Jeremy Miller's Blog, page 19

The Secret Brand Everyone Knows About

In 2000 having a website was optional. In 2010 you weren’t a business without a website. In 2019, I think websites might be optional once again.

There’s an interesting trend where it’s chic to shun having a corporate website. I’ve noticed several very successful consultants, lawyers, and venture capitalists are skipping having websites altogether.

The strategy isn’t unheard of. Secret restaurants and bars are a staple of New York City. These establishments don’t have a sign on the door and you may need to know someone to get a reservation, but even without any discernible marketing the restaurants are filled night after night.

My all-time favorite bar is Dutch Kills in Long Island City. It’s two subway stops from Manhattan and it’s absolutely worth the trek. The cocktails are divine. The problem is if you don’t know where it is, chances are you’ll miss it. The only sign outside says “Bar.”

Another amazing NYC speakeasy is Please Don’t Tell in the East Village, but it’s even harder to find! The entrance to the bar is in a phone booth at the back of a hot dog restaurant. You walk through the restaurant, into the booth, dial 1 and speak to the hostess, but be sure to get reservations first. You need to call a secret number at 3pm to book a table.

By standard marketing conventions these brands shouldn’t be as successful as they are. They’re not in glitzy locations with line-ups out front. They may have a logo, but not one to promote the brand. These brands are hidden secrets and they are incredibly successful.

It’s a bold move to skip the website, but it just might make sense — especially if most of your customers come via referral.

Think about it from a customer’s perspective. If you need a specialist — someone who is the best in the business — do you care if they have a website? Actually, isn’t it kind of reassuring that they don’t have a website, because you know they’re so busy they don’t even need one?

One of the best movie quotes is from Liam Neeson in Taken,

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. If you are looking for a ransom, I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.

The quote is chilling, but you know he’s an expert. And he doesn’t have a website.

Building a secret brand — a brand without a sign or a website — is dependent on three elements:

Focus: Secret brands are easy to define and easy to share.

Word of Mouth: What’s ironic about NYC’s secret bars is how well known they are. These brands use a ton of publicity and word of mouth to create a buzz about them that compensates for the lack of signage.

Exclusivity: Secret brands deliver services that are specialized, expensive, and cater to a clearly defined audience that value their expertise.

Operating without a storefront — whether that’s for a brick and mortar location or a digital presence like a website — is a bold move. It can quickly differentiate your brand from the competition. What makes this strategy possible is the power of social media and publicity. You can create buzz without relying on a website.

Not all customers want to hire a specialist, and you have to know what your customers want and expect. If they expect a website, definitely don’t try this strategy. But if your customers are looking for a specialist, imagine the possibilities. What would it be like if you could create a secret brand that everyone in your industry knew about?

You're reading The Secret Brand Everyone Knows About by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

The Value of Hard Work, Because Hard Work Is a Value

Core values get glammed up to be aspirational phrases like Excellence, Integrity, and Respect. But what about “hard work?” It’s probably one of the most important and most overlooked core values.

This lesson hit home for me recently when the VP of HR of a national forklift dealership said, “We don’t recruit from our competitors, because we’ve found their people can’t keep up with our pace.”

She went on to explain that across the board they’ve been disappointed when they’ve hired people from the competition. “We just work harder. Our sales reps carry bigger quotas, and our service reps handle more accounts. We have a performance culture that values hard work.”

She continued, “Everyone notices when someone doesn’t pull his or her weight. The work ethic is baked into our company’s DNA, and a team will reject someone who doesn’t keep up.”

I was blown away by her transparency. Not many HR leaders will speak so candidly and directly about their culture. While some companies promote work-life balance and foosball in the breakroom, this company values effort and performance first.

Hard work may not seem glamorous, but it’s at the heart of every successful brand.

Angela Duckworth writes in Grit, “Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.”

Athletes, for instance, don’t brag about their training. In fact, most hate it. Angela continues, “Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight of what they’ve become.” Practice is hard, grueling work, but athletes love what training delivers: competing and winning at the sport they love.

The same is true with brands. Growing a successful business and brand is dependent on the concentrated efforts of smart, dedicated people who go the extra mile.

Call “hard work” for what it is — a core value.

It’s ok to say your team works harder. It’s ok to expect more from your people. It’s ok to put in the hours if you’re working for something you believe in. Hard work is a good thing.

If hard work is a value, it’s ok to reject people that don’t share your values. If someone on your team is “working for the weekend” or “shooting for the bronze,” you don’t have to accept it. They’re not a fit and they’ve got to go.

If your company thrives on performance, you want everyone on your team to share the same values.

You're reading The Value of Hard Work, Because Hard Work Is a Value by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

Best Feasible Practices

Beware of blindly following all industry best practices. They can lead you down a path of conformity and compliance.

An industry best practice is acknowledged as the best means of executing a task or process in your business. For instance, the optimal length of a website Page Title should be less than 60 characters and include relevant keywords. Google’s search results display 50 to 60 characters of a Page Title, so it’s a good idea to adhere to Google’s standards if you want your website pages to rank high in search results.

Best practices exist in every industry, and most are very helpful. Someone figured out how to do something well, and they set a standard for performance. There’s no point trying to reinvent the wheel when you can follow the instructions someone else has created before you.

This comes with a caveat. Best practices are amazing until they needlessly constrain you.

Some of the most innovative and disruptive companies were started by people with no industry experience — and no sense of industry best practices. Jeff Bezos was a hedge fund manager before starting Amazon. Richard Branson was in the music business before launching Virgin Airways. Apple was a PC company before it launched iTunes, and what did it know about cell phones when it launched the iPhone?

What set these leaders apart was they were unconstrained. They didn’t follow industry convention. They charted their own course and applied “Best Feasible Practices” from outside of their industry.

The glorious part of our business environment is we have access to never ending volumes of content. Name the industry and you can find their best practices. All of that data is available at your fingertips.

The obstacle is there’s simply too much data. To find Best Feasible Practices you need fresh eyes to help you separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff. For instance, in 1985 Andy Grove fired himself to shift his perspective.

Andy Grove was the co-founder and legendary CEO of Intel. Before Intel launched the wildly successful “Intel Inside” campaign, the company was struggling. It was being grouped in with all of the other memory chip makers and treated as a commodity. With Intel’s share price plummeting, co-founders Andy Grove and Gordon Moore had to find a new strategy to make the company relevant, profitable, and competitive.

To kick start a strategic planning session Andy asked his partner, “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what would he do?” Moore’s answer was quick and decisive, “The hypothetical CEO would get the company out of the memory chip business.” Andy replied, “Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back and do it ourselves?”

The two men did just that. They fired and re-hired themselves so they could approach the business with a fresh set of eyes. They took what they already knew, but approached it unencumbered by the company’s history and industry best practices. They decided to chart a new course.

You have the power to do that too. You can find Best Feasible Practices everywhere. Every industry offers a wealth of knowledge, ideas, and tactics that you can draw from. But you have to open your mind and your curiosity to find a new path or practice.

My challenge for you is to study an unrelated industry — any industry. Choose one that intrigues you and ask two deliberate questions:

What do these companies do to create an unfair competitive advantage?
How could I apply these ideas in my business?

You never know what you’ll find in this exercise, but chances are you’ll find a Best Feasible Practice that can help you serve your customers better, increase profits, or beat the competition.

Great innovators look beyond their industries for ideas. Instead of looking to your own industry for best practices, look more broadly. What are companies doing in other industries that your company could use to change the game and serve your customers even better?

You're reading Best Feasible Practices by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

What It Means to Position Your Brand

Positioning is a cornerstone branding topic. It’s how your brand is known, and how you want it to be known.

In the classic marketing book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Al Ries and Jack Trout define the concept as “an organized system for finding a window in the mind” that distinguishes it from competitors.

The authors make a compelling argument that the best brands find an opening in the marketplace and work to own it. For instance, Hubspot coined the term “Inbound Marketing” to position its brand. The company states, “Inbound marketing helps you attract customers with content designed to attract qualified prospects, convert them into leads and customers, and grow your business.”

Since its founding in 2006, Hubspot has grown into an inbound marketing juggernaut. The company competes across multiple fronts — CRM, email marketing, marketing automation, search engine marketing, content marketing, and content management systems — but it doesn’t get lost in the cacophony of competitors. Hubspot owns the positioning for inbound marketing software. This isn’t simply for email or SEO, it’s for attracting, engaging and selling to people who find you on the internet.

Hubspot’s positioning is so effective that it goes toe-to-toe with massive competitors like Salesforce.com, and wins. Its customers believe in the message of inbound marketing, and they apply it to their businesses with Hubspot’s products.

Owning a position in your customers’ minds is powerful, but I also find the idea too cerebral. This type of discussion is smart and interesting, but you have to take a big leap to make the concept tangible, tactical and actionable.

To bring the conversation down to earth, I like to flip things. Positioning is the result of an effective strategy for your business and brand.

Think of defining your brand’s positioning as a set of strategic choices:

Where will you play?
How will you win?
How will you be known?

By clearly answering each question you are making decisions that will shape your business strategy. You are deciding what your brand will be and what it won’t be. You are determining who it serves, and you are capturing what you want it to become.

The key to positioning your brand is making strategic choices.

In one of my favorite books on strategy, Playing To Win: How Strategy Really Works, Roger Martin and A.G Lafley write, “Strategy can seem mystical and mysterious. It isn’t. It is easily defined. It is a set of choices about winning.”

When your brand is positioned effectively it wins — and not because it has the best brand name or best website. A well positioned brand wins, because it serves a defined need better than anyone else. Customers choose it first, because they know it’s the best option.

A positioning strategy isn’t about making your brand more beautiful than the competition. It’s about making your business successful in a defined marketplace.

This requires making hard choices on where to play, how to win, and how to to be known. Martin and Lafley continue, “Attempting to be all things to all customers tends to result in under serving everyone. Even the strongest company or brand will be positioned to serve some customers better than others. If your customer segment is ‘everyone’ or your geographic choice is ‘everywhere,’ you haven’t truly come to grips with the need to choose.”

Positioning is a set of strategic decisions on how you will grow your business and brand to the next level. What do you think? Share your thoughts on Twitter.

You're reading What It Means to Position Your Brand by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

The Remarkable Power of Deadlines

There’s nothing like a deadline to harness your energy and focus your resolve. People and teams can move mountains when they come face-to-face with a big, scary, drop dead due date.

I faced one of these deadlines over the Christmas Holidays. Last summer I signed a publishing deal for my second book, and I requested six months to write the manuscript. I figured that was enough time to research and write the book while still maintaining all my day to day responsibilities.

Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. A very busy travel schedule and an unrelenting workload kept taking my time away from writing. By mid-December I was panicking. The manuscript was due on January 7th and I hadn’t written a word!

Tim Urban gives a brilliant TED Talk called, Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. He explains, “The Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there’s danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.”

When a deadline becomes imminent the Panic Monster comes rushing out, takes control of the wheel, and things gets done. It may not be pleasant and it’s definitely stressful, but you are productive.

I love my Panic Monster. I hit my deadline. In the span of 21 days I wrote the entire manuscript. I don’t know how and it definitely wasn’t fun, but it got done.

Deadlines are incredible tools to achieve results. It may not be pretty or pleasant, but a deadline demands a deliverable. On the other hand, what truly scares me and keeps me up at night are strategies and priorities that don’t have a deadline.

Without a deadline the “distraction monkey” and the tyranny of busy work are deadly. Days and weeks can slip by and there’s no perceived consequences — other than you delay achieving your goals and strategies.

That inertia and loss of time may be one of the biggest threats to your business.

The question is how do you increase awareness and accountability for a project that doesn’t have a defined timeline? The answer is to create a deadline.

I like to frame goals using a simple formula, “From X to Y by When.”

X represents the current state

Y represents the intended outcome

When is the timeframe

For instance, “Increase on-time delivery from 65% to 95% by July 31, 2019.”

Improving throughput (on-time delivery) is an example of a priority or strategy that may be important, but is easy to lose in your team’s day-to-day busyness. Yes, increasing throughput means more profit, higher revenue, and increased customer satisfaction. Everyone can acknowledge and agree to why the business needs to focus on improving it. But when you’re busy and there’s something else that needs your attention right now, a priority without a deadline can get pushed aside.

That’s why we need to trick our primitive brains into performance mode.

When a priority is framed as a goal with clear targets and due dates it shifts behaviors, especially when there’s a bonus or financial reward for achieving that goal. This is a form of deadline. It creates a sense of urgency with risks and rewards, and that gets the Panic Monster working for you.

Wherever and whenever possible, create deadlines. You can move mountains when you come face-to-face with a big, scary deadline.

Stay tuned for more to come on the new book in the coming weeks. It’s a graphically designed business book on brand naming. It will launch in September 2019. Send me an email if you’d like to join the Insider Team: info@stickybranding.com. It’s going to be fun!

You're reading The Remarkable Power of Deadlines by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

You Don’t Need More New Goals

January 1 is the most visited day of the year for job boards and job websites. It seems like half the population is exploring new job opportunities.

When I ran my recruiting agency we found that the #1 reason why people changed jobs is due to symptoms:

I hate my boss
I hate my commute
I don’t get paid enough
Or some other issue

The implied reason for looking for a new job was, “If I get [insert need or desire], I’ll be happy.”

It rarely turned out that way. Sure there would be the honeymoon period for a few weeks or a few months, but inevitably that lingering dissatisfaction would reemerge. It was the proverbial “same poop, different pile” situation.

Every now and then we’d encounter a very different kind of job seeker. These people had a plan. They weren’t changing jobs due to symptoms. They were looking for specific opportunities that would help them achieve their objectives.

For instance, CPAs must acquire “a minimum term of 30 months of relevant and progressive experience” to achieve the designation. This means young people pursuing their accounting designation are readily applying to all the big CPA firms so they can get their hours. Who they work for matters, but not really. The job is a means to an end.

Using a company to achieve a goal may seem dirty or unseemly, but it’s a strategy employed by some of the most successful people.

Let me illustrate the point with an exercise. Dust off your resume and get it up to date, and then look three years into the future. Add to your resume the job you want to be doing. Put in the title, responsibilities, and maybe even a couple accomplishments. Get really clear on what job you want to do three years from now.

If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, you can do the exercise too. How do you want your role in the business to evolve? What do you want to be doing three years from now?

When you’re clear on what you want to become, your career strategy is straightforward. All you have to do is answer one question, “What skills, experiences, and abilities do I need to acquire over the next three years to do that job?”

A simple shift in focus can change the trajectory of your career and your next steps. It may require staying in your current job and getting more experience, or it may require a transition. Either way, you’ve got a plan.

The start of the year is a time of rejuvenation and refocusing. It’s time to consider what you want and what you want to become. That’s why New Year’s Resolutions are so popular. “This year will be different.”

Really? The data says otherwise. According to research, 88% of people fail to achieve their New Year’s Resolutions. Even though they set their resolutions with the best of intentions, they do not attain them.

What’s really going on here? A big part of the problem is goal setting based on symptoms:

I hate my boss
I hate my commute
I don’t get paid enough
Or some other issue

Resolutions are written to solve a perceived pain, but nothing happens.

The answer is not to create more goals or try to solve all your nagging problems. This year the answer is fewer goals that are clearly focused on where you want to go.

There’s a story that flies around the internet on the goal setting advice that Warren Buffett gave to his pilot, Mike Flint. One day Buffett approached the cockpit before takeoff and said, “The fact that you’re still working for me, tells me I’m not doing my job. You should be out, going after more of your goals and dreams.”

If anyone other than Warren Buffett said that to you, you’d call him a dick. But Warren Buffett is a multi-billionaire, so you ask for his advice.

Buffett presented a three-step process for picking your goals:

Write down a list of 25 career goals.
Circle the 5 highest priority goals.
Focus on your top 5 goals, and say “no” to the rest.

As Buffett explained to Flint, “Everything you didn’t circle just became your ‘avoid at all cost list.’ No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top five.”

Picking your priorities changes behaviors, and largely makes New Year’s Resolutions irrelevant. If you’re working on a defined path you know what you need to do and not do. This gives you clarity and purpose.

As we kick into a New Year, refocus and recommit to your top goals, because they’re going to be with you for a few more years. What skills, experiences, and abilities do you need to acquire this year to get you closer to achieving your goals? These are your priorities. You can even call them New Year’s Resolutions if it helps.

Success isn’t driven by symptoms, it’s driven by purposeful goals. What do you need to accomplish this year?

You're reading You Don’t Need More New Goals by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

Compound Growth: How to Double the Size of Your Business

Albert Einstein was a big believer in compound interest. He called it the eighth wonder of the world, the most powerful force in the universe, and the greatest mathematical discovery of all time.

In Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing the authors write, “The power of compound interest and the accompanying Rule of 72 illustrate how anyone can slowly transform small change into large fortunes over time.”

The Rule of 72 is a simple calculation to determine how many years it will take an investment to double in value.

72 / Interest Rate = Years to Double

For example, at an 8% rate of return it will take 9 years to double the value of your investment.

No wonder investors get all hot and bothered about making small contributions to their portfolios on a regular basis. It just makes good investing sense.

The Rule of 72 is an equally intriguing formula to apply to your business. At your current growth rate, how many years will it take to double the size of your business?

It’s simple math. If your business is growing at a rate of 15% per year it will double in size in 5 years (4.8 to be exact). At 30% growth your company will double in size in 2.4 years, and at 5% growth you’ve got a 14.4 year journey ahead of you.

The concept of compound growth is fascinating, because 15% growth is not that daunting for a mid-sized company:

At $5 million in revenue you need an additional $750,000 next year to achieve 15% growth.
At $10 million you’re looking to grow by $1.5 million.
At $75 million your growth target is an additional $11.25 million in revenue.
And at $500 million you’ve got to find a whopping $75 million in new revenue.

Ok wait. I just blew a hole in my logic. 15% growth is pretty attainable when you’re small, but the larger you get the more compound growth gets in your way. The growth target just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And that means your business model, infrastructure, and brand all have to rapidly evolve to serve the ever increasing demands of compounding growth.

The realities of compound growth is why many companies face revenue plateaus.

Even though the realities of compound growth can become daunting the larger your company gets, the principle is still valuable. It helps to shape a growth strategy.

Say you want to double the size of your business over the next 5 years. Based on the Rule of 72 you’ve got to grow by 15% year over year for the next 5. For example, the growth rate for a company currently operating at $10 million would look something like this:

$11.5 million
$13.23 million
$15.21 million
$17.49 million
$20.11 million

The challenge in this growth strategy is in years 3 and 4.

You can work smarter, harder, and faster to grow from $10 million to $13.5 million, but you will have to change your operations (including sales and marketing) to get through the $15 and $17.5 million milestones. Working harder won’t sustain the pressure of compound growth.

To deal with these realities I find it valuable to shift the strategic planning process into 3 time horizons.

10 Year Vision: If your company achieved all of its strategic goals, what would it look like 10 years from now?

A 10 Year Vision creates a mental image of where the organization is going. It should challenge and inspire your staff, customers, and stakeholders. It’s also a tool to push you through your near term growth objectives. Think of this like a boxer. You achieve power by punching through the target versus at it.

3 Year Growth Strategy: Create a near term growth strategy. In the example above, look just beyond the midpoint and consider how you will grow from $10 million to $16 million over the next 3 years.

How you decide to achieve that goal will be your 3 Year Growth Strategy. Growth strategies are typically achieved through a combination of 4 levers:

Grow through scaling (organic)
Grow through entry (new markets)
Grow through acquisition (buy companies)
Grow through innovation (create new products / services)

1 Year Action Plan: The 1 Year Action Plan is based on the 3 Year Growth Strategy. This is where you convert the strategy into executable chunks — what you’re going to do this year. It breaks down the key investments and priorities your team must take to achieve the company’s growth objectives.

An effective 1 Year Action plan clearly defines your company’s strategic priorities to grow the business. For some more insights on this topic read, Three Levers: Focus Your Strategy on Three Priorities.

By segmenting your growth strategy into 3 time horizons you can take advantage of the power of compound growth. Sure, the growth targets may look daunting in years 4 and 5, but what counts is what you do right now. You’re constantly laying the foundation, infrastructure and strategies for scale.

And hey, 15% growth next year isn’t that hard, right?

You're reading Compound Growth: How to Double the Size of Your Business by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

How SPAM Got Its Name

Hormel Foods, makers of SPAM canned lunch meats, cannot be happy. SPAM is now synonymous with that crap clogging up your email and social media feeds:

A Nigerian Prince wants to send you a million dollars.
Here’s a once in a lifetime career opportunity. You can make thousands of dollars per week in your pajamas!
Your bank account has been hacked. Please login now with your account number and password. (We won’t take all of your money … *wink wink*)

Spam emails are the worst, but how did they get that name?

The origin actually starts with the lovable lunch meat, SPAM. SPAM is the registered trademark of Hormel Foods, and the name is always spelled in capital letters.

Hormel Foods introduced the wonder product in 1937. George Hormel wanted to increase the sale of pork shoulder, which was not a very popular cut at the time. He and his team tested a variety of products and came up with a versatile cured pork product. You can slice it, cube it, fry it, bake it, or eat it straight from the can.

To name the new product George Hormel created a naming competition. The competition offered two benefits:

It was cheap. Rather than paying an ad agency to name the product, they recruited employees, customers and citizens to submit their ideas.

It generated publicity. Promoting the naming competition helped to introduce and launch the product to the public.

Within a few weeks the company had a new brand name, SPAM. Kenneth Daigneau, an actor and brother of a Hormel executive, submitted the winning name. In his submission he said the name was short for “spiced ham.”

Hormel paid Daigneau $100 for his creativity and winning the competition. $100 may seem like a paltry amount, but that’s equivalent to almost $2,000 today. Not a bad reward for a public competition.

SPAM proved to be the perfect product for its time, because fresh meat was expensive and hard to come by. The product was launched in the middle of the Great Depression and WWII started two years later. With its long shelf life and durable can, SPAM quickly became a staple for soldiers and civilians alike.

Within 22 years, Hormel Foods sold 1 billion cans of SPAM. In 2007 it crossed the 7 billion milestone, and by 2012 it surpassed 8 billion.

I will confess, I have never once tasted the product. The thought of it turns my stomach.

Working with the Wrong People is like Driving on Bald Tires

Having the “wrong people” on your team is like driving on bald tires. It doesn’t matter how hard you step on the gas, you just can’t seem to get traction.

It cannot be overstated how important it is to have the right people on your team. Having the “right people” can be the difference between achieving your business objectives and missing them.

As Jim Collins wrote in Good To Great, “Those who build great companies understand that the ultimate throttle on growth for any company is not markets, or technology, or competition, or products. It is one thing above all others: the ability to get and keep enough of the right people.”

Intellectually, all of this makes sense. We’ve all worked with employees and teammates that were not a fit and dragged down everyone around them. But as a manager, how do you know if someone is the right fit or not?

Spotting the bad employees or the great employees is easy. You can easily quantify someone who is in the top 15% or the bottom 15%, but what about the more nuanced cases:

Has a lot of potential and is a cultural fit, but is not performing well in their job.
Performs effectively on some days, and is a problem other days.
Is a top performer, but is a debutante that doesn’t align with the values or culture.

It’s in this middle ground that many managers struggle. How do you follow through with Jim Collin’s advice, “Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.”

This is where many managers start to throw their hands up in frustration, “I get it, but how?”

The process doesn’t have to be theoretical or complicated, but it does take a little analysis. Try this exercise to determine who are the right people and if they’re in the right seats.

Evaluate If You Have the Right People in the Right Seats

For each member of your team ask the following three questions:

Performance: Are they achieving their goals and expectations?

Capabilities: Do they have the skills and capabilities to be successful?

Culture: Do they share and adhere to the values and beliefs of your organization?

For each question you can respond with yes, no, or maybe. If you’re not sure or if you’re on the fence, mark them down as a maybe.

If you mark no or maybe on Performance study your responses against Capabilities and Culture:

Cultural Gap: If you find an individual doesn’t fit your organization’s culture or core values, chances are that person cannot be saved. You can train for skill or move a person to another position, but you can’t save someone who doesn’t share your company’s values.

Capabilities Gap: If there is a skills gap, you may be able to save the person. Use these moments to study the person and the job and determine if you can help bridge the gap. Many times we can make small tweaks or changes to help get a person up to speed.

Work Ethic

The most frustrating group of people are the ones with the Capabilities and Cultural Fit, but they lack the work ethic. You know they can perform the job, but for whatever reason they don’t.

I am a big proponent of effort. Great results come from hard work.

If your team is known for putting in the hours and following through on their commitments, this is a core value. When someone doesn’t share that same work ethic, it is holding you and your team back. That’s not fair.

Brilliant Jerks

The really hard case is when you have a top performer in Performance and Capability, but they are not a Cultural Fit. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, calls these people “Brilliant Jerks.”

Brilliant Jerks are high-performing, valuable members of your team, but they’re toxic. They can be aggressive, stubborn, unapproachable, passive aggressive, disrespectful, and argumentative. They’re no joy to work with.

Brilliant Jerks tend to emerge in key roles such as sales or engineering. People tolerate their bad behavior because they deliver such incredible results, but you have to ask at what cost?

Brilliant Jerks are cancerous. Even though their individual performance is impressive, they hold your team back and create a toxic work environment.

It’ll be painful, but they’ve got to go.

Set a Plan and Act

It’s inevitable. You will have people on your team that are not performing up to your expectations. The key is how you will respond.

My management philosophy has two parts:

You can’t accept people who are not a cultural fit, even if they’re a top performer. They either have and share the company’s core values, or they don’t.
Do everything you can to develop people who are lacking in skills and capabilities, but recognize a business is not a charity. Create a 30 to 180 day development plan and work closely with these people to get them up to speed, but recognize at some point they may not work out.

It’s never easy, but when you find someone who is not a fit you have to be decisive. The longer you procrastinate on dealing with a misaligned person, the worse it gets.

The Manager’s Job Is Never Done

It’s possible to drive a car with bald tires, but it’s not every efficient. You slip around if you corner too quickly. You lose traction if you step on the gas. And you can get in an accident when faced with unforeseen road hazards.

This is a good metaphor for what it’s like working with the wrong people. You may get where you want to go, but it takes a lot more effort to do it.

Working with the right people makes your job so much easier. The challenge is it’s an ongoing process, especially in a rapidly growing or evolving company. Your team is under constant pressure to perform and change with the needs of the business, and this means you have to review your team’s performance and fit on a regular basis.

Start with the three questions:

Are my people achieving their goals and expectations?
Do they have the skills and capabilities to be successful in their jobs?
Does each member of the team share and adhere to the core values and beliefs of our organization?

You're reading Working with the Wrong People is like Driving on Bald Tires by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.

Salespeople Don’t Create Demand, They Serve It

One of the greatest business myths is salespeople create demand. I will often hear business owners say, “We just need a few good hunters to grow our business.”

This is a belief that wastes time and burns through good people.

Here’s the reality: salespeople are capacity. They don’t create demand for your products or services, they serve it.

The 3T’s of Sales Performance

Sales performance is predicated on three variables:

Territory: Demand for your products and services

Timing: Market conditions such as low unemployment or recessions

Talent: Your salespeople

Territory is the #1 indicator of sales performance followed by Timing and Talent.

For example, a weak salesperson working in a high potential territory will outperform a rockstar working in a dry territory. It doesn’t matter how good the sales rep, if there’s no business to chase they’ll fail.

Prematurely Splitting Territories

The myth that salespeople drive growth leads to a performance killing mistake: prematurely splitting territories.

Leaders can come to a weird logic when looking at sales performance. They assume, “If my sales reps each carry a $1 million quota than hiring 10 more salespeople will generate $10 million.”

Nope. Ain’t gonna happen.

The reality is far harsher. Hiring more salespeople without increasing territory potential means fracturing the territory. For example, doubling the number of sales reps often leads to halving sales productivity. This leads to a nasty chain reaction:

Salespeople earn less commissions and income;
which leads to increased employee turnover;
which creates increased costs;
and if left unchecked, leads to declining sales.

Great Salespeople Are Facilitators

I hear it again and again, “My sales reps are order takers.”

That may be true, but maybe that’s what your customers actually need. Complex products and services don’t sell themselves. They require human intervention to facilitate the purchase cycle.

Great salespeople are facilitators. They help their customers navigate the buyer’s journey and make smart decisions. And this type of selling can be a competitive advantage. If your competitors are product pushers, sales facilitators will make your business stand out as more professional and solution oriented.

Growth Is Multifaceted

As a business owner I hate hearing, “It depends.” I want solutions that deliver clear and tangible outcomes, but growth is multifaceted. There are multiple levers that will drive growth for your business, but it’s not always clear cut. What works for one firm may not be applicable to your business.

How do you increase growth? Work the problem.

Study your market.
Study your customers.
Study your business.
What levers are at your disposal to create growth?

Chances are you will find the solution cuts across your entire organization — from sales to finance to operations. Each division is going to have to work in concert to create category defining products and services that your customers want; then work to market and sell the heck out of them; all while building your organizational capacity to serve more and more customers without losing an ounce of quality.

Driving sales is no longer a salesperson’s problem. It’s an organizational challenge to grow and serve your customers better.

What do you think?

You're reading Salespeople Don’t Create Demand, They Serve It by Jeremy Miller, originally posted on Sticky Branding. Did you enjoy this article? If so, sign-up for more of Jeremy's articles at Sticky Branding.