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Are You Taking a Big Risk? Calculate The Risk. Part 2

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I was watching a movie about gymnasts.  The coach said, “We take risks in gymnastics, but only calculated risks.  We obey the rules, the rules about training and discipline.  Only by obeying the rules can we calculate and choose our risks.”

Selling and business development are like that.

We take calculated risks according to ranking systems, and only by obeying the systems can we calculate the risks.  Selling is not a seat-of-the-pants activity, nor a do-it-differently-every-time activity.

Selling is a process and procedure with systems.  Follow the system, judge the results, decide what to change.  It’s some risk, but it’s more of a calculation.

Do you agree?

 

 

Scary Big Sales: Calculate The Risks. Part 1

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I always thought I was a risk-taker, which was convenient since people in business development and scary big sales have to be risk-takers.  Now I wonder if I am a big risk-taker.

Years ago, during my team’s years-long pursuit of a scary-big multi-million-dollar Air Force contract, I never for one second doubted my firm would win.  I knew I would be fired from my six-figure job if we lost, since I’d spent a large overhead budget and hadn’t billed even one hour of billable time in close to a year.  So you could say it was a scary-big risk.

I wasn’t worried

It was a calculated risk and my calculations showed we would win.  Most importantly, I had good evidence that we knew the client’s deepest real need for the project and our solution was the best in the client’s eyes.  Our engineering team was the strongest.  I had good evidence we had a winning price.  Now all I had to do was rely on the world’s best proposal team, a marvel of quality and team spirit  (thanks, Wayne and Joy).  I knew the risk of that marvelous team letting me down was zero.

The risk was almost zero

I am a risk-taker, but the largest win in my career was low risk, because I had calculated what we had to do to win, and the team made it come true.  Always calculate your risks.  When your risk comes out high, plan and do what it will take to win anyway.  Now your risk is lower.  Go win it.

What Is The Point? Part 2

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I like this morning’s quote about what’s easy.  I like this one even better:  “If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.”

What we do isn’t easy

That’s right.  What we do isn’t easy.  Leadership isn’t easy.  Scary big risks aren’t easy.  But isn’t that one of the reasons we do it?  Not only because it challenges us, but because we honestly believe there is a special talent in us to do this hard thing.

We want to see the thing we do well brought out of us.  We want to see it in action.  We want to rise up with it, and we want to win.  It isn’t easy.  If it were, everyone would be doing it.

Right?

What Is The Point? Part 1

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“If it was easy, what would be the point?”  *

Gosh, I agree.  If it were easy to do what we do, easy to risk, easy to achieve client intimacy, what would be the point after all?

I wish I didn’t agree but I do.  You?

 

*from the movie The Treatment, 2006.

Do You Believe in Willpower? Part 2

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This morning I wrote that I don’t believe in willpower, and I talked about how I form new habits.  Here’s more:

Form new habits however works for you.  Rewards don’t work for me, so if they don’t work for you, don’t think you are broken or weak.

One thing that works

One thing that does help me form new habits is to get more outside myself and get my thoughts off myself.   If I spend more time volunteering or cooking for my husband or writing a letter (yes, we write real letters. It’s uplifting. Try it.) I feel so doggone good, so newly plugged into life, more relaxed, more able, that I find it easier for the rest of that day to practice the new habit’s baby steps.

What helps you form and keep new habits?  Please comment and tell us!  So many tips and techniques our there – what’s your favorite for forming new habits?

Do You Believe in Willpower?

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I don’t believe in willpower.  Either I don’t believe in it, or mine’s just too tiny to believe in.

Always Baby Steps

What I do believe in is prayer.  And I believe that only new habits drive out old ones.  New habits are formed baby step by baby step, and the smaller the first baby steps – micro-steps are best – the easier the baby steps are to repeat.  Repeated baby steps build to a new habit, and the easier the new habit is to repeat.

Bust Through Barriers

It’s also critical to search out and list the barriers and pitfalls that will appear around you and doom the new habit to failure.  List the barriers in advance.  Solve them in advance.  Make the solutions part of your baby steps.

When it comes to forming new habits, “barrier busting” and “baby step power” are what I believe in.

Do you believe in willpower?  Or perhaps you believe in the power of habits? 

I’ve proven over and over again that my new habit is only as permanent as my solution to the barriers that were preventing me in the first place.  Do you agree with that?

 

How to Say “No”

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Client Catherine is about to retire and already knows she’ll be inundated with requests to join boards and do volunteer work.  She wants to help out but also wants to know how to say “no” nicely.  I suggested she say what I say when I can’t accept another commitment, “I’m sorry; I can’t.  The time is already pledged.”

“The time is already pledged.”

She liked it.  It is an effective and gracious way to answer a request. It’s easy to remember, simple to use, is exactly the image she wishes to project.

It can be a script

The script helps you manage your time and energy level whether your time is actually already pledged or not.  But it’s nice to know that the time IS already pledged, either to volunteer and help someone else, or to spend the time with your family or yourself, and that you pledged it after a thorough and fearless examination of what’s important to you.

Can you hear yourself using this tip?  Please let me know.

 

The Single Best Way to Discover Your Client’s Deepest Real Need

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Are you ready to make scary-big sales?  Would you like it to be easier to take scary-big risks?

To make scary-big sales, you have to discover – and prove you can solve – your client’s deepest real need.  To make the discovery, you have to be in fairly frequent, friendly communication with your client.  “Fairly frequent and friendly communication” tells us that relationship selling is a process that requires first that you grow a relationship.

There has to be intimacy

In my opinion, electronic communication alone won’t generate the kind of customer relationship and intimacy that makes the client want to trust you and tell you what he/she really needs this project or product to achieve.  You have to know the deeper need that is beyond the stated requirements in the RFP/RFQ/bid package.

The best way to start and maintain a client relationship that proves you are there to solve real needs:

Be there (physically).

Be sincerely interested.

Be absolutely credible.

Be prepared with two or three good honest questions.

Ask one question, then…

Be quiet.

Believe me.  This works.

Do you think this could work for you?  Are you willing to try?   Please click “Comment” and let me know.

 

 

 

Does It “Scale”? Here’s Exactly What That Means

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We should all be eternally grateful to Seth Godin for his constant emphasis on “Does it scale?”  I won’t repeat all his advice, but this is what I’m reminding myself of today.

Successful, Repeatable, Teachable

If you’re selling or taking risks, you want a set of skills that’s successful, repeatable, and teachable. In other words, a system that scales, that makes your results larger and more predictable.  Ditto if you’re working for yourself.

Skills That Are Systems

Plus, if you’re working for yourself, you should get really good at turning all your tasks into systems. Scale up your work life and work flow into a system.  We’ll be successful when we discover a way to make what we do scalable.

Entrepreneurs and salespeople are wise to always be watching for patterns in what they do, because it is the pattern that is scalable and will generate the most revenue.   So ask yourself, “What is it about what I know and what I do that is a pattern, a system that can be scaled?”

Thanks, Seth.

Have You Been Told “It’s not personal. It’s business.” ?

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When I was married the first time, my mother-in-law didn’t like me or want to get to know me.  When we were alone in a room, she didn’t look at me or speak to me.  It bothered me a lot until I realized it wasn’t about me.

It was not about me

Her reaction was not personally directed at me, not in the least.  She would have reacted that way to any woman who married her son.

It’s the same in business

In business we say “it’s not personal; it’s business” and we mean it.  We mean that if anyone had suggested that same (weak) plan, had given that same (sloppy) presentation, had hogged the floor during the meeting, they would have gotten the same bad reaction from the boss or the client.  You might not think your plan was weak or your presentation sloppy, but if it was, you got a reaction from the boss  or the client that was not personal, not in the least.  It was business.

Does that help?  Does it help to know it wasn’t about you?  Please click “comment” and let me know.

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