One of the more common topics of conversation, in both sales and marketing, is “branding.”  Most of the time, people are talking about how to BUILD a brand.  Instead of that, let’s talk about how to UNDO a brand – and with those lessons in mind, we’ll give some tips on keeping a brand whole.

Essentially, your brand is how your customers look at you or how you want them to look at you.  And it’s true that sometimes, brands need to evolve.  That said, it’s important while you’re evolving, you don’t evolve yourself right out of business.  I can think of a couple of great examples I’ve encountered recently.

If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know that I’m a motorcycle enthusiast. I’ve owned several motorcycles and currently, I have a 2010 Harley Road King and a 1978 Honda CB750.  I’m also an avid reader, and I love motorcycle magazines.  A few years ago, I subscribed to Baggers magazine, which had as its focus custom touring motorcycles – primarily Harleys.  Notice I said “had.”  The magazine was part of a huge conglomerate called Source Interlink Publications.

About two years ago, Baggers changed its focus.  Whereas at first, it was focused on customized touring bikes (aka “Baggers”), the focus became overly tattooed guys in flannel pretending that their baggers were sportbikes.  Last year, I got a notice in the mail that my new issue of Baggers was to be the last, as the magazine was shutting down.  My remaining subscription was to be filled by Hot Bike magazine.  Well, that was OK.  While Hot Bike didn’t have touring bikes as its focus, they were going to incorporate Baggers content.

Except that Hot Bike also changed its focus to the same tattooed guys in flannel, now pretending that non-bagged Harleys were sportbikes.  Six issues in, you got it – Hot Bike was done.  Now my subscription would be filled by Motorcyclist magazine. Now we’re a long way away from my primary interest, custom touring bikes.  Still, Motorcyclist is a long time, established magazine.  Lots of coverage of new bikes, racing, that kind of thing, so I was OK with it.

However, they’d changed their format.  Now they had gone “upscale,” better production quality, more photo essays, more stories on rides that people were doing.  The racing coverage was nearly eliminated and the new bike tests were cut back severely.  Want to guess what happened next?  Motorcyclist lasted TWO issues.  TWO.  Now my subscription will be filled by Cycle World.  This is another long time legacy magazine – which, when I received my first issue, looked, read, and felt exactly like the Motorcyclist that had just died.  Honestly, I’m kind of hoping they lose my name on their mailing list.

You might be thinking that this is more a function of the changing motorcycle market than branding and content decisions.  You would be wrong, I think.  There’s a good reason for that.  Another magazine I read is called American Iron.  Exclusive focus on Harleys, both touring and non-touring, heavy focus on customizing and doing the work yourself.  And throughout this entire period, this magazine has stayed true to its format – and in fact, has INCREASED its frequency.  It’s now coming out thirteen times a year (every four weeks) instead of twelve monthly issues.  It is independently published – not part of the conglomerate, but in the magazine business, that should make their existence tougher, not easier.  Magazine distribution is very much controlled by the big nationals.

Another brand that has managed to trash itself through a very different process is Craftsman Tools.  Craftsman used to be the best- known brand of retail tools.  I differentiate “retail” tools from “professional” brands like Snap-On, Matco, MAC, and Cornwell.  The professional brands can only be bought through independent distributors who sell off tool trucks, and only call on shops and garages.  Craftsman could be bought at any Sears store.

Craftsman wasn’t Snap-On, but it was a good, high quality, American made tool with a lifetime warranty.  They were the choice of the home mechanic.  And then, several years ago, they started offshoring production.  Some brands can offshore production, even to China, and keep quality high. Craftsman didn’t do that.  Suddenly, a 9/16” wrench might not be exactly 9/16” anymore – and when you’re cranking on a bolt, a few thousandths of an inch can be the difference between properly turning a bolt or rounding the head off.  Plus they broke more often, particularly the ratchets and sockets.

Suddenly, Craftsman lost their reputation for quality.  Other brands, particularly Kobalt (sold through Lowe’s), made big inroads.  Kobalt is an interesting case.  They began as a brand made by Snap-On but sold at retail through Lowe’s, and the first few years, that’s how they stayed.  Kobalts of that age were within a tiny amount of being as well made as Snap-On, the standard of the industry.  I have a bunch that I bought back then.

Then, Kobalt did a funny thing.  They also offshored production of most of their tools.  But the quality stayed consistent.  A Kobalt made in China now is basically the same tool as a Kobalt made when they started.  This means that Craftsman quality didn’t have to drop; it dropped because of carelessness and inattention.  Now, Craftsman has announced that they will be retuning production of about half of their tools to the USA; but is it too little, too late?  Now they’re in recovery mode.

So, we have four brands (the three dead bike magazines, plus Craftsman) that have basically ruined their image.  All four did so by basically changing what had appealed to their customer base.  Three due to a desire to “reinvent,” and one by cost-cutting.  So, how can you evolve your brand without killing it?

1. Start with situational awareness.  Are you trying to grow or survive?  If you’re trying to survive your existing customers aren’t as vital, because they aren’t keeping you afloat.  In this case, finding a brand new customer base is a necessity.
2. Understand why your customers buy from you.  As long as you’re in growth mode rather than survival mode, you want to keep as many of your current customers as possible while adding new ones.
3. Define the new customers you’re trying to attract while keeping #2 in mind.  Maybe the only thing you have to change is your marketing.  Is it possible that all you need to do is create awareness within a new market segment?  This can be particularly effective with legacy brands that are still viable, but not as well known to younger customers.
4. Move gradually.  Big changes can disconcert legacy customers, which will run off the base you’re trying to protect.  Think evolution, not revolution.
5. Whatever you do, don’t cut quality of your product or service.  If you cut your quality, all the branding in the world won’t help you.

Basically, you have some very good examples of how NOT to do it above, and if you find yourself in doubt, think “Bizarro Branding;” do the opposite of what they did and you’ll be fine.

One of the most basic elements of selling today is the ability to sell on the telephone.  I’ve said, and continue to say, that teleprospecting is still the best, most controllable, and most predictable, means of generating new business.  Yes, you can sometimes snag a prospect through email (if you’re willing to send out enough of them; the numbers have to be very large and the return rate is small) and social media.

For most of us, though, picking up the phone is still the best means of selling.  It’s also one of the preferred means of contact for many of your customers.  And yet – it seems that salespeople (and people in general) are getting worse and worse at dealing with actual, voice to voice, telephone conversations.  The list of guaranteed call-killers used to be small, but it’s getting larger and larger.  Here are some of the newer issues I’ve seen with telephone selling:

1. Auto-dialers.  Yes, I hate auto-dialers with a passion.  There’s nothing worse than picking up the phone to answer a call, saying hello (or however you greet a caller), and then hearing a moment or two of silence and saying, “Hello, hello?”.  Then you hear that little click that lets you know that an actual person has come on the line.  Usually that click is when I – and most people – hang up.  And phone numbers get blocked.  If you are using an auto-dialer, STOP IT.  NOW.  Whatever you might gain from the efficiency of quicker dialing, you lose in terms of call completion.
   
   
2. Unintelligibility.  This is the second big sin that I hear on the phones.  If your customer can’t understand the words coming out of your mouth, they will not buy from you.  Period.  DOT.  This is an issue that has a number of different causes.  One of the biggest causes is a phone that simply isn’t a good telephone; instead, it’s a pocket size computer that just happens to have a phone app.  When I shop for a new phone, I always position my wife outside the store.  I then call her cell on their demo phones, and we compare notes on call quality.  I’ll sacrifice a little bit on other features to have a good phone.
   
   The second cause is bad technology.  There are some calling apps that absolutely trash your phone voice and make it sound like you’re calling from the bottom of a barrel.  Going down Niagara Falls.  If you’re going to use some tech app, again, test the quality.
   
   The third cause is simply handling the phone.  When a voice goes in and out on the phone, I know that they’re probably not holding it like a phone, with the microphone toward the mouth and the speaker to the ear.  That can greatly vary the tone and volume of your voice.  There’s nothing worse than having to say, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” during a call when information is coming out that’s important. 
   
   The fourth cause is speakerphones.  Speakerphones can be just fine or they can be awful.  Most of it depends on where the participants are during the call, how close they are to the phone, and what physical objects are between them and the phone.  For instance, if there are a couple of books between the participant and the phone (or something similar, this can really hurt the call quality.  Again, TEST.
   
   My advice to be intelligible is to get a quality headset and use it consistently.  And by “a quality headset,” I mean one that has a good speaker and that positions the microphone in front of the mouth.  Mine is a blueparrott B250-XT.  And, full disclosure on my part – I resisted getting a headset for years.  Finally, last year, I had to do a 3 hour webinar and I knew there was no way I could do that with a phone held to my ear.  So I bought it – and now, on any phone call longer than about five minutes, I feel weird if I don’t use it.  And I’ve never had a client say they couldn’t hear me. In fact, more often, clients will comment on how it sounds like I’m right in the room with them.
   
   
3. The last big problem I see is simply a lack of focus.  Technology can be a great aid in our work, but it can also be a problem.  It becomes a problem when we allow tech to get in the way of our dialogue.  If you’re returning emails and texts, or reading something on your phone while a call is going on, you’re misusing technology.  The exception to this would be if you are taking notes on your CRM on a laptop while talking on the phone (this, I highly encourage).  But let your customer know that you’re taking notes so that when they hear the keys clicking (and they always do), that they don’t think that you are answering email.

Now, does this cover the entire length, width, and breadth of calling problems?  Of course not – but these are the most common, and emerging, issues I see with salespeople today.  The bottom line is this – if they can’t hear you, they won’t buy from you.

ONE MORNING
THREE GREAT PROGRAMS
THREE WORLD CLASS PRESENTERS
ALL TO HELP YOU SOLVE ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES OF TODAY – HIRING THE RIGHT PEOPLE!

SMART HIRING – GET THE RIGHT PEOPLE FOR YOUR COMPANY! HOSTED BY SKYLINE E3

Great leaders know that you can’t get the right results with the wrong people; the most critical decisions you make are the people you entrust with your company and your livelihood.  In this program, three great speakers will teach you the three key elements of Smart Hiring.  

8:30 AM: “The Performance Process – Hiring Techniques That Work,” presented by Troy Harrison, the Sales Navigator

It’s difficult, if not impossible, to get the right results from the wrong people; yet, managers make bad hires every day based on incorrect information, outdated interviewing techniques, and an ‘educated’ jobseeker base.  In this program, Troy Harrison shows attendees how to hire SMART – i.e., to hire with your head instead of emotions.  Attendees will learn the four keys to a successful hire, and when to implement each. Topics covered:

• Designing Your Hire
• The three things to look for on any resume’
• An Effective Hiring Process – Eight Steps to Good Hires
• The One Thing You Should Look For In any Candidate (the most important thing they will show you)

9:30 AM: Understanding Assessments – Decoding the Profile, by Kirk Young of JobMatch Assessment

A valid third party psychometric assessment is one of the most valuable tools you can use in finding the right person for your opportunity, and a key part of the Smart Hiring Process. Using the latest innovations in assessment technology, PXT Select™ takes hiring and development to the next level. Combining 20 years of research with cutting edge computer adaptive testing, PXT Select gives you a meaningful edge to hire the right candidates.

YOU WILL LEARN:

• The full value of PXT Select and its innovative suite of reports for selection, onboarding, coaching, and team development.
• Ways to get a clearer picture of how the candidates’ thinking styles, behaviors, and interests impact success.
• Strategies to enhance performance and maximize an individual’s contribution to an organization. 

10:30 AM: Culture Over Compensation: Onboarding Concepts for a Disconnected Staff, by Jesyca Hope of Hope Communications Consulting

Have you just hired the right employee?  You’re not done.  Even the best employees need to be brought into your culture, your systems, your processes, and your internal networks.  In this program, Jesyca Hope shows you the pathway to integrating new hires into your organization.  Key take-aways include:

• Setting expectations for everyone;
• Building long term engagement from day one;
•  Strategic Team Building, or why “Minute to Win It” is a losing strategy!

Who should attend this program? Any manager or business owner who needs to find and hire the best employees for their company.
When is it? Wednesday, August 7, 8:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Where is it? Skyline E3, 9511 Legler Road, Lenexa, KS 66219
How do I sign up? Fill out the form below, and in the “Comments” section, please list every person from your company that will be attending, and we will see you there!

I have a theory, and it is that single-interest people rarely are the best at solving problems; to stay sane and be at your mental best, you need a distraction.  I had an example of this recently; oftentimes my car hobby provides a mental break from my sales coaching.  This time it worked in reverse.  I was fixing the power window mechanism on my ’96 Chevy Impala SS (this is a common problem on these cars), and I had an intractable problem.  To make a long story short, I needed to get a clamp aligned on the window track but the access panels didn’t allow me to align – so I was stumped and not a little frustrated.

I walked away to work on a work issue, not thinking about the problem.  I started working on a document for a customer – and 10 minutes later, I knew exactly how I needed to modify the clamp so that it would work properly.  The next night, a little welding, and I had exactly the right tool I needed, and the window was fixed.  I know that, had I just kept trying to power through the problem on the car, it would still be disassembled.  With that in mind, here’s Troy’s Process For Solving Tough Problems:

1. Have a distraction.  You can’t make a mental escape if you have nothing to escape TO.  Your distraction doesn’t need to be anything specific; it just needs to be yours.  It should be something that resonates with you and that you can mentally absorb yourself in.  Without that absorption, you won’t get the mental escape you need.
   
   
2. When the solution comes to you, let it come.  What I mean about that is this:  When your mind turns back to the problem that you were struggling with, there’s a temptation to completely flip back to that problem as soon as the germ of a solution appears.  Don’t do that.  The solution will come to you at its own pace; let it do so.  The unconscious is a wonderful thing.
   
   
3. Don’t feel you have to immediately jump back onto the problem, unless you are on a deadline.  It’s tempting, particularly with work problems, to immediately drop your distraction and go back to solving the problem.  This might be a mistake; your subconscious will continue to turn the problem over and over and refine the solution.  In the case I’m referring to, I was tempted to quit working on the document and immediately begin modifying the clamp, but I didn’t.  That was a good thing, because by the time I was done with the document, I had a refinement that made the job 100% easier than it would have been.

This approach works for me.  In fact, it’s worked for me for decades, and for many other people I have worked with.  The unusual part about this instance was that, normally, my cars solve work problems, and not the other way around.

The point is that, sometimes, trying to power through a solution to a tough problem only makes the problem worse.  This is true in sales, management, general business, and in life.

I like to listen to audio books when I take road trips.  Well, heck, let’s be honest – I usually START them on road trips and finish them while driving around town.  Recently, I’ve been listening to a good one:  “Catastrophe 1914:  Europe Goes to War,” by Max Hastings.  It’s about the First World War, and since we have the National World War I museum here in Kansas City, it piqued my interest.  A lot of what I thought I knew about WWI and its causes and start was wrong.

You wouldn’t think there would be a sales lesson in a war book, would you?  I wouldn’t – but I was wrong.  Due to advances in weaponry, WWI has been called “The First Modern War,” but early battles created huge casualties because some armies (notably, the French and Russian armies) were using 19^th century tactics against 20^th century weapons – with predictable results.  In fact, in one battle, the Russians marched in, shoulder to shoulder, wearing bright red tunics and hats with a drummer and a flag, directly toward German machine gun emplacements. The Germans were so shocked by the Russians that they actually held their fire, wondering if such obvious targets were a ruse.  When they opened fire, well, you can imagine what happened.  Believe it or not, this has a lot to do with sales.

The 20^th century could be seen as the birth of modern sales techniques, as authors from Ziglar to Hopkins to Gitomer endeavored to teach salespeople how to sell.  In addition, numerous sales training companies and franchises were birthed.  Some of the techniques taught were good, some were pretty bad, and many were a product of their time.

Times have changed.

What many of those techniques had in common is that they worked IF and ONLY IF your buyer didn’t understand what you were trying to do to them.  Looking back over old sales books, it amazes me how many of the techniques are based on the idea of maneuvering your customer into a corner with words (theirs and yours) so that they “had to buy.”  Those techniques worked when the customer was kept in the dark.  The trouble is, it’s not dark anymore.

The Internet has brought salespeople many gifts.  Customer information is far more accessible.  It’s easier to find and network with potential customers online.  It’s easier to disseminate your message online.  Those are all great things.

It’s also brought sunlight into the customer’s world.  It’s far easier for customers to compare and contrast products and services.  Customers no longer have to rely on salesperson-supplied references – review sites allow customers to share their experiences, both good and bad.  And – get this – there are websites that actually discuss sales techniques that salespeople use, and how buyers can defend themselves from those techniques and those salespeople.  If that’s frightening to you, you should probably reevaluate your sales approach.

I still sit in on live sales calls with my clients (both on the customer’s side of the desk and on the salesperson’s), and I’ve seen some amazing things in the last few years.

I’ve seen a customer stop a salesperson and say, “You’re trying to use an Up Front Contract on me, and I don’t do that.”  The salesperson’s jaw hit the floor, no doubt over his technique being spotted and named.

I’ve seen a salesperson attempt to misquote a product stat to position his as better than his competitor’s – only to have the customer turn his phone screen around and show the correct stat.

I’ve seen a sale lost when a customer found a salesperson whining about his customers on his Facebook page.

And of course, I’ve seen a lot more.  What all of these things have in common is this – salespeople were selling with a 20^th century mentality, and 20^th century sales techniques, in a 21^st century environment.  To their competitors, they were the equivalent of the 1914 Russians walking into battle against the Germans.

So, what is essential to 21^st century selling?  Glad you asked.

• Open and honest dialogue.
• Penetrating questions designed to elicit information, not manipulate and lead.
• Transparency; if you try to hide things from your customers, they’ll find out anyway.
• Respect for the buyer’s intelligence.
• Knowledge of, and respect for, the customer’s buying process.
• A desire to help the customer win rather than pushing product.
• An understanding of information and its value.

In today’s selling environment, the salespeople who focus on those essentials, rather than last century’s sales techniques (even if they have cute names) are going to be the ones who win.

We all have our passions, and as you probably know by now, one of mine is cars and motorcycles.  This weekend, I had a chance to indulge that passion by showing my ’96 Chevy Impala SS at the Kansas City World of Wheels.  I’ve been going to the WoW since I was 10, and this was the first year I’d shown a car (I showed my Harley the previous two years).  It was a great experience, and as it turned out, the judges liked my Impala – I got second in my class.

What I’ve discovered, though, is that even during a ‘hobby’ weekend, I’m still the Sales Navigator.  I had a moment where my instincts came out, and therein is a sales lesson.

These shows are three days long; counting setup, we occupy the better part of Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It’s a long show and exhausting.  Judging takes place on Friday and class awards are presented on Saturday.  On Sunday, a lot of people look a little like zombies.  Well, on Sunday at about 1 PM, I noticed that the roof and hood of my Impala were dusty – and on a black car, that’s pretty noticeable.

So, I got out my Meguiar’s Quick Detailer and a towel and started cleaning the dust off.  As I did, a guy walked by, complimented me on the car, and said that he had a truck that was displayed a few spots away.  He asked, “I have to ask you something.  It’s Sunday.  Why are you still polishing your car?”

I said, “Well, the people who are here today paid just as much as the people who came yesterday, and they deserve our best effort.”  He got a funny look on his face and said, “You know, you’re right.”  A few minutes later, I looked over and saw him polishing his truck.  Obviously, he took my point to heart.

How often do we allow ourselves to experience a letdown in our careers?  Probably quite a bit.

At 4 P.M., do you stop making calls and head for Happy Hour, or do you power through and keep selling until 5?

Partway through the month, when your numbers are made, do you relax and go play golf – or do you work to get a head start on the next month?

When working a trade show, do you have the same intensity on the last day as you did on the first?

Do you keep asking your current customers good and new questions, or do you ease up and do the old “P.R. visits?”

Like the people who paid to attend the car show, the potential value of your time and your customers’ time doesn’t change.  What changes is your approach to maximizing that time.

So, yes.  Polish the car on Sunday.  It’s worth the effort, as my new friend decided.

Remember the old TV game shows, where at the end they’d have a “Lightning Round?”  In the “Lightning Round,” they’d put two contestants in an isolation booth, pepper them with questions, and whoever got the most questions right won the big money.  The winners were almost always the person who remained calm, instead of the person who acted like a nervous wreck in the booth.  There’s a lesson there.

One of the most common topics I’m asked about when it comes to training is that nebulous subject called “time management.”  “There just aren’t enough hours in the day!” yell salespeople and sales managers.  The truth is that there are usually enough hours in the day to get done what needs to get done, and successful people tend to use those hours to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. Here’s how.

Successful people have what I call “Schedule discipline.”  Schedule discipline is that ability to make plans, appointments, and commitments, and keep them in all but the most dire of circumstances.  Think back to that lightning round.  The winner was nearly always the person who stayed calm, on task, and focused.  If that person didn’t know the answer to a question, they passed in order to get more time with questions they might know.  That’s a microcosm of schedule discipline.

I’ve found that most people are pretty good at knowing and understanding what is important in their lives and careers, and most people are pretty good at building a schedule, in advance, to address those important tasks.  Not EVERYONE, of course, but most people.  If I were to ask you right now what would be your priorities to accomplish next week, or the week after, you’d probably have a pretty good idea.

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful is their ability to ACCOMPLISH those priorities and KEEP those commitments.  Take that hypothetical set of priorities two weeks down the road.  If we were to review that set of priorities at 5 PM Friday, how many of them would you have gotten accomplished?  That’s the difference.

So, what happens to interfere?  Distractions.  A customer calls.  You see a post on Facebook.  Someone walks into your office.  Any number of myriad events occurs that can disrupt a plan; some are avoidable and some are not.  This is where schedule discipline comes in. 

“Schedule discipline” is the skill that allows someone to immediately assess a distraction from the plan and decide if it really must be handled immediately, or if it can wait.  One of the biggest fables that has been taught is that we are capable of “multitasking.”  We are not – study after study shows that our brains are only capable of processing one input in any particular moment, no matter what the stimuli.  And when a new input is accepted, our brain must first detach from the previous task, then accept and process the new input, and then re-engage in the previous task.  All of that is lost time.

Ironically, as I was typing that paragraph, an email alert came up on my screen.  I didn’t read it because I’m working on this article; to read and process it would have taken time and attention away from the task at hand.  I’ll get to it as soon as I’m done writing and posting this.

So, how can you implement schedule discipline in your career?  It’s more than just “Plan your work, and work your plan.”  The real key to working the plan is personal and team discipline.

1. First of all, when you have a key task to accomplish –whether it’s prospecting, or a coaching session, or a meeting – schedule it as an appointment, even if it’s only an appointment with yourself.  And then keep it.  And have some mechanism to inform your other team members that you’re working on something important.  As a salesperson, I used a version of the old college “sock on the doorknob” technique; I had a yellow sign that said “Prospecting,” and I used to hang it up to let people know not to interrupt me unless it was really important.  Which leads us to….
   
   
2. Manage interruptions wisely.  Interruptions of any kind are killers to your work.  The key is to manage and prioritize interruptions wisely.  Everything isn’t “hair on fire, have to deal with it RIGHT NOW” level, but if you allow it to become that, it will.  Not only do YOU have to discern what’s important enough to break your workflow, you have to help your TEAM discern as well.  If it isn’t an issue that would jeopardize a key customer relationship, or a key employee, or represent an opportunity that would not be open if it weren’t handled RIGHT NOW, then don’t let it interrupt your work.  Again, schedule that which is important.
   
   
3. Schedule tasks in no more than two hour blocks, if at all possible.  There are a few reasons for this.  First of all, if you’re prospecting, I find that you get stale if you do more than a two-hour prospecting block at a time.  Secondly, in my experience, there are few issues that can’t wait a maximum of two hours, whether it’s email, a customer call, or an upset employee.  Keeping your task-time to two hour blocks means that nothing has to wait for an unacceptable period.  Again, there are exceptions, but they are rare.
   
   
4. Allow time between blocks for the unexpected.  If you’re isolating yourself for two-hour blocks, you’ll need time in between those blocks as a catch-all for whatever issues might come up.  This is also time to answer emails, return calls, and other random acts of being busy.  For every two hours “in session,” allow a half hour to an hour “off session.”
   
   
5. Keep your commitments.  To yourself, to internal personnel, and to external personnel.  Schedule discipline is all about respecting the value of your own time, and getting others to respect the value of both your time and theirs.  If you commit to a task or a meeting, keep it.  You’re not only making yourself more productive, you’re also modeling behavior for the rest of your team.  If you’re a manager and they see you doing this to manage your own time, they’ll use this system to manage theirs as well.  On the other hand, if they see you coming in to work in the morning and waiting to run from putting out fire to putting out fire, they’ll do that too.  Oddly enough, those who work under schedule discipline seem to have fewer fires to put out in the first place.

There’s more to say on this subject, of course, but you can drill down to the details as much as you want.  What I’ve discovered about so many “time management” approaches is that they focus so much on the details that the big issues get lost in the shuffle.  Think of each work day as your own personal “Lightning Round,” and you’ll have the schedule discipline that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

OK, call me a Luddite if you will, but I’ve never been a fan of auto-attendant answering systems.  Currently I’m on hold to cancel a hotel reservation (they give me no way to do it online), and I’ve heard the phrase, “Your Call is Very Important to Us” for the fourteenth time.  I’m beginning to think that my call isn’t important to them at all.

Who is my call important to?  Well, let’s see.  I’ve never called Southwest Airlines without getting a live person to answer.  Of course everyone knows about my loyalty to, and evangelizing for, Southwest.  There are other companies, too – all of whom care enough to have a live person to answer my call (or at least keep me on hold for less than the seven minutes that this hotel has).

I seldom go to a conference where I don’t hear complaints about “The Amazon Effect;” i.e. customers who seek out the absolute lowest price online without regard to service….and yet, when I call many of those same companies, I get….an autoattendant who reassures me every 30 seconds or so how important my call is.  BS.  If my call – or anyone’s call – was important, you’d have a person answering it.

Bottom line – if you do in fact have an autoattendant, please respect your customers’ intelligence enough to NOT have the ‘your call is important to us’ message.  Say something else – because by the 15th repetition or so, it’s just irritating and a reminder of how UNimportant the phone calls are.

On the other hand, if you want to fight the Amazon Effect, then dazzle people with service from the beginning (meaning the very first encounter they have with your company).  Have a live, competent, courteous, and friendly person answering the telephone.  Online, have a chatbot manned (or womanned) by a live person ready to help.  Respond to emails and texts quickly.  That’s how you let customers know that they really are important to you.

I just finished a welding project in my garage. A charity needed nine rolling stands for displays, and they were fairly easy to design, build and assemble. I still like doing things like this – working with my hands, building, creating something – whether it’s a project like this or something on one of my cars or motorcycles.

As is my habit, I built one all the way through, noting out the steps. Cutting the metal, drilling for casters, squaring it, welding it together, prepping it, painting the stand, then attaching wooden tack strips, casters, and finishing the tubing ends with snap-in plastic caps. Simple. But – when I’m building something in series like this, I find that the first one is to learn on, and then I get a process going and the rest are pretty easy from there.

The first one isn’t always perfect – in this one I tried to use a cheap set of casters, and they didn’t even survive being pushed across my garage floor! In fact, the first one is the hardest.

While I was working, I thought about parallels to selling. Many is the time I’ve coached a salesperson or business owner on prospecting, and the project goes sideways when it’s time for them to pick up the phone and actually do it. Even with those salespeople with strong call reluctance, if I can get them past the first one – and then the first three or four – things smooth out and they have success.

It’s the first one that is the problem.

This seems to work the same way when it comes to learning, and then applying, new techniques. The technique that worked great in role-play and classroom setting somehow seems daunting to implement in front of the customers – but when that bridge is crossed, the next implementations are easier and successful.

My display stand project, essentially, is like being pushed out of your comfort zone. The first application is by far the hardest – and from there, everything else is easier.