SharpInsights: A Slice of Life, by Seena Sharp

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Wonder Bread, a brand that promised to “build strong bodies in 8 ways,” does not have enough marketing muscle to compete. It’s closing bakeries because it says “the company was in the wrong business in the wrong market.”

Oh, really?

A week after Wonder Bread’s dire announcement, Pepperidge Farm announced that “Consumers love the taste of white bread, but are looking to healthier, more nutritious options.” The company launched three new whole-grain white bread varieties, bringing their total offerings to eight.

Phew! Looks like another generation of children will be able to enjoy the classic peanut-butter-’n'-jelly sandwich! Crisis averted.

How can one company see defeat where another sees opportunity? Wonder Bread blames the customer for shrinking sales, while Pepperidge Farm courts the customer by giving them what they want: the comfort of white bread with the health benefits of whole grains.

Time after time, the competitive advantage goes to the company that pays attention to changing customer expectations and reacts accordingly.

How do you turn market changes into a competitive advantage? Sharp Market Intelligence specializes in identifying those changes – now!

 

Seena Sharp of Sharp Market Intelligence is my long-time colleague who identifies your competitive edge by uncovering opportunities, threats and growth segments. Visit Seena at www.sharpmarket.com, and Download the free chapter in Seena Sharp’s new book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World (Wiley)http://bit.ly/8XLKmj. And read the great Amazon reviews.

Tactics for successful selling

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I heard Vince Thompson of Middleshift speak recently on a panel at Amplify.LA, where we are both mentors.  He offered some fine tactics for successful selling that I want to share here. He told us ~

Selling is done is steps:  get each small step completed, then move to the next. In a short phone call or email, take these steps:

  • ask for a short (20 minute) F2F meeting (or phone call, if that is appropriate).
  • offer 2-3 days and time-ranges that can work for you, so your prospect can respond quickly and simply.  Or, offer something general, as in “Tuesday or Friday afternoon this week.”  Commit and confirm the time and day and location (wherever is easiest for the prospect).
  • Keep that meeting short, after brief opening friendly talk, move quickly to the point of the meeting, and ask for the next step.  What do you want and why do you want it?  A pilot program?  A scheduled time to demo to the prospect’s IT or Sales department?  A referral or introduction to someone?
  • Follow up with whatever will make that request easier to implement.  Send it as soon as you can.
  • Smile.  Keep a smile in your voice whenever prospecting or selling.  It matters that folks hear this energy.
  • With each level of your selling cycle, keep these ideas in mind.

Another interesting idea came from that evening:  Put your request at the beginning of the email.  Then justify or add additional information to support your request.  Lots of folks read “above the fold” or scan and may not get to your request at the bottom of the message.

I always put the critical information above the fold.  And I go one step further — I use indented bullets for every issue that requires an answer.  And often I get all the answers at once.

  • So, do you have other selling tactics to share in the comments section here?

 

Overused Words by LeeAundra Keany

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Philip B. Corbet, a deputy editor and keeper of the The New York Times Style Manual, has collected a set of overused words. Very illuminating and a good guide for all communicators. Here’s an excerpt:

“Icon/Iconic: Times editors have waged a long battle of attrition against the trite overuse of these terms. We’re losing.

Hardscrabble: This description is overdone, along with its cousin “gritty.”

Schadenfreude: I lamented its explosion of popularity in a previous post. Foreign terms wear out quickly because they draw extra attention to each use.

Arguably: A sneaky way to say something without having to take full responsibility for it.

Famously: If it’s so famous, do we have to say so?

Storied: Ditto.

Jump-start: Colloquial. Often “start,” “restart” or “revive” would serve.

[Blank]gate: Troopergate was the latest. Yes, it’s overdone.

Preternaturally: It is surprising how often this appears.

Toxic: As in “toxic assets.” This has indeed become ubiquitous, but I’m not sure that’s our fault; it really has become the standard term to describe the troubled investments at the heart of the fiscal crisis.

Go Missing: Many readers have expressed strong aversion to this expression, but I’m not really sure why. It seems to be a Britishism originally, but has become common. Yes, “disappear” can also serve, but “go missing” seems unobjectionable to me.”

You can read more from Philip B. Corbett here at After Deadlline.

 

My friend and colleague, LeeAundra Keany, of Keany Communications (nee Temescu, the Contrary Public Speaker) is an award-winning executive communications coach.  Her excellence lies not just in her experience training her clients in public speaking, but in her strategy helping them understand their goals, their next choices, and how to achieve them through positioning and presentation in public.

 

Work smarter #4: getting work while doing work

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In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.”   Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.

Getting work while doing work

The first rush of success (or your current rush) is thrilling.  Sales are up, new prospects are filling your pipeline, a new and challenging consulting gig is just starting, and you are being invited places and becoming known.

As always, you must be careful what you wish for.  Of course we want this success, and this very success will threaten your discipline with the best of excuses.

One of the first disciplines that gets lost during a rush of business is the consistent structure of seeking the next new work while you are busy fulfilling the work you just closed.

I see this phenomenon year after year, especially with new or growing companies and consultancies.  The excitement of the new work takes over, and balance is lost.  In the focus to do excellent work, the prospecting and marketing that will fill the pipeline is forgotten.

Real paying customers, strategic partners and new clients fill all your waking consciousness.  This success implies the next success (except that it doesn’t imply that — it simply offers you a chance to create a satisfied, hopefully testimonial-writing success story and perhaps a referral).

The consequence of losing your balance and forgetting to create new prospects in your pipeline — a serious down-draft of no work, no customers, no sales, no gigs — can easily cost you your profits for the year.  In this vacuum, you must scurry to catch-up, to re-build, to start again to build the visibility and momentum that brings the new work.

The discipline to continue to prospect, market, network, speak and publish is critical to working smarter.  To keep your balance, you must continuously create visibility for your venture. Prospecting while you are busy working, and creating outreach through networking, speaking and publishing, will make certain your pipeline is filled, and that new opportunities arrive in a steady stream.

Scientists & Google analyze the birth and death of words (from Science Magazine)

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Scientists & the Google Book team tasked themselves to uncover what they could learn from an analysis of Google’s online book content from more than 5 million books, dating back to 1800.

Now, I can understand that this may be too esoteric for a lot of folks, but my colleague Kevin Kelley (author of The Home Planet)  passed me this article from Science via Digg, because he knew I loved language and its use.

So I am sharing the link to both Digg’s article, and to a source of the research at Science (for those of you who want the deep stuff and the original papers).

Some neat findings:

  • “Culturomics” is a new word for this kind of work — applying data-crunching techniques to subjects generally considered part of the Humanities.  (Seems that since we can do it now, we will).
  • Turns out English has close to a million words, even though dictionaries carry about 348,000 of them.
  • English grows at about 8,500 words each year, but its rate is slowing.
  • Words in all languages live in a competitive environment, fighting for dominance against synonyms and alternative spellings, and against death (actually, dis-use).
  • Words in any language tend to stabilize within a culture in 30 to 50 years, or else fall into dis-use.  This time frame seems to be a tipping point.
  • Spell-checking and rigorous copy-editors speed up the shift in usage of words and the choice of which will survive.

The article and the source materials explain why these trends are occurring — some fascinating insights.

 

Working smarter #3: setting boundaries and saying no

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In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.”   Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.

Setting boundaries and saying no

None of the working-smart tactics are of much use if you do not set your own boundaries of what you will and will not do.

If you allow your schedule to be compromised consistently (see #1 Time Management http://bit.ly/zZttas ), you will return to the inefficient and stressful putting-out-fires style of management that hurts you, your workers, and your bottom line.

If you assess that an opportunity is likely to be low-margin or no-margin or high-maintenance (see #2 Watch your Margins http://bit.ly/xZFBy8 ), and you pursue it anyway, rather than refusing it or avoiding bidding for it, you will again return to inefficient and stressful experiences for you and your team.

We are not trained to say “no.”  We are trained to “be polite,” to “not rock the boat.”  We are all trained to avoid conflict.

And yet, the ability and discipline to say “no” will return your profit and your balance to your venture.

You can say no and still be polite, especially if you apply your assessment of the opportunity early, before anyone else’s expectations are set.  You can learn phrases that work to put aside any low-margin work.

  • “Thanks, but we don’t have the available resources to handle this project to the best of our ability at this time.”
  • “Yes, thanks, we will see if we can match that bid, and if we can, we will get back to you.”
  • “I appreciate your interest, but I am overbooked with deadlines for the next 3 or 4 months, and couldn’t give you the attention you need during that time.  I would want to do an excellent job, and right now I can’t promise that.”

This boundary-setting is part of each of the other “working smart” elements: setting meeting schedules, sticking to your structure, scheduling your buffer time and your organization/private time so you are most efficient every day, and assessing, then turning away work with minimal margin.

These disciplines are not learned overnight.  They require practice over time.  But if you try them, and remember to notice the results, you will find that these approaches work and that nothing as dreadful as you imagined actually occurs when you say no.

After awhile, all these tactics are embedded in your business dealings every day, and you find a better balance, and a better bottom line.

SharpInsights: Spot the Lie! by Seena Sharp

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How much do you trust your gut?

Using your years of experience and good ol’ gut instinct, determine which one of the following statements is false. Pick the one that you know must be dead wrong, crazy talk, a big fat lie – in other words, not true. Take your time. We can wait.

  • 20% of McDonald’s pies are sold at breakfast.
  • The biggest growth at dollar stores is generated by shoppers earning more than $100,000 a year.
  • One-person households outnumber those with married couples and children.
  • The biggest spenders in New York and Florida are Brazilian tourists.
  • Grazing sheep are one of NASCAR’s green initiatives.
  • The Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers 2,100 free courses online.

Did you spot the lie right away? Or did you have to weigh the “untruthiness” of the statements before you decided? Or did you think they all sounded like fiction?

How is this short “quiz” relevant? If you recognize the “truth” about your business, your marketplace, and your customers before the competition has realized it, you can grow your business, even in today’s climate.

At Sharp Market Intelligence, we correct assumptions with today’s reality, by uncovering confounding, unconventional and unsettling information every day in the course of investigations for our clients. (By the way, all the above statements are true.)

 

Seena Sharp of Sharp Market Intelligence is my long-time colleague who identifies your competitive edge by uncovering opportunities, threats and growth segments. Visit Seena at www.sharpmarket.com, and Download the free chapter in Seena Sharp’s new book, Competitive Intelligence Advantage: How to Minimize Risk, Avoid Surprises, and Grow Your Business in a Changing World (Wiley)http://bit.ly/8XLKmj. And read the great Amazon reviews.

Be careful what you wish for…

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Just this week I said to one of my best clients, “The point of our work together is not to build you your most successful business (although we are doing that too), it is to build you the best life you want, which includes a business that challenges and inspires and rewards you, and also allows you all the other parts of your life you want to pursue and experience, too.  Our aim is your best life, even more than your best profitability.”

Then I came across this interesting article by Susan Steiner in the Guardian, which echoed my perspective. It summarizes the findings of Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, who has written a book on her experiences with the dying and their life lessons.  I record the Guardian article here, and include the links if you should like to explore more deeply.

Top five regrets of the dying

A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?

The top five regrets of t 007 Be careful what you wish for...

A palliative nurse has recorded the top five regrets of the dying.
Photograph: Montgomery Martin/Alamy

There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’.

Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. “When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently,” she says, “common themes surfaced again and again.”

Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.”

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

What’s your greatest regret so far, and what will you set out to achieve or change before you die?

What Should You Divulge When Asking for Investment Capital? by Terry Corbell

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I thought to share this conversation between Terry Corbell and me, posted on his site.  ~joey

What Should You Divulge When Asking for Investment Capital? by Terry Corbell

Terry Corbell, the Biz Coach

If your startup is the next big thing, but you want venture capital, you can start smiling. Yes, financing has been difficult to obtain in recent years. But entrepreneurs wanting venture capital have reasons for at least a small celebration – the money is starting to flow again after the Great Recession took its toll.

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) indicates the trend is upward, ostensibly, for multiple reasons: There’s been an improvement in exit markets and portfolio valuations, and VC performance has been better than the public markets. There are also other positives – indications of an increase in angel funding, and a boom in initial public offerings. NVCA based its conclusions on data from 1,290 VC funds.

For many startups, it makes sense to grow organically. But for others, the answer is to seek capital.

So how do you take advantage of this improvement in financing? Certainly, it’s critical to make the right presentation to investors.

Such entrepreneurs typically ask noted financial strategist Joey Tamer how much information they should reveal for venture or angel capital. They turn to her because she’s a strategic consultant to entrepreneurs in software, Internet, technology and digital media.

Ms. Tamer says entrepreneurs also typically express these concerns:

  • “I’m not quite ready for a big investment until I get more early traction.”
  • “Will I weaken my position by showing how much I need and how soon I need it?”
  • “Will what I’m looking for move around the community to everyone and shouldn’t I be selective in what I say?”

What’s her response?

“The answer is to stand up and lay out your plans and your rationale,” she blogged in explaining how much an entrepreneur should tell investors when pitching for capital.  “You must treat all investors as if they will become your partners, starting immediately. If you are taking a pitch meeting, you might as well pitch.”

She astutely reminds clients that investors of all stripes do their due diligence. She warns you risk not getting a second meeting, if you aren’t candid and informative.

“It is acceptable to take a short meeting — 20 minutes maximum – or two with potential investors, to get on their radar about your idea, even before you are ready to approach them for an investment,” she explains. “You can report back on your progress of reaching your benchmarks. This establishes an early relationship with them, and allows them to watch you deliver the benchmarks you promised.”

For an example, she suggests a possible scenario:

“Suppose you are looking for angel capital now, and you are presenting to an early stage boutique venture capitalist, who invests in revenue-generating companies, but who sometimes will step down to a seed round of a few hundred thousand dollars.”

Her recommendation:

“Pitch what you want now: say $250,000, and show what you will use the funds for, and what benchmark you will reach with that seed round,” she says.  “Your potential investor might provide it and add a deal structure to his position for the next round, giving him right of first look, or protecting his investment in certain ways, even setting aside all or part of your next round.”

What’s next?

“Next you say you want to raise a Series A round after some specified consecutive months of growth,” she asserts. “You say when you expect that moment to arrive (what Quarter of what year), and what benchmark you will reach in what Quarter of what year with that Series A round.

“You can say that you will look for a growth round following Series A, once you can track the speed of your growth, and can assess competition and market conditions at that time,” she adds.

Ms. Tamer says this illustrates that you understand the big picture – that you fully grasp investors’ concerns about scalability and their likely return on their investment.

“If you look to your investors as long-term partners, this early truth telling and planning sets your relationship on the right path,” she points out.

(Note: I’m very acquainted with Ms. Tamer’s expertise. She and I are members of an organization, Consultants West, www.consultantswest.com.)

From the Coach’s Corner, in addition to Ms. Tamer’s Web site, www.joeytamer.com, here are informative resource links:

What No One Tells You about Raising Investment Capital

Eight Strategies to Consider Before Starting A Tech Business

“If you are beginning your company with Other People’s Money, it is good to have a strong relationship with the Other People and their Money.”

-Joey Tamer

__________

Terry Corbell, my close colleague and friend, is Seattle’s “Biz Coach.” He is a business-performance consultant and profit professional.   I wanted to share his article with you, and refer you to his site, where you will find hundreds of interviews and articles (http://www.bizcoachinfo.com), and where you can contact him for a complimentary chat about your business.

Working smarter #2: watch your margins

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In my consulting work with CEOs optimizing their early stage tech ventures, and with expert consultants maximizing their practices, I train my over-committed clients to “work smarter.”   Here continues a series of articles sharing some of those tactics.

Watch your margins

I have seen my clients commit time and resources to the pursuit of opportunities (customers, clients, sales, deals, gigs) without assessing the value of the return they will receive on that investment.  It is as if all opportunities were created equal, each deserving the same attention.

Not true.  Some work you should turn away immediately, no matter how much you may need the revenue.  Some work returns nothing, and drains you of resources that could be focused on getting high-margin revenue.  You need to identify that kind of no-margin work very quickly.

Now, folks trained in sales, particularly with compensation based on profit margin, are experts at assessing where their best rewards will be found.  But many of us are not trained to think this way, and need some simple systems to assess a good prospect from a bad prospect — whether that is a sale, a client, or a customer.

To begin, this can be done simply.

  • Define your ideal target customer, client or deal: what industry, what company size, who is the check-signer, how much will they buy, using what deal-terms, and how much effort does it take to close? From this ideal profile, you can determine what margins you will gain by closing this deal.
  • Carefully assess the deals that may not return you any profit margin (or a very low margin).  This may be a high-maintenance client who demands more time than your retainer allows, or a product customer who needs multiple proposals or bids to win a narrow-margin deal. It could be a strategic ally that offers you access to an adjacent marketplace, but needs too much re-configuration of your product (at your cost) to make the deal worthwhile.
  • Create a system, or just a profile or checklist, of those criteria which represent both your best and worst margin opportunities, and review each new client, customer or deal against this profile at each point of effort. Just begin –  you will learn more from this new context and you will refine the system as you go along.

With these tools, and a bit of discipline, you can sort which opportunities to follow and which to reject.  The secret is to apply these tools at the beginning of the sales cycle, not half-way or most-of-the way through the close.

When your assessment tells you the profit-margin is low, then avoid, refuse, or stop bidding on those opportunities which show you a limited return on your investment of time and effort.  These low-margin deals will deplete your resources and interfere with your closing the high-margin deals.