Influence and temperature!

This year’s New York Times magazine issue covering the ideas of 2008 is an interesting read. The story on Cold Shoulder Science, is particularly interesting! Check it out on the link below.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/12/14/magazine/2008_IDEAS.html

When you take a new colleague or client out for a coffee, make sure you have a hot drink!!

When the tide goes out – managing in a downturn.

“A rising tide lifts all the boats”.But when it goes out some of the boats end up sitting on the rocks!

The good economic times over the last few years have probably covered over a few business shortcomings. It has been hard not to do well, when there has been lots of business around. Now the game has changed in two ways. First there is less money around, and secondly, because there’s the same competitors, there will be more competition for the business that is around.

The natural response is to cut costs to manage the anticipated reduction in revenue. That’s important always. But here are a couple of other things to think about:

1. How effective is your business development process? In particular I’d look two aspects – at the quality of the sales interaction and the effectiveness of sales management. I am always astounded by the generally poor perception of clients towards suppliers involved in tender situations. Most sales people still don’t ask enough questions and don’t listen well enough. And most sales management is focused on results. You can’t manage results as you have no control over them! Clients decide! Sales management needs to focus on behaviours. What are the right behaviours at this point in time? Based on the sales pipeline, sales targets, and the specific client.
2. How effective are your client/supplier negotiations? Like cost savings, these go straight to the bottom-line. What I notice in sales teams is a tendency to give value away. They want to get the deal, profitability isn’t that important! Of course, they don’t say that. There is always a very good reason why they have to give value away!

Fact or decision

A couple of months ago my youngest daughter said to me -  “I’m just not good with money, like my oldest sister, Dad”.

I said -  “When did you make that decision?”

“It’s not a decision, it’s a fact Dad!!”

There does seem to a lot of evidence in support of her ‘fact’, but she had just made a decision.

Why is it that we start making such important decisions when we too young to exercise real judgement.

I guess that’s life, but it’s good to distinguish between facts and decisions. We have power over our decisions. Decisions can be changed. I hope I can get her to see it my way.