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WhiteSpace Consulting specializies in top line revenue, business strategy, sales and business development.
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Anyone who has ever worked within a sales and business development function has asked it at least a few times.
You had their attention, their direct dial, their cell number. They had a need – your product or service practically sold itself. You had rapport. You had a verbal agreement, and then –
You replay the conversations in your mind and retrace your steps from your notes. Did you miss something?
Perhaps. But maybe it’s not what you think you missed.
Maybe what the prospect took was the opportunity for a measured response. Some slow, “think time” inside a business pace that is increasingly head-spinning and expects an increasingly rapid response.
The relationship between technology, change and response times is accelerating at Mach-like speed. According to Futurist magazine, the rate of progress and change in the 21st century will be about a thousand times faster than in the 20th century – the equivalent to 100,000 years of progress. Coping with this pace of change will require more than the ability to assess data points to enhance the customer experience. Not surprisingly, foresight, not current knowledge, is predicted to be the single most essential skill for success in this century.
The Palo Alto-based Institute for the Future’s 2011 Map of the Decade lays out a fascinating blueprint of human interaction with the trends of the future – a balancing act of embracing or tempering the changes that come with rapid progress. So one possible, balancing response to an overload of convenience, expansion, productivity, the need for speed? Slow, the new fast.
Before the next white-hot lead turns to a whiff of smoke, it might be a good time to consider your prospects’ responses to change within their buying cycle, instead of focusing on shortening the sales cycle. Building in the time and space for both you and them to gain perspective on the future use and implications of your product or service could seem counter-intuitive. It could also be a route to yes.
Early in my career I worked for a boss who told me, “Never apologize. It’s a sign of weakness.” Good advice I never followed.
And reinforced by an online webinar I recently attended, presented by an innovation consultant. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. An email for the webinar, taking place that same day, arrived in my email inbox early in the morning. I clicked the link to register, which required only an email address. I was impressed; no lengthy gateway form asking for significant personal and company information.
The webinar started off well. The presenter’s talking points centered on corporate mindsets about innovation and how the value of innovative products is sometimes not expressed from the customer or end-user point of view. The accompanying graphics and product examples reinforced the point. But after the first few slides, the presenter’s comments and the slides were out of sync. I sent a polite comment through the chat function about this but the problem persisted. A few minutes later, the slides stopped progressing entirely, and for the remainder of the webinar I sat eyeball to eyeball with a photo of Bill Gates staring back at me.
The webinar’s technical support person finally broke in to inform the presenter that no one could see the slides he was referencing. The presenter then tried to describe the unseen slides – an unsatisfying process at best for everyone. The presenter tried to salvage the situation by moving to Q&A, only to be informed that not only were we all left staring at Bill Gates, but that in the technical glitches all the participant questions had been lost. I signed off at that point.
Yes, I felt for the presenter. I’ve also had circumstances in which the best of plans for service delivery don’t unfold as intended.
I fully expected an acknowledgement email from the presenter (he had my email address from my registration) or at least an apologetic reference in his next blog post. The days went by and the emails for his blog came into my mailbox with no reference to the webinar.
This morning a broadcast email arrived, announcing that the same webinar would take place today, inviting me to sign up. I won’t be.
And the reason is not for the glitches. It’s for the same reason innovation specialists cite as why nothing often happens after a corporate brainstorming session. The presenter didn’t take ownership of his own webinar and its outcomes.
Whether it’s our technology, our logistics or the limits of the information we have that causes disruptions in service, we own the outcomes. And if we’re wise, we also see these glitches as an innovative opportunity to demonstrate our integrity and our commitment to seeing the customer’s or user’s point of view. All it takes is an acknowledgement, an apology, a good faith effort to make it right. That’s also how we create lasting relationships.
We’re all human. We all make mistakes, and we understand that stuff happens. But we can’t move our business and customer relationships beyond the stuff that happens until we own our outcomes – our best as well as those that go awry.
My take-away from the webinar incident wasn’t the content the presenter intended. What he provided is a vivid reminder of how my clients and colleagues can feel if I mess up and don’t acknowledge it. A sincere apology may not be the most innovative customer service effort. But it’s often one of the most effective.
The Greeks knew it. The Trojans learned the hard way. From its political and military origins thousands of years ago through the current business climate, strategy – how to develop it, execute it, out-position your competition with it, achieve results with it – is essential to leadership, organizational and market success. Results matter more than ever to the executives, managers and boards who are asking these questions about strategy and expecting more from the strategy development process.
In my work with companies on strategy development and facilitating the strategic planning process, it’s not unusual to find that asking these probing questions about strategy often reveals long-held and unexamined assumptions about the process. Here are two of them:
Assumption #1: Strategic planning is a logical and intellectual process. That’s half the story. The strategic planning/strategy development process is logic-driven, and also very emotionally influenced. Strategic planning involves people – individuals and teams who have a stake in the outcomes. Some may initially see the process in terms of an evaluation of their performance, as a challenge to the ways they’ve become accustomed to working, or as a change in how they perceive the organization and their perceived value within it.
The variations on these perceptions are as numerous as the people who hold them. When only the logic of the process is assumed and the emotional perceptions are not acknowledged, the collaborative benefits and outcomes of strategic planning suffer. Participants may begin to contribute defensively and competitively. The process can be compromised by hidden agenda, or take on a tone of risk management. And yes, these unintended consequences are avoidable. Skillful facilitation utilizing an approach that recognizes and incorporates the emotional capacity of the process can make a significant difference in the outcomes.
Which leads to a second assumption.
Assumption #2: Classic strategic planning is the only valid approach. Classic business strategic planning evolved in the 1950’s and classic assessment and analytical tools such as SWOT developed during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The classic approach can be effective. It’s also one of many approaches. I sat down recently with a board chairman and company president to discuss the organization’s upcoming planning retreat. When I suggested that the company could consider a range of options in addition to a classic approach, they both visibly relaxed and the president commented, “I didn’t realize we could do this in other ways. Tell us more.”
The optimal approach and tools for strategy development depend upon the company or entity, its current situations and market position, a range of internal factors and management’s expected outcomes from the process. I frequently find that exploring a range of approaches to the process is energizing for prospects and clients, because they often aren’t aware that they have options. They do.
Strategic planning is big thinking about the big picture, true. And again, it’s only part of the story. The ability of participants to define, refine and focus on the results-yielding core strategy is one of the primary characteristics of a successful process. That focus doesn’t end with the retreat, the whiteboard transcripts and the carefully bound strategic plan. It’s an ongoing and constantly evolving process. As the Greeks knew.
In his book Great Work, Great Career, Stephen Covey describes Charles Handy, the Irish oil executive-turned-academic-turned-social and organizational philosopher and author, waking up one morning and deciding that this was the day he was Going Portfolio. That pivotal morning marked the moment when Handy’s full time, professional attention would no longer be devoted to one prescribed job in one organization. Handy himself became the professional he has described in his books and lectures: the portfolio careerist.
In many respects, consulting is the ultimate portfolio career. At its results-enabling best, consulting combines a Renaissance Person’s broad expertise with fluid engagement in overlapping business and buyer communities. Both Covey and Handy suggest that all professionals, regardless of their job description or employer, are eventually moving into an increasingly portfolio-based business environment.
It’s not just individuals that are affected by a portfolio business environment. What about the business units and departments in a company? How do they Go Portfolio?
Deciding to Go Portfolio, it seems to me, is only the first step. The greatest gains are arguably in managing what’s in the portfolio once you’ve gone there. Particularly for a unit in a company. When a business unit identifies a previously undefined market segment, it’s on its way to Going Portfolio. The sales team who understands that they may need to revise their business development strategy, and the sales skills that go with it, is beginning to manage its portfolio. When we figure out how to first sustain and then shift our focus from one element of our portfolio to another, as opposed to multi-tasking, we are actively managing our portfolio for both results and personal satisfaction.
In this dynamic business environment, we are all going portfolio. And since our skills and the community/clients/customers we serve with them are in a constantly fluctuating balance, we’re also responsible for managing our portfolios.
What’s in your portfolio?
I ran into a business acquaintance recently, the founder and CEO of a successful company, at a networking event. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months so we spent some time catching up on our respective businesses and the activities of our mutual acquaintances.
John mentioned that Derek, an inveterate pitchman we both had known for years, had recently contacted him once again. Derek was involved in yet another business and had another proposal for John. “Did you consider it?” I asked. John shook his head. “Why not?”
John stammered something about the services not being a fit for his company and being too busy while I listened in silence. Then he shrugged, palms up, and sighed, “Because there’s no there, there.”
John had articulated a hard truth. And it spoke volumes about the difference between a pitch and a meaningful business dialogue. This kind of candor doesn’t often surface in casual conversations, and the fact that it did set me to thinking. What does it mean to have there, there?
No there means you’re not here. If a prospective client, customer or business partner thinks that you have no there, it means they’re not willing to invest the time, energy and ultimately their hard-earned cash to work with you.
It’s often said that every business relationship involves give and take. I prefer to think of it as an exchange. If what you bring to that exchange isn’t a blend of substance, character, and space for the prospect’s point of view, then there’s no there, there. And no chance to develop the mutual trust that keeps the there there for both of you.
Of course it’s important to craft a simple and compelling statement of the value your product or service brings to the exchanges you have with prospects, clients and customers. But when a prospect starts to feel like Dorothy wishing for a little dog to pull back the Great Oz’s curtain and reveal the person behind it, perhaps it’s time to dig deeper than the pitch.
Where’s your there?
During our senior year Jamie was accepted into a Master’s program at an Ivy League school to study yes, more philosophy. People – students, friends of his parents and career counselors – frequently asked him what he planned to do with his degrees when he “got out.”
Ever the humorist, Jamie would reply that he planned to work in the Truth Department of a major corporation. He always got a laugh.
Jamie’s response, like the jokes about liberal arts majors who become coffee baristas or learn to ask “Do you want fries with that?” was his way of acknowledging that studying great thinkers like Kant and Hegel probably wasn’t a career track to corporate success.
Lately, though, Jamie’s quip has come to my mind more than once. All companies can face crises, from a gap in customer service that affects a few buyers or a major misstep with global consequences. When companies find themselves in crisis and attempt to keep control with a traditional “one voice” approach, the public reaction is often to question their credibility and integrity. Regardless of our preferences, social media has transformed our branding and messages from one-way, one-voice control to an open-ended, multi-voice process of listening, commenting and opinion sharing.
Jamie never imagined the rise of social media when he responded to the question of what he planned to do when he got out. But there’s a kernel of truth in his reply. Social media does require us all – from large corporations to small companies and individuals – to interact with credibility and integrity when we “get out” into multi-voice social communities to listen, blog, post, comment or tweet. That’s the “Truth Department” we all carry around inside us.
We’ve all heard the mantra. And when we read it or hear it after a long day, we wonder if there’s a shortcut or workaround we’ve missed. Is there a cadre of smart people out there that manage to do in three hours what others need eight, or ten, or twelve hours to complete? Is there a silver bullet that they know about?
Truth is, working smart and working hard is more than simply working long hours. The smartest professionals are those who take the time to figure out what their smart work is, and then work hard at the smart work. One of the best “smart workers” I’ve ever known was a former boss who had laser focus on his goals. All of Tom’s activity was centered on two things: Producing results that grew the company, and building positive relationships with the people he interacted with while producing those results.
One of the key lessons he taught me and everyone else in our business unit was to ask questions. How will this activity produce results for the company? With whom do I need to collaborate or communicate? What effect will this activity have on our customers? My colleagues? Our partners and stakeholders? Is this the best use of my time right now?
I worked hard during those years I spent in Tom’s business unit – and I’m grateful for all that hard work. I learned to work smarter because I learned to benchmark the value of my activity.
Smarter, harder. It’s not a question of being busy or working less. It’s the return you get on your time, measured in results and relationships. It’s working hard on the smart stuff.
One day his church’s pastor invited him to stop by the rectory that weekend and meet a nun who was serving her vocation in India. Bill was busy and never quite found the time to stop by that weekend.
It’s a testament to Bill’s character that he still tells that story of a missed opportunity. And there are business parallels in his experience.
Sometimes opportunity knocks on the company door – in the form of an idea, a connection that gets made, a realization that we need to focus on a strategy or process. Listening to that knock on the door can change everything. But opportunity doesn’t always knock. Sometimes it just slips in and waits expectantly for us to notice, ask questions and commit to working on our company instead of in it.
When we read a survey on sales trends, and we don’t explore our own numbers and practices, we let opportunity slip away.
When we set growth goals for our business and don’t define the implementation to make them achievable, we let opportunity slip away.
When we turn down a meeting that could lead to new insights and contacts, we let opportunity slip away.
Opportunity doesn’t always knock. And if we don’t notice opportunity, it just slips away, perhaps to visit a competitor.
Recently I attended a corporate meeting and in the dozens of conversations that took place over two days, I took some time to observe the participants. On the surface, they seemed to be having good conversations, with lots of jokes and loud laughter. But their subtexts revealed more. Often they interrupted each other in mid-sentence. Some people seemed not to be listening at all but rather prowling for the small pause that would allow them to take back the floor. And most of what everyone had to say started with the word I. They behaved like normal people – like most of us would in a similar situation. Intent on communicating, they never really saw one another’s points of view.
That meeting made me think about my first business trip to Japan.
I was in Tokyo to negotiate the terms of a strategic alliance. I was travelling with a Japanese-American consultant to my organization, who functioned as a liaison and translator. For our first night in Tokyo we stayed in the home of his cousin. A single woman in her forties, Takayo was a realtor in Tokyo who spoke some English and had studied French. My Japanese was limited to polite phrases that were useful in passing interactions but not so useful for a true conversation: comments about the weather, where I would be travelling, how long I’d been in Tokyo, yes I liked Japanese food. We managed to speak a hybrid language of our own over dinner, a mix of deconstructed English with some French thrown in and a little Japanese here and there, spiced with unintentional humor.
After dinner I reflected on our conversation. And as I thought about what Takayo had told me about herself and asked about me, I realized that rarely had she used the word “I” in speaking to me. It was as if she had held up a mirror to our conversation. Only instead of admiring herself in the mirror, she reflected back everything she said in terms of its relevance to me and what I had said.
We were using the same words but we weren’t really speaking the same language. I was speaking I to You and she was speaking You to You.
You to You communication is part of Japanese culture and it taught me an important lesson early in my career: relevance is a business essential, regardless of the culture.
Through her interaction with me, Takayo demonstrated that in forming business relationships – whether they are with partners, prospective customers or the Web 2.0 audience that influences perceptions of our brands – responding is more than expressing our own views. It’s listening first and then expressing our views in a way that reflects and incorporates the viewpoints of those on the receiving end. That’s You to You. And that’s as relevant in Texas or the digital world as it is in Tokyo.
There’s a Vietnamese restaurant near one of my client’s office and we frequently meet there for lunch. We go there so often that we have a regular table and a regular order and Tuan, the owner, greets us by name.
The restaurant opened about a year ago and I came to see it as a midday haven from multitasking. It’s located in a renovated warehouse, with blond hardwood floors and exposed brick walls. The dining space is separated by artfully knotted gauze curtains and Vietnamese silk-on-oil paintings. No adrenaline rush here. We and the handful of other regular diners found ourselves speaking almost in whispers, not wanting to disrupt the peaceful environment.
For the first 6 months or so my client and I would leave Tuan’s place with the same reflections: how much we liked the restaurant and Tuan, how worried we were that if his business didn’t pick up we might be looking for a new lunch spot, what a shame that would be.
A few weeks ago we were back at Tuan’s and during a lull in our shop talk I became aware that the restaurant’s vibe seemed different. The décor and food were unchanged but the dining areas were buzzing.
Nearly every booth and table was occupied. The clientele was a mix of hip young professionals, students and seasoned business types engaged in audible, animated conversation.
I noticed that Tuan had made two changes in his operation. He installed a buffet noodle bar which was constantly ringed with diners. Gone was the Vietnamese background music, replaced with Anglo soft rock. Those relatively minor changes had clearly made a big difference in his results.
I was happy for Tuan that business was good although part of me missed the way things used to be. When he stopped at our table to thank us for coming in, I congratulated Tuan. He didn’t seem like the rock music type and so I asked him if he missed his Vietnamese music. Palms up, he shrugged and smiled that gracious smile. “Same one, same other,” he said. “People like, so I change.”
Spoken like a true entrepreneur. Determined to thrive, not just survive , Tuan took his cues from his customers, made a few minor tweaks and achieved the results he wanted. The original restaurant culture he had created was familiar and comfortable for him, but when it didn’t work for his customers, he adapted.
I left Tuan’s place that day with more than just a pleasant lunch. Tuan reminded me that being humble and open are business values. Despite that website tab we all use, our companies are not About Us. And there’s a big difference between being consistent and being rigid. Our companies can become so focused on “the way we do things” that we sometimes overlook the fact that processes and strategy aren’t etched in stone. They work best when both they and we are adaptable and flexible, focused on our relationships with our customers.
There’s a lot to be learned from observing Tuan. And while you’re there, try number 23.
