Book Summary: How to Become a Rainmaker
How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for getting and keeping customers and clients by Jeffrey J. Fox.
Rainmaker’s Credo
• Cherish customers at all times
• Treat customers as you would your best friend
• Listen to customers and decipher their needs
• Make or give customers what they need
• Price your product to its dollarized value
• Show customers the dollarized value of what they will get
• Teach customers to want what they need
• Make your product the way customers want it
• Get your product to your customers when they want it
• Give your customers a little extra, more than they expect
• Remind customers of the dollarized value they received
• Thank each customer sincerely and often
• Help customers pay you, so they won’t be embarrassed to go elsewhere
• Ask to do it again
Killer Questions
1. Do you have your appointment book handy?
2. Will you look at the facts and decide for yourself if they make sense?
3. Would you like to know our differences? (when discussing competitors)
4. We can give you a demonstration, is there anything else inhibiting you from going ahead? (unresolved customer issues or leads to a closing)
5. Why don’t you give it a try? (try, dependant, see benefit)
6. What questions should I be asking that I am not asking? (give them chance to voice concerns)
“Don’t waste your time trying to convince dairy farmers to by horseshoes.”
Rainmakers sell money, not windows or software or shoes.
Dining: Your back to the wall, do not let the customer be distracted during the meeting.
Objections: Welcome them because they are how customers express their desires.
Preparation: Always taste the wine before the wine tasting. Confirm any variable possible.
Ask dumb questions to understand their functionality
Investment return analysis: Prepare this so the customer can sell the product within their organization. There are usually 8-12 decision makers behind the scenes.
Customers do not care about what is making it hard to do your job.
Break the ice at the end of a meeting, ensure time for business.
Show the chain, sell the first link. (explain the process to the customer, get them into the first step)
Be the best dressed person you meet today. No coffee before a meeting.
NEVER
• You are never in a meeting – resolving a customer’s issue
• You are never sick, you are traveling
• Vacation – traveling
• Left for the day – out of the office
• Out to lunch – meeting with a client
• Not in the office yet – at a breakfast meeting
Negotiation:
• Give a sample, get an agreement to test
• Give a demo, get agreement to buy if works as claimed
• Give a brochure, get an appointment
• Give a discount, get more volume
• Give a free drink, get a dinner meeting
• Give a favor, get a due bill
• Give a solution, get paid
Point system (strive for 4 pts per day)
1. lead referral intro
2. appointment to meet decision maker
3. face-to-face meeting
4. commitment to close or action toward close
Voicemail
• Prepare it in writing
• Use third-party reference where you can
• Practice your message
• Be ready for a pick-up
• Speak slowly, clearly
• Introduce yourself first
• State how long message will be
• Purpose of your call (dollarized opportunity)
• Benefit and dollared value
• Suggest a meeting time
• Telephone number AREA CODE 815 888 3333, then repeat
• Thank them and advice you will follow up
• The beauty of voice mail is they will listen to it at their leisure and with their full attention.
10 things to do today to get business
1. Send a handwritten note
2. Clip and send an article of interest.
3. Talk to a satisfied client and ask who else you might help
4. Send a thank-you give to someone who referred you.
5. Give your business card to someone with influence.
6. Send a letter to the editor of a magazine your customers read.
7. Add 15 people to your mailing list
8. Leave a compelling voice mail.
9. Make an appointment
10. Call a client you haven’t talk to in 2 years
Recognize a Rainmaker
• Is organized
• Calls only on decision makers
• Does detailed pre-call planning
• Always has a written sales call objective
• Asks preplanned questions
• Listens
• Is empathetic with customers
• Encourages and appreciates objections
• Always dollarizes the value of a product
• Asks for customer commitments
How to Dollarize
1. Determine the competition price
2. State benefit
3. Quantify that benefit
4. Dollarize the benefit overall (avoided warranty claim x cost per claim = overall cost saved)
5. Reduce benefit to per unit (total savings / # units = savings per unit)
6. Demonstrate the true net cost of your products (price – savings per unit = true price per unit)
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Interesting Blogs: Small Business Owners
This is interesting reading that I am going to review regularly. Most importantly, if you are looking for small business ideas.
Six Disciplines
This is interesting reading that I am going to review regularly. Most importantly, if you are looking for small business ideas.
Six Disciplines
Book Summary: Kaizen: The key to Japan's Competitive Success
Book summaries are a little different because they are only the information I find useful from a book and less commentary than a review.
Kaizen: The key to Japan’s Competitive success
By Masaaki Imai
“Gentlemen, our job is to manage change. If we fail, we must change management.”
Kaizen: Ongoing improvement, including everybody from management to floor worker in work, social and home life.
Design > Production > Sales > Research
Sumo awards: outstanding performance, skill and fighting spirit award.
Process oriented manager
Discipline
Time Management
Skill development
Participation and involvement
Morale
Communication
An infusion of capital is no substitute for this investment in time and effort, it means investing in people.
Kaizen best suited for slow growth economy.
Western managers often refuse to establish rapport with workers which is needed for Kaizen.
Japanese axiom: Quality control starts with training and ends in training
When you see data, doubt it. When you see the measuring instruments, doubt them.
Do stage: morale is improved through Kaizen activities as everybody masters the art of solving immediate problems.
American suggestions based on economic benefits and financial incentives. Japanese stress morale-boosting benefits of positive employee participation.
Suggestions fill the gap between the workers capabilities and the job.
Prerequisites for policy deployment:
1. There must be a clear understanding of role of each manager in achieving the predetermined business result and improving the processes.
2. Managers of different ranks must have a clear understanding of the control points and check points established to realize of goals.
3. The system of routine management must be well established in the company.
Before coming to Washington, I stopped off in Chicago to see the CES. There were many comp products on display at the show. When they arrived packed in crates it was the work of the carpenters union to remove nails from the crates. However, simple taking out the nails was not enough to remove the entire wooden frame, since there were some nuts and bolts remaining. The man from the carpenters’ union said that is was not his job to remove the nuts and bolts and that he would not do it. Finally the frames were removed, but again the work stopped because the rest had to be done by a worker from another Union. Then we learned that pamphlets ordered from Japan had arrived. I went to see about them but there was nobody there from the right union to unload the packages. We waited for two hours, but no one showed up. Finally the truck driver who had delivered the packages gave up and went back, with the pamphlets still on board.
We call some societies primitive because of their desire to remain in the same state in which gods or ancestors created them at the beginning of time, with a demographic balance which they know how to maintain and an unchanging standard of living protected by their social rules and metaphysical belief.
While this book was primarily focused on production lines and warehouses the management logic is not that hard to adapt to executive team management. The core principle is to look at wasted efforts, continual improvement and what each individual can contribute to make the entire organization function better. In my environment this is better monitoring tools and communications software.
Book summaries are a little different because they are only the information I find useful from a book and less commentary than a review.
Kaizen: The key to Japan’s Competitive success
By Masaaki Imai
“Gentlemen, our job is to manage change. If we fail, we must change management.”
Kaizen: Ongoing improvement, including everybody from management to floor worker in work, social and home life.
Design > Production > Sales > Research
Sumo awards: outstanding performance, skill and fighting spirit award.
Process oriented manager
Discipline
Time Management
Skill development
Participation and involvement
Morale
Communication
An infusion of capital is no substitute for this investment in time and effort, it means investing in people.
Kaizen best suited for slow growth economy.
Western managers often refuse to establish rapport with workers which is needed for Kaizen.
Japanese axiom: Quality control starts with training and ends in training
When you see data, doubt it. When you see the measuring instruments, doubt them.
Do stage: morale is improved through Kaizen activities as everybody masters the art of solving immediate problems.
American suggestions based on economic benefits and financial incentives. Japanese stress morale-boosting benefits of positive employee participation.
Suggestions fill the gap between the workers capabilities and the job.
Prerequisites for policy deployment:
1. There must be a clear understanding of role of each manager in achieving the predetermined business result and improving the processes.
2. Managers of different ranks must have a clear understanding of the control points and check points established to realize of goals.
3. The system of routine management must be well established in the company.
Before coming to Washington, I stopped off in Chicago to see the CES. There were many comp products on display at the show. When they arrived packed in crates it was the work of the carpenters union to remove nails from the crates. However, simple taking out the nails was not enough to remove the entire wooden frame, since there were some nuts and bolts remaining. The man from the carpenters’ union said that is was not his job to remove the nuts and bolts and that he would not do it. Finally the frames were removed, but again the work stopped because the rest had to be done by a worker from another Union. Then we learned that pamphlets ordered from Japan had arrived. I went to see about them but there was nobody there from the right union to unload the packages. We waited for two hours, but no one showed up. Finally the truck driver who had delivered the packages gave up and went back, with the pamphlets still on board.
We call some societies primitive because of their desire to remain in the same state in which gods or ancestors created them at the beginning of time, with a demographic balance which they know how to maintain and an unchanging standard of living protected by their social rules and metaphysical belief.
While this book was primarily focused on production lines and warehouses the management logic is not that hard to adapt to executive team management. The core principle is to look at wasted efforts, continual improvement and what each individual can contribute to make the entire organization function better. In my environment this is better monitoring tools and communications software.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Book Review: The Effective Executive
The most important thing I can say is read this book with an open mind. Yes, the examples are outdated but they are significant, not to mention it is nice to read about events we have seen the ongoing impact of. Yes, the beginning sounds like a pep speech to daily office workers but where do you think the speakers pulled their content from? Yes, he is overly liberal in defining executive.
These two alone almost caused me to put the book down but I picked up a highlighter, more as a bookmark, and read on. I do not thing I have ever highlighted more of a book than I have here. I have found that texts follow a divergent, convergent pattern and it is the convergent literature that is concise and most time tested. This text encompasses what we know about business and productivity, avoiding reading multiple volumes on each topic.
This book is part practical advice, part motivational fluff for Drucker’s knowledge worker that encompasses many educated people and those skilled in intangibles. This is significant, as we see products all around us which are made by somebody and when people ask what we do our response is somewhere around ‘computer stuff’. It is the final chapter that solidified my belief in the motivational fluff, it discusses why managers should encourage their staff to read it. The problem with discounting fluff is it is the cornerstone of reawakening the driving spirit in the intellectually skilled, which need to be reminded of the answer to, ‘Why do I do this every day anyway?’
My father-in-law can drive around Chicago, point out buildings telling everybody he helped build them, I have been in the car enough now that I can give this tour… It seems like human nature that we want to leave a legacy that will outlive us and we are grappling with this as knowledge workers. There are significant planning guidelines and recommendations in this text and now more highlighting than most any book I own.
This has now been added into my rotation of gift/career cycle books:
Fresh out of school / new focus: how to Win Friends and Influence People
Feeling a lull in life / need meaning to your career: The Effective Executive
Need to identify the change needed: What Color is Your Parachute
Recovering from unplanned change: Who Moved My Cheese
The most important thing I can say is read this book with an open mind. Yes, the examples are outdated but they are significant, not to mention it is nice to read about events we have seen the ongoing impact of. Yes, the beginning sounds like a pep speech to daily office workers but where do you think the speakers pulled their content from? Yes, he is overly liberal in defining executive.
These two alone almost caused me to put the book down but I picked up a highlighter, more as a bookmark, and read on. I do not thing I have ever highlighted more of a book than I have here. I have found that texts follow a divergent, convergent pattern and it is the convergent literature that is concise and most time tested. This text encompasses what we know about business and productivity, avoiding reading multiple volumes on each topic.
This book is part practical advice, part motivational fluff for Drucker’s knowledge worker that encompasses many educated people and those skilled in intangibles. This is significant, as we see products all around us which are made by somebody and when people ask what we do our response is somewhere around ‘computer stuff’. It is the final chapter that solidified my belief in the motivational fluff, it discusses why managers should encourage their staff to read it. The problem with discounting fluff is it is the cornerstone of reawakening the driving spirit in the intellectually skilled, which need to be reminded of the answer to, ‘Why do I do this every day anyway?’
My father-in-law can drive around Chicago, point out buildings telling everybody he helped build them, I have been in the car enough now that I can give this tour… It seems like human nature that we want to leave a legacy that will outlive us and we are grappling with this as knowledge workers. There are significant planning guidelines and recommendations in this text and now more highlighting than most any book I own.
This has now been added into my rotation of gift/career cycle books:
Fresh out of school / new focus: how to Win Friends and Influence People
Feeling a lull in life / need meaning to your career: The Effective Executive
Need to identify the change needed: What Color is Your Parachute
Recovering from unplanned change: Who Moved My Cheese
Book Review: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
One of the biggest contributions from this book is the context prioritization. I have updated my organizer to include categories of office, home, anywhere, car that way I can be productive at any point. Big picture wise, the weekly planning helps you remember things you really want to do and refocus your efforts. Finally, I swear by his concept of 'always have something to read'. There are times when we are waiting for people to get to a meeting, a few minutes inbetween eating dinner and my son waking up or sitting in a doctor's waiting room that having something I want to read handy is beneficial.
Great book on organization, much easier than the Franklin Covey planning system... and cheaper. check out www.davidco.com for related planning documents.
One of the biggest contributions from this book is the context prioritization. I have updated my organizer to include categories of office, home, anywhere, car that way I can be productive at any point. Big picture wise, the weekly planning helps you remember things you really want to do and refocus your efforts. Finally, I swear by his concept of 'always have something to read'. There are times when we are waiting for people to get to a meeting, a few minutes inbetween eating dinner and my son waking up or sitting in a doctor's waiting room that having something I want to read handy is beneficial.
Great book on organization, much easier than the Franklin Covey planning system... and cheaper. check out www.davidco.com for related planning documents.
Book Review: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins
All too often a message has promise, but the messenger misinterprets it. That is often the case with this book, partly due to the author’s thoroughness in introducing his first concept of ‘getting the right things/people in the right places’. This concept is so extensively covered in the first half of the book that, I believe, most people assume this continues into the second part of the book and quit reading. (Or, this is enough to make conversation around an executive lunch table and so they drop it for another hot conversation topic.)
In fact, the second part is significantly different and discusses what happens once everything is in place… momentum. Since most read the first half of the book and quit, I will cover the second half first.
Momentum and incremental improvements are the key to ‘radical breakthroughs’, which, if done right, can not be recognized until well after they happen. This hurts the quick-fix consultants out there, but there is no effective way to have long lasting impact with a significant shift of direction. A quick shift requires readjustment by everybody and does not put an organization on stable ground to continue their momentum. Rather, small changes will amass into a significant step at some point but none of these alone will change the playing field or greatly move organizations position in it.
Most important about this is FOCUS, each of these changes comes with understanding the world around you but focusing on how you can make a difference. The problem comes when the scope of vision becomes to wide and, marketing is concerned with the testing results the QA department got on beta build 3, support is talking about who in sales is making their quota and sales is talking about where the executive team held their last off-site. Keeping each team focused on contributing toward the goal and feeling the energy build as they make progress is the key.
Now for the first part, get resources where they belong, even if this includes placing them in the trash. Collins describes an organization as a bus. First, get the right people you need for the journey on the bus, get the wrong people off. Yes, there are some people who are not right for the organization, it would be a disservice to the others on the team and hurt that person’s future if you did not help them get off the bus. Second, put the right people in the right seats. Great! Now that everybody is where their skills are best applied look at the tools you have and do the same. If the ticket system is garbage, replace it with something that meets your needs, money spent now will save you operating costs in the future. Monitoring application working adequately, find somebody who can make it work right.
If you are going to read this book, commit to reading the entire book, it can be worth it. The misinterpretation of G2G is partly the fault of the media, which enjoys sensationalizing that Jim Collins is advocating firing people that are not immediate contributors to the team and a fit for the culture. So learn about momentum and be comfortable with your organization not holding huge release parties for new products and be able to look back and say, ‘I was part of something great.’
All too often a message has promise, but the messenger misinterprets it. That is often the case with this book, partly due to the author’s thoroughness in introducing his first concept of ‘getting the right things/people in the right places’. This concept is so extensively covered in the first half of the book that, I believe, most people assume this continues into the second part of the book and quit reading. (Or, this is enough to make conversation around an executive lunch table and so they drop it for another hot conversation topic.)
In fact, the second part is significantly different and discusses what happens once everything is in place… momentum. Since most read the first half of the book and quit, I will cover the second half first.
Momentum and incremental improvements are the key to ‘radical breakthroughs’, which, if done right, can not be recognized until well after they happen. This hurts the quick-fix consultants out there, but there is no effective way to have long lasting impact with a significant shift of direction. A quick shift requires readjustment by everybody and does not put an organization on stable ground to continue their momentum. Rather, small changes will amass into a significant step at some point but none of these alone will change the playing field or greatly move organizations position in it.
Most important about this is FOCUS, each of these changes comes with understanding the world around you but focusing on how you can make a difference. The problem comes when the scope of vision becomes to wide and, marketing is concerned with the testing results the QA department got on beta build 3, support is talking about who in sales is making their quota and sales is talking about where the executive team held their last off-site. Keeping each team focused on contributing toward the goal and feeling the energy build as they make progress is the key.
Now for the first part, get resources where they belong, even if this includes placing them in the trash. Collins describes an organization as a bus. First, get the right people you need for the journey on the bus, get the wrong people off. Yes, there are some people who are not right for the organization, it would be a disservice to the others on the team and hurt that person’s future if you did not help them get off the bus. Second, put the right people in the right seats. Great! Now that everybody is where their skills are best applied look at the tools you have and do the same. If the ticket system is garbage, replace it with something that meets your needs, money spent now will save you operating costs in the future. Monitoring application working adequately, find somebody who can make it work right.
If you are going to read this book, commit to reading the entire book, it can be worth it. The misinterpretation of G2G is partly the fault of the media, which enjoys sensationalizing that Jim Collins is advocating firing people that are not immediate contributors to the team and a fit for the culture. So learn about momentum and be comfortable with your organization not holding huge release parties for new products and be able to look back and say, ‘I was part of something great.’
BookReview: Hardball by George Stalk & Rob Lachenauer
I picked this book up as part of a package for attending a speech by Mr. Stalk who is VP at the influential Boston Consulting Group. More so than his book, his speech was jaw dropping, hard-line, 80’s corporate raider stuff... all based on a core principle that makes sense, businesses have a primary objective of meeting the needs of their customers and shareholders. Beyond this simple concept, everything else is good will to the community.
This ongoing principle was easy for me to accept and I have to say I reflected on some of my opinions of different businesses (WalMart, Starbucks). That being said, the majority of this book is written to CEOs and their advisors with influence over an organization’s objectives. This was where I was confused on being invited to this speaking engagement, this is subject matter that is higher up the chain than I can influence right now. However, I did take away some understanding of why corporate leadership makes the decisions they do and am tossing around how these concepts can be scaled down to the departmental level.
I picked this book up as part of a package for attending a speech by Mr. Stalk who is VP at the influential Boston Consulting Group. More so than his book, his speech was jaw dropping, hard-line, 80’s corporate raider stuff... all based on a core principle that makes sense, businesses have a primary objective of meeting the needs of their customers and shareholders. Beyond this simple concept, everything else is good will to the community.
This ongoing principle was easy for me to accept and I have to say I reflected on some of my opinions of different businesses (WalMart, Starbucks). That being said, the majority of this book is written to CEOs and their advisors with influence over an organization’s objectives. This was where I was confused on being invited to this speaking engagement, this is subject matter that is higher up the chain than I can influence right now. However, I did take away some understanding of why corporate leadership makes the decisions they do and am tossing around how these concepts can be scaled down to the departmental level.
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