The Understated Trait of Successful Chicago Sports Coaches

I know this isn't aligned with what I typically talk about, but as a Chicago sports fan, during the search for the Cubs managerial opening, I have to draw the line on the candidates they're interviewing.

In today's Chicago Tribune, the four finalists for the open Cubs position appear to be Mike Quade, Ryne Sandberg, Eric Wedge and potentially Joe Girardi.  There's something fundamental and understated that each of these candidates is missing, based on Chicago sports history (or at least the last 35 years). 

When looking back at Chicago championship teams over that period, it's the mustache that has presided.  Yes, the mustache!



Mike Ditka: Classic & bold...looked like a caterpillar who overdosed on "five hour energy" drinks when Ditka would beat a piece of gum like it owed him money



Phil Jackson: The tall, gangly zen-master realized the importance of his mustache as he started his reign. Does that guy know everything?

Ozzie Guillen: As a player, possessed a classic pencil mustache. Has since rounded it out into a well manicured goatee.

Joel Quenneville: Burly, hockey mustache...obviously did his homework on Chicago championship history.

The Bulls have hired a practically hairless guy in Thibodeau. The Bears Lovie Smith couldn't grow a mustache with a tank full of hair tonic.  The Bulls & Bears have written their own ticket...no championships as long as their current coaching staff is in place...

The Cubs must look away from Quade, who was bald at the age of 11 (yes, I'm not making that up!).  None of the candidates possess a mustache...however, there is a perfectly capable guy in the booth who should be heavily pursuaded to change his mind.  Where's this picture from???

Oh, yeah...it's Bob Brenly from the year he won the World Series with the Arizona Diamonbacks.  Looks like a mustache got them over the hump, too. 

Cubs fans...reject the hairless...if we're going to end the curse, the mustache is obviously the key ingredient.

How the Fear of Inaction Drives Top Software Companies' Growth

I do a lot of work for software companies, which is the primary area of my background. I’m now working for a smaller software company, and realized a connection to how these small software companies create action in their prospect base and eventually experience explosive growth.

They sell to the fear of inaction in their prospect base.

If you go to Hoovers.com, which is a company database service that serves as a key pre-calling planning tool for researching your targets, you’ll find almost 3,000 companies in the United States whose primary industry is Computer Software. Every one of these companies will claim to have a strong value proposition – otherwise they wouldn’t be in business.

Now, think about some of the big software companies in the world – companies like SAP & Oracle, who have experienced explosive growth. Take a look at a company like Hyperion who was acquired by Oracle for $3.3B. They have strong value propositions, right? However, what was it that made them what they are today? Was it that SAP’s marketers and sales professionals focused on how they could automate and integrate back office functions? Was it that Hyperion’s marketers focused on how they could tackle the vexing problem of information availability throughout the organization? In some ways, the answer is “yes”, but the reason these companies have the value they do is because they found the fear of inaction in their prospect base, and focused on that.

SAP really took off in the late 90’s, where it was like selling at a drive-thru window (Companies basically came to the window, told them they needed their technology now, and handed over millions of dollars). It wasn’t because these companies wanted to enter sales order information only once, and have that data flow seamlessly to finance, manufacturing, distribution and human resources. It was because SAP found the fear of inaction in their prospect base – Y2K (the result of a practice in early computer program design that caused some date-related processing to operate incorrectly for dates and times on and after January 1, 2000, scaring the world to believe that the world would end, planes would fall out of the sky and cats & dogs would live together in harmony because systems would think that January 1, 2000 was actually January 1, 1900).

Hyperion had a value of $3.3B not only because of how they help organizations do their financial consolidations better – it was because they found the fear of inaction in their prospect base – Sarbanes-Oxley (a United States federal law passed in response to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom, thus creating a scare within publicly held companies that has them believing their executives would live the rest of their lives in an orange jumpsuit if they don’t comply).

What fear do your customers have if they don’t act NOW? Is simply doing what they do now, but better, enough for them to take action? If it was, then companies all over the world would be spending all of their money on software.

For whatever solution you’re selling, think about the “what if”. What if my prospect decides to keep doing things the way they currently are at the pace they’re currently doing it? If the answer is basically “nothing”, then you could be facing slow growth, or eventual slow decline. People DO, in fact, buy things because it will make their lives better. But companies spend lots of money fixing problems that cannot be ignored.

This isn’t an easy thing to figure out – but if you can make the connection, your sales cycles will shorten, your deal sizes will rise, and you may have a company that we will all have heard of.

A simple way to shorten sales cycles...

Sometimes it's ultra important to go back to some of the basics. One of those basics is the simple act of asking for a commitment to a next step before you leave the prospect's office during a meeting. These six reasons should be more than enough for you to work this discipline back into your cycles.

1) To shorten your sales cycles: Most salespeople (and I'm not saying you are "most salespeople"), at the end of a meeting, say something like, “I’ll call you next week”. They end up wasting tons of time playing phone tag. Why not schedule the next step while you’re still face-to-face? You can shave 1-2 weeks between meetings, and as much as a month off the total sales cycle. “Just so we don’t end up playing phone tag, can we schedule a time to talk next week? How’s Wednesday at 10am?” Or, if your contact suggests that the next step is with someone else, why not ask, "Can we give Ms. Big a call right now to schedule something for next week?"


2) To better manage your travel: Once you have that scheduled meeting, you can immediately start to schedule other meetings with others at that location, or other prospects in the area. “I’m meeting with Freddy Paycheck at your location on Monday at 2pm. Can we get together at 3:30pm?”


3) To better manage your time & your prospect’s attention: Think about the way you work: When a proposal is due “sometime next week”, it moves to the bottom of the priority list. If it’s due Friday, May 27th at 10am, it suddenly becomes more important. Your prospects go through this as well. If it’s on their calendar, it suddenly becomes more of a priority.


4) To better understand who’s a priority for you: Back in my single days, when a girl used to tell me, “I’ll call you”, I used to believe it. It could be a “no” without you hearing the word “no”. When a prospect is willing to give you another slot on their calendar, interest is demonstrated by that action.


5) To send the right message: Your time is valuable, too. “When are you free?” translates to, “I’m willing to spend hours traveling each way to spend 10 minutes with you.” Instead, be specific in requesting that next step: “I’m available at 3pm on Wednesday afternoon. How does that work for you?” A surgeon with an empty calendar is probably not a good surgeon. Create the impression that you’re in-demand.


6) To get what you deserve: You spent all kinds of time prepping, traveling, and meeting with this prospect. Why would you leave the meeting without some sort of commitment / agreement to proceed from that prospect?

The Proactive Job Search - Selling YOU!

Last week, at the conclusion of another great Chinese dinner at Heng Weng in Palatine, I broke open my fortune cookie, anticipating the kind of message that may drive the rest of my life, seeing as I'm currently evaluating new opportunities to advance my career.  Instead, all I got was the cookie...there was no fortune inside.  Empty.  Nothing.  I couldn't even eat the cookie...I had no fortune.

In my opportunity evaluation so far, there are definitely great possibilities.  However, for many, the job search can be as humbling as not having a fortune in your fortune cookie. The economy, your experience, your skillset and your approach can determine where along that scale your search will land.

Pick up any “sales skills” book, and the topics will likely contain entries including “Targeting Prospects”, “Gathering Information / Interviewing”, “Proper Presentation”, “Making the Pitch”, “Negotiation” and “Closing”. Now, read that list with your job search in mind…those same topics appear along that process of finding your next place of employment.

In reality, the process of finding a job is one in which you are selling an extremely valuable product…YOU!

Numerous studies have estimated that anywhere from 70% to 85% of jobs get filled before they are ever advertised. And, once they appear in those classifieds or online job boards, the competition is massive. The hirer is faced with a stack of resumes, and makes the decision to bring you in for an interview based solely on your written word.

The process is broken – the hirer doesn’t want that burden and uncertainty, and the candidate doesn’t want to be initially judged solely on what’s on their resume.

Over the past 10 years, I have interviewed (sadly) hundreds of sales candidates for a number of positions. I’ve found this to be true – the best candidates aren’t always the ones with the best resume. And, I know I’ve missed quality professionals because I’ve passed on interviewing them because their resume doesn’t communicate the key skills and experience I’m looking for.

How can you fix this problem? You can start to fix it by looking at the process like a salesperson would look at it – regardless what type of position you’re looking for.

Start your search by taking the time to understand what types of positions and companies you’re most interested in. What’s important to you? Is it a position at a certain level within an organization? Is it a position that is with a smaller company in a certain industry? Is it a position with a company that reduces your commute? It’s a dangerous proposition not to do what you love – success today depends on a level of tenacity and passion for what you spend your life doing.

Once you understand what you want to do, and who you want to do it for, think like a sales person. When a salesperson is trying to sell to a company, they aren’t responding to an advertisement from the company that says, “We need help with a problem your product can help us solve”, right? They need to carefully target organizations, get their foot-in-the-door, and start the selling process. They use marketing (mailings, phone calls, networking) to start that process – and every sales cycle starts with a meeting.

Pick up a book on sales. I teach a short program on this skill, specifically – but you can get that information from a number of sources. Figure out how to write a good cover letter & resume. Find out the individual you want to ‘sell’ yourself to. If you’re looking for a finance position, for example, you don’t want to ‘sell’ yourself to the Human Resources department. It’s probably the finance department you want to sell to. Start high – target the person that heads that department. Send a note – and follow up with a phone call. Your goal of the phone call is to get a meeting (or an “interview”). Make a script for yourself – what are you going to say when you get this person on the phone? Make that script specific to your goal – you want to meet with this person, even if they don’t have an open position. Think through what you’re going to say if the person says, “We have no openings right now”, or “I’m too busy to meet with anyone right now”. You still want to start a relationship with this person. Again, often times a sales person who has a valuable product to sell won’t get an initial response from a customer that says, “Wow, we need that!” The salesperson doesn’t just give up, do they?

Once you’re in the door, review that sales book – and look at the techniques used to ask good questions, present yourself in a positive light focused on the benefit & value you can provide to that organization.

I wish, when I was hiring, more people would take this approach. When a position would open up in my organization, a known entity is certainly the first person I would approach, versus placing an ad and spending hours shuffling through resumes. Even if I didn’t accept the individual's call for an interview if I didn’t have a position open, the person’s resume who targeted our organization would be on top of my list when one did open up.

I can’t tell you what risks you should take. If you’re struggling with your job search, don't wait for your fortune cookie to lead the way.  It may take some good-hearted tenaciousness to set yourself ahead of your competition.

The Sales Blog is Back!

Welcome back...yes, I am relaunching the sales blog (previously located at thecoldcall.com) that has helped so many successful sales professionals do what they do...only better. Yes - that same blog which has helped so many non-sales individuals end their battle with insomnia.

A little background refresher on me: After owning & operating a sales training / consulting company for a few years, I joined Right Hemisphere in January of 2006 tasked with establishing an enterprise sales foundation with which to scale. Once set, I then took over as VP of Worldwide Sales in January of 2008, driving the growth on top of the foundation, and we did some serious damage…growing from around $7m up to $20m during the economic downturn, tripling the size of the sales force, and bagging some big customers like Boeing, Northrop Grumman & Nike. I won the American Business Award "Stevie" in 2009 for Vice President of Worldwide Sales of the Year (beating the dude from FedEx), and led my team to the 2010 award for Global Sales Team of the Year.

People who have worked for me have called me a "great leader", "the best I have ever had the pleasure of working with", and "one of the few reasons I didn't fly to corporate and detonate myself on the front stoop".

I'm now back to working independently, serving as a sales coach helping successful executives "figure out" sales, advising companies on driving revenue capacity, and screwing my head back on straight.

Check back often, as I'll be tearing apart common misconceptions of the sales world, giving you a few nuggets that may help you turnaround that steaming pile of a territory you're working on, drive transormational progress with your team of "Tommy Boys", recruit more effectively, and fill your wallet so that it can be considered a weapon.