In a recent HBR Blog post, Selling Is Not About Relationships, they talk about the how Every sales professional falls into one of five distinct profiles. I just don't see it that way. In fact, for the "Challenger" profile, I don't think taking control and pushing the customer is the right description for the profile they say is the best performing of sales people. I think that makes the relationship with the customer too adversarial. Ultimately this leads to buyers remorse and resentment, a real relationship killer. I think that the best sales people are a combination of relationship builder and the challenger role.
One of my favorite salesmen ever was in a twilight zone episode "What You Need". In it, a peddler has the curious ability to give people exactly what they need before they need it. While some of his ability was let's say - magic, more of his ability was about listening, hearing and offering a solution. While, we can't see the future, I believe the best sales people develop an understanding of the needs of their customers (aka not just listening, but hearing) and 'right fit' a solution into those needs. Sometimes this is accomplished by redefining (aka challenging) the understanding the customer has of the problem they need to solve, sometimes the challenge is not necessary. Regardless, without building trust through this process, it's very likely a once and done sale - not my model of successful selling. It's far easier to sell into an existing customer then to go out time and again to build new relationships with new customers. Both are critical to sales success, but happy customers breed more and more happy customers new and existing.
-hb
Friday, September 30, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Presidents Tax Plan - He Just Doesn't Get That The 250,000 Number Does More Harm Than Good.
I guess a number is just that, a number. But the president has to get over the $250,000 number that he says represents wealthy Americans.
On the one hand, with the cost of living in NY, $250,000 does not a wealthy American make.
On the other hand, and even more important from a Jobs Creation point of view, if you have a small business owner that's making $250,000 - would that money be better off taxed at a higher rate and spent by big government or invested back into the business for growth? Hint, it is an either or kind of question and there is only one correct answer. A small business in NY, lets say a sub chapter S corp netting through as income of $250,000 on a federal return does not a wealthy American make.
I have said repeatedly that tax certainty is what I want to see, even if it means that some or all of the Bush Tax Cuts are to be repealed. I just want to know now so that I can move forward, plan and make decisions based on what money I will have to work with when investing in a business. There is enough risk running a business, no one wants the government to be the reason their business is put at financial risk. Washington behavior and indecision is exactly what worries many with both policy and financial uncertainty. I am sure many others are of the same mind.
Let's find an income number (or index one) that perhaps makes sense without preventing the people that provide the majority of job growth from investing in themselves, from investing in America.
-hb
On the one hand, with the cost of living in NY, $250,000 does not a wealthy American make.
On the other hand, and even more important from a Jobs Creation point of view, if you have a small business owner that's making $250,000 - would that money be better off taxed at a higher rate and spent by big government or invested back into the business for growth? Hint, it is an either or kind of question and there is only one correct answer. A small business in NY, lets say a sub chapter S corp netting through as income of $250,000 on a federal return does not a wealthy American make.
I have said repeatedly that tax certainty is what I want to see, even if it means that some or all of the Bush Tax Cuts are to be repealed. I just want to know now so that I can move forward, plan and make decisions based on what money I will have to work with when investing in a business. There is enough risk running a business, no one wants the government to be the reason their business is put at financial risk. Washington behavior and indecision is exactly what worries many with both policy and financial uncertainty. I am sure many others are of the same mind.
Let's find an income number (or index one) that perhaps makes sense without preventing the people that provide the majority of job growth from investing in themselves, from investing in America.
-hb
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Facebook's new Subscribe button - implications for me, similar concerns for you too?
From early reading, the new Subscribe option makes public Facebook
posts more useful, especially
if you start gaining an audience. Herein lies one of the issues for me.
I and I believe many other FB users are not looking for an expanding
audience. On FB, I am looking to interact and discuss and share with my
friends. I realize that over time FB has evolved to support company
pages and fan pages and pharma pages, and like pages, etc. all in my
opinion trying to evolve FB into a platform for more than that which it
was originally envisioned. Evolution is ok, but we have already seen
that the complexity of FB permissions is not only confusing to people,
it is confusing to the apps and perhaps not always working the way the
user posting may expect. I have over time seen differences in the
interpretations of information flows (let's call it that for the sake of
it) in my iPhone FB app vs what shows on my page. It's tough enough to
set a default security on FB for all of the various things there, it is
tougher still to set different ones based on your intended (note, I did
not say targeted) audience. Which brings me to how I use FB and the
other social networks and my expectation of the levels of privacy
I expect in that use.
I use Twitter to speak with a public audience. This is where I am 'working my brand', I'd like to see it expand as far as it's legs will take it based on common expertise, interests, tasks, topics, etc. with others as a public as well as more localized (ie followers) expect it to go. Here, the conversations by the nature of the micro-shouts vary and are not specific to my expertise, my work, etc. They are what they are and it is a fantastic place to interact with others of similar mind or interest on any topic. If outside of your typical brand conversation, you just hashtag a particular conversation so as not to bore others that follow you. But for this freedom, my expectation of privacy here is absolutely zero with only a direct message being a message just between myself the the person I have sent it to.
I use LinkedIn to communicate with more specific peers, both as connections as well as via the groups I am part of. Here, I expect that my posts are considered public except when I message someone with InMail of which I expect the same level of privacy as regular email. I am not saying that is necessarily how it is, just my expectation of it's use. I also use it to keep connected with my contacts on the professional side as they move around, move on, retire, etc. LinkedIn is far better at this then a private system could ever be unless I were to frequently communicate with everyone with who I am connected; something I and I expect others am not prepared to do. Some of the complexity of the expectations for privacy here is that this platform too continues to evolve into more then it was intended and as such layers of complexity lay waste to layers of expectation for what I am posting to only be viewable by the specific audience (ie: my connections) I may have intended. So by practice, I only post what I can accept anyone seeing. I also tend to limit my connections to people with who I have an expectation of professionalism and trust, limiting my network to those I know, have experience with a or common trusted thread rather than anyone who wants to connect.
Note that for the purposes of this post, I have left Google+ out as I do not yet have much experience with it.
So in summary, Public = Twitter, Business / Public = LinkedIn, Private (expected by my settings) and more personal = Facebook. This is the way I view them. The problem is that Facebook wants to be all of these. This is how we got to the current layers of security and complexity within the platform. In my Facebook use, my security is set to Friends Only, not Friends of Friends or mixed levels of posting. This is why I believe that my posting is limited to my expected audience, expanded only by inadvertent view by a friend of a friend sitting in front of the same computer when sharing.
The new FB Subscribe option would seem to provide yet another layer of complexity on top of an already complex product. While it could spur more public sharing a la Twitter, if others use these tools with similar expectations or assumptions as I do, it could raise more privacy concerns for a social network that has already had its share of privacy controversies.
What do you think?
-HB
I use Twitter to speak with a public audience. This is where I am 'working my brand', I'd like to see it expand as far as it's legs will take it based on common expertise, interests, tasks, topics, etc. with others as a public as well as more localized (ie followers) expect it to go. Here, the conversations by the nature of the micro-shouts vary and are not specific to my expertise, my work, etc. They are what they are and it is a fantastic place to interact with others of similar mind or interest on any topic. If outside of your typical brand conversation, you just hashtag a particular conversation so as not to bore others that follow you. But for this freedom, my expectation of privacy here is absolutely zero with only a direct message being a message just between myself the the person I have sent it to.
I use LinkedIn to communicate with more specific peers, both as connections as well as via the groups I am part of. Here, I expect that my posts are considered public except when I message someone with InMail of which I expect the same level of privacy as regular email. I am not saying that is necessarily how it is, just my expectation of it's use. I also use it to keep connected with my contacts on the professional side as they move around, move on, retire, etc. LinkedIn is far better at this then a private system could ever be unless I were to frequently communicate with everyone with who I am connected; something I and I expect others am not prepared to do. Some of the complexity of the expectations for privacy here is that this platform too continues to evolve into more then it was intended and as such layers of complexity lay waste to layers of expectation for what I am posting to only be viewable by the specific audience (ie: my connections) I may have intended. So by practice, I only post what I can accept anyone seeing. I also tend to limit my connections to people with who I have an expectation of professionalism and trust, limiting my network to those I know, have experience with a or common trusted thread rather than anyone who wants to connect.
Note that for the purposes of this post, I have left Google+ out as I do not yet have much experience with it.
So in summary, Public = Twitter, Business / Public = LinkedIn, Private (expected by my settings) and more personal = Facebook. This is the way I view them. The problem is that Facebook wants to be all of these. This is how we got to the current layers of security and complexity within the platform. In my Facebook use, my security is set to Friends Only, not Friends of Friends or mixed levels of posting. This is why I believe that my posting is limited to my expected audience, expanded only by inadvertent view by a friend of a friend sitting in front of the same computer when sharing.
The new FB Subscribe option would seem to provide yet another layer of complexity on top of an already complex product. While it could spur more public sharing a la Twitter, if others use these tools with similar expectations or assumptions as I do, it could raise more privacy concerns for a social network that has already had its share of privacy controversies.
What do you think?
-HB
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