Monday I celebrated the legacy of the great Martin Luther King Jr.by going to an afternoon movie (hey, at least I admitted it) called “Up in the Air.” I chose that film for two reasons: A) I read the book-on a plane, no less- and I wanted to see how much Hollywood would water down the sarcasm and satire of the original and B) because I have a man crush on George Clooney. Both inclinations were fully realized, although there was still a high enough concentration of corporate buffoonery for me to be entertained. Also, the screenplay was completely re-written to the point where every scene and character was new, which was a good thing, because the book didn’t bother with simple details like having a plot.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to give into the secret belief that all people who write blogs have that they really would be great film critics if given the audience. Any jack^ss with a gift for synonyms for the word “awesome” could fit that bill. I want to relate an idea in the film that struck the sales person in me as true, and if I can be so bold, important.
Happy New Year, everyone! I thought I would buck the trend of all the other “business” blogs out there and wait a couple weeks into the year to post. That is about how long the average person needs to renege on a bunch of hair brained resolutions, or in my case finish reading all the end-of-year pop culture magazine compilations of the Best and Worst (I’m addicted). Remember the last end-of-decade/millennium time? I was actually rooting for the Y2K bug (a now hysterical prediction of the complete meltdown of the world’s computer systems due to a collective over site by early computer nerds to realize that there would be a need to use more than 2 digits to indicate the year after 2000) so I could hit “reset” and slack off around the planet for a year or so. That ultimately happened in 2001, but I digress…
It’s company sales meeting time! I originally wrote about these corporate masquerade balls a couple of years ago, but that was more of a general comment to sales leadership that they should only hope to accomplish the delivery of a somewhat reasonable sales compensation plan during the few days they spend in the cramped meeting room of a chain hotel in Scottsdale, Orlando, San Jose- or whatever tier 2, semi warm city. Now that the economy has gone to hell in a hand basket (love that expression, although there is no clear visual), the nature of these meetings has changed quite a bit, and I thought maybe I could give some pointers to sales guys for navigating the murky waters of the 2010 annual sales meeting.
Twas the summer of ‘03, and sales numbers were lean, The economy was slow and competition was mean. Marketing was asked to create leads from thin air, Salespeople were pulling out tufts of our hair.
The Internet provided company listings for free, but who sells to buildings, not you and not me. We sales types needed contacts or prospects to call, or we’d find ourselves working at Wendy’s by fall.
Hoovers and One source tried to provide what was needed, But thousands of C-Level calls went unheeded. Doing the Admin shuffle was the industry norm, Or guessing at emails and spamming – bad form!
When out on the web scene there arose some good chatter, The Wisdom of Crowds in a website that mattered. Could Jigsaw.com glean good leads from the masses, Or was it two sales guys talking out of their asses?
I have to admit that I am facing a bit of a writer’s block this week. Normally a topic just pops into my head, usually spurred by a conversation, and by the time I sit down to write the cake is already set and the frosting flows out. If that doesn’t
happen, then I just think back to when I was carrying a bag and some story will come to mind and then the only challenge is editing out all the R rated material (that’s right, this blog is the edited version). Sometimes I even take a peek at some of the blogs I “follow” (meaning I read the headline in the reminder email and then make up the content- just like I ingest all media) to see if that will shake anything loose. This week, there isn’t anything new- just a bunch of advice about not giving into discount pressure and increasing a sense of urgency in the holiday season. Blah blah blah.
Since we launched the company, Fowler has been dreaming about a Jigsaw member conference. I always know when he’s about to start talking about it. Right after his first beer (of the two it takes to get him giddy) on Friday afternoon at the bi-weekly poker table, he gets this mi
schievous twinkle in his eyes and off he goes: “you guys will all know when we’ve made it when we’re at the Texas Hold ‘em tournament portion of the Jigsaw National Sales Event in Vegas, with cigars, brown spirits, $100 buy in, a huge Silver plaque with all the previous winner’s name engraved on it…it’s going to be awesome!” I always listen in a
mused silence, thinking of how long I will have been traveling on a yacht with my family by the time this actually happens… kind of like most people’s “what if I won the lottery” fantasy. The rest of the Jigsaw employees at the table, mostly developers, just laugh and call the bet, because Fowler can’t wax prolific when he has a good hand.
Please understand, Jigsaw is successful, but we’re no Salesforce.com, spending 40% (or whatever that figure is) of their revenue on marketing parties.Particularly when it comes to travel, our frugality is legendary - we go two-to-a-room in Idaho at the only yearly Jigsaw sponsored function - so we’re not about to fork over 6 figures to underwrite a top tier event anytime soon, right?
Well, betting fans, lace up your skates, because Hell might have frozen over at Jigsaw. Last week our executive staff decided to let me take a crack at organizing the first annual Jigsaw Nation Sales Event for members, partners and salespeople.
On the drive over I realized that I was actually quite nervous. Sincethe students have regular access to all sorts of big name CEOs and smarty pants entrepreneurs, I was thinking that I might come off like some snarky sales joker who “stepped in it” with Jigsaw. Plus, I haven’t been anywhere that resembles an academic environment for almost 20 years- my vocabulary has been reduced to hackneyed business expressions, “you knows,” and profanity. Am I a credible presenter of anything interesting to an intellectual audience? Was I going to get yawned off the stage?
Well, it all went fine. Steve teed me up so I could reel off one story after another, Jigsaw has an investment history and successful history that they understand clearly, the swearing police never showed and sales is a subject that is just now starting to show up in B-school curriculums, so it was very easy to pass off what I consider daily life as a bit of a primer (this blog is living proof).I
left with that rejuvenated feeling that all salespeople get when a meeting has gone really well, the “high” that makes you momentarily forget the daily stress caused by your quota, those uncooperative prospects,your slow motion co-workers, a demanding family and the eternal time deficit that we all run these days. I’m surprised that I didn’t levitate my PT Cruiser (rental, of course) back over the BayBridge on big fat head ego fumes alone.
On May 17th, 2004, Jim Fowler called all the Jigsaw employees (8 people) into our flea infested conference room to show us the result of 4 months of feverish effort. He typed in www.jigsaw.com and up came our home page in 3 shades of “pansy blue”, complete with our Cartoon Network inspiredlogo, a basic search box , and an Excel -looking list showing20 of the 50,000 contacts we had acquired to lure new members in to share with us. After executing a couple searches, Fowler grabbed the sales team (me and three guys I got off Craig’s List) and showed another application that the developers had built in parallel to the main site, a barebones CRM system
that we called (and still do) “Admin.” Listed there were the members that had signed up to help us build our business- a total of 8 with yours truly as the first registered member.Fowler, beaming with pride, declared for the first of what now has been at least 1,000 times, “Gentlemen, this community of users is the foundation that will allow us to grow into a public company.”What was running through my mind: “Fowler is the joker in the deck that we used to build this house of cards- how did I get sucked into playing this dot bomb poker game again?!”
Is there anything that blows more than being sick as an adult?
On the home front, there are endless meals to be prepared and cleaned up, things to be fixed, stories to be read, fights to be broken up, the endless social calendar algorithm to be negotiated.I can almost forgive my wife for eyeing me with thinly veiled disdain (and every dad knows verbatim that “no sniffle you have compares to 10 months of being p
regnant”). It reminds me of my high school football coach who would blame every loss on the fact that the “walking wounded” didn’t prepare enough in the offseason to avoid getting hurt and couldn’t play in games. In public (I am currently on a plane) you can feel the hostile glances as you cough and sneeze into your elbow. I actually thought the automaton at the security line might call me out as a possible H1N1 quarantine candidate, until I realized she was much more concerned that her replacement was late returning from a break than actually detecting any public threat (must have only been a Level Mauve security day). And finally at work, particularly for the quota carrying salesperson, the ever increasing work pile yields to no personal affliction.
If you have been following this blog recently, you may have noticed that my attempts to spin together descriptions of daily business adventures, Jigsaw corporate branding and useful insights for sales people might becoming somewhat forced. The Jigsaw angle is obviously the red headed stepchild of the three. But this week I am happy to report that the bond is lock tight and, just like the superglue that I accidentally squirted across my brand new hardwood floor, will be obvious for all to see.
This morning my furious networking efforts landed me at a meeting of volunteers for the Professional Career Center that is being opened with funding from the governor as part of the
Charlotte Regional Economic & Workforce Recovery Initiative. Normally I run shrieking from anything that sounds government- oriented. But after I realized that no law enforcement officials would be involved and that I wouldn’t be required to wait in line at the DMV (that’s next week), I decided to give it a try. As it turns out, I have access to something that people looking to rejoin the white collar workforce need (business contact information), as well as extra energy needed for motivation.In exchange I can meet other business execs that are similarly donating their time and resources to help get Charlotte back on track.
Low and behold, I also get to investigate that inclination in the back of my psyche (Bart Simpson realized it was his conscience) that wants to take a break from racing around in my own personal gerbil ball and actually help other people in a community.
Now that I am relatively settled in Charlotte(meaning that I know where to buy food, where to work out, I have an office, I’m barred from the nearest pub and I only get lost once a day), I have turned my attention to building my local network. Charlotte is somewhat late to the social networking thing, and is located in the South, so I’ve dusted off my sport coats (so poorly named) and have set out to connect the old fashioned way- in person. Much to wife’s chagrin, I have been accepting every invitation I can muster to meet Linked In friends-of- friends, Jigsaw members, local business leaders, street vendors, traveling minstrels- anyone who will accept an invitation to lunch or let me into their gathering.During one such meeting, I came face to face with a condition that I think will require some thought on my part- namely the collision of my online (and thus actual) personality with the sensibilities of the typical Charlottean.
The case in point occurred during a workshop event sponsored by the BIG council at the Duke mansion. Bill Whitley, who I’ve only just met but like immensely, was enlightening a group of local entrepreneurs with his own brand of sales training centered around creating an engaging story for prospects. Basically his philosophy is that sales people need to create a “customer attraction story” that immediately piques the prospect’s interest and then serves as a core bond as they go through the various steps in a sales conversation or presentation. After relaying some particularly compelling examples and outlining the basic structure that all of these descriptions should have in common, he invited each participant to quickly write down their own customer story and then present to the table.
Image via Wikipedia
Image via Wikipedia
Image by designwallah via Flickr
Image by thinkpanama via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by Jessica_Mah via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by lumaxart via Flickr
Image by Jigsaw via CrunchBase
Image by ratterrell via Flickr
Image via Wikipedia
Image by James Willamor via Flickr
