We’re gonna miss you…

I recommend Sam Walton’s autobiography, Sam Walton Made in America ©.  I never knew about the history of Walmart.  I love reading about the business titans of our time; I love reading about greatness.  Another one of my favorites is Idea Guy ©; Paul Allen’s account of hiring Bill Gates and how they led the herculean effort to create Microsoft. 

The Google Story © was a different story.  Here were a couple of computer scientists, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who simply wanted to sell their search engine intellectual property for $25 million.  After trying and trying, their Stanford University advisor finally told them if they wanted financial gain they would have to start a company.  Reluctantly - unbelievably reluctantly - they launched Google.  The rest as they say is a history of untold riches!  If you google (verb) google (noun) you’ll get, “The term google itself is a creative spelling of googol, a number equal to 10 to the 100th power, or more colloquially, an unfathomable number.”  Yep – unfathomable! 

Another favorite of mine is Softwar: An Intimate Portrait of Larry Ellison and Oracle ©.  This hit particularly close to home for me because I was there during the depiction of chaos during Oracle’s explosive growth period.  My work as an Oracle Financials Application Sales Rep, literally selling version 1.0, was the most wild ride in my entire career!  

Speaking of version 1.0, I can’t remember what software “version” comes first:  alphaware; betaware; visionware; vaporware; or demoware? 

Without a herculean effort Larry almost lost his company.  The stress almost cost me my marriage.  Thankfully, we both came out successful. 

Some of the books I’ve read address great companies (and great people) failing and then resurrecting themselves.  I particularly liked Who Says Elephants Can't Dance © and IBM’s return to greatness.  I love this quote from their then-CEO: 

There were times when we lost money on every PC we sold, and so we were conflicted - if sales were down, was that bad news or good news? 

Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. 

Back to Walmart.  Sam Walton stated at the start of his book, there are lots of opinions from others about Walmart; mostly negative.  After reading his firsthand account I have a much better appreciation of what he did to build the Walmart empire and why.  The “why” can be summed up simply to sell what the customer wants, at a good price, and stand behind it.  Who doesn’t want a company to do that?

Business success is certainly not limited to the behemoths.  I remember to this day a story one of my clients told me about one of their clients.  I was the Master Sales Enablement Advisor at Oracle/NetSuite and one of my NetSuite resellers in Kentucky (Oasis Solutions) had one of their clients utter the phrase, “We’re gonna miss you”.  You see, their client just bought NetSuite ERP directly from NetSuite.  The client didn’t realize Oasis also sold NetSuite.  No one had informed the client.  Sam Walton would have frowned on that reseller and probably coaxed them to stay closer to the needs of their customers. 

Afterall, who doesn’t want our vendors, stores, advisors, and other providers to stay close enough to us to understand what we need?  As it turns out, many times greatness doesn’t require the herculean feats of a Bill Gates, Paul Allen, or Larry Ellison.  It's less stressful to pay better attention to our clients. 

                                                            GAP 

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

Mission & Vision…

The Board of Directors of a non-profit organization I serve on is updating our “Mission & Vision Statements”.  This is the first time I’ve served on a Board.  So far, it’s been quite the process.  Truthfully, I’m uncomfortable and a bit amused.  Is that common when developing a Mission Statement?  Here are thoughts from Dave Carpenter:

I’m somewhat handicapped with this initiative.  Our effort to reach a consensus let alone a conclusion pushes several of my buttons and I’m trying to be mindful of those buttons. 

Thankfully, our Board has several experienced business professionals.  We have plenty of knowledge, opinions, and time to discuss (and debate) what our go-forward Mission & Vision Statements should be.  I know this is important to making progress.  I’m a willing follower; but there are those buttons. 

Like other organizations, our Board would be considered a “committee”.  You see, I’ve never done well with committees.  I’ve always had more of a charge ahead, “let’s get ‘er done” mindset.  However, part of being an appropriate Board member is to participate in our committee decision making approach. 

It didn’t take much of a self-diagnosis.  I understand the source of my discomfort.  To some, a committee decision-making process can sometimes feel like a decision-avoidance process.  And that’s a button many others have felt: 

A committee is twelve men doing the work of one. 

John F. Kennedy 

I know I have those darn buttons.  Throughout my sales career I’ve always been amazed (and oftentimes frustrated) by committee decision making.  It’s going to be all good though.  Each of us is well-meaning and we are volunteering our time and talents for the benefit of the greater organization.  I suppose I have buttons for Mission & Vision Statement development.  I’m not alone with this, particularly in today’s business environment: 

At the top is the mission statement. 

  And it begat the strategy. 

    And the strategy begat the tactics. 

      And the tactics begat the objectives

        that begat the tasks

          that begat the people in cubicles

who no longer beget children because they're working all weekend trying to finish the !@#$-ing assignments they've been given to serve the all-powerful mission statement.                            

Rick Levine 

Reminds me of this “vision” from Elon Musk to “help” his employees work towards the X Mission? 

Much has been said and much has been written about the importance of understanding the Mission & Vision of the company, community, or committee we’re investing our time in these days.  I’m OK with being exposed to this process and learning new skills.  I’m participating to the best of my (limited) ability.  I’m following the lead of my more capable Board members. 

Once we’re through the mission, vision, strategy process, I’ll rev things back up.  I’ll get enthusiastic about the tactical implementation of whatever our outcome is. 

And that includes the “strategy” piece.  Extended discussions about strategy is another one of those darn buttons.  I’m all about execution.   My personal mission, vision, and strategy statements is, “Let’s go sell somebody something - today!”  

A friend and client of mine offered this on LinkedIn: 

1. Comfort is the enemy of progress and achievement.

2. Vision without execution is hallucination. 

3. Prescription without proper diagnosis is malpractice. 

              Michael Meehan 

The good news is I’m out of my comfort zone so maybe I’m making progress.  As to the rest of my committee’s mission, vision, strategy, debate and discussion… Well Dave Carpenter, I’m just trying to make it to the weekend. 

                                                            GAP 

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

Meaning what?

This phrase is attributed to General George S. Patton: 

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

I was chatting with a friend of mine.  OK, “chatting” isn’t what I meant.  He met with me to ask, “What would Gary do?”  So, I should have actually started this piece saying; I was providing professional sales coaching for a friend of mine. 

That happens a lot, true?  I mean – someone says (or writes) one thing but they really mean something else.  In the case with my friend, he recently had a meeting with his sales manager to discuss “Territory Re-Alignment”.  Indeed…  in the sales profession this is a common, annual ritual companies put their salespeople through. 

It goes by many names. Territory Re-Alignment; Territory Equalization; Territory Re-Assignment.  What it actually means is Mr. or Ms. Sales Rep, we are going to shrink your territory. (BTW – raising quota and changing compensation plans often go with “Territory Re-Alignment”.  Thankfully, those extras were not part of my friend’s conversation with his sales manager.) 

There are other business oriented wordsmithing scenarios we are frequently impacted by.  Take price increases.  This century, subscription pricing is all the rage.  I mean – how many emails to you get every day asking you to “sign up” for some product or service that comes with a subscription payment component. 

Here’s one example.  According to Google: 

Today Amazon currently has 200 million Amazon Prime members around the world. If Prime subscribers were a country, it would be the 8th biggest country in the world by population! 

Speaking of our subscriptions and those emails, how did you feel when that notification comes through saying your subscription was now going to include ads?  Of course, for a “Nominal Fee” you could continue your subscription ad free.  Ah yes, “Nominal Fee”.   I use that phrase myself.  What it means is your money gets transferred to the person or entity who used “Nominal Fee”. 

The best phrase I heard around the context of a price increase was used by ADP (the payroll service company) way back in the 1980s.  (I know, Dark Ages!)  ADP was one of the original subscription-priced services.  Similar to all subscription pricing models, it was easy to offer a discount to attract new customers. (Today, that sounds like this, “The NFL Package for FREE!  *First year only”). 

Every year ADP would analyze each customer account; their level of discount; and then calculate a price increase for the upcoming year.  But ADP didn’t call it a “Price Increase”.  Instead, they coined the term “Price Realization”.  What on earth does that mean?  Well it meant the reduction or elimination of the promotional discount and raising the subscription price back to the then-current list price.  And that meant the customer was going to pay more. 

This mis-meaning situation is common in other aspects of our daily life.  Take the medical profession.  This is a piece from comedian Brian Regan and his perspective about what doctors mean with the word  “Pressure” . 

Even our household budgeting can get fouled up with something as seemingly straight forward as math symbols: 

Addendum to Murphy's Law: 

In precise mathematical terms, 1+1 = 2, where "=" is a symbol meaning seldom if ever. 

                                  Unknown Sage 

I guess we have to be careful to clarify what people actually mean these days.  And who knows what to expect when the “machines” (aka “AI” aka “Artificial Intelligence”) take over.  What does “Artificial Intelligence” mean, anyway? 

                                                            GAP 

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

Who’s to blame?

Worried about the economy, interest rates, or layoffs in 2024?  Business Owners; if your company’s sales are down, who’s to blame?  

When companies miss their top line revenue and layoffs usually follow.  Not always though: 

Several years ago, a car dealer in St. Petersburg, Florida fired his entire sales force and sales went up twenty six percent. 

Rick Page 

If poor sales performance leads to layoffs, how do we address the problem?  Is it possible sales specialization to blame? 

I’m not a fan of today’s sales specialization or I would say “over specialization”.  It’s much more specialized than “back in my day”.  OK Gary… here it comes… tales from the Dark Ages again?  HaHa!  Fair enough, but hear me out. 

Thinking it’s too hard  aka “too expensive” to hire experienced sales professionals, many companies hire young, inexperienced reps.  They “promote” these new reps into entry level aka “specialized” roles after initial training.  Specialized aka “limited” responsibilities.  These inexperienced reps often perform lead generation/qualification activities on behalf of more senior, experienced sales reps who are also specialized by industry; by prospect size; by product line; or by some other, limited, assignment. 

These senior, experienced sales reps aka “Account Executives” specialize in lead-development and pipeline management aka “deals” vs. customers.  Worse, they’ve lost lead-generation skills aka “prospecting”.  AEs are supported by “Pre-Sales” or other “Subject Matter Experts”.  Lots of specialization going on here, true? 

Poor sales and the proverbial finger pointing begins.  Maybe Marketing is to blame.  Not enough Marketing Qualified Leads aka “MQLs”.  And the debate between marketing and sales continues… 

Some companies invest heavily in sales training and enablement.  So much emphasis that many sales reps - and their managers - don’t personally invest the time and effort it takes to truly become “trained”.  When any of these specialized reps fail, who’s to blame?  Sales training?  Sales reps?  Sales managers? 

Focusing for a moment on those young, inexperienced, new hires coupled with the Department of Unintended Consequences, sales managers receive these reps as “promotes” after their onboarding.  Since the sales manager is not responsible for recruiting, onboarding, and enabling their own sales people, sales managers don’t become skilled in these disciplines.  I ask again, when their sales team fails, who’s to blame?  Recruiting?  Human Resources? 

Then along comes the Account Management Organization; aka “Customer Success Reps”; aka “Farmers”.  AMO reps aren’t “Hunters” so they don’t develop lead-generation skills either.  (See a pattern here?)  Of course, AMO reps must deal with the dissatisfied customer who the AE over-sold.  Since specialized AEs don’t manage the new clients they just over-sold, they don’t develop those professional selling/relationship skills either.  Back to Rick Page: 

If we oversold or under delivered, then it wasn't a sale; it was a lie.  Lying is easy; selling is hard. 

Adding to the matter leaders often don’t inspect what they expect relying instead on that wonderful soundbite “delegate and trust”.  However, when sales performance slips that makes it impossible for them to determine – you guessed it - Who’s to blame? 

I wonder if sales specialization aka “splintering” is to blame.  Does all of today’s specialization get in the way of what the customer really wants?  Mahan Khalsa put it this way: 

Customers want to buy from a business person who sells. 

Sadly, in spite of customer preferences I fear sales specialization is here to stay; at least until the machines aka “AI” take over.  Except perhaps for St. Petersburg, Florida car dealerships. 

GAP 

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

Oh No!

Oh yes… Today, let's talk about dieting, HaHa!  I mean it’s that time of the year, true?  January 1^st; New Year Resolutions; this year I’m (finally) going to drop a few pounds.  The health clubs love this time of year even if we don’t. 

I have written often about writing out an annual achievement plan for the upcoming year.  And within that plan I’ve advocated these four quadrants: 

This year, I’m particularly focused on the “Personal Development” quadrant; and within that quadrant specifically, my weight.

You see, I have my annual physical scheduled for later this month.  I can already hear my Doc, “Gary, it would be best if there was a little less of you.”  He asked me once a couple of years ago if I was motivated enough to lose weight.  Although honest, sadly my  response was, “Probably not.”  Turns out, I was “right” which reminds me of the lyric from the Joe Bonamassa song “The Loyal Kind”: 

I knew it all along and I hate when I’m right. 

My Body Mass Index indicates I’m not obese, yay!  I am, however, overweight, boo!  Turns out  being overweight is not a moral victory over being obese.  Consequently, this is the year I’m going to finally do something about it!!! (I hope.)  Ooops – there’s that proverbial caveat, “I hope”.  Reminds me of my favorite book title from Rick Page: 

Hope is not a strategy. 

With hope duly noted, to get started I’m going to pay attention to David C. Myers’ advice: 

A recipe for well-being requires a mix of ample optimism to provide hope, a dash of pessimism to prevent complacency, and enough realism to discriminate those things we can control from those we cannot.

In my recipe of things I can control I know I can’t become complacent.  So I’m going to be particularly cautious about this dash of pessimism: 

I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is two weeks. 

Totie Fields  

Yep, I need to commit to the long term; especially because at my age my “long term” is becoming shorter!  I need to create new and better habits.  Thankfully, I have a terrific role model that I can easily follow; my wife.  Bearing two children and following more than five decades since high school, she still looks wonderful!  What’s her secret?  Two things; (1) she only eats when she’s hungry and (2) she doesn’t eat anything after dinner.  That seems like a doable approach doesn’t it?  

It’s simple enough.  Except, of course, when I’m feeling a bit stressed; a bit down; when my feelings take over my rational thinking.  That’s the moment of truth when I need to retain “control”.  Oh, and my therapist was no help: 

My therapist told me a way to achieve peace was to finish things I started.  Today, I finished 2 bags of potato chips, a lemon pie, a fifth of Jack Daniels, and a small box of chocolate candy.  I feel better already! 

Unknown Sage

Kidding aside, weight has become a national issue and the numbers according to the  National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases aren’t pretty.  Especially the  part about more than 1 in 3 men are overweight. 

In 2024 I will (finally) follow my doctor’s advice; be motivated; and achieve!  God willing and with my wife’s continued leadership-by-example, next year at this time there will “be a little less of me”.  Oh no?  Oh YES! 

                                                            GAP 

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