Stop Using the F, S and C words to Explain Connections

It's another one of those things which came up a few times in conversation and while you may disagree with me on this it seemed to strike a chord with people.

C is for Cookie Collaboration and be really sure you know what you are doing before you use this word. Why? Because when an IBM or Lotus shop hears this word, they think about Lotus Notes and Domino first. Microsoft shops think about Sharepoint but that's another story. Talk about sharing and security, files and finding, profiles(not profiling) and priorities (Activities).

S is for Social and do you really want to conjure up thoughts of interoffice affairs or family outing details? No, you want to encourage business and sales. Discuss openness, within your firewall. Point out the updates and "streams" of  data flow and information one can leverage. Utilize everyone's profiles to get a step up on your competition or sales.

Some will argue executives get this already. Well if they do, please ask your sales reps to stop comparing Connections to Facebook.
It's not.
Facebook is a platform that encourages games.
You encourage business.

Keep in mind while many people use Facebook in one way or another, there is much to dislike about it including security, games, likes, photo sharing, too much openness, serious UI changes unexpectedly and it is FREE. 


Compare it to Linkedin, something an executive probably uses and understands and in most cases PAYS for it. No, they are not on par by features but can you explain profiles in a better way? People naturally value what they spend money on so why would you compare a product that costs money to a free product?

Get inside your customers mind and outside your sales goals and you will go far.

Edited 11/9/2011: Information Week had a post with more generic ideas on selling, you should see it as well.
11 Ways To Explain Social Business Benefits by Rachel Happe, November 08, 2011

Sorry Been Busy with Customers

Seems like I missed some reading this week. I was busy with customers. And even busier next week with them. We have meetings with 6 over the next week. A really busy schedule and I am not even going to some in person because of distances, luckily we use LotusLive Engage for these.

As I have posted recently the world of infrastructure is booming. Budgets are finally open(well some are), customers are calling and being receptive to our calls.

Life is good...now. Compared to the 2nd half of 2009.

But it's been hard, no question.

Oh, and we don't sell Microsoft or Google or Oracle.

We sell IBM products and services, lately more Websphere.

Not just Lotus services and licenses.

Oh, and we don't do Domino application development. We have partners to help if the customer asks, but that is maybe 5-10% of business.

We work with IBM sales teams, some better than others, but in a large family not everyone sees eye to eye and it's a big world. SMB markets need more sales people and IBM recognizes that the small sales staff in some places must work with BPs and luckily some are doing so with us. Out LCTY last week provided excellent leads as well.

Customers moving from Domino.Doc to Quickr, leveraging LotusLive, Sametime 8.5 upgrades and implementations, New Notes/Domino installs, Upgraded 2 customers from R5/6 to R851, Websphere installs, support issues and disaster planning(we are in South Florida).

But zero Lotus connections. This may change shortly after some local LUG and PoT events.

We work with our vendors/partners to go directly to clients. We don't argue with them and we believe that our honesty with them is returned and appreciated. Of course it is not always returned, but that is how life works and we do the best we can. Sometimes honesty can hurt sales, especially in time related matters but we'd rather retain a customer than lose them forever.

It's still hard to believe one of our customers jumped to Exchange and we got caught flat footed. But as I tell people, if we never meet the CEO, especially, then there is always a chance of it happening. One IBM rep wants to go in and save it, we would try, but the CEO is not going to let it happen. We are looking for an exit interview so to speak to understand what we(read IBM and us) could have done better. We know some answers and they were beyond our control and that hurts the most.

But the life of a BP is not easy sometimes and it takes a lot of strength to keep moving forward in the face of adversity.

So while we are not hiring today, we are seeing business grow and some of you may get calls from us to help on a contract basis or join us before the year is out.

I think that is a good reason I have been offline or not blogging.

Ethics in Business, Starts before the Interview

Recently I got into a discussion on Twitter with a recruiter of sales people for among other fields, the medical industry.

This recruiter had posted that she received a Starbucks card with a resume. She thought that was a great idea.

I replied, I thought it was in poor taste for her to think this was a good idea. Not only would this bring her a mound of cards probably, what message does it send to prospects and clients?

Namely that she can be bribed? Is that what you want to have your customer hire?

I was not the only one to remark in this fashion and the recruiter replied to us that it was a unique and eye catching way to catch her attention. Yes, I agreed, but it is still a bribe.

If it was from someone she placed, or got an interview and it could be seen as a token gesture of thanks, I have no problem with that(although if you work in politics, you should not accept it and if you do please report it appropriately).

I asked her if she was in politics would she still think it was a good idea? Down here in Florida we have had practically whole councils of people under investigation and jail for similar type incidents.

She replied she isn't in politics so it doesn't matter.

At that reply I just stopped bothering.

If you are supposed to be finding employees, I would expect you would want to find honest and above board people that understand the difference between right and wrong in a sales transaction because that employee may one day cause your business major headaches or become CEO.

Sending a resume in a box marked medical supplies could have accomplished the same benefit and left one free to discuss great openings into new accounts.

I Gave Her Everything....

"She threw it all away on nothin'" - Tom Petty, Woman in Love

It's true in almost everything in business as well as life.

How many times do you put everything into a client, only to see them go to a competitor? Or someone gets fired and you lose the opportunity?

And what do they always choose? Nothin' in our eyes.

But something in theirs.

Are they right? Are we wrong? Does it really matter?

Your family depends on you and your job which depends on you to bill clients or find new business with them. You, not IBM, are on the hot seat. So what are you going to go do about it?

Is the economy better? Yes, no? Does it matter?

Do we need LCTY, LUG and other events to find new customers? Raise awareness? Help with publicity?

Yes we do.

But are we always fishing in the same barrel? When was the last time you called up a Microsoft shop and offered Lotus Connections? Do you normally let all your friends know what you sell or manage or work on? Does your Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook profiles mention it at all? Most of you reading this do, but how do you get your clients to do this as well?

While at our LCTY 2 days ago I got an email, via Linkedin, from a friend who lives in Israel asking me about Lotus Sametime. Haven't seen him for a few years and we catch up rarely, but he had to find me via Linkedin because he was searching for Sametime in his network.

Sometimes it takes so little to get so much in return, but do you have the long haul interest or only short term in mind?

Do you blog? There is nothing more thankless than blogging...for the 1st year or so for most people. It takes a while to get a following but then you have a readership and the rest is up to you.

We put a lot of effort into our LCTY event, the sessions and the golf. IBMers got to scratch off another tick box on their targets and goals for 2010 and we are happy to help them get to their goals. We understand what drives our IBM team because for us to be successful, we need to help them be. And we respect their opinions and help, do you? It may seem like you give IBM everything, but how many of us want something for nothing?

Why were there not 100's of LCTY events across the US? By the way, never have them within 200 miles of each other, one piece of advice Florida learned over the last year.

In return for helping the IBMers meet their goals, we want some help to meet our goals because true collaboration is open sharing. Will it really hurt ISSL or IGS if someone spends a few hours to help a key customer to a BP, once or twice?

More than one IBMer let me know they were really happy to not only come, and see some customers, but even be invited! Don't get me wrong, we did not invite every IBMer we know, but some key topic area people as well as in state people is the best way to encourage your business with IBM and clients. There are 300-400,000 IBMers in the world, find them and get to know them best you can in your neck of the woods.

We encouraged other BPs to work with us on the event although few did, some never returned emails or calls. Which left me wondering if they truly understand what the Lotus brand really is about. Yes, it was "our" event, but the greater good is what is important, like Sal G. told me. together we are strong.

We already have meetings set up for next week from the event so it was a success at that level. Sometimes you do an event and you put your all into it and nothing comes from it. Short term. Long term, if you are honest and open with your sharing/collaboration, as I found the other day, clients will love you more in the long term.

I go back 15 years with some of the customers that attended, the people who came from those organizations were impressed with my background info on everything they have been dealing with and wonder why we haven't been out there recently. I wonder too sometimes, but the truth is business runs in cycles, as does management.

Being a Business Partner is not for everyone. It is ups and downs, and rarely at times expected, and you want to give in some times, maybe you blame your vendors for their marketing/pricing/attitude issues or maybe you don't.

Keep giving it your all, else "Don't try to talk, don't say nothin".

Winter Keeps Coming Back, Like Customers

January was busy, February was like the snow storms, problems dumped on us and no matter what we did, more kept coming.

Oddly enough they all also went away as fast as they came.

When you think you have reached the end, there is no end in sight sometimes.

Products need fixing, patching, servers need rebooting, routers need replacing and if companies are hiring again they need licenses, computers, telephones and office furniture.

Who is doing this for your clients? If it isn't you, does it bother you? What could you do to change this?

At some point a network can not really run based on one person knowing it all or owning it all. It just leads to a very long delay in anything ever getting accomplished.

So how do you get out of this rut? Hire temporary employees? No, they take your knowledge and leave.
Hire more permanent staff? Perhaps
Find a local business to work with? Hopefully but not always likely in every situation.
Bring in a Business Partner? Preferred

Why a Business Partner?

Because IBM, HP or whatever the company is really is not designed to help every customer based on size or location. However, they all have business partners which are trained, experienced and ready and willing to help you....but you never call.

Is a Business Partner more expensive than a temporary employee? Sometimes
Is the BP going to be cheaper than the original vendor company? Always
Will the BP get the project done correctly or manage expectations appropriately? Usually, no one is perfect and we all have had situations that were not so rosy. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
What if the BP doesn't do X,Y or Z? They should have in their organization other vendors to work with to accommodate your needs. Admittedly some requests are way out of scope but most are well within a domain of people they know and trust.

If you need electrical work done do you call a plumber? No, and neither should you ask your local PC support people to fix your infrastructure, unless they have a corporate/server division or can recommend one for you.

Yet many times we hear on our client sales calls how:

the vendor sold us their product and then we never heard from them again and when we had problems we couldn't get help so we bought a new product and moved on.

Not always in such nice terms of course, but this is no different if you sell cars, tax services, computers or televisions.

Some people say "we will call you when we need you".
But if you leave it at that, you may never have any other business. Or worse, for you, your competitors may get that business.

Sometimes you do need to have some space between contacts as part of the normal business schedule. It's hard, but stay on target, gentle reminders via phone, email, IM or Twitter, etc will get some answers. And if you aren't asking for business, you aren't receiving any business either.

Today it's cold weather, tomorrow will be warmer, then cold again next week (I live in South Florida after all) and customers always need help. Sometimes when the power is out or just restored is the best time to call them and lend a hand, honestly help them if possible and work with them even if it causes you some logistical issues.

You can't help everyone all the time and sometimes it may seem like no matter what, you can't find any business, other times business finds you based on the effort you made upfront.

So think about how to bring your customers back before they need you or look elsewhere for their help. It may be as simple as a phone call once a month but make the time, do it right and keep them coming back for more.

Fud Buster #44 - Well, Do Ya...Punk?

Feel lucky that is.

Have you been working hard on a project?
As hard as these guys did?

It wasn't luck that they built that application, though it may have been luck they landed the client. Read on to understand I am not knocking Jimmy, Scott and team.

But the truth is, your efforts are directly proportional to the outcome you receive. Maybe not every time, we can't all bat 1.000, but if you stay the course and plan for it, it will happen and you will get a better hitting average.

Could you build an application like that? Yes. Is it easy? No. If it was, we'd all do it. And one by one all the developers out there are trying to figure out too.

Me, I sent it to my sales people because I can only explain so much, but seeing is believing and seeing also sparks ideas in people's heads. But it has impressed on me what I have believed for some time, which is, if you build a demo, even a good mockup demo, it is still better for a client's vision than not sharing anything.

The time involved to make that demo perhaps is the "luck" you need to win that client over and get that project. Or in a different view, if you study up enough on your potential client, you may come up with something they never envisioned, but really want.

I was at a business networking meeting yesterday and a few people who noticed my Lotus logo or overheard me, talked to me about how great Lotus WAS when they worked with it. I explained that it still is great and they should revisit it. One of them asked me to demo something with them and will follow up with him to see if indeed we can do any business together. So lucky me to be in the right place at the right time? Or did my efforts in going to these meetings start to pay off?

So I'll ask you one more time, do you feel lucky?

PS - Unless I have time, next week there will not be a FBF due to my travel and internet issues.