Author: Dave J.

Our new company president is an engineer. (Full disclosure: I have my BSME, but never worked as an engineer.)

For his new role over sales, he said he was ‘reading a book’. He proudly touted that the book said ‘sales is a process’, meaning it can be repeatable, measurable, and generally formulaic, just like engineering can be. Groans by salespeople were common.

So I hand him my copy of Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance, which says pretty much the same thing. Since my copy was given to me as a preview copy by co-author, Mike Drapeau, I thought I would ask him about this point. He replied:

I think that the Demming quote we have at the beginning of Chapter 9 says it all: ““If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing”.

So often salespeople mistake the necessary creativity they must express to succeed in their jobs with the belief that what they do cannot be improved, managed, and measured through a structured framework that describes what to do, by whom, how, when, and why.

This seems to some to smack of formalism and they make haste to point out the exceptional conditions where such an approach would not be successful.

However, sales is a numbers game and, given equal talent on both sides, a sales force that has a defined approach will succeed over one that has none every time. This is the essence of sales process and the benchmarking metrics that go along with it.

I found this book a refreshing look at sales management. Sales managers can be just as ‘creative’ as salespeople, especially with setting goals and making decisions that they believe will generate sales. Their creativity can often seem unfair or irrelevant.

Mike and his co-authors take a step back and ask ‘what are your goals’, ‘what works’, and ‘what can be measured’. The answers lead to a ‘benchmarking’ process that then makes a more logical measurement and goal system for sales.

Hmm, Sales is a process!

While crunching numbers and making hard decisions about what to measure are not things sales managers may want to do, this book works as much as a guide as well as a wake-up call.

We haven’t redone our sales programs based on this book, but it is influencing our thinking, and our smaller decisions about measurement and reward.

Check out the Amazon listing for reviews that help explain the content more than I just did:

Making the Number: How to Use Sales Benchmarking to Drive Performance

• I met this morning with some salespeople I’d never buy from. I don’t use their stuff, my customers do. And likely very few of them will need their stuff. It was just a rep taking his principle out for ‘sales call theatre’. They came without qualifying me or my need. But in these ‘trying times’, no stone goes unturned.
• Last night at a rock concert with my daughter, the lead singer of 3 Doors Down thanked the audience for coming: “I know in these challenging times concert tickets can be the first thing to go.”
• And my email seems to filling with lots of marketing offers to help ‘in a down market’.

All these get me thinking about the economy and what people are doing to sell stuff:

• Shouldn’t those sales guys qualified me before visiting? Not jumped straight into a PowerPoint?
• Isn’t a concert a place to forget your troubles, not be reminded of them?
• Is talking about a ‘down market’ just negative talk that should be avoided?

Are people’s sensibilities being thrown off by current conditions? Or is this appropriate behavior? What is appropriate?

While negative talk and behavior can put your client on edge, someone needs to acknowledge the elephant in the room. And while empathy can be faked, humility, like that of the singer, is honest.

And humility is where it should be okay. All of a sudden we aren’t running on to the ‘next job’. There is a thankfulness that goes with humility that actually strengthens the business relationship. If not today, but for the past, and for the future.

We had a client call us this week, “I know business may be getting lean, but I wanted to keep you up to date with this project.” Humbly, our salesperson listened.

Update: See last paragraph for a warm fuzzy.

Like news two years ago with frequent reports from Iraq about the latest IED attack, living in Michigan right now is enough to make one shell-shocked.

Every week (or more frequently) someone I know well seems to be hit with unemployment:

• A friend bounced out of his retail-staff job.
• My neighbor looking over retirement papers from GM.
• Someone laid-off, but ‘banking hours’ with his company, whatever that means.
• Another guy recently promoted, then dumped.
• A consultant friend working a side-job to make ends meet.

You get the idea. Maybe you are experiencing the same thing. Maybe you are one of the guys hit.

While it is easy to say (like in the comments in my post about Obama) that ‘we need to take our licks’, I certainly don’t like what is going on. Stability on all fronts seems uncertain.

We’re busy here with orders that take months to produce. But companies seem to be acting shell-shocked, too, making it harder to commit to spending money. They can’t just cut costs, lay people off, and hold off on investing in their futures, can they?

Recession is maybe necessary to readjust prices, layoffs may truly be ‘right-sizing’, optimism maybe worth short-term tempering, but what is happening right now is a blockade caused by fear.

Do we all hear FDR’s voice? “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

Like my post about Obama, this is not something we can wait for others to fix, we need to contribute. Break the fear, move ahead, look for solutions.

(The alternate choice is ignoring the problem, which seems to be the most popular solution. I’m really surprised there isn’t more fear being shared in places like Twitter. We’ve got to admit we’ve got a problem first, then we can move forward in fixing it. Of course admitting things are bad could only add to the fear, so maybe I’m making the wrong move here.)

Update: Had to add this warm fuzzy found in the latest Tank Riot podcast:

From Mr. Rogers’ farewell: “And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead. But I would like to tell you what I often told you when you were much younger: I like you just the way you are.”

Well, I’ve discussed lots of online industrial directories, but never MacRaes.

I’m not sure of the history of MacRae’s Blue Book, but they say ‘since 1893’. And I’ve never dealt with them in 15 years of marketing. Whatever they were, it looks like MacRae’s died and was replaced by a Keyword Farm. Or maybe what they are really growing is AdSense clicks.

Here’s what I experienced:

• Looks like a pretty typical directory home page, muted even. One small graphic ad for a European directory at the top.
• So I searched for my type of product. The results page shows three possible category matches, also typical of a directory site. These three categories are surrounded on three sides by AdSense blocks.
• The category page looks legit, until you study it further. Each company’s description is just keyword spam. The spam is subtle, it almost looks legit, as well. Of course a state lottery listing as a result is a tip-off that something is wrong. And three more blocks of AdSense.
• The company listing page is stuffed with four AdSense blocks, two banner ads, and those annoying ‘content link’ ads within the company description/spam.
• There was what looked like one legitimate advertiser on the results page, shown at the top, and the company listing link actually went right to his website.

I’ve seen a lot of keyword and AdSense farms in my Google searches, but this looks like the most elaborate hoax yet. I suspect that someone took the previous, legitamite site and just loaded up the listings with spam and added all the advertisements.

(By the way, my attention was drawn to this junk by an email asking me to add a search-box to my blog to ‘give value’ to my readers and link-love to MacRae’s. Instead they’ll have to deal with this post showing up in Google SERPs.)

The sad part is:

• There are companies apparently paying to be listed here. I can only imagine the poor quality of any click-thrus.
• The folks paying for AdSense advertisements are getting soaked, like any good keyword farm does. And they have no real idea where there ads are being shown, either.

(Hint: If you don’t know what you are doing, stay away from AdSense.)

As someone who finished a Mechanical Engineering degree and decided they didn’t want to be an engineer, I enjoyed this column in Evaluation Engineering by Malcolm Levy: Sales Engineers Are Still Engineers.

It’s a basic article about career choices for both managers and engineers, but worthwhile because these are people we depend on to sell our products.

“So having transitioned from design engineer to sales engineer, you no longer are considered an engineer by your contemporaries, but more like a sleazy car salesperson who is not worth talking to. This perception may have come about for all the wrong reasons. The truth is that most respectable engineering companies hire sales people with good, if not great, engineering backgrounds.”

“Well, there is an intermediate step you can take: move from pure design engineering to marketing where a great deal of interfacing will take place with customers to help define and develop the next product. Another option is to transfer into product support or applications engineering, each having a fair amount of time in front of customers and, in many cases, supporting a sales engineer. “

As a sales engineer, I thrived on being depended on. And still today as a marketer. It is being able to speak to both the customer and our engineers and ‘translate’ each of their needs to each other.

I’m sitting at work unable to watch the Inauguration. I really feel like I’m missing out. Hopefully a full dose of TV news tonight will help (that I haven’t watched in years). I don’t think NPR is going to do the trick.

Why is that? What makes this the Inauguration? Race? Youth? Hope? Change?

Whatever the reason, President Obama has a great starting point, with a willing mood to listen and follow by the American people.

One of the things I’ve studied in the blogosphere is how to institute ‘change’. Its a huge undertaking, even for seemingly minor changes. Having the attention everyone involved is a huge, huge, step.

Especially when there is no cost to just ignore it all.

Do the people realize that the change has to start with themselves, with their involvement in the change process? Or will they get bored or frustrated and tune out?

That they/we have to commit to the process.

As I told my sunday-school constituents (4-6th grade boys) this week, commitment is a willing choice, but one that often doesn’t mean the easy road. And it’s easy to say ‘yes we can’–but so, so much harder to actually do it!

Not only does this apply to ‘the people’, but also the leader. He has to be part of this covenant and keep engaging us. Not get sucked into the beaucracy that he will now lead.

Yes We Can?

• If the President gets to keep his Blackberry, change will be possible.
• If he gives us a concrete change in our lives right away (the 80/20 rule), people will stay engaged.
• If he gives us specific actions we can take to help him, change will be not far away.

I so want to believe that the promised change is possible … and it all rides on his symbolic Blackberry.

(RT is Twitter-speak for re-transmit)

A headhunter forwarded me a interesting marketing position that I thought I’d pass on to my readers. I’d take a shot at it, but it is more on the analytics/segmenting end of things. The title is ‘strategic marketing manager’. (I’m happier with tactical things like websites and brochures and promotion. )

“This critical leader will be responsible for developing and delivering strategic services and marketing analytics to identify key market trends and translate them into new or expanded value added business offerings. … developing detailed customer segmentation and leveraging market analytics/trends … understand current market trends and competitor actions to … capitalize on market opportunities. The Strategic Marketing Manager will develop detailed business plans for new products and services and may drive them through implementation.”

This is for a technology-driven metal products company (sounds like an oxymoron) in Georgia.

Email me if you want to know more.

To get a running start on 2009 projects, yesterday we googled-up some corporate capability brochures to get some ideas. Immediately I was drawn to what was wrong in these publications. What was wrong? Plenty:

• If I see another globe I’m going to puke. At least maps are functional.
• Luckily there weren’t many images of posed people in meetings, or I would have hurled for sure.
• Brochure covers didn’t say what the company does. And in several cases, also didn’t show anything relevant.
• Pictures of products without any captions.
• Waffling about market position like ‘one of the leading suppliers’.
• Opening with a mission statement. (Can be used if changed to active present tense.)
• I was surprised how many images of people were shown in circle cutouts.
• Pictures were used from target markets (airplanes, chemical jars) without any connection to the content.
• Quotations highlighted, but without a referenced source—who said this? (One had a reference … to their 2004 Annual Report. Doh!)

We weren’t really looking at copy, but there was an equal amount of suckage there. A lot of text was placed the same way images were: to fill space, not position their brand or tell their story.

Here’s a copy gem I just found when taking a second look:
“XXX Inc. is built on strong core competencies that enable the development of a wide choice of product and support solutions to meet the specific needs of our customers.”
They must have used the Dilbert BS Generator! (Of course the same brochure has a globe in someone’s hand on the cover.)

So what was my favorite? Who hit a home run?
The closest was what looked like an in-house job from NHBB circa 1999. The body copy was extremely light, but defines what they do clearly. Lots of pictures—labeled pictures: product, target industries, and their people. The piece wasn’t beautiful, but quickly let me understand the company and what it does&em; so that I felt connected with their brand.

The most striking, and less obvious, difference in brochures:
Well, it became obvious after looking at half-a-dozen. Some brochures were made in-house and others by agencies. In-house stuff had better content, but looks were lacking. Agency stuff was pretty, but content was lame.

Really, in either case, the fault should lie with the marketing manager. They shouldn’t be dumping projects on agencies without direct involvement. And they shouldn’t approach the in-house design with the same quality that is acceptable with a specification sheet.

Your heart, o marketing manager, should be for the brand and products—let it show, like you care. Please. Push for better content, push for better design.

Or just slap things together and let the whole world know you didn’t do your job when the thing gets printed. Your choice.

I’ve been wanting to riff on the automotive bailout plea for a while. (To get started, here is a good, balanced post by Eric Karjaluoto to stew on.) As an industrial B2B marketing blogger, I think the subject is appropriate to talk about here.

FYI: My company gets a good portion of its business from automotive suppliers, and some car makers themselves. We make test equipment, which means our sales are supported by innovation efforts in automotive, not by their sales volume. Our sales to the Big Three and Tier 1s has been minimal for years. Instead, we’ve been selling to the German, Japanese, and Korean companies and suppliers as they have established operations here in North America.

Rather than be as lengthy as Eric, I’ll just unload some bullet points of my thinking.

• Part suppliers are at greatest risk. Even if they are supplying 2/3 of the parts to Toyota, a loss of GM’s business (or a bankruptcy claim) could shut them down. Suddenly Toyota can’t get parts and can’t make cars.The domino effect is going to be HUGE!
• The audible discussion of the Big Three’s situation has made them ‘damaged goods’ that have an even bigger hole to dig out of. The financial bailout’s secretive process was designed to protect banks from this effect, which was smart.
• Worse, the congress and president hemming & hawwing about giving up some ‘loans’ has further frozen the marketplace.
• The list of expectations that go with the bailout offers is micromanaging. I can’t imagine that these companies would be able to survive without making serious reforms as proposed by congressmen. Let them figure it out on their own. That being said, I do think that the attempts at micromanaging (and private jet PR fiasco) are good kicks to reduce their arrogance.
• 15, 20, or 35 Billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the fiasco that Iraq has become, or to the financial bailout program, that is also trying to save the economy. And that’s what this is doing, not saving companies, but saving the economy.

Death is ugly
In the end, I see the bailout as a form of life support. These companies will splinter and/or die. (Its scary just hearing that Chrysler is shutting down for a month. Wil they be able to restart?)

When a family member is dying of terminal cancer (from smoking, lets say), you don’t stand around the hospital bed reminding them its their fault. And you certainly don’t just decide to stop caring or feeding them.

A bailout will give the companies and marketplace time to adjust to a new future. It will break the fall, so to speak.

Come on, where’s your heart and smarts?
Lots of folks out there are sounding like Scrooge: “If they would rather die, they’ d better do it and decrease the surplus population.”

Not only heartless, but likely reckless, IMHO.

Just a quick rant from my first real attempt at Christmas shopping over the weekend:

1. MC Sports had a car-GPS on sale with rebate. Great gift for $89!. Got home and found the $20 rebate form was only valid for purchases the weekend after Thanksgiving.
2. I saw that Staples had a nicer GPS on sale, so thought I might get that, and return the other one. Walked around the whole store, saw at least two displays of GPSRs, but not the one on sale.
3. The totally classless award goes to Target, where I wanted to look at a digi-vid camera on sale for $77. Found it displayed as $99. I ask the young lady behind the counter, who had to flip thru the flyer to confirm, yes it is the one on sale. I try to demo it, but it doesn’t work. She calls another staffer to fix it: “Can you fix the battery on this one, everyone wants to try it because its on sale.” BS meter goes off! I demo its higher-priced cousin and walk away.

Bonus: Mouse Print blog takes Macy’s to task for their Sunday ad price corrections.

Is it marketing’s fault? Or sales? Or sloppiness? Any way you look at it, it’s bad.

B2B couldn’t sustain such bad practices, IMHO. We have too high a level of ethics, and accountablity, to pull these types of shenanigans.