The goal is “95% and 5%.” Here’s why.

I once heard an advisors tell me that the job description for most sales people was to “Show Up and Throw Up” product information on their desk.  Yikes, that’s a guaranteed bad sales call! A successful sales person knows that his first job is to “Show Up, Shut Up and Listen”. Great sales people know that they need to listen to learn to be successful. The best memory jogger is to plan on listening 95% of the time and talking no more then 5% of the time. Try it! Here are some other helpful tips:

1. Have a plan. Set a goal for each meeting.
2. Have well planned out questions that stimulate conversation and that get you the critical answers you seek
3. Remember the 10 minute gag rule (no product discussion unless the advisor initiates it).
4. The meeting is all about the advisor, not you.

1. You need the advisor to talk. If he doesn’t talk, you don’t learn.
2. You need the advisor to talk. If he talks, he will like you better.
3. You need the advisor to talk. If he doesn’t, you just had a bad meeting.
4. Focus what you say to be what you most want them to remember.
5. Practice well thought out lines of conversation
6. Take Notes. What the advisor says is important!

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A successful sales person is great at having his clients tell him how to close them. Question, listen and take notes.

I found this article to be amazing in terms of it’s application to any “CEO” who is stuck.  President Obama used the Social Ecosystem to his advantage during the election. He even used the principles of Managing in the NOW. It’s time for him to get back at it! Thank you CNN.

(CNN) — President Obama is facing criticism that his message has gone off track at a crucial time for his party and administration. With the midterm elections just 10 weeks away, the president’s approval ratings are at their lowest. Analysts are predicting big wins for Republicans in November.

Ten weeks is an eternity in politics, and Republican and Democratic strategists say there are some key things Obama can do in the final stretch to restore the confidence of the American people and minimize expected losses for his party.

1. Simplify the message

Candidate Obama inspired voters in the 2008 election with a simple message of hope and change. Halfway through his term, the president now faces the complex reality of governing.

Despite the administration’s full plate, strategists say Obama needs to return to the focus and discipline that helped him win the presidency.

“That means less Professor Obama, more President Obama. It means fewer distinctions and shorter paragraphs,” said David Morey, a communications expert who advised Obama’s 2008 campaign.

“What should the message be? There should be three messages: Jobs, jobs, jobs,” he added.

Christopher Arterton, professor of political management at George Washington University, advised Obama to drop the soaring rhetoric and focus on more low-level policy stops.

“It’s a question of every day doing something on the economy and making sure that the news headlines are related to that,” he said.

2. Channel Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan, known as the “great communicator,”put communications front-and-center, Morey said.

“He focused and simplified the message. He communicated it. He built a consensus. He defined America’s role in the world, and that’s the challenge here,” he said.

Once Obama has honed his message, he should take it directly to the people in news conferences, said Morey, vice chairman of the Core Strategy Group.

“Nobody was better at that. I’m not sure why somebody with that intellect and those communications talents should be so tightly scripted.”

3. Propagandize the truth

“There is a great hunger for leaders who can rise above the political pettiness and tell the truth,” Morey said, pointing to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as an example.

Christie, a Republican, defeated Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine last year, becoming the first Republican governor of the state since 1997.

Since then, Christie has slashed the state’s budget and proved he doesn’t answer to his party alone. So far, the voters like him for it. A Quinnipiac survey released last week shows 61 percent of independents approve of how he’s handling his job.

A governor who tests GOP strategy

4. Go on the offense

“With barely an exception, the administration should stop equivocating, parsing and reacting,” Morey said.

In an era of 24/7 analysis on the television and online, it’s easy for a president to get caught up in the day-to-day distractions and mudslinging.

When sideshow issues pop up, the president must rise above them.

“I think it’s time to do the thing he does in 2008 better than any candidate I’ve ever seen — transcend,” Morey said.

“Ignore your opponents, ignore cable TV, ignore the extreme left and right. And play your game. Fight your fight for this election.”

5. Put up a fight

“This election, for better or for worse, depends on how hard the president fights between now and Election Day,” former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The president sets the tone, Dean said, “and for the president to be out there fighting, as he has been for the last two or three weeks, and sounding like Harry Truman, people love that stuff. They want to see a fighter. They want to see strength in their leaders, and I think President Obama is showing that strength.”

Despite the president’s low job-approval ratings, polls show most people like him personally. And, Arterton notes, Obama’s fundraising ability is a big boost for Democratic candidates.

6. Be positive

The American people want to hear what Obama is for instead of what he’s against, said Ron Christie, a Republican strategist who worked in the Bush administration from 2001 to 2004.

Disenchantment with Washington is high, and voters are looking to be inspiredinstead of angered.

“Stress why your vision, your leadership, your policies will benefit the American people and why the American people should have trust and confidence in your policies and positions,” said Christie, founder of the communications firm Christie Strategies.

“If they do that, that could minimize some of the expected losses. If they don’t, I think people will tune it out. I think people will recognize more of the same, and I think Democrats will be severely punished at the polls.”

7. Look to the future, not the past

Obamalikes to point the finger at Republicans and the Bush administration for “driving the economy into a ditch.”

While that can be part of his message, it shouldn’t be the whole thing, Morey said.

“Elections ultimately are about the future, not the past. The Democratic Party is going to have to get onto the future jobs-centric growth plan,” he said. “They can start with a question of the past, but boy, that’s not a way to win an election, and it’s certainly not a way to govern once you win an election.”

8. Pay attention to independents

It’s necessary to fire up thebase,but the independents are the ones with the power to swing the election.

“You are going to have your Republicans that support the Republican candidates. You are going to have the Democrats that support the Democratic candidates. The question really becomes what is the mood of the independents,” Christie said.

A Gallup poll released last month showed independents are leaning toward Republican candidates by a 12-point margin.

“The current snapshot has a clear message: Democrats should be afraid, very afraid,” John Avlon wrote in a column for CNN.com.

9. Be prepared for Election Day …

The party in power usually loses seats in midterm elections. The question this year is, “How many?”

If Democrats lose control of the House — or if their majority is just weakened — Obama should be prepared to do what President Bush and President Clinton did when their parties suffered big losses. They took responsibility and showed a willingness to reach across the aisle.

In 1994, Republicans took back control of the House and Senate for the first time in more than 40 years, picking up 40 seats in the House and eight in the Senate.

“I’m the president. I’m the leader of the efforts that we have made in the last two years, and to whatever extent we didn’t do what the people wanted us to do or they were not aware of what we had done, I must certainly bear my share of responsibility,” Clinton said the following day.

Twelve years later, when Democrats took back both chambers, Bush admitted his disappointment and said, “The message yesterday was clear: The American people want their leaders in Washington to set aside partisan differences.”

Whatever happens at the polls, Obama will need to digest the message from the public and adapt accordingly.

“President Obama has to heed the message that voters send him,” Christie said. “He’s not the Democratic president or the Republican president — he is the president of the American people.”

10. … but don’t stop at November

“This is the most important election in American history because it’s the next election, which is always true,” Arterton said.

Though a lot has changed since Obama was elected, he’s not even halfway through his term. The midterms are important, but no matter what the outcome, Obama will still be president for another two years, and it’s up to him to get the public focused on the future of the country and not politics.

“The best CEOs are able to get people looking beyond their quarterly earnings and even their annual performances,” Morey said.

“He needs to get people looking beyond the daily, monthly polling and even beyond this midterm election.”

Congrats to Brenna for the Spotlight! http://thejohnfmoore.com/2010/08/25/who-is-in-the-lab%E2%80%99s-spotlight-brenna-gimler/

Oregon is broken, and if we don’t fix it, Oregon will be broke.

We cannot “cut” our way out of this. Yes, cuts are required, but cuts don’t solve the underlying problems we face and they only pretend to ward off the inevitable collapse. To solve the problem we must face three realities and address them—simultaneously and immediately.

REALITY ONE: Our legislative process does not work. Last session Oregon’s Legislature passed and the Governor signed 844 new laws. This added in excess of 25,000 pages of documents rained down on the state’s agencies to administer. Few of these laws eliminated or rationalized laws passed in previous sessions so the pile of regulations builds. No wonder the budget grows and the number of state employees has mushroomed.

REALITY TWO: Governmental agencies are full of waste, in no small part because of Reality One. There is no formal accountability to the citizens of this state other than the occasional dramatic and extremely absurd examples that end up on the front page of The Oregonian. What measures do the state use as a meaningful report card to its citizens.

REALITY THREE: Oregon does not serve its citizens, it serves special interest groups. In Salem it is commonly said among bureaucrats that it is far more dangerous to your career to anger the special interest groups than it is to anger your boss, the Governor.

Let me expose my biases before I share what I believe are the solutions. My company has begun in recent months working with two state agencies (Department of Administrative Services and the Oregon Youth Authority). We improve performance through the implementation of an integrated system of management. We change the focus and rules to help both public and private sector organizations speed fixing their problems. Typically we see gains in the 20-30 percent range within two to three years.

I am also a third generation Oregonian, married and have five children. I’m hoping this next generation will have a viable place to work and live, the undeniable beauty of Oregon aside.

So, what is the answer?

It begins with getting back to a state that is citizen focused and driven, not one driven by those organized better to demand attention. Leadership must step up and step in and clearly articulate and validate the needs of Oregonians, such obvious things as a good education, public safety, and care for the elderly and the disadvantaged. Once the focus in clear, the work beings:

1. Each agency needs clear goals directly tied to what citizens need and expect from their state government.
2. Agency goals must be translated into clear measures, with performance targets set, so government is accountable. Among these measures must be both the benefit to Oregonians and the costs associated with each goal.
3. Performance on measures must be transparent and posted on line and in the media, so citizens can monitor them (at least quarterly) and give feedback on progress.
4. Agency leaders must be then held publicly accountable for progress toward the targets. If they fail to move their agencies, leadership must be changed swiftly.
5. State agencies must make clear what help they need from the Legislature to achieve the goals they have been given. They must understand their challenges and guide the legislation needed for a focused, clean and cost-effective delivery of changes needed to aggressively move toward our goals.
6. Citizens must hold their legislators accountable to work with agency leadership to pass laws that help the state cost effectively achieve its goals and drive performance toward targets. Legislators must help to simplify the state’s laws and work collaboratively to reduce the incredible red tape caused by an unfocused, unaccountable Legislature which drives an unfocused, unaccountable state government.
7. Special interest groups must be held in check to make sure their advocacy supports what Oregonians need from their government. In practical terms the clear goals of the state must trump the needs of any and all special interest groups.

Oregon has tried in the past what may appear to be some of these steps. Oregon Benchmarks look a lot like items 2 and 3. Unfortunately the accountability was disconnected from the agency structure. This didn’t and won’t work because accountability must be connected to authority for action, otherwise all people can do is point fingers.

I believe the key to all of this is that citizens NEEDS must trump all other needs.

Before I started working with the leadership teams of Department of Administrative Services and Oregon Youth Authority it was easy for me to fall in the trap of believing that bureaucrats care more about preserving their jobs than they do about Oregonians. I will tell you nothing could be further from the truth. Sure they are challenged as managers in these bizarrely complex and fast-paced times. But so is the private sector. But what’s unique about the agencies of state government is they get squeezed between a myopic legislative process and self-serving interest groups; it’s a debilitating combination. Until we break the cycle, state government will continue to need bigger budgets and more staff to deal more laws and more interests. Under the current system the needs of Oregonians are a distant third.

Our system of state government as it operates today is broken. Cutting won’t solve the root cause of a failing system. We have to put our house in order to get on a viable path to survivability.

I just had to repost this great article from Don Rainey via Entrepreneurial Corner.  Great read! Of course, the Homer Simpson/Letterman Top Ten was too good to resist.

In the world of startups, success or failure can be hard to consistently predict. One thing that’s sure, however, is that anyone who starts a business is changed by the process. The continual challenges of meeting the opportunities and issues that arise make it fun and always interesting. I think it is why many people continue to start businesses regardless of the (easier) alternatives presented by employment for somebody else.

Having started a few businesses in my life, I view some of the lessons of the experience as intuitive and others much less so. Given the time and money involved in learning these lessons, none could be characterized as cheap.

They all changed my worldview, though. And they all changed me as a person. I’m glad I learned these lessons, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish that I knew them originally.

Here are the eight things I wish I knew when I started my first business.

1. Things take longer than you ever imagine – Everything that involves people, resources, tasks and coordination takes longer than you ever think it should take to get done. It isn’t about developing patience, as patience doesn’t really help you keep driving things forward. It is about being realistic in your planning and management.

2. Items that do succeed tend to do so quickly – I have seen more successes — products, projects, employees, etc. — start strongly than slowly. The great salesperson or employee is great from the first day. The strong employees contribute immediately. The product that is going to be a hit gets strong, initial reactions from customers.

3. People will let you down – This will happen in ways you can’t even imagine when you start out. It can range from inattentiveness and laziness to fraud and theft. You’ll see it all from the people you meet along the way.  Your faith in people or belief in them can be a dangerous thing. As Pres. Reagan put it, “Trust, but verify.” Blind faith will get your butt kicked again and again. Love and reward your employees, but don’t have too much confidence in them.

4. Good employees are really hard to find – A solid worker isn’t just difficult to find, he or she is really difficult to find. And they’re the first ones to leave. The truth is that 10 percent of the world is competent – and you’re looking for that 10 percent in every hire.

It’s hard to do consistently. And that’s why organizations that do it with frequency have such strong reputations. If you want to build a business predicated largely on finding, getting and keeping quality employees to succeed, you should understand that premise will be your greatest risk. Finding a market and profitably selling to it (usually the greatest risks) will take a back seat. Better yet, pursue a business that needs some reasonable percentage of employees to be really good.

5. Your bad employees rarely quit – For one thing, poor performers aren’t really all that motivated to look, as that might involve actual performance. For another, no one else is likely to recruit them. Your marginal and weak employees are with you for life unless you move proactively. In many years of running businesses, the only time this wasn’t true was during the dot-com bubble. At that time, every idiot could get a 15 percent to 20 percent raise here in Northern Virginia by changing jobs. And they did. Aside from that blessed time, weak employees are your most “loyal.”

6. You will be lucky and unlucky -In the fullness of time, you will be assuredly lucky and unlucky. And sometimes, things that appear to be bad luck will turn out to be good — the weak salesperson who turned down your job offer — or vice versa. You will have ups and downs, and you will win or lose things that you don’t deserve to win or lose. You will be unlucky and lucky, you just may never know when.

7. Avoid the myth and misery of sunk cost – See the item above about succeeding quickly. Don’t chain yourself to the anchors you lovingly create in pursuit of success. If it isn’t working for you or the business, let it go. Understand that it isn’t good money after bad money, it is all bad money. Fire that salesperson, let that manager go, stop selling that product, get used to moving on. You’ll make a lot of decisions in running a business. Accept that not all of them will be right.

8. Fill the pipe, always fill the pipe – The difference between good times and bad times is often reflected in how many of the opportunities, customers, etc. end up closing successfully. In good times, more deals close from a normal opportunity pipeline. In bad times, less deals close from the pipeline. So, fill the pipeline of opportunities, and always look to add to the pipeline.   Deals don’t close for a million reasons. Your only defense is to fill the pipe.

Art truly does imitate life.

Oops … We are getting a bit crazy again. What could we possibly learn about leadership, managing in the NOW, and the Social Ecosystem from Jeff Dunham? Well, let start with some facts.

via Wikipedia: “Jeff Dunham has been called “America’s favorite comedian” by Slate.com, and according to the concert industry publication Pollstar, he is the top-grossing standup act in North America, and is among the most successful acts in Europe as well. As of March 2009, he has sold over four million DVDs, an additional 7 million dollars in merchandise sales,^[5] and received more than 350 million hits on YouTube (his introduction of Achmed the Dead Terrorist in Spark of Insanity is the ninth most watched YouTube video ever),^[1] making him one of the most-viewed entertainers of all time. Spark of Insanity received the best reviews of any DVD on Amazon.com in 2008, and A Very Special Christmas Special was the most-watched telecast in Comedy Central history, with its DVD going quadruple platinum (selling over 400,000) in its first two weeks.^[6] Forbes.com ranked Dunham as the third highest paid comedian in the United States behind Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock,^[5] and reported that he was one of the highest earning comics from June 2008 to June 2009, earning approximately $30 million during that period.^[7]“

Well there you go! A “bidnessman”. And how did he do it you ask? Simple. He did it by understanding his customer and what they want (even need!). Then Jeff used every form of social media he could access to build a following. He did it NOW … meaning fast. He used the Social Ecosystem to manage his business in the NOW. Great job Jeff.

Enjoy the video folks …

We live in a complex world and we work in complex organizations. Whether your organization is small, medium, large or huge, understanding how it all works is no small task. Regardless of its size, the simple reality is the performance of any organization is largely driven by its management system. Ironically, it is rare to see an organization even acknowledge it has a management system. However, this is the “mother of all processes” and until an organization takes conscious control of that system, it will have little control over its performance.

A management system is a collection of processes understood by every employee that focuses the organization and drives it to achieve specific desired results. It creates the priorities, establishes targets, clarifies accountability, allocates and aligns all resources, reviews progress, initiates adjustments and interventions when performance is below target, and drives improvement in all routine work. An effective and disciplined management system ensures the routine work of the organization is delivered with increasing quality and decreasing costs, and that strategic initiatives are effectively executed so they deliver the expected results.

Download the full article, The Mother of All Processes: Part One to learn more about this important key to the NOW System of Management.

When the going gets tough, the tough get…creative.  With the economy still gasping to catch its breath, survival is top priority for many business and organizational leaders or those looking to start up.  Struggling to just keep your head above water in turbulent economic waters can be terrifying, but it pays to heed the age-old advice of “Don’t panic!”  People still need products and services, and my guess is you’ve got a great one.  How do we get it into the hands of the right people?

Increased sales, more customers or a new business altogether… sounds good, right?  It is good and the even better news is that salvation is in reach of those with even the most modest of resources and it’s not difficult.

How do you grow your business during trying times?  By using a method of thinking called effectuation.  Scrappy entrepreneurs are often credited with being sharp effectual thinkers, but this nimble, bob-and-weave approach to growth can also benefit established companies, especially under tough circumstances.  Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

“OK, but what is effectuation? This sounds like something I need, stat.” you implore.

Effectuation involves using available resources in creative ways to reach a goal, iterating on strategy (and sometimes the goal itself) as the landscape and competition changes and doing all this with minimal risk (think car sharing via Zipcar instead of buying a new BMW).  In contrast, causal thinkers make plans and struggle to stick to them for better or worse, which means they may be missing out on unforeseen opportunities.

Seems simple enough.  For some people, this is a natural way of thinking, but for others (you control freaks out there might be nodding your heads), this is a major shift.

How about an inspiring example of effectuation?  A great professor of mine used the story of U-Haul—a company you are likely familiar with—to illustrate effectual thinking in action.  In 1945, Leonard and Anna Shoen scraped together U-Haul using the resources they had around them.  With barely $5,000 they collected from relatives, the young couple began buying used trailers and painting them bright orange in the family garage.  To maximize their purchasing power, the pair then had the brilliant idea to sell the trailers to family and friends who in turn leased the trailers back to U-Haul.  This dispersing of investment (and risk) freed up capital that was then applied toward the purchase of more trailers.

Newlyweds Leonard and Anna certainly didn’t have the resources to run their own nation-wide network of dealerships, so they arranged for gas station owners to keep and rent out trailers instead.  Now there’s a clever partnership.  Ten years later, there were over 10,000 trailers and today the bright orange U-Haul trucks are a common sight on roads across America.  Not bad with $5,000, even in 1945 dollars.

“OK,” you say, “but I’m not in the one-way trailer rental business and I don’t have $5,000.  What can I do today, on a shoestring budget, to yield great results like that?”

No matter what your goal, the Internet is littered with software-as-a-service tools (that are available for little to no cost) that you can use to build and grow a business.  And the big mother of them all is social media.  Maybe you are happily using social media or maybe you’ve heard of it but avoid it like the plague (many people are).  Regardless, with social media marketing, you get the world-wide, lightning fast reach of the internet coupled with personal recommendations made from friend to friend (also known as word of mouth marketing, which as any student of marketing will tell you, is the crème de la crème of all recommendations).

How about another, more current, example of a group using effectual thinking and social media?  In May 2009, the California State Parks Foundation used a social media centered campaign to raise almost $1,000,000.  Facing crippling budget cuts as the economy withered, the foundation had a goal of leveraging its tepid Facebook page with just 517 fans into a robust PR and fundraising machine with over 5,000 fans in just two weeks.  To their surprise and delight, they leapt to over 33,000 fans!  That’s an almost 64x increase in engagement and it paid off handsomely for both the foundation and those people that treasure our state parks.  It was a win-win.

“Oh! Oh!” you say, “I NEED that!” But then you pause.  Maybe you are too busy treading water right now to take on a whole new social media marketing campaign, or perhaps you don’t know a lot about social media (or even how to turn on a computer), or maybe creative thinking isn’t your strong point (sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees, especially if the wolves are nipping at your feet).

Well, here is your first chance to overcome this obstacle using effectual thinking (and you haven’t even finished the article yet!): leverage your networks and ask someone for help.  Maybe you have a niece or nephew who is doing a business project for school or a tech-savvy friend or relative who can pitch in or recommend someone you can talk to.  Maybe you want to take the plunge and start your own social media marketing campaign (there are lots of great how-to books on the subject).

Or maybe there’s a creative, tech-savvy author whose article you just read that seems like a nice person to have on your side when the going gets rough.  Or maybe you’ll pass on social media marketing, thank you very much.  Either way, you can use effectual thinking to help you navigate stormy waters to calm, sunny seas.

Get scrappy. Get creative. Get going.

Have you used effectual thinking or social media marketing to grow your business or organization?  If so, tell everyone about it in the comments!

It may strike you as odd that the one resource we all talk about as being our most valued is the one we seem least able to use effectively–our people. Long called the most valuable asset, our workforce remains shockingly disengaged, according to research by The Gallup Organization. Why when asked do 69 percent of workers in this country categorize themselves as disengaged—which we could easily expand into disinterested and perhaps disheartened?  And of those disenfranchised workers, according to Gallup, what is even more unnerving is 29 percent go further and are actually categorized as “actively disengaged.” That means they cause trouble.

So, let me slow down a minute.

An engaged worker is an employee who takes initiative without being asked to help, initiative that helps advance the organization toward its goals. Sounds like a good thing, right? That’s an understatement! According to Gallup, organizations with high levels of engagement out-earn their competitive peers by as much as 30 percent.

So why are these engaged characters so rare? And, where do we get ‘em?

Is it just human nature for people to go to work and not care about their organization’s success, or is there something else going on? If you believe, as do I, that it IS human nature to want to make a difference, to want to be part of something bigger than we are, to be creative and clever and helpful, then you know blaming the people who work for us is pointing the finger in the wrong direction. Our people come to work excited by the possibilities and slowly but surely they disengage. We all know the optimism that fuels our energy in a new job; we think, “this could be the thing I have been looking for, a job where I can make a difference.”

Why do people disengage? Let me know what you think!

If you would like the full text of this article please drop me a note.