A study by the ES Research Group notes that 30% of sales people are not suited for their jobs. That bears repeating. 30% of sales people are not suited for their jobs. Why? Because they lack critical behavioral traits such as self-motivation, intelligence, persuasiveness, resilience and curiosity.  These personality traits, which correlate closely with sales ability, occur in only 20% of the population according to Geoffrey James of the Sales Machine. 

 

So let’s net this out. Professional selling requires characteristics that most people do not possess and a whole lot of people who call themselves sales reps don’t have these characteristics. This is why 4% of the country's salespeople sell 94% of the goods and services.* 

A few months ago I volunteered to help a struggling non-profit put together a program for an event they were sponsoring. This hardworking group of volunteers didn't understand the complexity of laying out a 48 page book, getting it printed, perfect bound and delivered on time for the event so I stepped in. My company put the book together gratis, found a vendor for both the print and the perfect binding and made sure it looked great and was delivered on time.  We did our part for free and they paid for the printing but since we knew where to go, they got a better price than they would have and the non -profit was able to retain more of the proceeds to help the organization. 

Domino’s Pizza has created the holy grail of buzz with their new ad campaign. In the spots they basically own up to the fact that their pizza well…sort of sucked. So they’ve changed everything, the sauce, the crust, the cheese and they are offering a whale of a deal to get the masses to try them again. It’s always refreshing when corporate America tells the truth and Dominos does a pretty good job of sharing what they heard and how it made them feel demonstrating the impetus behind the revamped product.

Nearly 90,000 Print Industry Employees lost their jobs in 2009 (footnote 1)
Trends indicate almost 7,000 less printing establishments by end of 2010 (footnote 2)
Online advertising to pass print ad spend by 2011 (footnote 3)
1 Trillion Unique URLs on the Web (footnote 4)

 

This industry is rapidly changing, and from my vantage point it will be very difficult for companies under $5m to survive if they don’t change to meet the challenges and opportunities. They will not have the critical mass to compete in an industry that is becoming increasingly price driven. Their size makes it hard, if not impossible, to invest in the automation needed to profitably produce print at a price the market will bear. Add the expense of a sales team that are little more than order takers and you have a going out of business strategy. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8Z-dkI4QLQ

…slam their head down in the water but if they don’t take a drink, what then?

 

Years ago I worked for a man who had an unending supply of great ideas. As a leader though, he couldn’t put together a team who could execute his ideas. I knew the wheels were off the bus, but I couldn’t figure out how to convince him of the impending danger. As my warnings grew stronger and more urgent, (read emotional) his ability to listen or react grew weaker. Unlike Chicken Little, the sky eventually fell on us, and it wasn’t pretty.

 

I vowed that should I be faced with a similar situation in the future I would keep my emotions in check. I would present facts in an unemotional assessment of the situation in order to persuade and then help to develop and execute a plan to change the outcome. 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygpkg__d2XY

There’s a concept in Blue Ocean Strategy, one of my favorite books, called value innovation. To create value innovation, companies must orient themselves to deliver a “leap in value” for both themselves and their customers. 

 

Most organizations are satisfied to compete in a red ocean stained with the blood of those who came before them and swim there now. They are ensnared by the structures of the way things have always been done. 

 

Value innovation is about breaking free of those restraints, taking a fresh look at the needs of people and constructing something new that transcends current offerings. To accomplish this, you have to challenge everything about the way you do business today…including your marketing.  

 

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about my daughter’s entrepreneurial instincts. Since the age of eight, she has demonstrated an uncanny sense of strategy and marketing. At 15, she is flexing her management muscles through quick decision-making on behalf of the greater good. 

 

In a recent school project, the class was instructed to develop a product and bring it to market. The class is taught by a wonderfully creative educator and covers culinary careers and nutrition. My daughter, always the planner, thought the nutrition part of the class might help her keep her 5’3” frame in tip-top shape for her major love, fast-pitch softball. 

 

The teacher broke the class into groups and the students began their planning. After a few minutes of chaos and fearing the worst in terms of her grade, my daughter took over leadership of her team. They came up with a product and began planning their “go-to-market” strategy. The team had to produce their product, sell it on the open market represented by the rest of the class and end up with profit at the end of the exercise. The higher the profit, the better the plan and its execution.

 

I’m starting to think I ought to get my daughter Maggie to be my business mentor. She has better instincts than her mom and none of the baggage.  

Maggie, now almost 15, demonstrated these instincts at the tender age of seven when she started her first business. Like many seven-year-olds, she liked both eating candy and painting her fingernails. She hatched a plan to open a business called Sugar and Style where girls from the neighborhood could buy candy while getting a manicure. The young girls in our Midlothian cul-de-sac far outnumbered the boys so she understood her demographics.  

Maggie is an extremely enthusiastic kid so I’m used to the excited phone calls where 10 sentences of detail spill out before I even realize who is on the end of the line. As this business plan developed, I received one of these phone calls with a request to come home IMMEDIATELY because she had noticed that the PaperTown store at the intersection of Huguenot and Robious roads had closed. She thought this would make an ideal location for her new business venture. Seeing this as a teaching moment, I explained that the owner of the shopping center would charge her rent for the space. She asked me how much, I guessed and said $2,000 a month. She told me that was stupid because she wouldn’t make enough money for herself if she had to pay a landlord $2,000 a month. She had the balance sheet logics down.