Tick, tick, tick…

I helped my college professor set up an Advisory Circle for his Men’s Health program.  He’s passionate about the fate of today’s boys and young men.  Having a 15-year old grandson, I can relate. 

The Advisory Circle’s goals are (1) Increase awareness of the need for men’s health among boys and young men, (2) Increase enrollment in his undergraduate courses, and (3) Increase funding.  It’s that last goal where my background comes into play. 

His cause is noble and we have the type of relationship that I could joke during our working sessions on how the money works “in the sales world”: 

I am a dot-com person, but my friend Steve, who works for a public television station, is a dot-org person.  He believes dot-org persons are more noble than dot-com persons because dot-com persons are in businesses where they try to make money, while his dot-org public television station has a more lofty goal than making money: they would rather beg and whine for it. 

Dan Danborn 

I share that background to say this…  The inaugural gathering of the MSU Men’s Health Advisory Circle had 13 of the 19 invitees show up.  I call that a great result!  Out of those 13 attendees, 9 offered to meet 1-to-1 and discuss ways to work together.  From a sales/marketing “conversion” perspective, another great result, true?  What I feared for my professor was his inexperience with the clock… tick, tick, tick.   

How do you measure your response time?  How do your prospects?

IMHO, the majority of sales development efforts die on the clock.  In the corporate, B2B sales world, while sales and marketing people are debating who sourced the contact to begin with (e.g. leads/cold-calling/inquiries/LinkedIn); how “qualified” it is (e.g. MQL/SQL/BANT); the prospect who once expressed at least some degree of curiosity has moved on.  Tick, tick, tick… 

24 hours.  IMHO that’s the outside shelf life of an inquiry/lead/expression of interest.  24 hours at the most.  Tick, tick, tick…  What is the shorter side of an ideal response time, you might ask?  Real-time.  When your “target contact”, who again may merely be curious and definitely not “qualified” (yet) expresses interest in continuing the conversation, that’s the queue to open calendars. 

Yes, yes, yes, you’re right.  You (and they) may need to “double check” any calendar changes.  Both of you need to “confirm” aka “qualify” there’s actual interest vs. merely curiosity.  But there’s no reason not to at least put a “place marker” date and time to be confirmed vs. the proverbial “I’ll get back to you shortly”, don’t you think?.  Tick, tick, tick…  

How rapidly do you respond when a potential customer/donor/partner expresses interest? 

Today's customers demand operations that are airborne, on-line, and real time.  'Soon' is not the answer they want to hear when they ask, 'When?" 

Michael Tracy 

Looking at it from a different point of view, how rapidly do you prefer your sellers to respond to your expression of interest?  It’s likely something other than “soon”. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Donuts!

National Donut Day is June 5^th, but any day is a good day for donuts, true?  What is it about donuts anyway?  Yes, they’re bad for us.  Yes, they’re loaded with sugar.  Yes, we make it worse by adding toppings.  Still, the temptation just seems irresistible: 

Korman’s Law: 

The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again. 

Unknown Sage 

While no single person is credited with inventing donuts, a 16-year old sailor, Hansen Gregory, was the first person to cut the middle hole from donut “cakes” way back in 1847.  Leave it to a teenager.  Oh, if we only had their metabolism throughout our adulthood!  Today, it’s estimated that Americans alone eat over 10 Billion donuts a year.  That’s billion, with a “B”.

Back in my sales manager days donuts were part of my “tool box”.  When I had a tough message to deliver to my sales team, like increasing quotas, decreasing territories, or changing commission plans, I’d bring the donuts.  It didn’t change the bad news, buy hey, we’re talking about donuts!  I’d bring donuts to other sales meetings, too.  I didn’t want them to only associate donuts with bad news. 

Truth be told, salespeople know when bad news is coming, with or without the donuts.  It seems to be an irrefutable law in Corporate America: 

Sometimes I get an e-mail that begins, “In keeping with the dictum that bad news should travel faster than good news, here’s a gem.” 

Bill Gates 

When I brought donuts, it was merely a gesture, a gift, a tribute really to the quality of salespeople on my team.  Of course, I partook, too.  Chocolate frosted are my favorite.  I bet you have a favorite.  After all, we’re talking about donuts! 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Laid off…

Lay-offs; fear of lay-offs; forecasts of lay-offs; lots of disturbance in the Force these days.  I wonder – do those being laid off see it coming?

It reminds me of coffee with my friend and mentor just after Oracle announced its acquisition of NetSuite, back in the day.  It wasn’t a surprise.  The return to our “Mother Ship” had been speculated for a few years.  NetSuite’s quarterly revenue growth was slowing.  In the subscription software galaxy, that’s a problem. 

My friend and mentor was wondering if I was worried.  Here’s how she expressed her concern: 

Gary, NetSuite is known in the industry as being somewhat vegetarian.  They eat red meat at Oracle. 

Teah Bennett 

I was OK, I said.  This would be my 2^nd go-round with Oracle.  I was there in 1989 selling Oracle Financials version 1.0.  Talk about a battle for the universe!  But back then, I was a sales rep with a quota.  Back then, it was easy to separate the meat eaters from the rest.  And at Oracle, the term “separation” was/is always taken literally.  I knew what I was getting back into with Oracle’s acquisition of NetSuite.  What I didn’t know was how long it would last. 

In the fall of 2016, I was 63 years old; supporting NetSuite resellers; in a “Sales Enablement” role, aka a “revenue influencer”, aka “overhead”.  Oracle’s value of its technology vs. all else including employees was, and still is, well known: 

Jay Nussbaum, who had joined Oracle from Xerox in early 1992, summed up what Oracle's product superiority meant to the sales force: 'A dog with a note in its mouth could sell it technically.’ 

Fast-forward to 2016.  Realizing the power of the Galactic Empire, I knew the race was on. 

I loved my job.  I was good at it.  I intended to work several more years before retiring.  Of course, there were a few hurdles.  NetSuite was the “gobblee” vs. the “gobbler”; I was a white male (still am); older than 60 (still am); working in a staff/overhead role without a personal quota; dedicated to resellers vs. Oracle/NetSuite’s direct sales force.  Ishkabibble! 

When the acquisition was announced, I believed someone far-far-away with a list of NetSuite employees and our compensation (probably sorted by age) was asking: 

• What does this guy do?

• Why do we need him? 

Spoiler alert!  Six years later, I gave 30-day notice and successfully retired on my 69^th birthday.  I beat Darth Vader and his Storm Troopers to my finish line.  How’d it happen?  

Maybe I got lost in the shuffle.  I did report to 6 different managers during that time.  Maybe Oracle needed NetSuite’s revenue to justify the $9 billion acquisition price.  In turn, NetSuite needed the revenue generated by their resellers.  I was the sole person dedicated to partner sales enablement.  Maybe Covid distracted everyone’s attention away from some grey-hair in Denver.  

Maybe, just maybe, they actually valued my contributions beyond their technology.  Next to my younger counterparts, I was the only Master Sales Enablement Advisor on the Oracle/NetSuite team: 

In youth we learn, in age we understand. 

Marcie VonEbner-Eschenbach 

I understood.  It was a race.  Truthfully, when I retired on my terms before being laid off, I was surprised.  I was also appreciative and somewhat amused.  Maybe the Force was with me! (Hopefully, it still is.) 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Daily Battle…

I just noticed May is Mental Health Awareness Month.  I wasn’t aware, you?  I do know that mental health battles last longer than a month.  It’s actually a daily battle, often life-long lasting.  I saw this T-Shirt advertised on Facebook: 

We don’t have to lose a friend or relative to feel the impact of a bad day.  And if our fallen warriors were still with us, they would encourage us never to give up; never give in.  Some days we win, some we lose, some get rained out, but courage is needed throughout: 

Courage doesn't always roar.  Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow." 

Mary Anne Radmacher 

We may mourn our losses along with our mental health plight but it helps to remember we have God on our side: 

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. 

Matthew 5: 4 

Many of us are engaged in mental health battles.  Who is your foe?  Sadness; loneliness; anger; frustration; weariness; anxiety; fear; guilt…?  How do you express your mental health challenges?  How do you manage them?  Maybe we bury our head in our work: 

There cannot be a crisis next week.  My schedule is already full. 

Henry A. Kissinger 

Whatever means and methods we use, let’s continue to battle this daily battle.  Let’s continue to be courageous: 

Courage is as often the outcome of despair as of hope; in the one case we have nothing to lose, in the other everything to gain. 

Diane dePoitiers 

The month of May…  this entire year… today, and each day, one day at a time… our battle for healthy, mental health is worth it. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Time Teaches…

In the business world we deal with timelines all of the time, true?  Most of the time, a timeline is an untimely topic.  The Buddha tried to help us in the time of the 5^th or 6^th century, BC: 

Forgive yourself for not knowing earlier what only time could teach.  The seed does not apologize for not being a tree yesterday. 

What have we learned?  For me, in seven decades and counting, I’m still in the learning phase – slow learner, for sure!  I did learn these from our favorite Unknown Sage: 

A few meanings:

• Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
• Live a good, honorable life.  Then when you’re older, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
• Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. 

One thing is true, I am enjoying things in my life a second time.  After years, perhaps decades, Americans (hopefully) are learning, too.  Today, people are sharing what they're learning about technology and social media.  According to this piece by "CNBC Make It": 

I think people back then used to take a break from the real world by going on their phone, but now people are taking a break from their phone to spend time in the real world … 

Going chronically offline is the latest trend to grip young people and, ironically, its going viral on social media. 

Going offline and promoting that trend online, what???  

Then there is the activity known as “planning”.  Recently, I was a guest in a meeting with the Strategic Planning Committee formed by my residential community.  It was facilitated by an outside consultant.  They were focused on the project timeline to roll-out tactical elements of the agreed upon Strat Plan.  There was a time when I found this topic fascinating. 

There was a time when I admired outside consultants and their ability to logically organize project phases, tasks and activities into a concise timeline.  There was a time when I trusted others when they assigned expected completion dates to each element.  And there was a time when I was present as the customer questioned, no interrogated, why the timelines were missed! 

This time around, I was simply an observer, when they started affixing due dates to their plan. One of the committee members noticed my amused, facial expression and paused the discussion to ask for my input.  I suggested they consider using a different unit of measure for their project timeline.  Rather than hours, days, or due dates.  I suggested: 

Project Management Timeline

• Phase One Completion:    Soon

• Phase Two Completion:    Pretty soon

• Phase Three Completion:  Someday 

Interestingly, the committee agreed; even the consultant.  Then, predictably, they went back to assigning days and due dates to the project.  They’re hopeful – it’s like growing a tree. 

As of this writing, the implementation is behind.  And it just started!  Obviously, I’m not surprised nor am I discouraged.  I know our Strategic Plan will eventually become a tree – soon, pretty soon, or someday. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.