CSO Insights Blog Posts
Hand Raisers Not Finger Pointers
This week I attended Selling Power's Sales Leadership Conference in Las Vegas and had a chance to meet a lot of CSOs in person and hear some terrific presentations. Gerhard Gschwandtner (who may already have become one of those people known only by his first name) started his presentation with an exercise. Asking everyone to stand and cover their eyes with their left hand, he then asked attendees to point with their right hand in the direction they thought was north. [Note: This is not the finger pointing of the title.]
If you guessed that people were pointing in every direction, you're right. And Gerhard's analogy was that in today's rapidly changing and massively changed business climate, no one really knows where we're heading. But in this analog, growth and customer intimacy drive value. And "value" here as defined by the buyer/customer is True North. (You may be seated.)
You can read more about Gerhard's views on Sales 2.0, sales leadership, and the co-creation dance of buyers and sellers on his blog.
The title above is one of ten attributes John Osborn, President and CEO of BBDO, looks for in assessing new talent. The firm also looks for folks who always do the right thing, handle pressure well, make the work better and are "Radiators not Drainers." If you're unclear on this last pair of terms, I once heard drainers described as "energy vampires." Now do you get the picture?
Interesting to note that John talked about "looking for the 'good' in what we do," that is, the purpose and worth of the work being done. He shared a good deal more than space allows here but along the lines of Gerhard's value intro, John talked about an interesting shift at BBDO from "the work, the work, the work" to "the worth, the worth, the worth." And he stated that one of his goals is to continue to focus on the "soul" of branding.
This keynote was followed by Jeff Cristee, Area Vice President (upper Midwest Commercial) for Cisco. Talk about your high voltage, laser-focused sales execs! Jeff talked about leveraging collaboration technology and gave specific examples, all of which are available today, and most of which are already in use (though probably underutilized) even in smaller businesses. One example he demonstrated is sending video emails and suggested that 90% of Internet traffic could be video by 2012.
However, one of the most striking specifics he gave was the increase in truly loyal Cisco customers increasing from 74% in 2008-09 to 84% in 2009-10. And that ten point improvement attributed to how they sell (i.e., focusing on customer intimacy, architecture and growth).
Kind of makes you want to revisit your own goals, employee engagement, focus, and use of tools doesn't it?
This, of course, is the value of these conferences. Being exposed to new ideas, networking with peers, expanding your thinking while narrowing in to a laser focus. There was much more, but I've already gone on too long for today. Gerhard talked about his desire to bring together solution providers with sales leaders (looking for solutions).
It was a good day and reinforced in my own thinking what we're doing with the CSO Forum (this link will take you to a video overview)--leveraging collaboration technology to bring sales leaders together with peers, subject matter experts and solution providers 24/7.
Sell Well,
Barry Trailer
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Good Stufff Barry
Tuesday May 25, 2010