Learn from these Steppes

A few weeks ago a friend of mine and fellow blogger commented on the "benefits of a recession". http://www.salesdevelopmentspecialists.com/ .This week I came across a similar lesson as I heard and author discussing his latest book on the Mongols and their notorious leader - Ghengis Khan.
Interestingly there was a "recession" then too - years of drought had resulted in poor crops and the Steppes were no longer providing adequate supplies for these nomads and their livestock. Ghengis Khan was able to capitalize this concern amongst the people and accomplish a number of things.
First, he united all of these tribes into one force under him. Then, he mobilized this force and they left the steppes in search of greener pastures. Finally, he realized that his "new direction" would upset some and therefore he prepared a significant part of this group to become one of the strongest armies that civilization has ever seen. Out of difficult times - came strength and innovation.
As a leader in business perhaps you are concerned about the possible effects of a recession. My advice - follow the same steps as Mr. Khan. 1. Unite the thinking of your organization and sales force to not only survive but to succeed. 2. Move your business if necessary to "greener pastures" - new markets, unexplored applications and better ways of selling. 3. Expect resistance as you move into your "new" competitions back yard - make sure your sales force is ready and prepared to spearhead this work.
You may not be planning on conquering the world - but you should be planning. Many think they are planning by cutting costs, letting people go and eliminating some projects that they think they can put off. This would be like Ghengis Khan staying on the steppes and trying to survive by rationing supplies and changing their diet - yeh they might have survived but everyone from that point on would have said - Ghengis Who?

Happy Columbus Day!

last night I had an opportunity to hear Cameron Herold (www.backpocketcoo.com) speak to a group of business people -owners, entrepreneurs and presidents and it was excellent! The focus of what he shared came down to the importance of vision, culture & people, communication and environment. Everything he covered and every point he made was spot on - I loved it!
What was interesting to me, sitting at my table, being somewhat familiar with the group was what I could sense all around me - resistance so thick you could cut it with a knife. Here was an expert offering advice to entrepreneurs who supposedly wanted to grow their business and they resisted - why?
Most of the time people have a tendency to listen and apply what they want to hear and agree with - "give less vacation to your people, don't worry about the company image and what the environment in your office is, yell at your help if you feel like it, don't wind down and relax on Friday afternoon, stay aloof from your employees...." would I assume have encountered far less resistance.
Leaders that have a clear or not so clear vision for their business are more likely to succeed than those who don't - bottom line! After Christopher Columbus had been laughed out of every court in Europe it was finally a fellow visionary, Queen Isabella that helped him get there.Interestingly his vision was off because he did not as we know find India but America. Point being that he executed a vision and got results. Having a vision for 3 years out was an excellent suggestion. Don't worry about the "How will I get there?". Perhaps you will get laughed at - so what! Who knows maybe you will end up somewhere other than you expected, like America.

Practice makes pathetic

I had a chance to hear Pat Sullivan, CEO of Sovereign Bank New England speak last week regarding the state of the Economy. The most interesting portion to me pertained to the results of a survey of over 7000 business customers. They were asked to prioritize the most important concerns to their business - ONE. 60+% growing my business TWO. 20+% retaining and finding the right people THREE. 10+% making sure my people are adequately trained to compete.
That said I couldn't help wondering - do most of these business owners and leaders spend 60% of their time and revenue on point one or do their concerns not match their reality?
During the Civil war General McLellan drilled his troops relentlessly, practicing formations, marches and maneuvers. He was inspired by watching thousands of troops marching to and fro at his command - no doubt a beautiful sight! One problem,most of the battles that these men would fight were not going to be on an open and level field. Most of the time the General would have to give orders without knowing where his men were, hidden by trees and smoke. All of that practice only instilled frustration where these best of plans were foiled.
As a business leader think about that 60% and examine whether or not you are practicing a plan that will make perfect and not pathetic!

Gold can hide the truth

I had a chance to hear Lee Froschheiser speak this week at an event. I also had an opportunity to watch "Elizabeth, the golden years" now out on DVD. Interestingly but not surprisingly I made an interesting connection between the two - here goes.
Lee spoke about about the misconceptions that "good times" in business can perpetrate. Revenue hides a multitude of sins, but when the revenue stops, the economy changes or some other event acts as a catalyst all of a sudden the ugly and neglected sides of the business appear! Sometimes these problems are now so entrenched they are beyond repair.
In the mid 16th century Spain was the thriving business. Almost unlimited quantities of gold were flowing into the coffers. But coincidentally Spain was dysfunctional: A poor leader in King Phillip, a divided country, the inquisition, poor corporate citizenry as they pillaged and raped the new world and no vision as to where the country was headed.
In contrast England, now under Elizabeth was "up and coming". She was a great leader, the country had been united under her more tolerant approach to freedom of religion, there was an interest in the new world and certainly gold; but that was not their only interest.
After the war climaxed with the English defeating the Spanish Armada - Spain was a bankrupt country and England moved on to become the number one player on the ocean.
Business leaders can learn much from these examples. Any Idiot knows to take a good look at their organization or a department when things are not going well, only the best leaders take time to do that when things seem to be perfect!

Humble Pie

I had a chance to meet with an executive last week and we discussed some ways that we could help him get better results out of his sales people. After the meeting I was reflecting on why the meeting had went so well, why we had made such progress in such a short time, why we had got along so well and the answer to all of these questions has to do with this executive having the oh so rare quality of Humility!
This gentleman was very savy, very smart and obvioulsy had some excellent leadership skills. His business had grown very progressively over the years and yet rather than getting overly confident or even pompus about his success, he still had an "I don't have all the answers" demeanor. Oddly enough those who follow this mantra usually find themselves having all the answers.
One cannot help thinking about how different things might be if more people were like him. The political realm right now is full of people who say they have all the answers and the current President - of course he has all the answers. When people have all the answers they never ask for help, they never consider another opinion and as a result they make more mistakes and end up looking foolish more often.
As bad as current leaders might be I can certainly think of worse.Legend has it that King Canute of England had his throne taken down to the ocean so that he could demonstrate to his subjects that even the sea obeys him - then his subjects would stop questioning him. Guess what happened?

Expecting the Unexpected

Last week on my vacation to St Kitts I had a chance to visit the Brimstone Hill Fortress on the Island. Originally constructed by the British it was intended to protect the island and waterways around it during a very, shall we say competetive time in history. The fortress was believed to be impregnible and then one day in 1782 the fortress fell to of all people - the French!
How did that happen?
This fortress high on a hill, unapproachable from 3 sides, guarded by the best army in the world fell to a nation notorious for the white flag. Well think about it: Overconfidence and Complacency when pitted against Unexpected Creativity won out.
Often in the world of business we see the same thing. An Unexpected and underestimated competitor starts taking market share from you because he is coming from a different direction and exploiting your weaknesses. Sometimes the competitor is inferior but his timing is right and he is able to catch you off your game. Even a competitor that will usually fail in a true head to head confrontation can capture ground by utilizing surprise.
After this the British redesigned the fort and added guns and walls to the weak side and the fort never fell again. Great Business's will similarly make whatever changes are necessary to not only keep up with their challengers but surpass them!

who is really in charge?

A business owner this week told me that he was trying to get his wife to accept his decision. A CEO told me that he wanted to get buy-in from his team. Now I am certainly not opposed to business owners speaking with their wives nor CEO's talking to their teams provided of course that they remain in charge and do not end up abdicating the decision making process. While these members of a business are certainly "key players" their perspective is not always as clear nor as wide as the primary visionary of a company. That said, exercise caution.
In Russia their was a man, you probably heard of called Rasputin. He gained favor with the Czar and his Queen by curing their ailing son. We could say that in this role, Rasputin although weird, was doing no real harm. However it was not long before he was being consulted on almost every decision the Czar was making: unfortunately for the royal family Rasputin might have been a healer but his political prowess was sorely lacking and to cut along story short the entire family found themselves all up against a wall after the revolution.
So does your business have a clear leader. Do you know who it is and does everyone in your organization know who it is. Often we see large companies that cannot get out of their own way to get something done.
And if you are trying to sell into these companies beware of the Rasputin's that can sabotage even the greatest of ideas by removing any real decision making power from the Czar.

To Have a Dream

Today there are a lot of blurbs and quotes in the news from Martin Luther King. Here was a man that exuded qualities like courage, oratory , vision and the know more popular than ever - Change. (see both presidential nomination races)
I had a chance to hear Rob Kriegel (www.kriegel.com) speak today and the focus of his discussion involved the inherent resistance to change. In the case of Dr. King that resistance to an idea was so strong that it led to his death. It is fascinating this idea of resistance to change and as a salesperson understanding that is extremely helpful. The people you speak with are probably going to resist your sale because it involves change. You are going to resist adapting to their objections or developing your sales skills because of your own resistance to change.
The solution to this problem involves many things but the one that I took away was to challenge what you do now, if you normally hang up on salespeople try listening, if you normally call the CFO try the CEO for a change, if you normally start by saying ....change to...... (I think we get the point)
A old Chinese proverb says that "Change does not always involve progress, but progress always involves a change".

so few, so much, so many

Winston Churchill described the valiant efforts of the RAF thus in the summer of 1941. After all they had successfully fought of an onslaught from the German Luftwaffe that would have by all accounts spelled out their doom. Why were they winners?
Well the experts have debated the superiority of the ME109 compared to the Spitfire and the Hurricane but in reality the Germans were also ahead in experience and numbers as well. So we arrive at the statements of Mr. Churchill who placed credit for the victory firmly on the shoulders of the few - the pilots who defended the free world. Coincidentally these pilots had a very unique profile:-drinkers, crazy, daredevils. loud, boisterous and foolhardy and yet nobody resented this specialized skill set because their efforts meant victory!
Similarly the profile for the most productive and effective salesperson may not align with others in your organization but will you resent them. It is rumoured that RAF pilots never paid for a beer because the people of Britain recognized and respected their role.Does your company understand and respect the unique role your sales people play?Do you have a way of identifying those pilot like sales people during your recruiting process?

300

When Leonidas king of Sparta decided to try holding an army of almost 1,000,000 Persians at bay, with only 300 men what was he thinking? Although ultimately betrayed and defeated by the Persians the events at Thermopylae are generally regarded as a victory for the Spartans.
I would have to assume that he understood true leadership and had built an organization that when called upon to produce - produced!
Too often in business we come across CEO's that have a clear understanding of their "logo" and their "mission statement" and their " building lease" and their "office equipment and furniture" and yet they have no "300" to call upon when it comes to their Sales Force.
Who can they call on to bring in the sales, revenues and profits when they need to? Who will go and defeat the Persians?
The 300 men that served Leonidas were

1. better trained than any of their opponents
2. better physical condition
3. had no fear and no hidden weaknesses that would let the group down
4. a clear understanding of the mission and big picture
5. love and loyalty for their leader
6. a lean and fast moving unit

Does this describe your sales organization?

Are We Rome?

That was the title of a book I heard about earlier today. It posed the question in analyzing the final days of the Roman empire and comparing it to our times: Over extended Military, Crumbling of Society, Distrust of political leaders etc, etc, etc.
There certainly are many parallels and I would argue that history is full of such parallels.

I also heard something interesting regarding Dyslexia and entrepreneurs. Apparently a very high percentage, higher than the general population, of entrepreneurs suffer from Dyslexia. Why is that the case. Well there were a number of reasons given that were a result of their inadequacy with the written word.

• they develop better verbal skills
• they learn to delegate
• they learn to trust others to do their jobs

Napoleon was rumoured to have suffered from a mild form of dyslexia, however we all can appreciate his prowess on the field of battle. Wellington said that he was worth 40,000 men. His greatness as a general was in large part due to his being willing to delegate and trust his officers. So often in business we see CEO's who claim to be delegators but in reality they are not. Others delegate nothing and are proud of that. Then there are those who are actually shirking their own job and relabelling it "delegation".

Succeeding in business is becoming a greater challenge every day. Learning to delegate and trust your team will enable you to compete and avoid "being Rome" as it were.

If Not Now....When?

For the most part great leaders throughout history have identified themselves through certain attributes, one of the foremost of this is the ability to make decisions. Now we all make decisions every day - but usually these are relatively simple like selecting a sandwich for lunch. Needless to say the great leaders of history have had to make far weightier decisions and in the same amount of time it takes some people to choose tuna over turkey.
Maybe you don't like to be "rushed" into important decisions and therefore the solution involves thinking things over & over & over & over. Perhaps you can point to times in your life when you have "rushed" a decision and things didn't work out? But can't you also point to a time when even though you weighed everything out and thought it over you were foiled. In fact the percentage of failure to success is probably equal in both cases.
Abraham Lincoln had given General McClellan as much time to think things over as he could. Thinking things over was followed by "preparation" and "meetings" and "reviews" and who knows what else. The facts were that the Army of the Potomac was wasting valuable time doing nothing. Can you understand Lincolns frustration.....better Army, more soldiers, more supplies, more everything and rather than attack Lee one excuse after another.
In contrast General Lee though outnumbered, out supplied and with fewer men would often decide and attack so quickly (as would his main man Jackson) that the speed alone was enough to throw off the enemy.
Churchill, Julius Ceasar, Hannibal, Napoleon and even someone as recent as General Patton had the inate ability to assess and decide.
In business why has that process so often become simply to "assess" without a decision. To "think over" without finally making a move. What a waste of time and energy. Could your business run more effectively if the process of decision making was accelerated?