C-Suite Network™

Menu
Search
Close this search box.

Category: Investing

Categories
Body Language Entrepreneurship Human Resources Investing Management Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

“Here Is What You Need To Know To Win More Negotiations” – Negotiation Tip of the Week

 

 

“To win more, you must know more about how to win.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)

 

 

Click here to get the book!

“Here Is What You Need To Know To Win More Negotiations”

He entered the negotiation completely unprepared. And he jumped at the first offer the other negotiator made. After they departed the negotiator that had extended the offer said to a cohort, I wish all of my negotiations were that easy. That guy had no negotiation skills.

Hopefully, no one will ever say that about you. Implement the following steps in your negotiations, and you’ll decrease that probability.

 

Planning Stage:

  • Identify what a winning outcome is for you and the other negotiator.
  • Take into account the resources you and the other negotiator will have to enhance your efforts. Those resources might consist of other people at the negotiation table and some that are not.
  • Determine what either of you might do to achieve that outcome.
  • Assess what might hamper the outcome you’d like.
  • Identify the body language gestures you’ll note to assess when the other negotiator is becoming exasperated. Set the baseline for those gestures by observing how he acts when he’s calm.

 

Other Influencing Factors:

  • Know the outside sources of power that might influence the other negotiator.
  • For more considerable influence, understand the way he thinks and the motives that drive his actions.
  • Know your pressure points and those of your opponent. You can gain influence by applying pressure on those not at the negotiation table – leverage that. Remember, the other negotiator can do the same to you. To decrease that probability, minimize those that may expose your vulnerabilities. Doing so will make you less susceptible to pressure.
  • Know how many phases there may be in the negotiation. If the other negotiator is the first of many that you’ll be negotiating against, he may be attempting to gain insight into your strategy. Then, when you think you’ve reached an agreeable outcome, he’s removed. And his team installs someone else. That’s the beginning of the next phase of the talks. That can occur throughout many stages. Be prepared for it.
  • Recognize when you’re in a zone – everything is going right. Also, be aware when things are misaligned. When that occurs, stop the negotiation. Take a break an assess what’s happening. Once refreshed, re-engage.

 

Read Body Language:

  • Gather nonverbal queues that reveal hidden thoughts.
  • Eyes – What can you glean from someone’s eyes? You can gain insight into their demeanor, the degree of respect they have for you and themselves. And you can note when they become uneasy about an offer. To record such occurrences, observe the eye movement when engaged in regular exchanges. Then, as things intensify, note the quickening pace of the eye movement, the direction up or down in which is glanced. Those movements will signal uncomfortableness. Take note when sensing that and be prepared to take action.
  • Hands – When people speak, it’s natural to use hand gestures. As you progress in the negotiation, note the degree your opponent alters those gestures. There’s value in noting the difference between him saying, and we’re this close to a successful deal while holding his thumb and forefinger a quarter of an inch apart, versus two inches. He’s displaying his measurement to how close he thinks you are to closing the deal.
  • Speech patterns – Words convey thoughts. And specific words have more meaning than others. Thus, lend attention to the words used and their pronouncement when someone extends an offer. As an example, if someone were to say in a robust intonation, that’s my best deal, take it or leave it. They’d sound more convincing than if they stated it in a weaker tone and with their head bowed. Gain additional information by listening and observing.

 

Exit Strategies:

  • Have clearly defined points indicating when it’s time to exit the negotiation. Establish them during your planning session.
  • Allow the other negotiator points to exit without losing face.
  • Assess the degree a winning outcome has changed as you’ve negotiated. If it’s altered drastically, consider postponing it.

 

Many factors influence the flow and outcome of a negotiation. The better prepared you are for what might occur, the better your chances to control the factors that determine the outcome. Having more control means, you should be able to keep the other negotiator happy with what he receives, while you obtain what you seek. The strategies mentioned will help you do just that. They’ll assist you in achieving your goals … and everything will be right with the world.

 

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

 

 

#Negotiate #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #Negotiator #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #BodyLanguageExpert #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #GregWilliams #success

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Culture Economics Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Management Personal Development Technology

5G Entrepreneurs Creating Billion-Dollar Businesses

Within the next five years…

New multibillion-dollar businesses will appear that didn’t exist before due to 5G wireless technology. Because of this, many industries will either be agile, reacting to an ever-increasing number of 5G innovators disrupting their industry, or they will be anticipatory innovators and use the predictability of 5G capabilities to become the disruptor.

The first generation (1G) of wireless came with the introduction of cell phones constrained to phone calls and high-level executives. The second-generation (2G) gave us better call quality for wireless phones and offered a new capability for text messaging via SMS. The third-generation (3G) facilitated mobile internet browsing and early video calling.

Most recently, 4G brought us useful multimedia networked computers with media-rich streaming applications like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, and more.

Up next is 5G.

This generation of wireless technology is already being deployed in major cities in the U.S. and other countries. Qualcomm, Ericsson, and Broadcom, as well as network providers AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, are all putting in maximum effort, with mobile device manufacturers starting to launch their first 5G-enabled devices.

While consumers have become jaded to the 5G terms as seen in commercials, there are many consumer and business implementations of 5G to be excited about. Once deployed and fully operational, 5G would essentially be the solution to deliver complete digital connectivity from the tip of the carrier network and essentially be the death of cables in homes and offices alike.

As it stands today, 5G would function as a set of simultaneous revolutions, all of which must function without any trouble whatsoever, in order to provide the speed and connectivity it boasts. Some hiccups actually go beyond technological functionality and spill into business and social conflicts:

  • Unified Carriers. 5G wireless would essentially place companies like AT&T, Verizon, and the combined T-Mobile and Sprint in competition against Comcast and Charter Communications for services. 
  • Remade Landscapes. 5G allows for smaller transmitters that consume lower power, with smaller 5G transmitters covering much smaller service areas than those typical 4G towers. A carrier would need about four hundred times more than we currently have, camouflaged in urban areas. 
  • Restructured Global Technology Economy. Upon implementing 5G, areas such as Scandinavia where Nokia and Ericsson reside would become the primary hub for telecommunications, and China Mobile and Huawei are jointly responsible for the architecture of 5G, making China more powerful in the data world than the U.S.

The cost is of most concern in many cases. Prices for service would most likely start out pretty high compared to where we are now, covering the costs to implement the technology.

In several articles of mine, I’ve called on anticipatory businesses and individuals to pay attention to the Hard Trends shaping the future both inside and outside of their industries, and the digital disruptors that may affect them directly or indirectly. Implementation of 5G would certainly jump-start those disruptions.

The following are perfect examples of technology-driven changes I’ve discussed in previous articles and their correlation to 5G technology:

  • Vehicle-to-Vehicle Communications and Driverless Automobiles. 5G will enable Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communication, using the low latency of 5G wireless networking, allowing each vehicle to know exactly what all the other vehicles are doing around it.
  • Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). Ultra-fast connectivity and synchronicity are important for the user experience, as video communication within corporations will be meshing with VR as remote employees take virtual tours of a manufacturing plant with individuals who are physically there. In the AR world, the very infrastructure of AR glasses and other AR technology is contingent on high-speed connectivity with the amount of data present.
  • Cloud Computing. 5G wireless has the potential for distributed cloud computing services, creating near real-time experiences with edge computing that are much more engaging to users than Amazon, Google, or Microsoft are today.
  • Internet of Things (IoT). Everything from kitchen appliances to parking meters can all be made easier to produce, easier to control, and more connected than ever before. 5G transmitters will become IoT hubs, acting as real-time service hubs for all the households in their specific coverage areas.
  • Healthcare. The availability of low-latency connectivity in extremely remote locations such as Mississippi, where trials of 5G connectivity are implemented, would connect individuals to remote medical professionals for information.

By being anticipatory, many telecommunication providers are pre-solving problems with 5G before they occur by way of moving customers into a 5G business track before most true 5G services exist. It is the perfect time for you and your organization to anticipate what’s to come, and more importantly, what is to be affected by 5G in your industry. By paying attention to the Hard Trends shaping the future, you can stay ahead of the curve to avoid falling behind.

To be certain of the Hard Trends shaping your future, get a copy of my latest book The Anticipatory Organization – I have a special offer for you!

Categories
Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Health and Wellness Industries Investing Leadership Technology

Auto Insurance Industry: Disrupted or Disruptor?

Today, we have fully electric vehicles with AI-enabled semi-autonomous features, as well as fully autonomous vehicle applications. But how has this affected insurance premiums, and will those changes deter you from buying a specific “vehicle of the future”?

Presently, most vehicles still put you in the driver’s seat and in control, leaving your insurance unaffected. But now that we have more autonomous features than ever to make the roads safer, insurance is changing.

Disruptive innovator Elon Musk and Tesla have been in the limelight for good and bad reasons in this space. The good being a computerized system more adept and attentive than human beings, but the bad is that initial versions of these features have been limited. Couple that with the fact that there are currently fewer Tesla automobiles on highways than Fords or Chevys, many buying a Tesla will quickly notice their insurance premiums skyrocket.

Auto Insurance Is Changing

For example, entrepreneur Dan Peate, who founded the group health insurance provider Hixme, was deterred from getting himself a Tesla Model X after he discovered that his premiums would accelerate to roughly $10,000 a year. Why should the price vary so much, especially since semi-autonomous features are specifically manufactured to be safer on the roads? If you find yourself pondering this as well, you are definitely identifying the Hard Trend that more semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles will emerge every year.

Dan Peate identified this Hard Trend and became more anticipatory in his thinking, moving to start a wave of disruption from within the insurance industry. He founded Avinew, a new insurance company that monitors drivers’ use of autonomous features on cars and determines insurance premium discounts based on how and when autonomous features are used.

Avinew has agreements with most manufacturers and customers, allowing it to access driving data in real time and utilizing the data gathered to cut insurance premiums, rather than after accidents occur.

Underwriters and actuaries base insurance prices on the type of risk, and oftentimes they charge more due to not having enough data, as the risk is the unknown and not that the vehicle puts you in danger.

With the interconnectivity of the world today, change is in motion. Policyholders have a more dynamic and interactive relationship with insurers, and much like decentralized currency, have more accurate accounts of transactions. In this case, the frequency of usage of autonomous and semi-autonomous features eliminates frivolous insurance costs.

Some insurers call this an existential crisis, but it is actually a chance for entrepreneurs to turn disruption and change into opportunity and advantage by learning to be anticipatory.

Research conducted at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey indicates that premiums could drop 12.5 percent by 2035 with this new wave of auto disruption, and that product lines centered around autonomous features will offset some of the loss, but the gains will remain far behind.

Forecasts like this might make the insurance industry feel like it has plenty of time. After all, that same research above estimates that by 2035, there will still only be 23 million autonomous vehicles on American roads, which is less than 10 percent of today’s total. The problem is they fail to use the Both/And principle, one I have taught for decades that aided me in maintaining a high level of forecasting accuracy. Researchers in the auto industry fall into the trap of thinking future vehicles will either be fully autonomous or not autonomous at all (Either/Or thinking).

Higher Risk?

The future fact is that fully autonomous vehicles will be higher risk due to potential hacking and technology failure issues than semi-autonomous vehicles, so we will see rapid growth in semi-autonomous cars as well as older cars being fitted with semi-autonomous crash-avoidance systems. Fully autonomous vehicles will increase in areas where their use is less risky. At any rate, the numbers of vehicles with semi-autonomous and fully autonomous capabilities will grow far faster than most are projecting.

The insurance industry must move on this faster than projected or be disrupted by anticipatory outsiders. Insurance is needed, but the risk is shifting to vehicle manufacturers, software providers, and tech component system providers. Following this shift to find opportunity will be a key to growth in the years ahead. If the risk is less human and more systemic, said risk becomes systematic and more predictable and preventable.

One way an entrepreneur could look at this and anticipate what is to come is by paying less attention to what Dan Peate and Avinew are currently doing, and focus on what will disrupt them in the coming years. There are individual opportunities for existing insurance companies to anticipate, adapt and grow, or stagnate and fail. The good news is that by using the Hard Trend Methodology, you have a choice.

Categories
Body Language Entrepreneurship Investing Management Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

“Do You Know How To Avoid Negotiation Manipulation Mistakes” – Negotiation Tip of the Week

“To avoid misperceived mistakes in manipulation, state your intent clearly.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)

 

Click here to get the book!

“Do You Know How To Avoid Negotiation Manipulation Mistakes”

 

Before they began the negotiation, he heaped constant prays on her. She blushed and wondered if he had a deeper affinity. Finally, she said, “okay, enough with the manipulation efforts – let’s get down to business.” To which he replied, “I’ve been discussing business all along.” That’s when she said in a snarky tone, “the way you were carrying on, I thought you wanted to date me.” At that, he became a little crestfallen. That’s when he realized his prays had been perceived as manipulation. He had made a big mistake! Do you know how to avoid negotiation manipulation mistakes?

Continue reading and you’ll discover how to avoid and use manipulation in your negotiations.

 

Manipulations – good – bad – it depends:

Whether someone feels manipulated depends on their perspective. If you ask most people what the definition of manipulation is, they’ll state that it’s a negative act. It can mean to advantage oneself based on the skill applied to do so. It can also mean to address with skill a process or treatment – in that case, it’s neutral – neither negative or positive.

Before engaging someone in a negotiation, understand their perspective of prays, deference, and appreciation of one’s achievements. And be mindful not to be perceived as effusive. You don’t want your intent to be misperceived.

 

Manipulation Mistakes:

Some negotiators begin a negotiation unaware of how their actions are being perceived. Those individuals should acquire greater negotiation skills.

Smart negotiators are aware that every action may be scrutinized to disclose hidden intents. They look for body language signals to indicate indifference to offers and counteroffers.

Being unobservant opens the door to misperception. When you observe signals that indicate you’re being perceived as brownnosing or deceitful, those may be signs that you’ve wandered into the realm of making manipulation mistakes. Seek feedback as to how you’re being perceived and if necessary, clarify your intent.

 

Body Language Observance:

When detecting perceived manipulation through someone’s body language, there are a few signs to observe.

  1. Head-cock to either side – This gesture indicates interest. It may be saying, where’s this going? Take note of the number of times the head moves from one side of the body to the other. That’ll indicate a greater intent to gain more insight about what’s being said. Look for other signs to add deeper meaning to head-cocking gestures. Smiles, along with interruptions, can lend to that insight.

 

  1. Smiles – A smile doesn’t necessarily mean agreement. With perceived manipulation, a smile may indicate, let’s see how far he’ll go. Or, I don’t believe he’s saying that. If you have doubt about a gesture’s significance, inquire about how it’s perceived. Some people find themselves on a slippery slope because they don’t recognize the first step. Don’t let that happen to you.

 

  1. Interruptions – When someone interrupts you, they want to alter what they’re hearing. They may be asking you to cite your case differently for greater clarity. The point is, they’re seeking more information. Take heed. They may be signaling hidden thoughts that states they’ve become more attuned to what you’re saying. Understand why that’s so.

 

Using Manipulation:

Manipulation can be an effective tool if it’s used correctly. To do so, understand the mindset of the other individual – and his boundaries about perceived effusiveness and lack of respect. Those boundaries will be the sweet spot to place your praise. Skirt those boundaries and you’ll venture into murky waters.

The best time to manipulate someone is when you slightly alter what they already believe to be true. It’s even better if you’ve established trust first. Thus, the more they see themselves in your reflection, the greater the opportunity for manipulation.

Please be aware not to abuse this technique. It can have deadly consequences in a negotiation. Always treat your opponent with the utmost respect. If you don’t intentionally manipulate someone towards harm, you’ll have greater negotiation outcomes … and everything will be right with the world.

 

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

 

 

#manipulation #mistakes #Negotiate #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #Negotiator #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #BodyLanguageExpert #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #GregWilliams #success

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Culture Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Marketing Skills Technology

Disruptor Watch — How Disruptors Can Learn From Their Forebears

In today’s economic landscape, many companies look to be the “disruptor” instead of the “disrupted.” They want to identify a new niche in their industries or solve a problem people are unaware of, introducing next-gen technology and unprecedented business methods.

However, with every disruptive tech company, there are obvious caveats and pitfalls to note, and it behooves would-be entrepreneurs and innovators to observe and learn from both the successes and the mistakes of their recent forebears.

Disruptive Photo Technology 

Focal Media Group is the creator and producer of the StyleShoots photography machine. StyleShoots puts more power in the hands of major fashion retailers and the creative agencies they work with. Essentially, the machine automates much of the work associated with photo editing, such as basic Photoshopping. Its interface is extremely user-friendly, enabling someone with very little photography experience to create consistent, high-quality imagery, allowing major fashion retailers and brands to cut down on production costs and time to market. For creative agencies, StyleShoots turns around quality content much quicker than before, freeing agencies up to compete for more business and putting them ahead of their competition.

While this technology could have wide applications in the photography world, fashion product photography is already seeking to carve out a niche for itself before expanding. By relegating itself to the world of fashion product photography, Focal Media Group has already gained a slew of high-profile brands as clients, such as Macy’s, Triumph, Forever 21, Zalando, Woolworths, and Scotch & Soda. It has also sold StyleShoots machines to major creative agencies, such as Pure Red and Undefeated Creative.

However, it would still behoove the Focal Media Group to pay attention to its recent forebears and to take close note of their respective successes and shortcomings. Here are some things Focal Media Group should be willing to address:

Lowering the Barrier of Entry

While the StyleShoots machine is being adopted by major fashion retailers, very few people in the industry are aware of the savings and added revenue it could provide. This means Focal Media Group could stand to use both social and traditional media to expand its marketing campaign in order to create awareness. If the only thing preventing a product from turning its target industry upside down is awareness, a solid marketing campaign will prove invaluable, as other recent successes have discovered.

Learning from Airbnb

I’ve written extensively about companies like Airbnb — how they’ve disrupted their respective industries and succeeded at creating enormous, widely acclaimed brands and user experiences. However, these organizations have succeeded hugely in some areas of business and failed spectacularly in others.

Let’s look at how a company like Focal Media Group can benefit from paying attention to what Airbnb’s been doing these past few years.

In the documentary Design Disruptors, Airbnb Head of Experience Design Katie Dill provides insight into what makes the company so effective from a design standpoint. Essentially, Airbnb leverages design and aesthetics to facilitate a better overall user experience, which has clearly proved successful.

In Design Disruptors, Dill explains that the design team is not a “design” team but an “experience” team, considering everything a user explores in Airbnb’s platform as an overarching brand experience. Airbnb includes its community in its experience design processes, effectively touting design as a means to create a more comprehensive, friendlier, and beautiful user experience, which is key to the success of any startup.

Focal Media Group would do well to focus on creating a user experience that makes prospective clients feel at ease, like they can easily operate the StyleShoots machine or teach their colleagues how to use it. The experience should also explicitly illustrate how brands, retailers, and agencies stand to benefit from using StyleShoots and its related products for their photography.

Pay attention to what people are saying about you in real-time. Pay closer attention to both the quality of your product, user experience, and how you can keep it as high as possible. If you have an amazing product and a friendly, inviting user experience with an easy-to-use interface, you likely won’t have to worry about a PR blowback or unhappy customers.

Focal Media Group and its StyleShoots machine is only one pertinent example out of thousands of startups seeking to disrupt their respective industries. But if you’re a company on the verge of disrupting a major industry, you would do well to observe your more successful and noteworthy predecessors, to mark both their successes and their failures to better your own company and more effectively facilitate the disruption you seek to implement.

Categories
Investing Management Marketing Personal Development Sales

The Seven “Power Components” of Elite Funnel Management

Companies must excel in managing their sales funnel at all levels, from salesperson self-diagnosis, to sales management one-on-ones, to executive funnel reviews. Funnel management is key to understanding the health of any business.  Ultimately, high-performing sales organizations are great funnel management organizations.

In this article, I’ll go over some of the principles I share with my clients. We build a regular cadence around the aspects below.

  • Some indicate sales behavior gaps. That is, the areas below identify gaps in how sellers manage their businesses, and point sales managers to productive coaching conversations.
  • Some indicate dysfunctional management behavior.  Yes, some problems come about because management puts inappropriate incentives in place.

1.    Does the Funnel Reflect Your Business?

Your process probably doesn’t reflect your business if it’s the process that came with your CRM “out of the box”. Instead, take the time to make your funnel yours, instead of your CRM vendor’s.

Does your funnel reflect how your customers buy, and align your sales process to that?Simple process steps or full-on playbooks which incorporate all selling resources and roles are all fine, depending on your business, but:

One simple guideline: build your process around your typical customer journey. Remember, as process detail builds, make sure nothing clouds the view of your customer’s buying process.

2.    Does Your Funnel Give Full Visibility?

Basically, if a seller spends time on an opportunity, it should appear on the funnel. Sellers can’t work effectively “maintaining two sets of books”, especially when one is in their heads.  Worse, companies can’t resource properly.

Unfortunately, dysfunctional incentives often drive lack of visibility. Sellers sandbag when management harangues indiscriminately on early stage deals. Sellers logically avoid busywork when documentation/data entry burden on early stage deals is excessive (as judged by the sales person). Leaders, if you want full visibility, you need to welcome it…and minimize the pain of disclosure.

  • For example, I recently worked with a sales force whose standard operating procedure was to “enter-into-CRM-when-won”. The company’s close rate was 90+%, but opportunities appeared in the CRM minutes to days before being won (actual sales cycle could be 5 quarters). As a manufacturing company, lead times stretched because operations had no advance notice, and couldn’t order materials. While sales people hated dealing with long lead times, they obviously hated dysfunctional funnel conversations even more.

3.    Is There Enough Business In Your Funnel? 

The bigger the funnel, the better, right? Unfortunately, this area spawns unintended consequences.  Some sales leaders gravitate toward oversized funnels. Predictably, mere minutes after an edict for 3x or 5x the sales goal goes out, sales people begin entering “manager repellant” deals into their funnels. Then, everyone from sellers to managers, CRM admins, executives, operations leaders, etc. gets sucked into the extra work of touching, monitoring and handling hundreds of “dead man walking” opportunities. While a funnel must contain sufficient volume of opportunities to retire sales goal, “multiples” aren’t fixed, but depend on individual seller ratios, seasonality, fit, industry, and more.

Whenever I work with clients on “funnel sufficiency”, we combine volume with quality scoring for fit/winnability. Removing low-probability opportunities from the funnel increases predictability.  More importantly, clients de-resource time-wasting opportunities, reallocating effort more productively.

Bottom line: put only good deals into your funnel.  If there aren’t enough of those, the cure isn’t adding garbage opportunities.

4.    Is the Funnel a Healthy Shape?

One level deeper than overall funnel sufficiency is volume at each stage.  I refer to this as funnel shape.  A healthy funnel is shaped like…well…a funnel.  A variety of selling behavior problems show up simply by examining volume in each stage.  For instance, if a seller’s funnel is dominated by top-of-funnel deals (with almost no opportunities in the middle and late stages), that seller is either a new rep or might have a hard time qualifying opportunities.  Similarly, different deformations signal a need for a helpful coaching interaction.  These conversations are targeted; guided by the funnel shape.  Even better, coaching interventions occur in time to rescue opportunities…and sales careers.

5.     Are Opportunities Progressing Well?

By itself, how quickly opportunities progress is an indicator of winnability.  “Time kills all deals” is a truism.  Once funnel stages corresponding to a customer’s buying processare identified and incorporated in your system, we develop an expected time for each stage.  CRM systems can easily measure time-in-stage, which doesn’t have to trigger panic, but should trigger an alert to sales people and front-line managers to diagnose the reason for the holdup.

The metrics-savvy manager could deduce that a higher number of sales stages might yield shorter stage durations, and thus a faster trouble indicator.  Maybe; it depends on a couple things.  1) The precision of defined customer actions for advancing to the following stage; poor definitions lead to lots of false triggering, which causes everyone to ignore alarms.  2) Your sales team’s willingness to put up with the workload of more frequent updates; the more detail a CRM asks for, the less accurate the CRM tends to be.

6.    Can You Immediately See Opportunity Quality? 

What would you think about a funnel view that shows deal size and expected close date, but also displays quality/fit/winnability?  Your view of your business would go from a flat, two-dimensional representation to a full-depth view.  You would have greater confidence and could make better decisions, couldn’t you? This is true for the salesperson looking at their own business all the way to the CEO preparing for an investor call.

In my practice, I see a good-better-best continuum of opportunity quality:

  • Basic level: Stages are assigned a standard win probablility, perhaps validated historically. Alternately, sellers can override standard probabilities, using personal estimates (or some overall guidelines).
  • High Level: when sales stages incorporate customer actions (item 5 above), zombie deals (no customer buying activity happening, but opportunities keep walking along) are excluded. Additionally, opportunities get scored with criteria specific to the business and customer fit.
  • Elite Level: Sales forces quantify customer-perceived value throughout an opportunity pursuit. When incorporated into the opportunity scoring system above, sellers and executives alike have a direct line-of-sight into the customer’s case for change and preference for the seller’s solution. Forecasts with this level of customer insight are highly reliable. Won-lost reviews are precision events. This also builds a foundation for profitable, win-win pricing.

7.    Does the Funnel Show a Desirable Business Mix?

Does the funnel show healthy prospecting and early qualification activity? Looking at new opportunity entries, is there enough, and is initial qualification activity taking place?  Are quality value conversations taking place from the outset?  That is, is value quantified early and widely?

Is the right emphasis given to large opportunities? Big numbers attract disproportionate resources. Is there a solid value assessment in place to justify those resources?  When appropriate, is there a co-created customer “plan-to-go-live” (the customer-centric twin of the “win plan”) in place?

Are stuck deals – those languishing too long in a given stage — identified in timely manner and are interventions compelling?  Looking at customer-perceived value assessments gives insight into the customer motivation/internal case for change.

Is the right product-mix represented?  If not, is a seller gravitating toward a certain kind of business, leaving other opportunities untended?  This could point to a product training issue, a misaligned incentives issue, or a seller issue.  Figure out which and intervene accordingly.

Rinse. Repeat. Have Regular Cadence

None of these guidelines matter if they stay on the shelf.  Hold your leaders accountable for a regular cadence.  Make it a priority.  Incentivize cadence properly and track it, because sales leaders aren’t any different than anyone else.

I hope this helps.  Contact me or ask questions below if I can add any more detail.  If you’d like to go into more detail on your specific situation, reach out.

To your success!

Categories
Best Practices Economics Investing Management Marketing Personal Development

Economic Storm Coming? What to Do Now.

I get it.  I’ve managed P & Ls through recessions and I understand the options and the challenges.  If you’re not ready for it, sometimes the best you can do during a business downturn is simply play to survive.  This article discusses what you can do before hard times hit in order to expand your choices during.

The Cost of Cost-cutting

Make no mistake:  times sometimes get hard.  For example, if you sold capital equipment into the oil & gas industry during the oil price slide of 2016-2017, you know that there is sometimes no alternative but to “right-size” in response to an uncontrollable market dynamic. Companies need to step up the spending discipline during down cycles.

Cost control is good corporate practice, but it has limits.  Cost control, what one of my first bosses called “frugaling” takes energy and management focus.  Cost-cutting your way to profitability is one of the hardest ways to increase net income. Combining cost-control and growth is even harder:

You can’t shrink your way to growth.

When you start cost-cutting, it’s difficult to maintain customer service and responsiveness levels.  Your people find it harder to be that helpful cheerful voice for your customers.  It’s harder to invest in innovation.  It’s harder to get face-to-face with customers. You are at significant risk of trading customer satisfaction for cost improvement.

As you struggle through needing to “frugal”, don’t mistake right-sizing for a growth plan.

More importantly, don’t mistake a cost-cutting project for a guiding business principle.  It’s a tactical coping mechanism, not a strategy, or a path to long-term success.

Let’s Start With What You Shouldn’t Do

Don’t get taken by surprise.  That company who sells into oil & gas should know that an oil price dip is coming.  One of those is always coming.  Always. Leaders in that industry have absolutely no right to be surprised by the fact that oil prices fluctuate.  It’s just a question of when.  If you aren’t preparing your company for it, you don’t deserve to lead a company.

Don’t start feeling superior to some specific industry, people.  A recession is always coming, too.  Always. Go back and read the paragraph above as if it’s directed at you and your industry, because it is.

You Can Prepare the Hard Way…

Some preparations are really difficult.

  • For instance, you could try to manage your fixed costs down.
  • You could reorganize your financing, trading debt for equity…preferably, patient money. At a minimum, it might be worth it to ask your impatient money to be less impatient.
  • Perhaps you can aggressively build cash during good times. Perhaps you should step up your expense control now so that it doesn’t become need to become dysfunctional later.

These preparations can keep your frugaling from being the kind that damages your company’s long-term health. Keen awareness of customer value (awareness I help clients develop and sharpen) can guide you through prudent cost-cutting.

…Or You Can Prepare a Simpler Way.

Some preparations are more doable (perhaps still challenging, depending on your culture and leadership) but set you up for success – during and after challenging times. I can help with these, by the way.

  • Radically rethink who “sells”. Expand the mission of every customer-facing role in your company. Go beyond current “customer experience” (CX) theory.  Where CX trains your people to “delight”, go further: every person trained in value discovery.  I teach three simple questions and a mindset shift that turn every person into an extension of your sales discovery process.
  • Radically rethink who buys. Typically, one silo at your customer holds budget, but many silos benefit. Get to all of the silos who benefit, and help them realize maximum value from your product or service.
  • Radically re-shape your most important customer relationships. There are specific strategic planning systems that shift key account management from “what all can we sell to this customer”, to “how can we add even more to our customer’s business?”
  • Radically reshape your customer’s perception of the value you deliver. Your customers don’t buy your products or services, they buy business and personal outcomes.  What they are willing to pay for those outcomes can increase if you help them perceive outcomes’ value more clearly.  While you might be able to add new products/services in the medium to long term, your salespeople can add to the value of your existing offerings right now. It just takes the right kind of conversational skills and a little additional business acumen.

Start now.  If the economy tightens, your customers will be distracted, and these will get harder. Also, your competitors will be struggling to take your customers – some will try to buy your customer’s business away from you.

Of Course, You Could Just Not Prepare at All…

You could wing it when the time comes, right? What could go wrong?

Contact me if you would like to discuss what you could do in your business. If you know somebody who might benefit from this article, please share.

To your success!

Categories
Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Sales

Is Discounting That Deal Suicidal? Five Ways to Tell

It’s often tempting to discount your way out of a stressful situation, but sometimes you’re doing more harm than good.  Discounting is sometimes necessary…but often, it’s the biggest mistake you can make.  How do you know when you’re in that situation?

Full disclosure here:  I’m highly biased against discounting. My regular readers have gathered that I’m a pricing hawk, and my clients engage me because of it.  Within the Miller Heiman Group network, value-based pricing was my differentiation.  I’ve managed too many P&Ls to be comfortable with knee-jerk discounting behaviors I often see.

Just because discounting throws away profit dollars, is that any reason to call it suicidal?  Maybe. Maybe not. There are good reasons to discount.  We can go through those in another article if you want, but many times, dropping your price hurts more than this month’s/quarter’s/year’s financials. The pain of discount-trained customers lasts far beyond today’s closed deal celebration.  Or, as mom used to say: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.

So, what are the signals that discounting is simply a crutch for poor selling/marketing?  Here’s a checklist:

The Value is Already High Enough

Many customers think it’s good business practice to push back on price, no matter how satisfactory.  For instance, sales professionals operating in Latin America tell me that aggressive price negotiation is standard business culture there. These negotiators aren’t looking for any particular number, they’re looking for capitulation. Convince them that there’s no money left on the table for them to win, and they’re done.

Another approach is to walk them through the value justification you’ve been building all through the discovery and proposal-building process. You know, the one you’ve validated with them and their co-workers.  Yeah, the one that builds a value case using the customer’s own monetary estimates.  This is the one your sales methodology helps you build in detail.  You have one of those, right?  If not, consider the value of adopting one.  How many discount dollars (remember, discount dollars = profit dollars) did you give up last year?  Compare that amount to the cost of implementing a methodology which would have captured those profit dollars.  How many more digits in the first number?  So…why are we not talking?

You Don’t Know Your Value

I once worked for a company whose culture practiced “if Sales can’t articulate value, Product can’t discuss pricing”.  This company had enshrined value-based pricing as a pillar of the company culture. Nothing moved for an opportunity until everyone knew what value the customer perceived from our offer.  Once value was known, nothing stood in our way when delivering that value.

In contrast, I recently worked with a company in the middle of a company-driven sales force turnover. The outgoing salesforce was known for building value and never discounting.  Clients would routinely recoup the entire investment in under two months (some as slow as six – still a 200% 1st year ROI). Once clients believed such results were achievable for them, price was unimportant.  The incoming salespeople and weren’t equipped to articulate and validate customer value.  As a result, neither buyer nor seller knew the value of the offer.  Discounting became rampant and steep, and EBIDTA shrank to “shameful”.

If your salespeople can’t validate value monetarily with a customer, they aren’t equipped to have a price discussion.  When they are thus disadvantaged, they’ll want to discount their way out of trouble. This outcome is only partially the sales person’s fault.  Leadership holds majority responsibility in providing tools to prevent it.

You’ve Sold Too Narrowly

Has your sales strategy engaged all affected personas? Chances are that they have not.  Even sales methodologies who teach engaging “all” personas, ignore out-of-normal-scope “optional” personas–who could yield additional value. We intuitively shun the decision complexity of adding personas, without strategically adding personas who are natural allies.  Sometimes adding people amounts to “packing the court in your favor”.

I regularly engage with clients who engage too narrowly.  Customers build a group buying decision dynamic around the organizational silo/department who has a budget.  Too often, salespeople follow this definition of “buying team”, ignoring all of the other silos who benefit from their offer.  Business acumen would guide sellers to expand the buying ecosystem advantageously.

If a sales strategy hasn’t built value broadly in a prospect organization, there may not be enough value to support desired pricing.  Look at it another way.  Your company invested resources in producing customer value, but your sales approach failed to leverage all available value into pricing.  If you can’t charge for the value you produce, how sustainable is your business?

You’ve Sold Too Shallowly

Building some value with a buying persona is good. Building more value is better.  I have yet to encounter a methodology that doesn’t allow sellers to add more value drivers into the mix.  I have also yet to encounter a methodology that equip salespeople all of the value drivers to add.

Your sellers are probably able to sell more value to existing personas. They often don’t have the business acumen, product training, or selling tools to sell full value.  If your customer hasn’t built full value in their own mind, the internal math doesn’t check out.  They might think “the value is too low”, but say “your price is too high”. Those two are the same thing.

You’ve Crippled Your Offer

I once had a client who loved to pare down first opportunities into net-new clients.  The idea was to win a low-risk first engagement, then grow from proven results. This is the familiar “land and expand” strategy. Unfortunately, these first engagements were so narrowed that compelling results were almost impossible to achieve.

Designing the value out of an offer to make it easier to swallow traps the seller into discounting a low-value offer. Worse, it establishes low value for all future “expand” opportunities.  This could easily be “suicide by discounting”.

If your business involves follow-on sales, discounting the entry offer is extremely dangerous; you need a convincing “trial basis, then full price” story.  You also need the initial offer to prove “full price value”; think “full value delivery at small scale”, not “low sticker price”.  Predefined criteria for success should also be part of the equation; force a customer to measure value.

The Road to Failure is Paved with Discounted Sales

I love building profitable businesses. Not opportunistic gouging profits, but real, win-win, value-based profits.  I love helping clients do the same thing.

Please share if you liked this article…or comment…or like.  Contact me if you’d like to discuss in more detail.

To your success!

Categories
Body Language Entrepreneurship Investing Management Marketing Negotiations Operations Sales Skills Women In Business

“Do You Know How To Be A Powerful Negotiator” – Negotiation Tip of the Week

 “Power – something that others grant you, even if you momentarily take it from them.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert (Click to Tweet)

Click here to get the book!

“Do You Know How To Be A Powerful Negotiator”

 

He was pompous, screamed at others while demeaning them, and not well-liked – most of his associates detested him! Some wondered if that was why he’d been stuck in the same management position for over a decade. Plus, he was not a good negotiator – he lacked insight on how to use power. He used bullying tactics with his subordinates (i.e. you’d better do this or else), and veiled threats to delude his peers to get what he wanted. Everyone collectively swore they’d get even with him. And one day they did.

Do you know how to be a powerful negotiator?

 

Sources of Power and How To Use It:

Voice inflection – There’s power, or lack of, in the way you speak. You can make a statement that sounds like a question or a question that sounds like a statement simply by the inflection in your voice. To sound more powerfully, apply a deeper tone to your voice when emphasizing words of greater importance. This is especially true when negotiating. A deeper tone on, that’s my best price, conveys more conviction to your statement.

Positioning – Whether it’s your physical proximity to others or the proximity of your words, what proceeds your words impacts their perception. Therefore, be mindful of when you speak. If you speak after someone has delivered a rousing proposal, your words may be received with less enthusiasm. The same is true of your physical proximity to others. If you’re physically close to someone with power, your words will carry greater weight simply because of that proximity. Others will assume that there’s a sense of power bestowed upon you from the power person in the environment.

When negotiating, consider the order of your offers and their alignment with people of power. You can also make a prior offer appear to be better by downgrading the one that follows it – in that case, your message states that the trajectory of the offers to follow will become progressively worse.

Manipulation – A negotiator can gain momentary power through manipulation (for this purpose, the word manipulation is neutral – it’s not good or bad). One can use it to feed the other negotiator’s desires by embellishing the item he seeks from you. By doing that, you heighten his sense to acquire it.

To embellish an item, highlight how the other negotiator will feel, and/or appear to others once he’s acquired it. Take note of his body language as you make your summation. If he slips into a dream-like state while smiling and becoming dreamy-eyed, he’s also imagining the great sensation he’ll experience once he’s acquired your offer – you got him! Continue down that path and extract whatever he’s willing to forgo to acquire the offer. Be careful not to turn embellishment into a lie. That might come back to haunt you.

Likeability – Never underestimate the hidden value of likeability. It’s a factor that has swayed many negotiators. I’ve seen lower offers accepted because of it. It’s easy to be likable with most people – just be pleasant. Warning – with some bully types, you’ll have to meet power with power. Thus, the likeability factor may be a detriment. Instead, seek to become respected – respect will be the source that cedes greater power to you.

 

You’re always negotiating:

In the situation with the manager, mentioned at the beginning of this article, others did exact their toll on him. It occurred when subordinates and his peers combined forces – they informed senior management that they’d no longer work with him. The manager didn’t realize that he’d been negotiating with those folks during his tenure with the company. He used his power recklessly. And now their power was coming to bear against him – senior management fired him.

I love to observe people with power. To be specific, I note how they use it, to whom they extend it, and how they’re altered by it. It’s said that power doesn’t change you – it amplifies who you really are. To that point, always keep in mind, the way you treat people impacts their perception of you. Thus, if they perceive you as an ogre, they’ll be less inclined to assist you in achieving your goals. Therefore, use the sources of power as partners in your negotiations – they’ll increase the perception of you being a powerful person. That will lead to more powerful negotiation outcomes … and everything will be right with the world.

 

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

 

Listen to Greg’s podcast at https://anchor.fm/themasternegotiator

 

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

 

#Body #Language #Secrets #Negotiate #Process #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #Negotiator #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #BodyLanguageExpert #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Industries Investing Management Skills Technology

The Dangers of Legacy Thinking

Every successful company and organization inevitably must confront a powerful question:

Is what got us to where we are helping us move forward or holding us back? Your company or organization may be thriving, but is this record of success sustainable and can you keep going?

Maybe you’re noticing kinks in your armor or a drop-off in your sales. You’re thinking and acting as usual, but something is misfiring.

This is what I refer to as “legacy thinking.” If left unchecked, legacy thinking can pose enormous obstacles to your continued success—or worse.

Legacy Technology—Dangerous but Also Diverting
 

Legacy thinking has a better-known cousin—legacy technology. The issue of legacy technology is old news—in more ways than one.

As you probably know, legacy technology refers to old forms of technology that are simply no longer optimal. This includes everything from software, operating systems or almost any technology once groundbreaking but now well past its prime.

The issues reach beyond outdated technology. Trying to get by with legacy technology can be very expensive, from the cost of operating the systems themselves to paying people to make certain nothing goes wrong, an inevitability. For example, Delta Airlines’ entire fleet in the United States was temporarily grounded because of computer problems—the second shutdown over a period of six months also shutting down the carrier’s website and mobile apps.

A more serious example occurred last year when the British bank Tesco shut down online banking after 40,000 accounts were compromised.

Those major headaches do not mean legacy technology is a problem in and of itself—it can cause a dangerous comfort in legacy thinking.

 

Legacy Thinking Defined

Like legacy technology, legacy thinking refers to thinking, strategies and other actions that are outdated and no longer serve you to the extent that they once had. This can be problematic if legacy thinking accounted for much of the success you’ve been able to achieve.

Many organizations can point to business principles, strategies and other ways of thinking that underscored success. One example is agility—the ability to respond quickly to changing events and market conditions. Reacting as quickly as possible helped many organizations climb to the top of their industries. Being agile, both internally and externally, seemed like a bulletproof way to approach things.

However, we are now in a period of transformational change. Whether products, services or the marketplace, change is not slowing down, which means legacy technology is becoming outdated faster as well.            

The same is occurring with legacy thinking. As the rate of change increases, even the most agile of organizations will be hard-pressed to keep up—let alone leap ahead with new ideas and innovations—and agility will likely prove to be less effective.

Take that reasoning and apply it to other forms of thinking and strategies that may have served you well in the past. Are they moving you forward or holding you back? If they’re more a hindrance, that’s legacy thinking.

 

Legacy Thinking—Changing Your Thinking Changes Your Results

The first thing to understand about legacy thinking is that it isn’t necessarily all bad. Overcoming legacy thinking doesn’t mandate erasing every strategy, idea or leadership concept you ever used in the past. Instead, identify those ideas and strategies that continue to serve you well while pinpointing others that may have worn out their value.

Agility in and of itself is not something to be completely discarded. There will always be fires and other immediate issues that warrant an agile response. However, it’s no longer the silver bullet it once was.

Consider other forms of legacy thinking. For instance, maybe you or some others in your organization are hesitant to embrace new technology critical to your future growth and success. I saw this firsthand when I worked with a major retail organization. Many key figures on the leadership team didn’t embrace the company’s commitment to technology and other elements of the future. Mobile apps, internet shopping, and other innovations made the company’s future seem bleak.

To remedy the situation, management made lateral moves with some individuals so their attitude wouldn’t hinder the company’s vision, while others were tasked with identifying strategies, ideas, and tools that would serve the company’s progress well. The result was twofold—not only did the company effectively separate elements of harmful legacy thinking from their workflow, but those once-hesitant executives saw firsthand how powerful those tools and ideas could be. They were walked into the future—and they liked what they saw.

The next time you’re considering the dangers of legacy technology include the pitfalls of legacy thinking. Just as old software shut down an entire airline, legacy thinking can cripple your organization. Don’t forget that there’s always the opportunity for an upgrade in the way you think and act.