Competitive Intelligence for Business

I’ve always thought about the difference between professional athletes. Granted, this is extremely stereotypical and over-generalized, but I want you to consider that there tends to be two types of behavior among elite athletes. You either have your overly-gifted person who doesn’t seem to really work at his craft, or the hard worker who overcomes his physical limitations with smarts and planning.

Too often, extremely talented people rarely had to work at anything. They are singled out at a very young age, given perks since their early teens, and never had to really work for what they achieved. They just believed they deserved what they got. Therefore, when they make it to the professional ranks, they have not built that self discipline to constantly work at their craft. After all, they’ve never had to, and look where they are? They’re making millions of dollars just being themselves. These are the ones who excel for a while, then suddenly drop off the charts when they begin to age. Remember Shawn Kemp in the NBA? Take a look at Andruw Jones of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

In contrast, the athlete that had to work from day one to stay on the team has molded his mind to expect to earn what he is given. He has always felt that he’s one or two plays away from being out of the league. Therefore, by the time he is a professional, he has it embedded in his head that he must work extra hours, study twice as hard, and constantly prove he deserves to stay on the team.

So, what happens when superb talent meets a relentless work ethic? Think Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning. These are the ones that just seem to have that extra element, that “it” factor, that makes them stars among stars. The only difference these men have over other top talents is their incredible commitment to preparation. They take nothing for granted. They are rare because they fit that top level of talent, but haven’t adopted the same attitude. When you put top talent with a driving work ethic, you take that person to a different level that can’t be reached by others.

Okay, so why do I bring up sports again in a sales intelligence blog? Because I believe sports mirrors business, and especially sales. Sales and sports are meritocracies. It doesn’t matter how well you are liked, if your performance doesn’t translate into wins (e.g. dollars in sales), you’re not going to survive.

We’ve all heard the 80/20 rule. I don’t know why there is the 20 percent that is pulling in 80 percent of the work. I’m sure some are supreme salesmen: the ones with that innate ability to network and portray confidence and professionalism. They exude that magnetism that leads people to buy from them. And I’m sure some are those hard-working, nose-to-the-grindstone salespeople that may not have the innate ability to close business, but their sheer work ethic brings in the revenue.

What happens when a natural salesperson has that hard-driving work ethic? Naturally, they become superstars. No one can touch their numbers.

So, the question remains, how do you make it possible for that talented salesperson to reach the stratosphere? Sales is always so ambiguous. It seems that you either have it or you don’t, and there’s nothing more you can do other than talk to more people. Well, at Primary Intelligence, we have analyzed sales practices for over a decade now, and we have seen that a systematic review of decision makers gives anyone, including that star performer, the ability to fine-tune their efforts and make dramatic improvements to sales results.

The question is, do you want to be known as Shawn Kemp or Michael Jordan? If you aren’t sure who Shawn Kemp is, you’ve proved my point.

For systematic analysis and training tools, take a look at Horizon, Primary Intelligence’s comprehensive intelligence tool.

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As a big football fan, I love the fall. I tend to follow the NFL over college, so Sundays are my big sports day. I didn’t get to see the game, but I saw the highlights of Brett Favre, now with the New York Jets, throw six touchdown passes, setting a single game record for himself. One thing confused me, though. It wasn’t the stats or the highlights, it was the uniforms.

The NFL, like the NBA, has tried to expand its merchandising arm by making more jerseys available for sale by having teams deviate from their traditional road or home uniforms for occasional alternate jerseys. In the NBA, the teams have an official second road uniform. The NFL likes to trot out “retro” jerseys.

Funny this is, I always thought the New York Jets “retro” jersey was their CURRENT jersey. In the last 10 years, the team went back to the logo and jersey style made famous 30 years ago by Joe Namath and gang. The uniforms the team wore on Sunday was a weird blue and gold combination that nobody considers synonymous with the Jets.

It turns out that the jerseys hearken back to the days when the team was the New York Titans (click here to see the uniforms). Excuse me, but does anyone in the 21st century remember that the Jets used to be called the Titans? Are the Ravens now going to dress in the Browns’ uniforms? Are the CURRENT Titans going to dress as Oilers?

Now, the NFL has a marketing arm that is much more sophisticated than I, and I’m sure they understand what their doing, but how can putting teams in uniforms that do not reflect the image of that team do anything but dilute its brand at the cost of merchandise sales?

Can you really imagine that any New York Jet fan (other than the 2% of die-hard, nothing-better-to do-with-life fan) is going to rush out to buy this generic look and wear it in honor of their team? Would anyone else have a clue what team they were supporting? I highly doubt it.

And considering that this ended up as a historic game for future Hall-of-Famer, the images of the feat will forever be plastered with images of a generic-looking team straight out of a deodorant commercial rather than the familiar green and white of the Jets.

This often happens in traditional business, too. We get so focused on expansion of our market share that we lose track of the perceptions of our company and products that got us to where we are in the first place. By trying to branch out too quickly into new areas, we can easily reduce the impact we have on our core revenue areas.

That is not to say that expansion into new areas isn’t important. There’s no way to grow a business without some thought in this direction. The key point is to keep such expansion into areas that enhance the current brand and not dilute its message. Otherwise, you turn a strong brand into a muddled, generic mess, like the marketing image problem the NFL created with the New York Jets.

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I read a story recently that says Cher is going to play Catwoman in the next Batman movie while Johnny Depp is going to play the Riddler. Now, I certainly don’t think that Cher is a bad actress at all, but a 62-year-old Catwoman sounds a little strange to me. That, however, is not the biggest problem I have with this casting. Actually, it’s not a problem with the casting but the writing. Why is it that superhero movies seemed to have a problem sticking with only one storyline and villain?

I did enjoy both The Dark Knight and Spiderman 3, but it bothered me that both movies felt the need to introduce two separate storylines. No matter how they tried to tie the two together, it was simply too much information for one movie. It’s like they are worried that their main story doesn’t have enough meat to it, so they try to add more. All they end up doing is overselling the content.

When it comes to sales and marketing, how often do we pitch a product to a client, then when we don’t get the exact response we want, we start throwing more information at them, hoping that our barrage of content will improve the original pitch? Our insecurity causes us to oversell.

The problem with this is, we lead with our best stuff. Unless we are addressing specific questions and concerns, more information will just create a muddied perception of our solution. If you find that your prospects aren’t biting on your first pitch, maybe you need to tweak your approach, not add to it.

If you understand your prospects’ pain points, keep the focus of your product pitch there. Don’t distract them with peripheral information. Anything that doesn’t solve their problem just doesn’t matter.

Just like additional villains in superhero movies, extra stuff only hurts your chances, not improves them. Keep it focused, and your pitch will be better.

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Like many of you, I have followed the banking fiasco over the past few months and marveled at the lack of foresight shown by long-standing financial institutions. I am by no means a financial analyst or expert, but I would have thought that such businesses run by supposed experts who live their lives in the practice of lending money understood the ramifications of risky lending.

I’m not here to discuss in-depth what has happened. Instead I want to point out some data on how companies have reacted to downturns in the economy in regards to advertising. We clearly are headed for a lengthy economic recovery, and things likely will get worse before they get better, so the question we face is, what do we do to help our businesses survive and grow during difficult economic times?

There is a great article at www.etstrategicmarketing.com that details how cutting marketing budgets during recessions is actually detrimental to long-term company growth. One statement in the article makes things clear:

“History has many interesting anecdotes of how companies who continued to invest in marketing and brand building during a recession went on to become category leaders and some of America’s most successful brands. On hindsight it all seems pretty clear. The companies who didn’t have a significant advertising presence caused their consumers to feel abandoned and thus drove them to a more aggressive suitor.”

The article also points out that McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 468 companies during the 1974 recession and another 600 during the 1981-1982 recession. They found that companies that either maintained or increased their marketing spending during the recession periods clearly outpaced competitors that decreased spending during the following three to five years . In fact, after the 1981-82 recession, the companies that maintained marketing expenditures had revenue increases of an average of 275% over the next three to five years compared to only 19% by those that decreased spending.

What this means is clear: if you drop your advertising, people will drop you. By maintaining your marketing efforts while adapting your message to current economic trends, you stand to reap significant gains as the economy recovers.

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I have a neighbor that has been in sales his entire 20-year career. He spent much of that time in a high-volume, relatively lower cost sales environment. Because this was the sales environment on which he essentially cut his teeth, he understood the nuances of job. Because he matched his understanding of his sales arena with a high work ethic, he was very successful. However, when his company changed hands and compensation policies changes, he felt the need to move on. In doing so, he went to a company that sold very expensive products, and therefore had a much longer sales cycle. My friend, who is a good salesman, had a very difficult time adapting to this change in tactics and expectations.

In my conversations with him, we discussed his frustration at adapting to his new environment. When he joined the new company, he had little training to help him understand what to expect, what objections he may face, and what were the successful methods for handling them. What he was handed was a phone and a phone book. After a few months of trying to do the job as he understood it, he finally moved on to a different company.

This is not an uncommon scenario. Sales is a volatile workplace with 40 percent turnover yearly at most companies. It can feel like a cattle herd where you drive them in and wait to see what happens. The pure meritocracy of sales tends to put more emphasis on finding your way than effective training. Although there are many in that 40 percent that just aren’t fit for sales, others match my friend’s situation where they have the skills, but don’t have the information that can make them successful quick enough to retain them.

Primary Intelligence has just launched a new product called Sales Explorer which gives companies the intelligence they need to help any salesperson get the direction they need for any sales scenario they face. Sales Explorer takes real sales situations in which your company has competed and extracts key points of the decision process for any sales scenario that matches the demographics of a new sales situation.

When a salesperson enters in the company demographics, deal parameters, and competitors of a new sales opportunity, Sales Explorer extracts previously reviewed sales deals that closely match the new deal. By aggregating past deal experiences, Sales Explorer can expose key points in the decision process that will make it more likely to win the opportunity.

To see how Sales Explorer can accomplish this, click here to see our on-demand demonstration.

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