E-Advice: E-mail Know-How

We use e-mail every day, but how many of us really know how to write a good e-mail? You'll lose a lot in translation if you aren't careful. The new book Send is the Elements of Style for e-mail. Here are some tips to keep your e-mail communication accurate.

1. Subject lines
Don't leave them blank, and don't let them be ambiguous. A subject line is like a headline, and should act as a summary to the body of the e-mail. If the subject of the e-mail changes, update the subject line accordingly. This will help the recipient determine whether the e-mail needs immediate attention.

2. Attachments
No one likes opening an attachment when they have ten other things on their agenda. When possible, paste the information to the body of the e-mail instead.

3. Urgent
Tagging your e-mail as urgent is a nuisance to the sender. The importance of your e-mail should be made clear without such tags. Save the "high importance" tags for very rare occasions. You don't want to cry wolf.

4. Introductions
When addressing e-mails to people you don't know, use Mr. and Ms. (never Mrs.). But don't include their first name, as it comes off as awkward and forced. This way you stay professional and avoid offending anyone. If they use their first name in their replies, you can then switch to a more informal greeting.

5. Mirror:
Write back in the style of the sender. If someone sends you a formal e-mail that ends with a question, it's best not to reply with "cool, that works for me." E-mails should be brief but make sure you cover all the information the sender is asking for.

6. Style
Don't annoy your recipient with an e-mail in all caps or he may think you are yelling or are angry. Also make sure you e-mails always look professional and avoid crazy fonts.

From the E-Business Newsletter

By Rebecca Aronauer

Better Sales Lead Generation

Building lasting business relationships and effectively marketing your brand is important to maintaining a loyal client base. But with so many new communication media out there, your company will never reach its full growth potential if you rely on a single lead-generation technique. That's why most of today's fastest growing b-to-b companies have a complete arsenal of tools at their fingertips to use at any given time.

Here are eight proven b-to-b lead-generation techniques gleaned from the strategies of more than 170 successful companies:

1. Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing underlies all the "sales-lead-generation-success" methods. It specifically refers to cultivating a personal, sales-winning relationship with your prospects. By creating a personalized relationship with your clients from the onset, you can develop long-term relationships rather than individual transactions. Make sure to always keep in touch with your prospects via a series of ongoing communications throughout your prospective customers' consideration process. It will help you win sales on the first try—and you'll also pick up the leads the competition dropped on the table.

2. Complementary Partner Referrals
Seek out non-competing companies who interact with the same target clients and join forces with them. Teaming up with complementary partners will instantly increase your lead-generation pool with the best qualified leads, meaning your team won't be wasting time and effort on disinterested prospects. Of all the lead-generation programs available to you, complementary partner referral programs can generate the highest qualified b-to-b sales leads.

3. Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Strategies
Business buyers are more sophisticated and harder to reach than ever. In addition to, or perhaps instead of, launching print or radio campaigns, consider the Web for your marketing efforts. Studies show that about 90 percent of business buyers prefer to find solutions for their service and product needs on the Web. Therefore it's critical to have a well-tuned lead-generation program that includes search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet marketing strategies to attract prospects at the beginning of their buying cycle. The sooner they see your company's presence in the market, the more likely they'll be to remember you.

4. Telemarketing
Although many people despise the thought of telemarketing, it can be a very effective lead-generation tool—when executed properly. Telemarketing is a very personal marketing technique that is not only cost-effective, but efficient, especially when compared to field selling. When you use field sales, you can reach about four or five decision-makers a day. By including telemarketing in your lead-generation plan, you can reach up to 30 decision-makers a day.

5. E-mail Publications
The best way to establish your company as an industry leader and legitimize your professional expertise is to create your own company e-mail newsletter. By sending industry news and tips to prospects in your market, you will be on their minds more often than your competition, especially if you ensure the material in the newsletters is actually objective and useful. Eventually this added exposure will be key to transforming leads into sales.

6. Direct Mail
While there is an entire industry of people who are dedicated to b-to-b selling through direct marketing, most sales and business professionals do not know how to effectively and efficiently use this technique. To avoid a common complaint—that salespeople receive very little response after spending thousands on full-color marketing materials—do a little tweaking to make a big difference. The best place to start revamping your direct response marketing is by determining who your best customers are and then targeting your efforts at companies and individuals who are similar in nature.

7. Print Advertising
Print is far from dead—in fact it can be a highly effective lead generation medium. The key is to remember that you need to focus your message on the benefits and applications of your products or services. Make sure the layout and design of your ads enhance your company's image effectively, and be selective when it comes to choosing the publications that deliver directly to your target audience.

8. Event Marketing
Whether you do it live, through the telephone or via the Web, seminars and workshops are a great marketing tool. The majority of people who attend your seminar will already have an interest in the information you are presenting, and there's a good percentage that are in need of your product or service. It's the perfect way to demonstrate your company's knowledge and expertise as well as market to a highly targeted group of individuals.


M. H. "Mac" McIntosh is a leading business-to-business marketing consultant with more than 20 years of advertising, marketing and sales experience. Get his "Free Sales Lead Report" newsletter at www.sales-lead-experts.com.

Lead Generator: Making Lists Effective

Got a prospect list a mile long? That's great, unless 80 percent of them are duds. Mike Schultz, principal at Wellesley Hills Group, a management and marketing consultancy in Framingham, Mass., offers tips on making tired lists more effective:

Consider Contacts

For starters, Schultz says, you should ask yourself if a prospect is even likely to buy right now and if you have the right contacts to get to a decision maker. If not, move on.

Boot the Blow-Offs

Got a contact that's kept you on a string for nine months or hasn't returned your calls after you've left messages three times? Kick them to the curb, Schultz says.

Focus on Margins

Focus on the top 25 percent of prospects who are likely to deliver the highest margins for your company—even if it's a smaller firm.

Burn Your Boat!

By John Boe

I believe that the great NFL Hall of Fame coach, Vince Lombardi, had it right when he said, "The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor."

Do you agree with Lombardi or are you the type of person who has difficulty staying focused and keeping commitments? Do you allow the negative influences of fear, anxiety, self-doubt and worry to dominate your thinking and sabotage your results?

Sadly, most people fail to achieve their goals, not because they're lazy or lack self-motivation, but because they were never "fully committed" to succeed. I can't think of a single great achievement that has ever been attained without first a plan of action and then an unshakable commitment to its accomplishment.

Walt Disney was arguably one of the most creative dreamers and determined men of the 20th century. He understood the power of commitment and would frequently tell those around him, "When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably."

The ancient Greek warriors were both feared and respected by their enemies. In battle, the Greeks established a well-deserved reputation for their unsurpassed bravery and unshakable commitment to victory. The key to their overwhelming success on the battlefield had far more to do with how the Greek commanders motivated the warriors than it did with issues of tactics or training. The Greeks were master motivators who understood how to use a "dramatic demonstration" to infuse a spirit of commitment into the heart of every warrior.

Once the warriors had been offloaded from their boats onto their enemy's shore, the Greek commanders would shout out their first order, "Burn the boats!" The sight of burning boats removed any notion of retreat from their hearts and any thoughts of surrender from
their heads. Imagine the tremendous psychological impact on the
soldiers as they watched their boats being set to the torch. As the boats turned to ash and slipped quietly out of sight into the water, each man understood there was no turning back and the only way home was through victory.

In your sales career, your battles are not fought with weapons on foreign shores, but within the confines of your own mind. A truly committed salesperson does not have the luxury or the time for the self-indulgence of negative thinking. The true underlying motivation for all success is a deep and unwavering commitment to the task at hand. The sales profession is a demanding and challenging career, but it is also personally rewarding and financially lucrative for those who are fully committed to becoming successful.

If you are being pushed around mentally by thoughts of fear, anxiety, self-doubt and worry, it's time to "burn your boat" and become fully committed to your sales career!

John Boe presents a wide variety of motivational and sales-oriented keynotes and seminar programs for sales meetings and conventions. John is a nationally recognized sales trainer and business motivational speaker with an impeccable track record in the meeting industry. To have Boe speak at your next event, visit www.johnboe.com

Study: Users Sabatoge Presentations with PowerPoint

By Holly Dolezalek

Is PowerPoint evil? The jury's still out on that. But an Australian study suggests that it is being used in the most ineffective way possible.

A study at the University of New South Wales in Australia has revealed that the common practice of showing the same words on-screen that are being spoken out loud actually makes it harder to learn and retain the information. Since the typical use of PowerPoint involves this very practice, Professor John Sweller, an education professor at the university, told the Sydney Morning Herald that "the use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster."

The researchers found that the human brain processes information better when it is presented in verbal or printed form than when it is presented in both forms at the same time. So when you put up a list of bullet points on a slide and then go through them verbally, you'd be better off if your audience either ignored your slide or you.

Sweller developed his cognitive load theory in the 1980s. According to the theory, people learn best when the strain on their working memory (a collective term for the processes that temporarily store and manipulate information) is kept to a minimum. This allows them to move information from working memory into long-term memory. When cognitive load (the load on working memory) is too high, learning is more difficult.

Sweller notes that using a visual aid such as a chart is not the same kind of load, and that this is actually the best way to use PowerPoint. "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form," Sweller says. "But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."

Why Sales Managers Fail and What You Can Do About It

By Jacques Werth

Sales managers fail for two primary reasons:

1. They don't know how to manage their people

2. They don't rigorously implement effective selling processes.

Just as an engineering manager needs to be a pretty competent engineer, a sales manager needs to be a pretty competent salesperson. In both cases, however, their essential responsibility is to manage staff performance. Understanding modern management principles beyond a few readings of The One Minute Manager is critical.

Most engineering managers know that technology is evolving too quickly for them to keep up at the level of a functioning engineer. However, they do know enough about the latest technology to effectively manage the engineers deploying it.

In contrast to engineers, most sales managers believe that very little has changed in the selling since they became a manager. Therefore, they tend to manage their people in the same way that they used to sell. However, in the last 20 years, the markets for every product and service have changed dramatically. Information overload, the Internet, massive communications, increased competition, more well-informed prospects, brain science and new sales channels have affected all businesses.

Top salespeople have developed new sales processes to address and take advantage of those changing market conditions. Most other reasonably successful salespeople have not.

The key is developing a sales process that is very different from the one that you are now using. Talk to sales training companies, and look for a company that will customize and optimize the selling process for your company and industry. If you find one that fits your current sales beliefs, one that you are instantly comfortable with, keep on looking. Heed the title of Marshall Goldsmith's book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.

Here are 10 reasons salespeople fail, and what you can do about it.

1. Most sales managers don't know how to use highly effective tools to recruit and train salespeople that will perform well in their organization. Therefore, they often hire salespeople who are incompatible with their company's culture and lack the appropriate sales aptitudes for their industry.

How to hire the right people: Contract with a service agency that will benchmark you and your best salespeople, find candidates with similar aptitudes, and select salespeople most compatible with your management style. For about one weeks pay, you can greatly decrease costly hiring mistakes.

2. Most sales managers don't have a highly effective, uniform sales process for their company's products and services. They advocate "best selling practices" based upon past market conditions and obsolete sales strategies. Therefore, they focus on the wrong metrics, which are inevitably flawed.

What to do: Adapt a step-by-step, sales process that is customized for your products, services and markets. It must include exactly what to do when and how to do it. That kind of sales process makes tracking, coaching and realistic quantification easy. Thus, it enables continuous improvement of every step of the sales process.

3. Most sales managers don't know how to train, supervise and track their salespeople's performance to optimize their sales effectiveness.

How to keep salespeople on track: Maintain a uniform and consistent process, monitoring and benchmarking all sales activity throughout the sales process.

4. Most sales managers lack skills in target marketing and prospecting. Therefore, their salespeople waste most of their time with prospects who will not buy.

How to focus on likely buyers: Set demographic, situational and attitude standards for the type of prospects that are most likely to buy. Develop criteria based upon booked business.

5. Most sales managers believe that, "You can't close if you don't get in front of prospects." Their salespeople go on as many appointments as possible, spending far more time with prospects who will not buy than with those that will buy.

How to stop wasting time with the wrong prospects: Insist that salespeople find and make appointments only with highly qualified prospects.

6. Most sales managers believe that salespeople should be able to convince prospects to buy. Therefore, they have their salespeople try to persuade prospects to buy when they are merely "interested." It doesn't seem to occur to them that their salespeople cannot consistently convince people to do anything they don't already want to do.

How to stop losing at the "persuasion game": Abandon the game altogether—there is no way to consistently win. Insist that your salespeople treat prospects with trust and respect, utilize an effective sales process, and abandon all forms of persuasion, false urgency and manipulation.

7. Most sales managers don't know the difference between qualification and disqualification. Therefore, their salespeople, who are great at qualifying, create sales resistance by attempting to sell to prospects when they are not ready to buy. That lengthens the sales cycle and decreases their closing rates.

How to shorten the sales cycle: Insist that salespeople only make appointments with prospects that are ready to buy or specify. They should temporarily disqualify all others. Closing rates will increase dramatically.

8. Most sales managers do not understand how the human mind works, and how it accepts or rejects information. Salespeople typically spew features and benefits in terms of industry jargon.

How to communicate with prospects: Use words that prospects can readily understand. Provide only the most pertinent information. Prospects will feel more motivated to keep listening, they will absorb and retain more information, and they will be more actively engaged in the sales process.

9. Most sales managers believe that most prospects make logical buying decisions. If that were true, enrolling in logic courses would be the path to success in sales.

How to really get through to prospects: Engage prospects emotionally. Recent studies in brain science have revealed that most important decisions are made in the part of the brain that deals with emotions. Incorporate that knowledge into the selling process. That results in higher closing rates.

10. Most sales managers don't know how to get salespeople past their fears. Therefore, most of their salespeople stay in their comfort zones by avoiding changes that will provide improvements.

How to get salespeople to embrace change: Teach them to accept the reality that change causes fear and discomfort; that acceptance will enable them to do what is uncomfortable and get over it quickly.

Jacques Werth studies the sales performance processes of the top 1 percent of salespeople in many different industries. He knows what they do that most "reasonably successful" salespeople don't do. That resulted in the High Probability Selling process. The book High Probability Selling has been a best seller since 1999. Visit www.highprobsell.com.

Star Search: Prevent Poaching

"We feel like we're a farm team for our competitors."

That's how a sales manager described his turnover problem to Al Rainaldi, executive vice president of Profiles International, a global human resources consulting firm in Waco, Texas. Competitors poached the manager's team so frequently that the company ended up hiring 4,000 salespeople a year to maintain a team of 2,000. Instead of advising the firm to sweeten its compensation package, Rainaldi encouraged managers to take a closer look at top salespeople. He profiled the top 25 percent of performers, identifying the personality traits, occupational interests, learning styles, and behaviors that made them jibe with the job and company. That profile guided all future hiring decisions. He also set up an evaluation system that allowed salespeople to grade managers—without fear of retribution—on 18 leadership competencies.

In three years, the company sliced its turnover by more than half. "Poaching is becoming more prevalent," Rainaldi says. "If you want to slow that trend, you have to do a much better job of who you select in the first place."

Build Your Business, Talk Less

By Michele Marchetti

Effective communication is an underrated sales tool. Get your salespeople to stop talking and start listening, and buyers will view these brand representatives as anomalies in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

If this sounds like a lesson for beginners, think again. Triax Pharmaceuticals launched two years ago on the premise of providing dermatologists with an offering that would stand out from the pack. The company pairs its drugs with skincare products, so an acne cream is sold with a cleanser and moisturizer. "Because we're unique, I wanted our salespeople to be unique," says Leonard L. Mazur, chief operating officer of the firm in Cranford, N.J. That distinction lies in how Triax salespeople interact with their customers.

Jerry Acuff, who is leading Triax's training, believes better communication starts with a shift in mindset. He encourages salespeople to think like buyers, not sellers. "If you begin to think like a buyer, you aren't interested in selling," says Acuff, CEO of Delta Point, a sales training firm in Scottsdale, Ariz. "You're interested in getting the customer to buy if there's a fit." The focus becomes finding out as much information as possible, an approach that even pros can undervalue. "What is it that all salespeople like to do? Talk, not listen—even successful seasoned salespeople," Mazur says.

One tip that resonated with Triax's team was to avoid the typical sales call introduction: "Hi, Doc, I'm here to talk to you about X, Y, Z products." Acuff advised setting themselves apart, by starting the appointment with the stated goal of learning more about the doctor's practice. When Gary Talarico, Triax's senior vice president, sales, asked for feedback on this strategy, one salesperson wrote back saying a doctor responded to questions about his practice by saying thank you. "What for?" the salesperson asked. "For realizing that not every product is good for every patient," the doctor replied.

Such reactions don't surprise Talarico, who attributes them to a disturbing trend: As competition for doctors' time increases, the reputation of the pharmaceutical rep decreases. And too much focus on call quotas can alienate both salespeople and their customers. "The stereotypical pharmaceutical salesperson delivers doughnuts and brings in lunch," Talarico says. "It isn't someone who makes a connection with a physician and gets to know him."

Triax's training shifts focus from the number of calls made or samples delivered to the quality of the salesperson's interaction with customers. It's a management style Talarico believes will not only set Triax apart, but will prevent sales-rep burnout. "The salesperson enjoys being in the office with the doctor," he says, "rather than sitting in the car, taking deep breaths and saying, 'I don't want to go in there.'"

Create Lasting Change and Achieve Greater Success At Work

"This year, I’m going to get that raise."

"I will get my desk organized once and for all."

"I'll have better work/life balance."

"I'll start that business I’ve always dreamed about."

At some point we've all vowed to make some big change—similar to the resolutions above. But by the time the rosy blush of good intentions wears off, the resolution gets pushed aside. Not because we don't still long to have what we want, but because we just don't know how to change.
Changing your behavior takes work.

Our brains have enormous "plasticity," meaning they can create new cells and pathways. But our brains create strong tendencies to do the same thing over and over.

Here's why:

The brain cells that fire together wire together. Meaning, they have a strong tendency to run the same program the next time. That's why lasting change takes lots of practice; you've got to create a pathway to the new options.

According to many brain scientists it can take six to nine months to change your behavior. Yet people continue to waste so much money on those seven-day miracle programs and then wonder why they have not experienced lasting change and greater success at work.

Here are the top three reasons why many business entrepreneurs and executives fail to change their behavior and achieve greater business success:

1. They've not yet realized that the change process is not about getting rid of bad habits. The pathway to your current behavior is there for life. Instead you want to focus on creating new, more positive habits that will positively affect your business. Even stopping doing something, like procrastinating, is really about creating a good new habit, starting sooner.

2. They fail to put external reminders in place, at least in the beginning. Unless you have a trigger from the outside like an email reminder, or a buddy it's very likely you'll keep defaulting to the old behavior because it’s automatic. That's also why it’s so important to be willing to start over no matter how often you blow it or get discouraged.

3. They're not concrete enough about what they want and are unrealistic about what they can reasonably ask themselves to change. Here's what an executive client of mine said he wanted to change in three months: "to be more positive with co-workers, staff and colleagues, to be more creative and productive and to take better care of myself." "How about create world peace while you're at it?" I replied. "And what does 'more' mean anyway? As this client demonstrated, we expect too much of ourselves and we expect to change overnight. When that doesn't happen, we resign ourselves to staying the same, convinced that we are hopeless, weak, or unmotivated. Which makes us even more stuck in a rut.

To truly change your behavior and achiever greater business success requires three things: desire, intent, and persistence. You have to identify what you desire enough to be willing to stick to. You have to make SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound) like "leave the computer at the office and don't look at the Blackberry after 9" rather than "having more balance." You need determination and persistence to try again no matter how many times you blow it.

Most importantly you need to avoid these top 10 pitfalls:

1. Being vague about what you want
2. Not making a serious commitment
3. Excuse-making—no time, wrong time..."The dog ate my homework..."
4. Unwilling to go through the awkward phase
5. Not setting up a tracking and reminder system
6. Expecting perfection and falling into guilt, shame, and regret
7. Trying to change by yourself
8. Telling yourself self-limiting rut stories
9. Not having backup plans
10. Turning slip-ups to give-ups

Armed with a new attitude and behavior, you can create lasting change and achieve greater success at work. When you have this invaluable tool in your arsenal, you'll be empowered to bring anything you want into reality. You'll become the master of your fate rather than the victim of old choices.

M.J. Ryan is an executive coach and the author of THIS YEAR I WILL…How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution or Make a Dream Come True. To receive a ton of free resources including free daily "I Will Power" e-mails designed to help you keep your promises and achieve greater business success this year, visit www.mj-ryan.com.

The Leader as Motivator

How do you motivate others? Should you even try? We've all had leaders who have decided that their employees need to be motivated, so they step in with emotional speeches, cute plaques, or possibly stringent reminders that our jobs are at risk—and all we can think is, "Hey, I'm motivated; just leave me alone so I can do my job." Or consider your typical employee-of-the-month program that's supposed to motivate people to excellence. Maybe somebody's version of structured praise works, but a lot of people find monthly celebrations corny or even become upset when they think it's their turn to be honored and they're not.

So now that you're actually a leader, when you think about motivation, you're sensitive to the fact that not every motivational technique bosses employ actually works—or worse still—is even necessary. What's a person to do—drop every technique and err in the direction of doing nothing for fear of constantly doing the wrong thing? Over the years we both have discovered several powerful principles that help inform when and how to motivate.

Never assume that people lack motivation. We often assume that if people aren't doing what we want them to do they aren't motivated. The truth is that people are motivated. They're motivated to do what they're currently doing more than they're motivated to do what you want them to do. When it comes to motivation, it's never a matter of lighting a fire; it's always a matter of helping people restructure their priorities. People already have the fire; it's our job to capture and direct it toward corporate objectives. It's important to understand this view because if you carry around a model that suggests that it's your job to motivate others, you tend to start giving speeches or making threats or creating plaques when you should be trying to figure out why others don't share your priorities.

So, how does one tap into existing motives to align behavior with corporate goals?

Understand the dangers of extrinsic motives. Don't rely exclusively on extrinsic methods to propel individuals to do what should be intrinsically rewarding. For years behavioral scientists have known that if you try to pile praise or extra money onto tasks that are intrinsically satisfying, it can take some of the joy out of the already joyful. For example, if you pay your kids for reading a book, they just might learn to read for the video game they get to buy from their earnings rather than for the enjoyment of reading. In a similar vein, when you pile extra benefits on a person or team that has just created a marvelous product, you can easily take the focus off the act of creation which in many ways is its own reward. At a time like this, words of praise or simply standing back and admiring the creation are likely to mean a lot more than any formal form of recognition.

The Leader as Motivator
March 22, 2007

By Kerry Patterson and Eric Patten

Best Sales Practices of 2007

When it comes to landing the big deal, many sales organizations have a blind spot. The "Miller Heiman 2007 Best Sales Practices" study unearths this common flaw. Too many companies chase every possibility without knowing when to say when.

"The dictum of 'No RFP shall go unanswered' is not a good idea," says Sam Reese, CEO of sales training firm Miller Heiman. Because of the time, energy and money involved in responding to an RFP, "If you didn't spec it," says Reese, "don't bid it."

Among the sales trends:

* Winning sales organizations are twice as likely to have a process for knowing when to stop investing in a large deal; 29 percent of winning sales organizations have such a process, compared with 15 percent overall.

* Is leadership connected to the sales process? The front line and the C-suite disagree. While 78 percent of executives believe they are actively involved in the sales process, only 49 percent of managers agree and just 43 percent of sales reps agree.

Reese suggests companies develop a system to manage CEO involvement in the sales process. Clearly, top brass should not go on every sales call. But at the same time, leadership should not be called in only when there is a problem. Instead, the C-suite should be tapped to participate more closely on the company's strategic accounts.

March 05, 2007
From the Performance Newsletter

Promote Productivity in Your Workplace

Employees slumped in their chairs, IM'ing instead of working? In case your office is more chat room than workplace these days, Alex Somos, co-founder of Guelph, Ontario, Canada-based consultancy Juice Inc. has some ideas:

Employees need to understand an organization's measurable objectives, Somos points out. Once they grasp those goals, your leaders will be able to establish processes and systems to support the outcomes your company is after.

Don't overlook what's happening inside employees: "The first response from people is generally an emotional one," he says. "The ability for managers and leaders to understand the feelings economy can create unprecedented results."

You also want to make sure employees stay focused. Somos says to recognize the symptoms of "corporate ADD," such as disorganization and distraction.

Listen to what employees have to say. "The higher up a person becomes in an organization, the less they hear about what's really going on," he explains, "CEOs rarely hear the candid truth, and if they do, it is sanitized and couched, without the real message getting through." So no dilly-dallying…or holding back.

March 05, 2007

By Margery Weinstein

No Motivation? It's Costing Your Company

Motivation is not enough. If you motivate an idiot, all you have is a motivated idiot.

Education alone is not enough either. Many "educated" individuals achieve very little on or off the job. They know what to do, and they know how to do it. The problem is they're not motivated enough to do much about it.

The Gallup organization once analyzed its massive database and determined that about half (55 percent) of today's employees have no enthusiasm for their work. Gallup labeled these people as "not engaged." In other words, they didn't have much loyalty to their organization or much desire to improve their job performance. It found that one in five (19 percent) were so negative about their jobs that they actually poisoned the workplace. In fact, when those employees called in sick, their organizations were more productive and efficient.

You may think, "Big deal. So what if some of our employees are not fully motivated?" But it is a big deal. Their lack of motivation is costing your organization big bucks.

Gallup estimated that if companies could get 3.7 percent more work out of each employee, the equivalent of 18 more minutes of work each eight-hour shift, the gross domestic product in the United States would swell by $355 billion, twice the GDP of Greece.

In today's competitive world, the really successful person is not only educated, but also motivated.

If you're educating or training your employees, but you're not motivating them to use what they learn, you're wasting your time and your money.

The famous author, William Butler Yeats, said it quite well: "Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire." A more contemporary figure, Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, says, "In the 21st century, organizations have to achieve peak performance through inspiration by unleashing the power of their people—not by teaching them, not by managing them, but by inspiring them."

If you educate and motivate your staff, you'll see an increase in productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and ultimately an increase in profits.

The Mercedes Benz plant in South Africa learned that. For a long time, the managers said their quality problems were due to an unmotivated, lazy workforce. That's why it took them two weeks to make a car that had 70 defects. By contrast, the Mercedes Benz plant in Europe could turn out a car in one week that had only 14 defects.

Then, a fortunate accident occurred. After a year of suffering with productivity and quality problems, it just so happened that a car was being made for liberator and president Nelson Mandela. No particular mention or fanfare was made. The vehicle simply went through the assembly line with a tag on it that read, "For Mr. Mandela."

To the managers' amazement, the car was completed in one week and had only 10 minor problems. A light bulb went off in the managers' heads. Their workers were capable. They were educated enough to do the job and do it well. They had simply not been motivated enough to give their very best. It was at that point that the Mercedes leadership learned that they had to engage their workers' hearts, not just their hands.

Are you doing that in your organization? You're buying your employees' time. Are you also getting their hearts and minds?

Education plus motivation will not only help your organization make more money, but it will also save you a lot of money.

When I was speaking at a construction company, the CEO asked his employees a question. He asked, "What does it cost to put a piece of plywood on the floor? How much does it cost in terms of time and money?" The employees answered, "About ten minutes and twenty dollars."

The CEO replied, "Yes and no." He said that's what it would have cost if the job had been done right. Unfortunately, an employee slapped down the plywood poorly and didn't cover a hole properly. The ensuing lawsuit cost the company $450,000. The employee was educated. He knew what to do, but he wasn't motivated enough to do it right.

Here are my top 3 tips to motivating and engaging your staff’s hearts:

1. Take a look at the training you're offering employees. Is it really motivating them? As a speaker, I find that many people in my audiences are quite well educated. They're filled with knowledge. However, sometimes they don't have enough motivation to use all the knowledge they possess.

2. Listen to what your colleagues are saying when they hear about an upcoming seminar. Do you hear groans and complaints about having to go? Or do you hear comments of excitement, as people can't wait for it to begin? What you hear will tell you how successful your past classes have been in motivating people.

3. If you're not hearing almost unanimous excitement, re-examine the education you're offering and re-examine those who are leading it. One bad class or one poor instructor can leave a negative legacy for a long time to come.

So you see...education without motivation serves no useful purpose.

By Alan Zimmerman

Best-selling author and Hall of Fame professional speaker, Dr. Alan Zimmerman has taught more than 1 million people in 48 states and 22 countries how to get and stay motivated all the time. For more information, visit, www.journeytotheextraordinary.com/.

Looking for more on motivation? Then check out these stories from Sales & Marketing Management's Ultimate Motivation Guide.

Wholly Motivated

A Will to Win: Rick Pitino on Motivation

The Prize Is Right for Ultimate Motivation

Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted

Avoid Getting Your E-mails Deleted

From the E-Business Newsletter

It's easy to fall into bad e-mailing habits because the whole format can begin to feel casual. By now everyone knows to avoid writing in all caps and using emoticons, but people often make the mistake of shooting off overly chummy professional e-mails and forming a devil-may-care disregard for grammar and punctuation. Simple rule of thumb: treat e-mail the same way you'd treat phoning someone. Get to the point, but be polite about it. Here is a look at some of the subtler nuances of the written word to help get your message across with style and grace:

1) Do An Introduction
Launching right into your request is the same as bursting into someone's office and making demands. "Please send me this report" is a cold opener, and it may lead someone to brush it off until they're good and ready to help. "Good morning, I hope you had a nice weekend" will ease your reader into a much more cooperative state.

2) Conduct a Read-Through
The software world has yet to invent a "Does This Sound Curt and Snippy?" check. This means your spelling and grammar may be perfect, but your tone may not be. An easy fix is to pretend you’re the receiver and read through the e-mail before sending it. You'll notice if a phrase rubs you the wrong way or seems surly.

3) Make the Subject Line Short and Snappy
Thinking up a subject line that will pull the receiver in and still fit in a small space is tough work. Don't make your subject line too vague or your reader may think its spam. Squeeze in too much information, and it will just confuse. Think of it as more of a reminder line, and write something that will help your reader easily pick it out of their inbox.

4) Avoid Long URLS
Ever get an e-mail that has a link to a Web site that goes on for 30 characters and gives no clue where it will take you? Be a better Web guide in your own e-mails by snipping a long URL down to a bite-sized one. Check out SnipURL.com, a free site where you paste in a long URL, give it a nickname, and click a button to generate a short, clear link. Your reader will appreciate it—and maybe even click through.

10 Ideas for Building Leadership from the Inside

When it comes to leadership bench strength, some company benches are dangerously light. These companies, from large corporations to small and mid-sized businesses, lack the talent needed to sustain or grow the business beyond its current level.

Some companies have depended on the same leaders for years without developing new leaders. Other companies have attempted to develop leaders, but there is no strategic or integrated approach. Still other companies have unexpectedly lost leaders they were counting on.

Each year, about 25 percent of managers in typical Fortune 500 companies change jobs. Most spend an average of four years in a given position. High potential leaders in mid-senior ranks move more frequently: every two to three years. These statistics demonstrate why companies must build solid leadership. Leaders must concentrate on developing their teams, getting the right people in the right jobs and producing results.

Job dissatisfaction is up. Some research indicates that one out of six people expects to quit a job in the next year. There are more opportunities for people to seek "greener pastures." Good leadership can influence a person’s decision to remain with a company.

10 Ideas for Building Your Leadership Bench Strength
If your company wants to build leadership strength, here are my top 10 suggestions:

1. Transfer knowledge and experience from the top.

Companies can capture the wisdom from experienced leaders to aid in educating and developing future leaders.

2. Build relationships across generations.

Leadership skills, talents and values differ across generations. Dealing with these differences constructively strengthens the overall leadership of your organization.

3. Strengthen leadership peer relationships.

Often, large organizations operate like a conglomeration of silos. It's easy for leaders to feel isolated in their roles. Helping leaders learn from each other and strengthening interpersonal relationships build needed peer support and camaraderie.

4. Develop succession plans.

Companies shouldn't wait until the need for a leader is obvious. Careful thought and planning in advance eases the transition.

5. Identify and nurture high-potential leaders.

Pay special attention to those employees possessing strong capabilities operating below the radar. They can be the most likely to leave.

6. Provide needed cross departmental learning and exposure.

With better knowledge of other departments and the organizational system as a whole, leaders can help your departments function more effectively.

7. Offer executive coaching/real-time learning.

Large companies are turning to fresh approaches to help executives learn, get feedback and gain support based on experiential learning. Many executives like the personalized approach.

8. Include more leaders in strategic planning.

In my work with leaders in many corporations across a broad based range of industries, I find one of their most common challenges is the need to think and act more strategically. Busy executives struggle to find the time to think about the issues they most want or care about. Their focus is diffused. Fostering strategic thinking early in a leader's career will serve him or her well in the future.

9. Provide mentoring or coaching support for new managers.

Along with a new title and pay raise, new managers should benefit by having stronger initial support through mentoring or coaching programs to help them get acclimated in their new roles.

10. Assess leadership talent.

There are a variety of assessments in the marketplace to help companies assess leadership skills, behaviors and values. These tools give leaders insights to help them increase their effectiveness.

A Bonus Leadership Idea: Open Dialogue

One of the greatest benefits to any organization is the opportunity to invite conversation about leadership across all levels. Start by asking questions like these:

• What does your company value most about its leadership?

• What improvement would you like to see?

• What is your company’s philosophy about leadership?

• What would outstanding leadership enable your company to do better?

• What leadership skills are critical for success?

• What is the impact of your company’s leadership on your employees? Your organization? Your market? The community?

As you address these kinds of questions, make a commitment to raise the bar on the level of leadership that exists in your organization. Build your bench strength, but don’t let leaders sit too long. They’re anxious to lead.

Gayle Lantz is president of WorkMatters, Inc. www.workmatters.com, an organizational development consulting firm that can help your company improve performance through consulting, coaching and speaking services. For more free tips on how to improve your leadership bench strength and improve your organization's performance, Sign up for WorkMatters Tips at workmatters.com/signup .

Determined to Succeed but Still Failing: Why?

You've probably heard the story of the golfer who steps up to the tee box and hits a wicked duck hook out of bounds.

Embarrassed, he reaches in his pocket, tees up another ball and again, hits another horrific twisting shot left out of bounds. Now angry and determined, he walks back to his bag, gets another ball, tees it up again, and duplicates his first two shots out of bounds to the left. In a fit of frustration, he slams his club into his bag, aggressively flings his club over his shoulders, mumbles some choice expletives to himself as he’s chipping his teeth, and heads up the fairway uncertain as to where he's going to drop a ball to make his next shot.

I use this as an analogy often in my talks with groups when discussing business professionals who are determined to be successful yet continue to fail. People like:

The determined sales executive who is working extremely hard and is not bringing in the sales and makes the decision to work even harder.

The determined manager who has a tight grip on her team but cannot get them to take their game to the next level, so she implements even more controls.
The determined leader whose company is not reaching their numbers and meets endlessly with his team to discuss solutions, but he keeps asking the same questions over and over again to the same people, never getting any outside opinions.

So, in these examples, what's missing? You certainly can't fault their determination, can you? These people possess many characteristics of a determined individual. Their persistence, assertiveness, and even aggressiveness are to be admired, right?

Well, yes and no.

You must be determined to rise to the challenge when faced with adversity, challenges, even hardship. However, determination alone doesn't solve problems.

In my daily work with others, I encounter many different executives in sales, operations, management, and leadership roles who are very determined people. They are successful on many levels, yet many are also struggling to breakthrough to new levels and have hit a wall in terms of how to get there. Usually it is because the very thing that got them this far, their determination, is missing a key ingredient: the willingness to make intelligent changes along the way.

People who make personal and business related breakthroughs of any significance are first and foremost determined individuals. However, inside their determination is the ability to learn from their actions and constantly change those actions until they reach their desired goal. Trial and error causes them to rethink and retool their strategies. Their determination is fueled by their willingness to make intelligent changes and adjustments along the way.

Top 5 Things You Must Do Today For Breakthrough Achievements Tomorrow and Beyond

1. Write down the goals you want to achieve and list the obstacles or roadblocks that keep you from reaching them. Be thorough.

2. Brainstorm three new ways to get around the roadblocks. Make sure they're things you’ve never tried before. Run your ideas by someone you have confidence in and see if they can add to or give you any new ideas. Better yet, meet with someone who has achieved the goal you are after. Be open-minded.

3. Turn the three best ideas into actual strategies and prioritize them with the most important coming first. Be bold and take some risks outside of your comfort zone.

4. Put tactics behind those three strategies. Be detailed on the little tasks you have to complete to implement your strategies.

5. Start with your best strategy and implement with pure determination. If that doesn't work, move on to the second one, and so on. If you've exhausted the three best ideas and still have not achieved your goal, make a list of three more ideas and repeat the process. Make intelligent changes.

Successful people have a “crack the code” mentality.

Successful business leader, executives, employees and people in general are forever making changes to their problem solving approaches until their problems are solved. Then, they move on to a new one. Like the golfer used in the example, if your duck hooking the ball off the tee—change your grip, your stance, your back swing, something. Don't do the same thing harder and expect different results. Fuel your determination with intelligent changes along the way.

By Chuck Mache
Chuck Mache has 25-plus years of experience in selling, managing, building and leading sales organizations regionally and internationally. Get his book, The Four Kinds of Sales People: Your Personal Path to Breakthrough Achievement, at www.chuckmache.com.

Be CRM Savvy

Missing the target with your customer relationship management strategy? Follow these five steps to success

By Julia Chang

In his work in CRM consulting, Yacov Wrocherinsky has seen some disasters. One of the most recent was a large manufacturing company that spent millions on a high-end CRM system, only to realize two years later that it wasn't providing accurate forecasts. "In the old days, people used to select a system based on a decision by the higher-ups, invest millions, and if the project didn't meet expectations, they would write it off," says Wrocherinsky, founder and CEO of Infinity Info Systems, a New York–based sales technology consulting firm. "Today, expectations are different."

That's because companies now are much smarter about CRM. They want faster implementation that produces value more quickly. And vendors have done a good job of mastering the basic features and making their offerings available at price points for companies of all sizes. But that doesn't make the process of implementing a CRM strategy any easier—especially since CRM is now expected to be part of broader business strategy.

One thing's for sure: CRM is at the top of managers' minds. In a survey of S&MM readers conducted by consulting firm The Alexander Group, 35 percent of sales leaders say they will work to improve CRM in 2007, making it the third most important operational priority for the new year. Not sure if you're going about it the right way? Follow these five steps to make your CRM strategy stays on point:

1. Set Clear Business Goals
By far, the biggest mistake companies make when it comes to CRM implementation is "not thinking through what customer-facing business outcomes they want to achieve," says William Band, principal analyst for IT research firm Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass. "You don't want to start using the technology without thinking about if you want to improve your cross-sell, up-sell, or call-center [capabilities]. You have to think through what business metrics you are trying to improve." Otherwise, how else will you measure success?

When Toshiba America Medical Systems (TAMS), a diagnostic imaging company based in Tustin, Calif., began a new CRM strategy, it first identified its business need: How to overcome flat growth. In the late 1990s, TAMS was losing customers as fast as it was gaining them, while the industry as a whole was growing about 10 percent.

After extensive customer surveys, TAMS realized the problem lay in its support and service. "We just didn't have a good understanding of what customers really valued and what they wanted us to do," says Cathy Wolfe, director of marketing services.

In order to improve service, the CRM system had to let reps know when a service problem was rearing so they could nip it in the bud. Now, TAMS surveys customers at the start and midway through their relationship with the company. The results are fed into a database managed by its Cognos CRM system, which uses the data to send e-mail alerts through Lotus Notes to managers when a customer is showing signs of dissatisfaction. "It's an early warning indicator," Wolfe says. "If you don't know about it, then you don't have the chance to address it. [Otherwise] you could have a customer mad for a period of time, bad-mouthing you, and you'd never know it."

The result of the CRM implementation? Since 2001, the company has enjoyed about a 25 percent year-over-year growth rate and has seen its name rise to the top in several independent customer-service rankings.

2. Assemble a Crack Team
If it involves the customer, it doesn't involve just sales—marketing, customer service, the call center, accounting and even back-office operations merit consideration when forming CRM strategy. Although the stakeholders can vary by company, most experts suggest representatives for Team CRM come from the following: sales, to provide end-user input; marketing; IT; an executive who can translate the CRM to bigger business strategy; accounting or finance; and dedicated administrative or sales support, if any.

It also helps, Wrocherinsky says, if the group includes a champion who has the respect of his peers and can spread the CRM gospel. It can be someone who is tech-savvy, but it can also be a "difficult or skeptical candidate," he says, "who once you convert, helps other people see the light."

Picking the right people as part of the team is essential, since these folks will be responsible for making sure budget, timing, and cost expectations are realistic, and will spend the most time with the vendors in the setup process. And make sure someone on the team has some decision-making authority, or the project could get stonewalled or mired in bureaucracy.

3. Do an IT Audit
For Bob Ritter, there's one simple rule to the tech side of implementing CRM software: Meet or exceed the requirements. The CRM vendor will tell you what the parameters are for the operating system, network, hardware, software, infrastructure, etc., but there are other hidden IT roadblocks. "Maybe someone hasn't rebooted their workstation in six weeks and their resources are a mess, or the drive is up to the gills with garbage from the Internet," says Bob Ritter, president of 1stdirect.com, a CRM reseller and consulting firm in East Fishkill, N.Y. "When you're putting a mission-critical application out to everybody, you have to make sure the foundation of the infrastructure it is running on is healthy."

When it comes to choosing the actual software, there's always a basic checklist to mind, before you even get to customization. Is the software easy to use? Will it link to mission-critical applications, such as e-mail, back-office functions or accounting software? (This is especially important to consider with hosted CRM.) Is it scalable? Make sure your cost analysis includes such areas as licensing, maintenance, configuration, training and data migration, Ritter says. And it doesn't hurt to do a little detective work on your vendor's business model, because you want to make sure it'll be around for the long haul.

When it comes to security, the biggest concern used to be whether hosted software was vulnerable to hackers. Since that fear has largely been assuaged, the security concern these days is securing data on the road, says Richard Smith, vice president of CRM strategy for Green Beacon Solutions, a CRM consulting firm for mid-market companies based in Watertown, Mass. Part of CRM's value is the convenience it provides when integrated into mobile devices. But laptops and BlackBerrys get stolen and lost, so the cost of securing data on the road should figure into your tech investment.

4. Fine-Tune the Features
Determining exactly what features should figure into your software will probably be the hardest and longest part of implementation, but one of the good things about this step is that it forces a company to face how it does business and uncovers needed changes. "It's an excellent time to revisit the business process," Ritter says. "Are there ways to break up your data more efficiently? Are territories properly balanced? What communications do you want to merge or manage? Are you trying to fulfill a virtual request more efficiently?"

Running a pilot project helps avoid future pitfalls. When Johnson Controls, an environmental controls company based in Milwaukee, acquired HVAC supplier York International in 2005, one of its first priorities was integrating the new company into its Saratoga CRM system, which is used by about 2,200 employees. York's service organization was integrated relatively easily; it was mostly a matter of eliminating duplicate accounts, merging databases and training the York service folks.

But York's systems installation unit was another story. "Their business was different enough from our installation business that we didn't believe the same CRM screens and business flow could work for them," says Bill Hable, director of market planning, research and systems for Johnson Controls. "They are different in how they go to market, who their primary contact is, and they go through different routes [to prospect]." A CRM pilot ran in the spring in three district offices so they could tweak the views and fields that this particular unit needed. The new system is set to roll out the first six months of this year. "I didn't want to hear first impressions," Hable says. "They used it for three or four months so we could get a good idea about how they do business and what had to be changed."

Large companies often require a lot of CRM customization, but even small firms should tweak solutions to their needs. Donna Keller, senior vice president for Financial Advisory Consultants, based in Naples, Fla., worked with 1stdirect.com to install GoldMine CRM software. Keller says she tried out about six versions before finalizing the solution that her company will roll out early this year. Keller's firm has about 10 employees, but nonetheless needed a more uniform process to qualify prospects, move them through the sales cycle, and communicate with them the way they preferred. "Our [old CRM system] did it in a more manual way, but I was looking for something more automated so each client got the exact same experience," Keller says. "There are a lot of moving parts that go into the process, and we needed to be able to handle all the intricacies."

5. Encourage—or Enforce—Usage
Now that you've laid out your business goals, picked internal champions and designed the software of your dreams, here comes the hard part: Getting your staffers to use the system. Managers can take a carrot or a stick approach, Smith says, but the key is "reinforcing that there is one version of the truth: The report that gets driven out of CRM. If managers start letting the best sales reps submit numbers in Excel, it breaks the model."

The carrot approach is to show salespeople the value of using a system, and your CRM evangelists are essential to this. Sometimes this takes more patient training or one-on-one coaching to prove the system's benefits to your reps. But don't be afraid to enforce a hard deadline by which data must be in, call out folks who aren't following the rules and recognize big wins that get plugged into the system. "People don't want to be shamed, and if they know they've closed a big deal and the forecast always goes out noon on Friday" they'll be more inclined to become CRM converts, Smith says.

And then there's always the biggest stick: No CRM use, no commission. "Everybody suddenly gets clear on things when there is only one way to get data into the accounting system," Hable says. "I've seen guys who hate computers, but if [using CRM software] is how they get their commission check, they are experts in two weeks."



Sidebar: What Customers Want

According to the Forrester Research survey "How to Select a CRM Software Vendor" of 19 large North American and European organizations, the following CRM software criteria are considered the most important:

1. Companies expect CRM software to make its users more productive. High usability encourages adoption.

2. Analytics tools are needed to better understand customer behavior and inform decisions based on customer data.

3. The ability to support a centralized customer master data management system is critical to getting a 360-degree view of the customer.

4. Many companies reported they had started working to improve their contact center, but then moved on to focus on sales and marketing. They have stated that "CRM is never done," and work continuously on ways to improve customer interactions.

5. Companies wanted software with applications that encourage strong and flexible workflow capabilities.

6. Technologies that can be easily adapted and customized to the business environment achieve results more quickly.

7. Any software must accommodate large numbers of users and support global business.

8. Vendors without industry-relevant capabilities likely won't make it to many companies' shortlists for consideration.