SustainableWork

Sooner or later I'm going to get around to posting about selling something you love as a fast way to sustainable work.

In my opinion, developing sales for new and helpful products and services is the lowest hanging fruit you'll ever find on your way to your own enterprise and sustainable work.

You've got to do it right and you've got to have some pretty thick skin. I offer this as a reminder that it's still called work. Happened this month.

I was on a call where I was to meet up with a distributor of our stuff at a potential customer's plant. I'd never been there before. Just stopping by to see if I could help our distributor.

The receptionist let me through, and as I opened the door the plant manager looked at me, then looked at my distributor and said, "At least you're not the most hated guy in the plant anymore."

In the peddler biz, we call this a rough start.

I turned down most of the work that this potential customer wanted us to do.

Did we need the work? Hell yes. You'd better never answer no to that question, friend. You'll always need more of the work your sustainable worklife thrives on.

Did we need that specific work? No.

Clearly the circumstances on the ground were troubled and the need for our stuff couldn't be adequately demonstrated to me by anyone involved. All they could say was that they were in some kind of crisis and needed help.

Don't we all?

You've got to get paid for solving problems, not screwed for participating in someone else's emergencies.

Avoid the idiot jobs and run from the kind of customers that create them.

As a peddler doing something you love, you can change the world, while making a better life for yourself, your family and the rest of the planet.

My friend, please understand the value of saying no to the wrong jobs.

Labels: entrepreneurship, marketing, sales tales

Our current enterprise was the creation of two friends. Start ups and emerging enterprises are usually staffed about this well. Ain't no job you ain't doing.

When we hired our first outsider the culture of the whole deal was moderately at stake. We needed someone to act as our Inside Sales Manager, someone to back up all the helter skelter street level peddling. The detail work behind the scenes to support successful sales and marketing is critical. It's not rocket science, but do it wrong and you're out of business. Doing this right requires a passion for capturing important details accurately.

We needed this person long before we ever thought about looking for them, of course, but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Dave and I were going to meet the very first person we'd ever interviewed. Dave had seen a guy who stood out from his workplace because of his relentless ability to want to contribute in a friendly, cooperative way. He was operating like this in an environment wildly cultured up to do things exactly the opposite.

We were going to meet this person for breakfast at the Hardscrabble in downtown Streator. I made Dave agree in advance that we wouldn't make any promises. We'd just hear him out. Then we'd carefully look at other folks and make our choice. Slow, Dave. Go slow.

We were still looking at the breakfast menu, just one or two coffees into it, when I offered Dan the job. Dave just shook his head.

In a very polite way Dan asked just what the sales job description entailed. Dan had not worked in sales previously. He thought it sounded great but, well, what's the deal? What do you need to do for a sales job?

Since I clearly hadn't scripted this whole process very well I didn't have a ready answer. Sure I had the talking points of a printed job description at hand. But I wanted Dan to see the job was something I hoped would be cooler than just a listing of the parts.

As we ordered I also thought about giving him my rant about a passion for capturing details accurately, but it was a little early in the day for that.

The mission critical goal for Dan was keeping our collective asses out of trouble. The right answer to his question was obvious.

If your enterprise is to be sustainable you can't build it on lies. You can never shortchange your product or service. You need to be the best at something but never over-promise your way into defeat. You can't under-deliver. You can't execute poorly and survive. Every single thing in your operation needs full transparency, repeatability and grand slam data control. Above all you need honesty in your data and honesty in your life. Sustainable work.

Are there nefarious enterprises bilking people and running economically amok? Duh.

Are there zillions of enterprises set up to scam the system short term? Double duh.

However, that isn't you. That isn't what this is about. This is about sustainable work. First and foremost that means work that keeps growing. Next, it’s work that keeps you growing.

Starting honorable, well executed, properly documented, new enterprises looks hard. The reality is that it's far easier than wading into the world of cheating and lies. That stuff always takes far more time, work and effort than doing things right. Plus, you end up with the bonus of living a miserable personal life. Sign me up.

Breakfast ordering done, I told Dan his sales training came in a package of three words. Tell the truth.

He said “I can do that” and we shook on the deal.

Dan and I live and work in different states. Dan works in our sales office in Illinois. I work from Wisconsin. Since Dan joined us, weeks can pass between times we actually see each other. He doesn't need any direct oversight. He wants to do a great job and does. If we have stuff to work on together we find each other by phone, eMail, and all the usual suspects.

That frees me up to stay out there creating all the seeming chaos my kind of peddlers generate. We’ve since been joined by my sales partner, Bill. Being my kind of peddler he also has to meet his monthly quota of seeming chaos and he typically exceeds that goal, bless him.

Dan has to back all this up. I’ve done Dan's job in other places. It can be a miserable, inefficient mess if you’re not prepared.

Did I worry turning over this chaotic step? For his sake and mine? Of course. If this job is done wrong, you’re out of the pool, my friend.

Are there downsides to growing and expanding your enterprise so that you can do your evangelizing? Of course.

Enterprise is full of risk. Minimize it. But if you want to participate, you’re going to have to prepare, then learn to live with it.

Was there risk in hiring Dan? Sure.

Was there reward in hiring Dan? Immediately.

Why? Because Dan succeeds for all of us by minimizing the risk.

How does he do that?

Telling the truth.

Labels: entrepreneurship, marketing, sales tales, startups

I've used the work of the great writer John McPhee to illustrate a previous point about the shipping grid.

When John McPhee writes about something, you don't need any advance knowledge of that subject. You don't have to have any prior interest in it. But rest assured, you'll come away from his writing not just informed but graced, embraced and made better by Mr. McPhee's immense talent

I've just read an amazingly informative interview/conversation John McPhee had with The New Yorker Online.

McPhee is a Pulitzer prize winner, author of 29 books, with awards and accolades from a zillion directions. He also continues to teach writing at Princeton, well into his 70s.

I was amazed at the open source descriptions John uses to describe his most extraordinary day job. He blocks out his bricks and mortar dance with creativity. It's putting one foot in front of the other. Planning. Executing. Step by step. Day in and day out. Sort of boring from the outside looking in.

However, just imagine being John McPhee looking out. Ooooohhhhh.

This is a person making valuable contributions omnidirectionally. And apparently having a grand life, in a hard working sort of way. He’s changing the world for the better, one 3 X 5 card at a time, one step at a time, one contribution at a time.

Making your own gig doesn't have to involve making widgets. It involves making contributions.

You can do it with your own unique talents and skills. You don't need Pulitzer prizes and neither does Mr. McPhee. You need a day job that brings you a little more control, a little more security, and a lot more peace of mind.

As the Q&A ended, Mr. McPhee was talking about all the pitches he'd made to The New Yorker over the course of 10 years, trying to break in. He'd wanted to write for them since he was a teenager. First ignored, then rejected. He kept pitching. That turned into rejections with notes attached. That's when he started closing in. He offered deals, like working on spec.

When the New Yorker finally started weakening, John McPhee didn't get cautious. McPhee broke the rules. He pitched an idea they specifically told him they did not want. McPhee not only pitched it but buried them in pitch. A 5,000 word letter telling his lifelong target customer why they were wrong and why his never-published-in-their-magazine ideas should prevail.

It finishes like this...

"So the executive editor said they would like to read this article. He said, No guarantees, of course. I wrote the thing, sent it to him, and it changed my existence—I ceased to be a commuter, forever; I went to work in my own garage. And I’m still doing it."

Friend, you're looking into the work of a great peddler. My highest compliment. Not an atom of negative in the term. I'm a peddler.

Whatever your enterprise, whatever you endeavor, whatever your contribution, there will be tough, difficult times. Planning and executing minimizes that stuff, but nothing substitutes for persistence and risk taking with honor.

Are you planning to start your or grow your enterprise? Do one of those athlete training exercises and picture your success in advance. Then build a plan to get there. Then execute. One foot in front of the other.

You'll have your own images of course. Yours will be better for you than anything I can suggest. I wish you the best getting there. You can do it.

But just to get you started, give a thought to John McPhee in his garage.

The New Yorker Online interview with John McPhee

John McPhee’s home page

Labels: entrepreneurship, innovation, John McPhee, sales tales, startups

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Big Mo.

Momentum is the best friend a sustainable enterprise can have. Organizing your business model and your sales channels to encourage repeat orders is your goal. Work hard once. Reap repeated benefits.

This isn't always possible, and not all customers will behave, but the more you can build in repeaters, the more sustainable your operation becomes.

Case in point. For many years we sold banners to local service clubs through their parent organizations. Users out at the end of the food chain saw value in what we offered and built in repeat purchases of our stuff for their special events, come rain, shine, or revolutions.

One of our best examples of this was a rush order we were asked to produce for a pancake breakfast in Paramaribo, Suriname, located in the remote northeast corner of South America. The only problem was that it had to be delivered by air express that Saturday. Seems that a revolution was underway. Insurgents were expected to control the airport by Monday and no one knew what would happen by Tuesday.

What do you do if you're in a besieged capital with armed conflict and political chaos all around you? Momentum. Same thing as last year. Throw another pancake breakfast and order the banners.

Friends, wherever you go in your sustainable work life, try to invite Big Mo.
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Labels: entrepreneurship, sales tales, startups

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The best sales people know how to shut up. They listen. They want to understand your needs first. Only then do the great ones start peddling.

Case in point... Very early in the history of Banner Graphics we decided to make a big bet and sign our little business up for a trade show at McCormick Place in Chicago. One of the biggest trade show venues in the world. A huge show with exhibitors from all over the world. We weren't betting the farm, but the barn, the back 40, and most of the seed corn were on the table. I was determined I was going to sell every single person that walked down our aisle.

Our booth was perhaps the worst looking, low budget booth in the history of McCormick place. However, the first day was pretty good. The pitch was in place and working. I was on a roll. I looked up late in the day and one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen in my life was waiting to talk. Dressed to the nines. Smiling at me and my handsome booth.

She was so pretty I almost couldn't talk. I took a long, long breath and launched into my pitch. Banners for promotion, banners for special events, banners for advertising your services. I just kept going and going. Her smile turned to a grin that kept getting wider. I kept talking.

When I stopped she did the most unexpected thing I could have imagined. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.

She smiled in a way I'll never forget, handed me her card and walked off, saying, "I'll be back next year."

Her card read "Honey-Girl Escort Service"

My recommendation is that when you're with beautiful people or good sales prospects, just shut up.

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Labels: entrepreneurship, sales tales, startups