The Right to Win!

A while back I read an article by Booz & Company called The Right To Win.  Although this company, website and magazine is geared towards business, I thought that this was an interesting concept for personal application as well.  Similar to Cheshire's point in his last post - Anonymity  - The Right to Win is more about being relevant and a leader than it is about winning.  The idea of marketing ourselves is not a new one and it is a skill that everyone has (or needs to develop).  Without it, none of us would have the jobs that we currently have - we sold our skills, experiences and personalities to the hiring managers of where we work.

The Right to Win theory goes a lot further.  When we compete against other businesses, applicants, or any other form of competition for that matter, the best product or person doesn't always win.  Remember back to the SuperBowl XLII.  Sorry everyone, The Giants were not the better team.  They played better that day, but were not the better team.  Their strategy going into that particular game, coupled with their flawless execution gave them The Right to Win that day, the only day that mattered.  (Yes, I am a Patriots fan)

Gaining The Right to Win takes vision, determination, strategy and flawless execution.  Knowing where you would like to be in 5, 10, 15 or 20 years helps you to work on gaining the skills you will need to place yourself in the best position for success.  A lot of people believe that they already have this right due to some sort of entitlement from birth, or a specific degree from a specific institution   Although these things do help to achieve goals and increases your odds of winning, they do not entitle you to The Right to Win.  In this global economy The Right to Win can only be achieved by matching your skills perfectly  with what someone is looking for.

This is true on a personal and business level.  Your product can only have The Right to Win is you find a potential customer that has the exact features your product offers.  This does not mean that you should add more features (or personal skills), but instead it means that you should focus your features and skills on the exact market that is looking for exactly what you have to offer.  Remember, the essence of strategy is lies in what you don't do..... This gives you The Right to Win!

InnovAAAAAtion

InnovAAAAAtion is what you hear every CEO yelling at the top of his lungs to his Senior VPs.

"We MUST innovATE!  We have to be innovATIVE to stay competitive!"

What he doesn't realize is that these VPs already know this!

Who are these VPs and what is the innovation that Mr. CEO is looking for?  Well, titles usually range from VP of R&D, Chief Innovation Office (this is newer), VP of New Product Development and of course you have some VPs of Engineering and Marketing.  Innovation in its simplest definition is any product or service that meets an unmet need in the marketplace.  A new way of doing something (Ford's Line Manufacturing) or a new feature to an existing product (the windshield wiper) or a completely new product (although these are rare).

In Scott Berkun's book "The Myths of Innovation" he explains that even the popular belief of innovation relating to a completely new product is a myth.  The iPod was not a completely new product, but an innovative way of using 1,000 existing products in a new way.  The shape was the only thing new.  Innovation has to be grounded in existing products or materials, or they take forever to develop and there usually is not a market for them (aka: no knows how the heck to use them).

So how does Mr. CEO go about getting his team of VPs to innovate.  There are a million strategies on answering this question but, most companies (and I have dealt with many) usually start with a common exercise (which actually relates well with Jason's last post on a personal level as well).

1. What are our core competencies?  What do we do well?  
2. What products or services can we reposition into adjacent markets?
3. What products or services in our markets are we not making now, that we could make better than our competitor?
4. What products or services do not currently existing in our existing markets? What cool new features do our customers want in a new product?  
5. What markets can we combine into one product offering?  (Blue Ocean Strategy)

After answering these questions, I guarantee you will have more questions to figure out:

• Do we have the right people with the right skills to makes these products?
• What type of Return on Investment (ROI) will we see?  What is the potential Commercial Value (ECV) of this product?
• What are our competitors doing?
• And on, and on, and on it goes.....

Companies are able to manage this madness with a simple formula:  The Right People, The Right Culture, The Right Process and The Right Technology.  Without all four of these aspects Innovation is not sustainable.  The right people are entrepreneurial at heart and love figuring out new things; otherwise they get bored.  The culture is founded in executives that are not afraid to fail (often and fast), and are not afraid of letting their employees experiment.  The right process has to take you from Ideation, through development and post-launch of new products.  There are many processes out there, I recommend Stage-Gate, although it is not the end-all, by-all process.  The right technology has to do with software - MS XL and MS Project will kill you trying to find and manage data....TRUST ME!  Do yourself a favor, get a PPM software solution if you are managing lots of projects.

How important is this topic and sub-topics?  The Aberdeen Group found that companies that have a robust portfolio management process (all four parts of the formula) realize 25% more revenue from their innovation projects.  A study from Kalypso found that 52% of medical device companies were unhappy with their return on investment.  Remember, what is not growing is dying!  Don't let your business be one of them!  In order to grow your business, you need new products and services that meet unmet needs.  Otherwise you are competing in price alone and that is a recipe for disaster.  No one can always be the low cost provider and be profitable!

So, Mr. CEO is right - you must innoVATE!

Cold Calling - 101!

Last week while in the office I got a cold call from a “Lead Generation” company.  Seeing that I make about 50 cold calls a day and this is my bread and butter, I am usually very nice to struggling telephone sales people.  This started wrong, and went terrible south, fast, and then proceeded to get worst.

Here is what happened and how to do it better.

Me: This is Jeremy!
Caller: Hey Jeremy, what’s up, this is Jimmy from ABC Lead Generation...
Me: Mmmm, Ok, How can I help you?
Caller:  I got an email from one of my colleagues stating that you don’t have any need for outsourcing your lead generations any time soon; I wanted to follow up to make sure I understand everything.
Me:  Mmmm, Sure... (although I don’t know what else there is to talk about).
Caller: So, as I understand it, your company doesn’t do any lead generation and your sales reps wait for info requests from your website - is that right?
Me:  No, that is not right, I do what you do, only better.
Caller:  I doubt that!
Me: Thanks for calling!

About five minutes later I receive an email from him with a brochure, no text and his signature - that is it!  I didn’t read the brochure!

So, let’s look at how bad this call really was!

First, never use “What’s up!”  We are not friends, I don’t know you and it sends the message you are trying to be too informal and friendly.  Secondly, the caller started by reaffirming that I have no interest.  Restating this negativity only further turns me off.  Thirdly, if I make a joke at your expense, go with it , DON”T try to defend yourself, you are only going to offend me (which he did!).  

Cold calling has a very negative imagine.  No one likes doing it, no one likes to interrupt their days’ activities to answer the phone and be sold on something they probable don’t need.  That is why real cold calling is not about selling . It is about making connections and starting relationships that may or may not result in a sale.  

The first 10 seconds of any call makes or breaks it, based on a simple formula:  No one will ever buy anything from you if they don’t trust you, and they won’t trust you if they don’t listen to you and they won’t listen to you if they don’t like you!   Getting some one to like you in the first 10 seconds has to be the goal of a cold call not to sell your product.

Using “what’s up” doesn’t send the right message, which is “I am smart, aggressive and busy just like you - I don’t want to waist your time, nor mine.”   Making sure you understand that there is no need waists people’s time.  Defending yourself after a small and harmless joke reinforces the stereotype that the rest of use professionals in the industry are trying to reverse and just PROVES MY POINT.  

If a call does go bad, DON”T send an unsolicited email with no text, this just shows that you are regurgitating the material that your marking team worked hours to develop and unable to communicate the value of your company yourself.

You

Me
BETTER!