Rockstar Boss

My new camera has a 14MP sensor. That’s 2MP more than my previous camera and 13.5MP more than my first. If I wait a year the company who made my new camera will have a model with even more megapixels, and so will their competitors. And it’ll likely be cheaper than the camera I just bought?

The pace of consumer electronics forces this, right? Yes. Almost.

The real battle started the instant a camera manufacturer added the megapixel count of their camera to a website, brochure or press release. That set the metric for competition and the goal to beat for competitors.

Does a 14MP camera take a better picture than a 10MP camera? Not necessarily. Sensor size, noise ratio, ISO capability etc. all play a role, but we only make comparisons based on one number.

However, in the same way Eric Clapton can knock out an incredible tune on my $90 acoustic guitar far better than I ever could, it’s the photographer who makes the difference with the technique and subject matter of the photos they take and not the megapixel count of the camera.

Bragging about numbers creates a measurement for comparison. This turns into a key metric for your competitors to measure themselves by and use against you.

As the measurement grows into smaller/faster/cheaper realms, price stays the same or even decreases and you will end up fighting a pricing battle around the measurement. More for less. The commoditization means that the primary winner is the consumer (and this is okay too!).

The alternative is to avoid measurements altogether, even if your competitors use metrics to sell. Especially if your competitors use ’speeds and feeds’ to sell.

For example, the latest iMac is ‘The ultimate all-in-one’. Two important parts to this:
- it does not tell me how fast, how much or how many. If you want to find out processor speed or how much memory is installed, you can but it’s nowhere near the front edge marketing.
- the marketing leads with what this computer means to me, the prospect who might buy this computer. It’s an all-in-one. Everything’s packed into the screen. Cool – if that’s what I’m looking for. If not, I can quickly move on to something else.

By comparison, the Dell equivalent leads with:
Compact, space-saving Vostro 230 Slim Tower
Includes Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, DVD-ROM, Dell E2010H 20 inchs widescreen monitor, Trend Micro 15-Month Security Subscription

Lots of measurements and points for comparison. Lots of reasons to look elsewhere for smaller/bigger/faster/more for cheaper.

Pack the ruler away and lead with what you’re selling will means to improving the life of the customer instead.

Communication is never amplified louder than when there is none.

In the absence of communication there is only ever speculation, rumor and a plantation for negativity.

Always fill a vacuum.

Before you begin any business endeavor, marketing initiative or anything that’s going to involve you and an audience, do not proceed without being able to answer these six questions to yourself:

The Perfect Customer

1. Picture the your best possible customer. The best, most profitable customer who would also refer more business to back to you. Now answer this question: how would I be able to identify your ideal customer?

2. The most important thing about your ideal customer is the common need, frustration or desire that they share, that your business can resolve. Describe this problem as briefly as you can.

Your Incredible Difference

3. You need to uncover and communicate a way in which your business is different from every other business that says they do what you do. What is different, intentional or unintentional, about your business in the minds of the people you work with?

4. What is it about your product or service, the way you do business or the passion you bring to your work that makes your business different?

Your Service Experience

5. When prices are more or less the same and feature/functionality is only marginally different, attention and selection criteria turns to the service experience with a company. What service innovations should your business be bringing to your customers? (when answering, think about all the things your business could do for our customers that would make them naturally come back to you the next time they have a decision to make)

6. Doing what is expected of you is critical to your existence as a company, however what must you do beyond this to surprise and delight your customers?

(credit to John Jantsch’s Duct Tape Marketing for these targeting concepts)

To polarise iron filings, a magnet is required. To direct people, you need to have and let everyone know about your vision.

Your vision is your view on the core purpose and idealogy of your company or endevour, the passion that drives it and the pleasure you aim to convey to the people you are doing this for. The vision is not a blah blah document, but instead a short and concise statement that will drive decision making and people to fulfil the company and brand’s role in the world.

For example, Southwest Airlines is a low cost airline whereas Jet Blue stands for safety, caring, integrity, fun and passion. Any employee inside these two companies uses this as a bearing to guide their decisions to match the bigger direction.

From the vision you can derive what core values you and your people (and, by extension, your brand) should follow, the core purpose and the visionary goals you’re going to aim for to achieve the vision.

But why have a vision? Everyone wants to know where to go. This points them in the same direction, toward the target you’re aiming for.

Sales people are not engineers. Engineers are not sales people.

Great sales people are extremely charismatic. Well dressed charmers. They reach out, connect, find common ground, establish rapport and convince. Their attitude, tonality and body language adapts to the interaction with other people as they paint an attractive landscape that eventuality leads to trade. They dance as they reduce the risk for change and make what they have in their toolkit the most attractive option for the prospect’s problem.

They are up and they are down. They are emotional and passionate. Success for a sales person is measured as the grand finale act of convincing someone to commit to something they didn’t know they wanted. Every step to reach that point is an exercise in change and analysis and more change.

Real engineers live to solve problems. Instead of the rapidly altering emotion of a sales person, an engineer aims for a point and seldom alters the course until all the relevant data is captured, analyzed and pieced together to reach the solution.

Each problem is a jigsaw puzzle and work continues until it’s solved. A constant flow of thought and activity, trial and error until the goal is reached and the jigsaw completion.

Having a sales person guide engineers is to restart the jigsaw puzzle in every interaction. To have engineers be a component in a sales cycle is to inhibit the fluidity of the conversation and rapport. Each has a different set of motivators and path to success.

When the sales person has done their convincing, insert a transfer point between then and the when engineers being to enact the change agreed to with the client. Purposefully move from a state of conversation to one of action by itemizing the problem and the commitments made to resolve those problems.

Then let the sales person move to the next convincing situation and have the engineer focus on solving the problem.

This may come across as relatively obvious and even, possibly, old fashioned advice. In the modern world we tend to assume that the world is full of change and everyone must be able to accommodate this and people are more or less the same (this, I fear, is narrowed by most people’s built-in assumption that everyone is like THEM). To bridge gaps, technical frameworks exist to embrace change to shorten delivery cycles and bring sales people and engineers closer together.

This is fantastic news, however sales people are sales people because they are driven that way; the thrill and art of convincing and the commission for turning it into trade. The engineer isn’t driven by the same factors, but instead needs quiet time to solve the problems they are handed.

Ideologies of a worldwide ‘group hug’ aside, recognize these differences and be the transfer point between the two worlds when a sale needs to turn to action. In all other stages and steps, keep the two worlds separated.

If you find yourself in a situation where you’re surrounded by people you don’t know and are struggling to think of what to say or talk about, keep these in mind…

1. Occasion
Why are you all gathered together? What’s special about this occasion? What’s about to happen?

2. Location
Where are you? Was it easy to find? What are some notable characteristics of the area? Have you been there before?

3. Weather
The constant failsafe for conversation openers. Hopefully you’ll never reach this point for conversation starters.

All three of these share a common element: we’re all in this together. Use that to build bridges with people.

Work with these openers to break a silence, but then move on to asking more about the people you’re with. Avoid question that solicit ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. Instead, try ‘tell me your thoughts on…’ or ‘what do you think about…’.

Very little else keeps a conversation alive than having others talk about or answer questions on their favorite subject – themselves.

Some people never leave High School. The emotive drama, the eternal complaining, feeling threatened by others in their small world who dare to do something, the generating of noise without any tiny inclination toward solving it. Moan moan moan. He said, she said. Have you heard about…? Several faces, each one dusted off and brought out in front of different people when needed. Sprinkles of white lies for added effect.

In previous notes I have asked you to avoid these people. Run away. Never intentionally become caught up in their attention. What happens if they are already in your face? What should you do?

Surprisingly; it is still illegal to shoot these kind of people (well, all people really). That rules out the most obvious course of action. That said, if you are able to fire someone like this – do it. They will continue to be a disease in your teams forever if they stay.

OR

Give them something to care about. A mission or task that they can turn their negative, destructive gossip tendencies into positive bragging and optimistic conversation.

Do not feed their fires to be even more destructive with their words. Hand them a reason to act in the way they do best to build momentum around your vision.

You are alone and in a dark room. It’s completely black and you cannot see a single thing around you. In your right hand you have a pretty powerful flashlight/torch. You switch it on.

Standing there, you make sweeping movements to build up a quick view of what’s around you. The intense circle in the center of the beam shows up the most distinct detail. You can see what you’re pointing at and everything else around it fades into darkness in ever widening, blending circles.

You see the only door in the beam you’re casting across the room. It’s over to the right. Slightly ajar, it makes sense to head that way and leave the room you’re in. It’s your way out of here and the starting point of where you’ll go next.

This somewhat simplistic analogy has recently had a more profound meaning for me. Having cleared my life of all my habits around email, Facebook, Twitter, meetings and other interruptions; I started to move in a room with no light.

Start reading a book I’ve been meaning to. Hit a section early on that would be cool to try out on the iMac. So I stop reading and do that. Tinkering with code I remember that I wanted to send a payment out for a bill. I flip over to that. Knee deep in Bank of America’s website the nagging of did I/didn’t I leads me to the cupboard to check if I marked another bill as being paid. On a shelf there’s a snowball mic. I really wanted to record some audio for the book (long story, will explain/demo another time). So I do.

The result? Lots of little things. Lots of nothing really. No big result. No result.

It’s too easy to underestimate the importance and pure effectiveness of sitting down, uninterrupted, and concentrating for a solid period of time on doing just one thing. Like sleep, your brain takes a short while to warm up to what it’s absorbing right now. In the early stages of reading a book you will be distracted with other thoughts. If you let them.

From spending time with children to conversations to absorbing a book, experience or something else that’s going to add value to your life: be present, switch on your flashlight, point it at the door and walk toward that. Switch on a light and you’ll see everything, want to use everything and end up never moving. Or lots of moving around but with no progress forward.

People sometimes forget that they are human beings.

In amongst all the non-fiction books of the moment that are discussing the physical makeup of the brain and all it can do and perhaps why it does it, often referred to in a business context of why we all fail to conquer the world today, there feels like a greater point missing.

We are all human beings.

We like things and sometimes we don’t. We are dashingly unpredictable.
We fall in love with new people and stay in love with people who have been around us forever. We take care of them and they take care of us.

We can and do cry, go crazy and ramp up emotionally without the insincerity that business calls for. We can genuinely want to kiss someone with the spark of fluffy kittens or hurt that same person with the fire of watching them punch those kittens.

We do things to be near people who are like ourselves. We mourn loss and conversely can live for weeks on the adrenaline of excitement for something we want to do or people we want to see.

Politics, whether in government or an office, injects a paralyzing dose of inhumanity into our brain.

The professor-like part of our brain loves politics. The other part, the wild horse, hasn’t a clue what is going on and nor should it.

Through heavy applied processes, unimaginative business mechanisms and even religious fears; for far too many the wild horses have been deemed injured and are summarily shot. The glue factories are doing a roaring trade these days while the professors’ dully and duly procrastinate ahead with no notion of love, regret, compassion or feeling.

It’s okay to be in love (with people or things you do). It’s also perfectly fine to swear out loud, cry, drive a day to see a waterfall, surprise someone who means a lot to you, smile at a passing stranger (especially a cute one) and step into craziness every now and again.

The human part of being a human.

Things need to change around here. I think I know exactly what’s needed.

Business textbooks, MBA courses and the common logic around change prescribes more. More process, more people, more money.

A friend who was moving to the US from France told me of a theory he’d heard about American companies. When there is a problem, American companies immediately apply ‘more gas’.

If something is broken, if a company isn’t performing well, the last thing to do is add on top of the mess. Instead refine, simplify, intertwine people and communication and focus only on doing one or two things exceptionally well.