Late last night I was in conference with a potential client in South Africa (I’m in Australia, right now). Towards the end of our conversation, he asked if I thought much market intelligence could be gleaned from customer surveys. I answered (almost instinctively), data, yes; but, intelligence, no. When pressured for a more coherent answer,… “Customer surveys: data, yes; intelligence, no”
Recently I posted a quick-and-dirty guide to process improvement. One particularly difficult question that I skipped over in that post was this one: When you are mapping your workflow, how do you determine the ideal level of granularity? In other words, how much detail is too much? Conventional wisdom is that: Planning and execution are… “Why better planning equals poorer execution”
Why your CRM has no hope of delivering the expected ROI and why you should probably keep it anyway. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application seemed like such a great idea, didn’t it? The rest of the organization had reaped such enormous rewards from automation, and the sales process was certainly in need of productivity… “Why CRM sucks!”
It seems so obvious. If that team member has a Blackberry and a company car; if they call on customers and help resolve their problems; then they must be a salesperson, right? Well, maybe not! Sure, that’s the way things have traditionally been done: the person in the field is automatically the salesperson. But, in… “Why your field rep should not necessarily be your salesperson”
Your Director of Sales should be charged with the responsibility for maximizing sales, right? Well, maybe not! If he or she is, it might be worth reflecting on what this says about how your critical business functions are resourced. Let’s assume (for simplicity) that your business consists of just two basic functions: Sales Production Ask… “If you tell your team to ‘maximize sales’ that may be a tacit admission of a flaw in the design of your business!”
Managers and team members alike can often be observed drawing the convenient conclusion that some recent mishap was simply a communication problem. This conclusion is convenient because, in practice, it’s an excuse to do nothing! After all, aren’t humans (being humans) prone to mis-communication? Now, if you accept that an inability to communicate is a… “Why the term ‘communication problem’ insults your team members and retards the performance of your organization”
Here’s a favorite post of mine from our old Yahoo group … Philosophies collide! I was presenting a workshop in Darwin (Australia) recently when the manager of a (government-funded) organization objected that our methods focus only on the financial bottom line — and that they are not conducive with the concept of triple-bottom-line management. Now,… “The triple bottom line: two parts nonsense”
This week I was interviewed by Jim Blasingame on his radio show. You can listen below (or follow this link: http://tinyurl.com/bk2rpt). Find interviews with Small Business experts on the Small Business Advocate show
A slow economy does not have to mean fewer orders As the economy slows, it’s likely that your firm’s order flow will slow too. But, does it really need to? For you to answer this question in the affirmative, two conditions need to be in place: Your share-of-market needs to be considerable Your sales function… “A strategy for coping with tough economic times”
The emergence of cargo cults on some Pacific Islands after World War II is an amusing and oft-repeated story. The relatively primitive lifestyles of these islanders were interrupted by Japanese aircraft dropping large supplies of clothing, medicine, canned food and tents to support the Japanese war effort. Some of these supplies were shared with islanders,… “Sales forecasts: hocus-pocus with a dollar sign!”
