an infomercial near you

2009-09-30T01:51:00.000-07:00

I talk to a fair number of entrepreneurs and business owners wrestling with how to grow their business. Not surprisingly, they look first for easy fixes: - 'What we need is better messaging' - 'Our website could use sprucing up' - 'How about a white paper or, better yet, a webinar?' - 'We are launching and email campaign' - 'I heard others have success with direct mail' - 'Social media

Personal Equity

2009-09-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I have used the term 'Personal Equity' when training and coaching sales professionals. Personal Equity refers to the value of your name and reputation as it relates to your career. Whether you are just leaving college or have been in the workplace for awhile, it seems people forget (or just don't realize) that their knowledge (what they have learned) does not matter so much as

DIY (Do it Yourself) Really?

2009-09-22T05:59:00.001-07:00

I run into a fascinating situation surprisingly often... Most companies (and entrepreneurial ventures in particular) have a fixation with 'figuring out' sales themselves. This happens all the time: After spending time helping a prospect understand their problem, building trust, and demonstrating my competency...the response comes back: "You know...I really believe you can help me but I want to

Fishing the Big Horn and Sales...

2009-09-21T05:08:00.000-07:00

...have more in common than you might suspect. This weekend, I had the pleasure of floating of some of the most beautiful river I have laid my eyes on. The Little Big Horn is located in Southeastern Montana smack dab in the middle of the Crow Indian Nation. In fact, if you are able to drag yourself away from the river, you can visit the site of Custer's infamous demise. The stretch of the Big

Qualified Leads from Cold-Calling? Good Luck!

2009-06-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Sales organizations are justifiably enamored with the idea of using outbound prospecting to generate ‘qualified’ leads for their sales people. To accomplish this goal, companies may try to build an in-house function and/or contract for outsourced demand creation (cold-calling) services. While the premise of not wasting valuable ‘selling resource’ time speaking with unqualified prospects makes

This is a True Story.....

2008-11-25T05:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, I need to break my vow to only blog via SMS for this one but I will keep it brief.A company - let's call them Ranger - hires a few of our alumni. They are not a client so we call them up to pitch them on our services."We are very impressed with your people" they say"We cannot use outside vendors" they say "new corporate policy...budgets are tight.""How about we contract for $1?" I ask"Huh?"

Yet another amazing example of...

2008-10-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

Myopic behavior. Called on a company that is about to hire their second certified sales associate from our company. He was not sure why we would need to get together since this last hire meant they were 'all set.'Apparently he does not anticipate any attrition... and of course everyone he just hired will work out perfectly. Unbelievable....

Psychotic interview candidate

2008-10-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

I know the current economic environment is causing folks some stress but...Last week we had someone call in 15 minutes before his interview looking for directions. In the process, he was rude to our receptionist. He showed up 15 minutes past his time slot and was irate when we told him the VP of HR had gone on to another next meeting.He demanded to speak with our VP and said he wasn't leaving

Interview No Shows

2008-10-04T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here are the facts about interviews. If you schedule an interview on the same day, you will have a 95% show rate. Next day: 75% show rate. 50% of interviews show when scheduled two days out. Three days out nets a 25% show rate and interviews scheduled four or more days out are almost 100% no shows... Shocking but based on data from more than 8,900 applications we have processed in the last three

A New Approach

2008-10-04T09:56:00.001-07:00

I have detemined that nobody reads anymore...at least they don't read antyhing longer than a snippet. So from now on I will limit my blog posts to what I can type on my blackberry.

Sales Appointment No Shows - A bad problem getting worse

2008-07-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

In the past 30 days, I have turned up an internal lead generation team for 3VLSI. This means I have 2-3 individuals working full time to schedule initial appointments between prospective clients and myself.Setting qualified appointments is a straightforward process because it is one of the core services we deliver for our clients. Not surprisingly, our folks are very good at this and I have been

Jobing.com Article

2008-07-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

Recently, the good folks at Jobing.com asked me to answer some questions that will be used in an upcoming article. I thought I would post them here as a preview.1. Briefly describe your company’s mission in the marketplace.Three Value Logic Sales Institutes works with companies whose top priority and greatest challenge is ensuring long-term access to exceptional talent to fuel their growth.For

Is Your Commission Plan Built on Flawed Assumptions?

2008-04-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

As a company in the business of helping companies grow their sales organizations, we are consistently brought in to assist with defining or refining compensation plan structures.It seems sales organizations are always searching for the ‘perfect plan.’During a recent conversation, one client was describing their draft plan in great detail. I interrupted the client to ask pointedly: ‘What is the

And for those that still believe in the Tooth Fairy...

2008-04-28T20:43:00.001-07:00

This is a quick post but I am constantly amazed that recruiters and job-sites continue to perpetrate the 'myth of the magical rolodex.'Take a look at what showed up in my inbox this morning....--- Have you ever wished you could hire Sales Executives or Global Account Managers that have relationships with Goldman Sachs? Merril Lynch? Boeing? General Motors? Pfizer? The DoD?In other words, do you

Invisible attrition and the Hidden Costs of Interviewing

2008-04-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned in previous posts, we interview thousands of potential salespeople and speak with hundreds of sales organizations every year. Part of our mission includes sharing what we learn on the front lines with our clients and prospects.Since the beginning of the year, two phenomena have come onto the radar in a big way and both are alarming:We refer to the first as The Hidden Cost of

Altruistic Cold Calling

2008-04-09T11:03:00.000-07:00

Like most business owners, I am always at work. I have a Bluetooth surgically implanted in my ear. Before there was Bluetooth, I used duct tape. When I overhear people saying, I wish I had eight hands to get all of this done…I think to myself, I believe that I may have eight hands. All eight might have carpal tunnel too, beat that.When my wife told me she was going to be helping the auction

Interview No shows….

2008-03-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

The most vexing and challenging problem we face at Three Value Logic seems to be sourcing enough applicants for our Career Sales Development Program. Surprisingly, the issue is less about selling folks on the value of the program – we have a high ‘conversion’ rate of applicants to enrollments. Instead, the problem has been getting folks to show up for the initial interview.Apparently we are not

Thoughts on Selling Open Source Software

2008-03-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

Open Source companies are fond of saying: we are free as in freedom not free as in beer. Unfortunately, many within the Open Source vendor community ignore the reality that - while Open Source changes the paradigm for selling software – it often makes this task more challenging.The advantage of selling traditional packaged application software was clear: a relatively small volume of high margin

Pardon me but my kid needs a job…

2008-02-26T06:54:00.001-08:00

Our fearless marketing and admissions team recently ventured out into the fantasy world of higher education. The venue was the ‘Colorado Multicultural Career Fair’ in a career fair aimed specifically at diversity and millennial job seekers which it turns out is an oxymoron.The first half of the day was dedicated to ‘educating’ employers on what is required to attract diversity and millennial job

Another great presentation from Merlin Mann

2008-02-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

This was delivered at Macworld 2008 and is called Time and AttentionAs far as I am concerned, Merlin is one of the great presenters out there and he is speaking on one of my favorite topics.His slides are super-clean and most of the wisdom is in his words so you can listen to this in the background.

Educate yourself about Ethanol

2008-02-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

The headline is simple: Corn based Ethanol causes more environmental problems than it solves and is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for the same lobbyists and private interest groups that have subsidized corn production in this country since the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.In and of itself, Ethanol is a viable tool for reducing dependence on petroleum. However, the United States is

Nobody stops buying beer in a recession...

2008-02-12T04:31:00.000-08:00

Hot off the presses of the Wall Street Journal is the following article Job Hunting in a RecessionThe safest jobs are the ones selling to or servicing customers," says Gary Rich, president of Rich Leadership, an executive advisory firm in Pound Ridge, N.Y. "When things get tight, it's all about who's going to drive the top line and who's going to service that." Less durable jobs are those in

Great article from an otherwise mediocre rag

2008-02-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of living in the People's Republic of Boulder Colorado is regular access to our free-range, gluten-free weekly periodical. Aptly named The Boulder Weekly, it is usually filled with articles focusing on prairie dog civil rights and electric car reviews.Last week, however, I came across the following piece that made me smile. As a father of two sons, I live in fear they will

Unsolicited Advice for Job Seekers

2008-02-06T04:14:00.000-08:00

The employment ecosystem has fundamentally changed.Demographers and statisticians predict an unprecedented shortfall in skilled labor over the next six to ten years.For sales organization, this phenomenon has resulted in unprecedented wage inflation. Employers struggle to find individuals with sufficient experience yet, the infrastructure that used to support an orderly transition into a sales

If you fail to provide a career path for your people…someone else will

2008-01-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting experience over the past few weeks. One of our Associates approached me about a company with whom he was interviewing. This may sound like an odd conversation for most companies but is not for us.In my view the first responsibility of everyone working here is to make himself or herself more valuable. My personal goal is to see people improve their skills to the point where we

Gathering information you need to get in the door…

2008-01-07T06:08:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to dispute the reality that selling is a binary science – it often feels like prospects are either ready to buy or they are not. We have a saying: You can’t control what deals you win…only how much time you waste losing. Kind of like in Vegas... the only action over which you have absolute control is when you decide to get up from the table and walk away.This does not mean that

Two articles on KTDs

2007-11-13T06:34:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Andy Blackstone for pointing me in the direction of these articles. Both address the real challenge companies are facing attracting and retaining talent.The making of a UPS driverandAttracting the twentysomething worker

NYT Op-Ed: The Odyssey Years...

2007-10-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was speaking with a large Midwest-based prospect that is in massive growth mode. Specifically, they will be adding 400-500 new sales positions over the next 12 months. Most of these will be inside sales positions filled by young, inexperienced talent - New entrants to the game of sales.Not surprisingly, this company has a noticeable 'failure rate' - roughly 40% of new-hires leave

Sales Hierarchy of Needs

2007-10-01T05:46:00.000-07:00

I posted this entry last year but thought it was a good complement to the 'Letter from Greg' entry because it discusses the order in which companies can go about 'fixing' their ecosystem.---In the spirit of Abraham Maslow, the following represents a hierarchy of needs that organizes Sales Resource imperatives into a logical and linear set of needs where the initial (first order) needs must be

Letter from Greg

2007-09-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

I was CC'd on the following email from Managing Parter and General Manager of our Sales Augmentation Practice - Greg Schwarzer. It was written as a follow-up to a discovery meeting with a company that (at least from our perspective) is desperately in need of our assistance.This letter does a wonderful job of identifying the kinds of deep rooted sales issues we come across....nice work Greg!---

Outsourcing Lead Generation – You must be out of your mind

2007-09-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

I regularly receive inquiries from companies looking to outsource their lead generation efforts. Their intent is fairly straightforward – They would sell more if only their ‘experienced’ sales people could get in front of more qualified prospects.In most cases, the desire to outsource lead generation is driven by the acknowledgement that ‘We can’t get the people we have to make cold calls’ and/or

Follow up to 'What Keeps a Salesperson from Leaving'

2007-09-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

I received a follow-up Linked-In question from Lee Levitt - the analyst for IDC whose question I answered a few weeks back.---Townsend,You make an excellent point. Given the transitory nature of sales reps, how do we then provide continuity for the large accounts? Our research indicated that sales rep tenure is highly valued by buyers -- it takes a while for the rep to get to know the account and

Social Networking: Bane or Benefit

2007-08-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

Moriya implies an interesting question in her comment. What are the business implications of social networking?Time magazine did a recent piece on the phenomena. Why Facebook is the Future. Overall it seems that the media is trying to explain what just a few years (months) ago it decried as a fad. At the same time, sites like MySpace are desperately trying to position as 'not just for kids

What Keeps a Sales Person from Leaving?

2007-08-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

This entry was posted as an answer to a Linked-In Question by Lee Levitt - an analyst for IDCLee's question read as follows: 'What keeps a sales person from leaving (aside from money!)?'---As a salesperson, sales-leader, and now CEO - I think I can present a fairly broad based perspective on your question. That said, you might find my answer uncomfortable:Staying with one company in a sales role

If you do only one thing this weekend...

2007-08-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

I cannot recommend strongly enough visiting Merlin Mann's site and watching his recent presentation to Google.The title is 'Inbox Zero' which is his approach to getting control over your email. His approach is simple...I just went from 140 emails in my inbox to zero...took 20 minutes. Thanks to Andy Blackstone for shining a light on this presentation.

Hot off the Press

2007-08-14T05:14:00.000-07:00

The good folks at CareerBuilder have just released their Midyear Employment Forecast which spells out good news for 3VLSI and aspiring sales professionals alike.As we roll thrugh the third quarter, the report finds that "46 percent of sales employers currently have open positions for which they cannot find qualified candidates, an increase from 39 percent heading into the first half."In case you

Overstated Urgency

2007-08-04T10:17:00.000-07:00

‘They need pricing by tomorrow!’ implored Jarrett (one of our project Principals.) ‘Who needs pricing’ I replied trying desperately to shift gears from my current thoughts on our national sourcing strategy to whatever Jarrett was talking about. ‘Hal Norton’s (*) – who else?’ Jarrett responded – referring to the large food conglomerate we were selling into for one of our clients. (*) = Of course

Californi-Salesication – Part I

2007-07-31T11:34:00.001-07:00

Matt (our COO) and I flew into San Jose Sunday evening. The purpose of our visit over the next few days is to meet with prospective investors and potential ‘anchor-tenants.’ We also will be checking out real estate for the ‘West Coast Institute.’I lived in Northern California area during the early 90s and for those of you who have not made it out this way; California is a magical place and

Kids These Days (KTDs)

2007-07-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

When I talk with company leaders about their sales resource challenge, the topic of generation Y (or whatever we call it these days) rears its head. Somewhat tongue in cheek, I lump most everyone younger than myself under the heading KTDs - (Kids These Days.)The conventional gripe seems to be that KTDs as a whole are poorly motivated yet have unreasonably high expectations about how much money

Thermal Layers

2007-07-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

In response to my last entry, Robert Johnson poses some interesting questions. Does the admonition for CEOs to focus on ‘growing their company rather than running their company’ only apply to larger organizations? Similarly, is this principle too dogmatic? i.e shouldn’t CEOs look at these running and growing their company as allocations of their time?Interestingly, Jack Daly (the source of the

Job Description

2007-07-17T06:43:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous entry, this weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Jack Daly who spoke at our annual Entrepreneurs’ Organization chapter retreat.Jack is a dynamic speaker and shared more than a few powerful insights. The focus of his presentation was corporate culture and he challenged his audience – business owners like myself – to ensure their company culture was intentional (

Memorable Dining Experiences

2007-07-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend in Steamboat Springs at a retreat with the Entrepreneurs Organization. Basically it was a boondoggle but it was a chance to get away and spend some quality time with my wife. In addition, we had an excellent guest speaker Jack Daly about whom I will write in my next blog.Friday night, a group of us had dinner at L’Apogee (AKA Harwigs) in their private wine cellar. The food

Simple Things: Volume 2 - New Prospect Appointment Setting

2007-07-06T15:54:00.000-07:00

In the past, I have shared my belief that selling is a linear discipline. By this I mean that most activities happen one at a time and some of these things need to happen before others. As such, I believe that the mastery of the skills necessary to sell must be approached linearly as well.Frankly, it does not matter how eloquent, persuasive, good looking, or charismatic you are if you never get

Response to Comment from Anonymous from 'Our very first job fair' post

2007-06-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

On 6/20 Anonymous posted the following comment: Do you accept all applicants into the training program? If not, why would someone be rejected? Please be specific.What 3 characteristics are most common in those who are successful in the course and beyond.(Besides liking 'piles of money')? ---As far as whether or not we accept all candidates in the program - the answer is no we do not.Because we

A Frustrating Experience

2007-06-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

I recently received a call from a company performing a reference check on an individual claiming to come out of our program. Before you jump to conclusions, let me clarify, I am not frustrated because the individual listed us as a reference – the individual in question did not graduate but was terminated in the third week. Nice guy but couldn’t get over one of our hurdles.I am frustrated because

What it Takes to be an Entrepreneur

2007-06-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

I had lunch yesterday with an engaging and ambitious young man. Nick Woodward is 24 years old and is in the process of starting his second company. I think many professionals (and particularly entrepreneurs) feel like they are ‘behind’ from time to time. That is to say it is hard to avoid the tendency to wish you had started earlier. This phenomenon is also found in parents with children

Our Very First Job Fair

2007-06-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

This coming Tuesday (June 26th, 2007) we will be exhibiting at our first ever job fair. As I understand, we will have a recruiting booth at the Post News Job Fair here in Denver.Naturally, I am skeptical as to whether this will be worth our time but my marketing goddess - Emily Bearden - assures me it will be a winner. Spending money on something like this represents something of a milestone for

The Evolution of Telephony And Why Deals Take Forever to Close

2007-06-06T20:34:00.000-07:00

I run a seminar that presents a wholly different (and quite effective) paradigm for how sales professionals should manage their time.Tangent #1 - As luck should have it, this is the subject for an upcoming web seminar on July 10th presented in conjunction with our partner ReadyTalk.comTangent #2 - If you are a Webex customer you need to 1) find out your contract expiration date 2) cancel the

Meet George

2007-06-06T18:58:00.001-07:00

My friend (and former client) George Crump recently transitioned from his career as sales guru with the likes of Legato, SANZ, and Palindrome (Seagate.) He is venturing out into the perilous world of independant consulting and I am sure he will be hugely successful.George will be successful for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, he is a workaholic who makes me look like a slacker. Second,

Simple Things: Volume 1 - Scheduled Commitents

2007-05-30T16:33:00.000-07:00

Normally, I avoid what I consider to be the ‘the four keys to this’ and ‘the seven habits of the other thing’ associated with sales related articles. At the same time, I am fond of saying ‘sales is the art of performing a few simple actions consistently and flawlessly.’ So consider this the first installment in a series of entries titled: ‘simple things.’Part one: Scheduled CommitmentsThe

A Graduate's Success Story

2007-05-25T07:48:00.001-07:00

I just received an email from a graduate of our Sales Institute back in March of this year. Lael Hester came to us with a degree from CU Boulder and having spent several years as an executive chef and team lead with Whole Foods Market.Personally I love working with folks from the food service industry and chefs in particular - primarily because they are not afraid of hard work and long hours.More

Dispatches from the Frontline

2007-05-24T08:27:00.001-07:00

Readers of this weblog are familiar with my belief that because the end result of selling is inherently quantifiable; salespeople suffer from a tendency to avoid objective measurement and accountability along the path to that end.For most of our clients, this disconnect is most evident in the relationship between sales and marketing where both parties tend to question the value of the other.In

Introducing the Ostrich Awards – Part II: The Envelope Please

2007-05-18T16:17:00.000-07:00

In honor of CEOs, Boards, and Vice Presidents of Sales everywhere that believe that the best course of action is usually avoidance or denial; we proudly announce our inaugural edition of the Ostrich awards.Named in honor of that flightless bird with a penchant for burying its head at the slightest indication of danger, The Ostrich award celebrates individuals we come across in our daily

Introducing the Ostrich Awards – Part I: The Back-story

2007-05-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

On average, my sales team makes 300 outbound calls per person each week and our targets tend to be CEOs and their VP of Sales. Now I err on the side of simplicity so it is probably a flaw in my character that I expect these particular individuals to view sales as their number one priority (what with revenue being the first item on the P&L and all.)In reality, I am continually shocked that the

Mashups

2007-05-17T14:56:00.000-07:00

Music websites have nothing to do with sales but I wanted to share my latest obsession. For those of you that don't know what a mashup is...you have been missing out.If you want to laugh, check out Grandma Teller explaining this phenom.Basically a mashup is a song that is made up of pieces of other songs. In most cases, the artist will put together some pretty wild combinations. The compilations

Misguided Hiring Strategies

2007-05-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Our business is pretty straightforward - we make net-new salespeople. This is a simple fact and not a complicated concept to understand. We interview thousands of people each year, hire less than 10% of applicants, provide extensive training, work them hard, fire most of them and place the ones that ‘graduate’ with our clients who pay us a fee ($8,000.)Why do they pay us a fee? Simple…because

Three Rules for Effective Management or You can’t always get what you want…particularly when you don’t know what it is.

2007-05-16T06:23:00.001-07:00

Effective management requires following three simple rules: 1) Know what you expect from those you are managing 2) Make sure they understand what you expect from them and 3) Make sure they are doing it.Unfortunately, most managers focus on the third rule without spending enough time and energy on with the first two. They prefer to manage people, process, and results without first having defined a

You can’t fire me…I quit!

2007-05-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

Of all the issues that sales organizations face, voluntary attrition is probably the most divisive by far. By divisive I mean that if you ask four people what they think…you will get five opinions.Voluntary attrition is defined as the departure of an employee of their own accord and is typically accompanied by the phrase ‘I quit.’ The alternative is referred to as involuntary attrition and is

Mr. Johnson, I’m afraid I have some terrible news….

2007-04-30T20:53:00.000-07:00

This week we are once again going through the ritual of graduating a group of highly motivated sales professionals from our Career Sales Development Program. That means our clients are busy interviewing which is an exciting process but also a frustrating time for me because I am forced to watch otherwise good companies make the mistakes we see over and over again. I wish they would take our

Finding a good sales guy is like getting in a fight...

2007-04-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

I had a great conversation with a friend and business colleague today. He is an absolute ace when it comes to raising money and I was picking his brain about how to best approach outside investors. Not surprisingly, we also happened on the subject of sales – about which I am the ace and he is the proverbial babe in the woods.As with many prospective clients (and anyone who will listen) I was

The Role of Marketing Strategy

2007-02-12T02:57:00.001-08:00

Marketing is a lot like religion…most people have a strong belief and this belief is typically predicated on how they were raised rather than a formal study of religion itself. Marketing also has its share of agnostics (represented by the ‘all Marketing is equally worthless’ position) as well as atheists – “I don’t believe Marketing exists!”Regardless of how you view marketing today, I would

Shifting from big-bang theory to an iterative approach to organizational change

2006-08-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

Clients tend to fall into tow categories…those in relatively complete denial that any problem exists…and those paralyzed because of a sudden realization that they are in deep trouble.Someone once shared the example of a hiker lost in the mountains. The first challenge is acknowledging you are lost. After that, it turns out the individual is equally as likely to wander aimlessly as they are to

A Sales Ecosystem Hierarchy of Needs

2006-03-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

Of late, I have been frustrated with relating the value of our Career Sales Development Program to prospective clients. As one of my trusted advisors put it too me recently… ‘you guys make it too complicated.’ But it’s a complicated problem I protested…Regardless, we have been guilty of not working off our own playbook. While the Sales Resources Ecosystem is a complicated, we must always remember

A little about me

2005-08-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

Having just rewritten my bio, I though it might be interesting (or at the least amusing) to post...Ten years ago, I left a lucrative career in the food preparation industry (rolling Burritos at a cantina in Boulder) to pursue my career in sales. To be fair, I had already spent the majority of my postgraduate years selling high-end bicycles but apparently that was not the experience corporate

Dinner with TJ

2005-06-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

My good friend, mentor, and 3VL Advisor was in town last week. Probably the best part of talking with TJ is that he helps me get a sense of clarity around what is important….like clearly articulating what we do at 3VL. Here is what we came up with:o We sell for companies to get them into new markets, launch new products, etco We turn sales organizations around ando We build entry-level sales

Organizational Failure Avoidance Mechanism

2005-05-04T16:42:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I positioned Three Value Logic’s value proposition as centering on the mitigation of client risk. We believe that companies face risk when selecting a course of action (new market, new product, partnership, merger, etc). Similarly, they expose themselves to risk when they allocate new or existing people resources to these initiatives.When speaking to our clients I suggest our

Open Source Selling

2005-04-17T08:10:00.000-07:00

The Open Source Business Conference got me thinking about how Three Value Logic (www.3valuelogic.com) as a company embodies many of the principals that open source espouses. I have, in fact, begun referring to us as ‘an open source sales organization.’ – more on this in a future post.The statement that has stayed with me the longest was one of Geoffrey Moore's closing remarks. He said: "If you

Open Source Business Conference - Part IV (Geoffrey Moore)

2005-04-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

Geoffery Moore was, without a doubt, the highlight of the conference. His talk was titled 'Beyond the Chasm - The Role of Open Source in Computing.'His opening remarks were delivered in typically humble and self-deprecating fashion. For a really smart guy who has produced some truly great work (and who commands a hefty speaking fee) he really is a pretty cool guy. Geoffrey prefaced his

Open Source Business Conference - Part III (Kim Polese)

2005-04-09T14:23:00.000-07:00

Kim Polese (former CEO of Marimba and current CEO of SpikeSource) spoke on 'Coping with Commodities in the IT Marketplace.'In her words: 'Open source happened when the demand side began to supply itself.' In her presentation, she used the construction industry as the metaphor for open source. In point of fact, there are many similarities: In language (Architects, developers, etc.) In how the

Open Source Business Conference - Part II (Jonathan Schwartz)

2005-04-09T07:17:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Schwartz (SUN's COO, President, and resident visionary) was the keynote speaker.His presentation was titled: The Age of Participation: Obstacles and Accelerants. His intro focused on historical examples of how standardization served as a catalyst for major socioeconomic change. Examples included the standardization of canals in Europe, rail line gauge in the US, and even the

Open Source Business Conference

2005-04-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

On Monday, I flew to San Francisco to attend the second annual Open Source Business Conference. What a rush! Whenever I mentioned to folks I was planning to attend (in support of a prospective client - www.sourcebeat.com) the response was usually a strange look. The same reaction occurs now that I am back and describing what went on.The common theme runs something along the lines of: 'What is a

My first post

2005-04-06T18:58:00.000-07:00

So before I begin with my first-ever posting, I wanted to take a moment to thank Matt Filios. You see, I am a sales-guy and never would have imaged ANY sales-guy (and certainly not THIS sales guy) would jump on the blogging bandwagon.So, for the record, Matt is the inspriation and motivation behind this effort and I owe him a debt of gratitude for many things...This just adds to the list.