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What Box? How to Turn Problems into Opportunities

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Albert Einstein once said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Put another way look in the mirror the next time you have a problem. Maybe it is actually a blessing in disguise. Maybe it is a lesson you need to learn. Maybe you have something to do with it. Take ownership and use these tips to guide you in finding creative solutions when others are trapped by paranoia, resistance, drama and disempowering paradigms.

Tip #1: Ask “What if?” Use this question to open your mind and brainstorm multiple alternatives. There are more ways than one to solve a problem. Beware of getting trapped in the ‘Option A’ versus ‘Option B’ dispute. Seek options C and D. Chances are your best option might just be Option E or F – a combination of creative ideas.

Tip #2: Ask “Why?” Use this question to contemplate all of the reasons why this is an optimal solution. Keep an open mind as you explore all of the forces ‘for’ the idea. Challenge your own assumptions and suspend judgement as you play with the rationale.

Tip #3: Ask “Why Not?” This question allows us to consider the obstacles and risks that are likely to come with any solution. Specify any forces ‘against’ the idea and weigh the risks. Now consider countermeasures. What can you do to mitigate or eliminate the risks?

Tip #4: Ask “Who” can help me? Remember you may be part of the problem. Surround yourself with capable and knowledgeable people. Get the facts. Solicit feedback. Think teamwork. Collaborate. Consult with experts, directly and indirectly. Involving people from a variety of levels and functionalities, including customers, will help you challenge assumptions and think outside the box.

Tip #5: Ask “How?” Use this question to consider the practicality, cost and ease of implementation and sustainability. This is where the rubber meets the road. The world is full of good ideas but many change agents fail when it comes to successfully turning good ideas into great results. Use the ‘How’ question to uncover critical success factors necessary to develop an effective strategic plan.

Tip #6: Ask “When?” Timing will be one of your critical success factors. Remember, timing can be everything. Use this question to exercise wisdom, patience, discernment and caution when building and executing your plan. Be sure you are well prepared. Make sure you also recognize that time is money. Set aggressive goals to challenge limiting assumptions and stimulate creative thinking. Consider “What would it take to have this completed by the end of the week, or perhaps even the end of the day?”

Tip #7: Prepare for the “Yeah, buts!” Every successful entrepreneur and change agent knows that resistance is part of the transformation equation. We are always being challenged with comments like “Yeah, but this really isn’t a good time,” or “Yeah, but someone else is already doing it,” or “Yeah, but you can’t make any money doing that.” The ‘Yeah, buts’ are countless and often come from well-intentioned people very close to us – including ourselves! Be ready for this resistance by identifying potential ‘Yeah, buts’ ahead of time. Some of these may have been identified in the “Why Not?” exercise. Others may have been addressed in the ‘How’ questioning. A wise problem solver will anticipate resistance and be prepared for it. As a result, wise solutions are designed for success.

Tip #8: Consider “So What!” What difference does your idea or solution really make? Clever innovators and creative change agents recognize that solving problems ‘inside’ a box, when the box itself is the problem, is like moving chairs around on the Titanic. So what if we made small, incremental improvement. What if the competition is doing it in half the time or at half the cost? So what if we have achieved six sigma (near perfect) performance on our floppy disks or fax machines. No one wants them anymore! Remember, a paradigm shift can send everyone else back to zero.

Tip #9: Ask “Now What?” Creative thinkers recognize that we never really ‘get it right’ and we never really ‘get it done.’ Life is a continuous journey and as we evolve we uncover more and more opportunity for growth. We may achieve near perfection on a temporary product or process but resting on our laurels or becoming arrogant and resistant is a recipe for disaster. Use these tips to keep an open, contemplative mind. Learn to make change, not just manage it. There is less traffic on the leading edge.

About the Author

John MurphyJohn J. Murphy is an award-winning author, speaker, business consultant, whose most recent book is Zentrepreneur: Get Out of the Way and Lead. Drawing on a diverse collection of experiences as a corporate director, collegiate quarterback, spiritual mystic, and management coach, John has appeared on more than four hundred radio and television stations and his work has been featured in more than fifty newspapers nationwide. In 1988 he left corporate management to start his consulting company. He has now trained tens of thousands of people from dozens of countries. His clients include some of the world’s leading organizations. John lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Visit him online at www.venturemanagementconsultants.com.

Content Marketing that Converts

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‘Content is king’. I’ve heard that phrase for years. But what does it mean? Does it mean that by offering thought-provoking, useful, creative information buyers will be motivated to contact you at the right time along their complete (including pre-sales) decision path? By sending out veiled advertising in the form of ‘articles’ to random email addresses you can convert readers to action? How is ‘conversion’ defined – opening the email? Making a purchase that can be directly tracked back to the email? Let’s look at the problems.

  1. Wrong Time: Content is useful only at the time it’s needed and won’t be opened otherwise, even if your solution is needed later. Even when offering options, research, or educational benefits, your content currently targets the activity of product/vendor selection; you miss key opportunities to enter earlier, during the buyer’s necessary pre-sales activity – assembling the correct Buying Decision Team members, sorting out change issues and responsibilities, getting consensus, etc. – to become a true trusted advisor and support partner. Imagine offering the type of content that drives buyers during every decision and pre-sales activity. Then you’ve part of the solution, every step of the way, as they approach a final purchase. And they trust you.
  2. Wrong People: You get a 1% (or less) conversion rate because your missive connects with only those whose email addresses you have and, even if they might eventually be part of a Buying Decision Team, who consider it spam. It’s possible to offer content that readers seek out because it’s vital to their path toward excellence.
  3. Wrong Focus: Content is often merely an ad vaguely concealed as an ‘article’. Buyers know this. It’s possible to use content to facilitate the non-solution-focused consensus and change issues readers must attend to as they ready themselves to make a purchase.

The way you’re doing it now:

  • neither attracts nor retains a specific audience,
  • ignores ways to enter and influence buyers early in their pre-sales decisions,
  • doesn’t drive customer action unless they are at the specific point of readiness,
  • merely annoys.

You’re finding the low hanging fruit who would have found you anyway. Content marketing can help prospective buyers dispense suitable information 1. into the hands of the right people 2. at the time they need it while 3. coaching them to get their ducks in a row to move forward.

It’s possible to write content on important relevant topics that readers WANT to read – i.e. the pros and cons of concrete over glass for housing, or how we can hear others without bias – and will help them go from an idea to a purchase through linking to your site, reading and saving other articles, and using them to help traverse their action route.

Case Study

I get anywhere from 40-51% conversion with my content marketing. My readers take action from my articles: click on linked articles or sites; download free books/chapters; buy a product; share/RT/Like daily. Here’s what I do:

  1. I write well-written, provocative, 750-word articles that may have little to do with my services or books specifically but are of real interest to that population who may ultimately be buyers. (You found the title interesting enough to read this far, right?) I offer links that tie in to my books /services: I’ve written about diversity, leadership, collaboration, questions. Yet my services focus on facilitating buying decisions and bias-free communication.
  2. I only send articles to subscribers, and Friends, LinkedIn, and 15 ezines, such as HR.com, Sales and Service Excellence, StrategyDriven, who often publish them to vast readerships. (Sometimes 3 or more of my articles appear each week.) I have 3 blogs that often get onto best lists, such as top innovative content, top sales blog, top business blog. Net, net, I’m getting large distribution in really targeted fashion: those folks most likely to read and potentially need my services/products. Sort-of ‘hot leads.’ No spam.
  3. Like you, I let social media splash my content to enable interested folks to find it and start conversations. I get many new subscribers and ‘friends’ weekly. My lists grow with interested folks. Daily, I get Thank You notes that begin conversations and sell products.

Questions:

  • Why would people open your content if they consider it spam?
  • How can you compose true thought pieces that people want to open?
  • How can you use your content to facilitate each stage of the pre-sales and buying decision path?
  • Seriously: are you willing to try something different to get a higher ‘conversion’ rate? Seriously.

What you’re doing now only converts the low hanging fruit. It’s possible to enter earlier by offering valuable intelligence that will encourage curiosity; introduce, explain and target the full set of decision stages; and keep your name topmost in buyer’s minds. You’re currently taking the lazy route: throwing spaghetti on the wall hoping enough of it will stick. Do you want to write? Or enable real business opportunities?

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.

StrategyDriven Enterprises Launches an Online Business Performance Assessment Forum

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StrategyDriven Enterprises launched an online business performance assessment forum; providing leaders access to decades of first-hand experience performing critical, in-depth evaluations of organizational performance for the purpose of identifying improvement opportunities.

StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Center of ExcellenceStrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC announced the launch of an online business performance assessment forum; providing innovative thought leadership and collaboration opportunities to help executives and managers better assess the performance of their business operations.

Business performance assessments are powerful tools deriving their heightened value from the synthesis of information from multiple sources. Effective assessments create a rich, integrated picture of organizational performance as compared to established standards and marketplace benchmarks and reveal mission critical performance improvement opportunities.

“The rapidly change market environment demands that all businesses continuously improve safety and reliability while at the same time reducing costs,” explains Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “To help clients achieve these goals, StrategyDriven advisors, applying decades of business performance improvement experience, authored a library of assessment best practice methods and tools that are easily accessible from our online forum.”

“StrategyDriven’s assessment practices help reveal the people, process, and technology shortfalls preventing organizations from achieving next level performance,” says Karen Juliano, StrategyDriven’s Editor-in-Chief. “By applying these methods and tools, executives and managers gain the critical and impartial understanding of performance foundational to the improvement process.”

Contributed to by highly experienced business leaders, StrategyDriven’s online business performance assessment forum provides actionable methods and tools executives and managers can use to identify, prioritize, and implement operational performance improvements. Thought leadership items contained within the forum focus on topics such as:

  • Assessment Approaches – identifying the optimal assessment method based on the depth and breadth of insights sought
  • Assessment Planning and Scheduling – assigning assessment resources and timing to ensure a thorough, self-critical assessment is performed
  • Improvement Identification and Communication – developing actionably performance improvement insights possessing material value to the organization that are well received and acted upon

The business performance assessment forum’s thought leadership documents are being distributed to StrategyDriven’s clients, including some of the world’s most respected companies. These documents are available at: www.StrategyDriven.com/business-assessment.

About StrategyDriven

StrategyDriven provides executives and managers with the planning and execution advice, tools, and practices needed to create greater organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We believe a clear, forward-looking strategy, translatable to the day-to-day activities of all organization members, is critical to realizing success in today’s fast paced market environment. Not only does a compelling, well-executed strategy align individuals to common goals, it ensures those goals best serve the company’s mission.

At StrategyDriven, our seasoned business leaders deliver real-world strategic business planning and tactical execution best practice advice – a blending of workplace experience with sound research and academic principles – to business leaders who may not otherwise have access to these resources.

StrategyDriven refers to the family of organizations comprising StrategyDriven Enterprises, LLC. For more information, please visit www.StrategyDriven.com.

Corrective Action Program Best Practice 18 – Due Date Extension Authorization

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StrategyDriven Corrective Action Program ArticleImplementing performance improving actions can dramatically enhance the organizational results achieved. Unfortunately, many identified actions go unfulfilled, the victims of never ending delays. Establishing robust corrective action due date extension protocols, complimented by associated management metrics and reports, helps curtail unending activity deferment.

Management establishes the organization’s priorities and assigns activity due dates and resources accordingly. To meet this responsibility, managers must continuously monitor and control activity due dates and resource assignments after they are made; adjusting them accordingly as new information and/or opportunities become available.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.

Don’t just drink the water, eat it!

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Ask anyone in New York City why their bagels are the BEST in the world and they’ll say, “It’s the water!”

Ask anyone in Philadelphia why their cheesesteaks are the BEST in the world, and they will say, “It’s the bread.” Further questioning one will ask, “Why is the bread so different?” and they will say, “It’s the water!”

Water? Really?
Yes, water!

The unique water that’s ADDED to the standard ingredients makes the food BEST.

So I’m going to ask you two questions:
What’s in your water?
What makes your water different, better, than anyone else’s water?

There are 7.5 elements of your water that I will challenge you make you no different than anybody else’s water on the planet, and further challenge you that if you decide to improve those elements (your water), you can become the best in the world. Or at least the best in your marketplace.

1. Your attitude water. If you know and understand the classic definition of a positive attitude is, “The way you dedicate yourself to the way you think,” then it’s obvious that you can change and improve your attitude water by changing your morning routine. Wake up and start reading instead of watching TV. Reading a positive attitude book for ten minutes, highlighting, and taking notes about your thoughts, can begin a whole new attitude mindset that will separate and differentiate you from all of your peers, prospects, and customers.
2. Your belief water. While I have talked about belief for years, I’ve never said what it would take to build and strengthen your existing belief process. Invest thirty minutes of your time and make a list of the five parts of belief. You must believe you are the BEST person for the job, have the BEST business and products, that you can differentiate FROM your competitors, and that the customer is better off having purchased from you. If you don’t believe that your water is the best, how will you be able to transfer that message to anyone else?
3. Your compelling message and enthusiasm’s water. Present a compelling message and you will immediately differentiate yourself from 99.9% of all the salespeople on the planet. These are people who communicate poorly, or simply talk in terms of themselves. By becoming a prepared and enthusiastic presenter, you will be perceived as sparkling water. The opposite of sparkling water is flat water. In France it’s, “with gas” or “without gas.” Starting to get the message?
4. Your innovative ideas water. When you bring an idea to a customer it shows that you have prepared in terms of them. Your idea is about them and how they win, or how they profit. Once you get in the groove of innovation in creating ideas it will spill over to everything that you do. That’s hot water.
5. Your follow-through water. This water is the fulcrum point in the sale. Even if you have already made the sale, your customers expect both delivery and service in order to complete the sale in their mind. You will solve nothing until the customer receives your product or service, loves your product or service, and is completely impressed by the way you stay in touch and follow through.
6. Your relationship building water. Solid value-based relationships lead to repeat business and referrals. Do I need to say anything else about the importance and the value of this water?
7. Your trustworthiness water. This is slowly aged water. Trustworthiness comes from positive, favorable, consistent, truthful actions taken over time. Trust is not built in a day, it’s built day-by-day.
7.5 Your reputation water. Reputation water is the most valuable of them all. It means the rest of your water has all been given and received positively. It means that you have consistently performed to the delight of your customer. And it means that anyone can find you on the Internet and see your positive postings and results. It means that you have proven yourself to your customers and in your marketplace. You can never have too much reputation water. It’s my hope that your cup of reputation water runneth over.

BEST PART: When someone asks you why your sales are better that anyone else’s, your response can now be, “It’s the water!” – Keep ‘em guessing, baby. Keep ‘em guessing.

My water? I’m a Volvic water guy myself – switched from Fiji to France.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].