Why Companies Have Revenue Problems - Ram Charan's Book On Selling by Joe Murphy

I blogged earlier about Ram Charan's book called "Profitable Growth." If you haven't read it , I would recommend doing so, as soon as you can.

It's really a book on growing the revenue. It is full of ideas, ideas that are contrarian to the thinking of most managers and executives. I was always taught to go for the homerun. But as Charan points out, it is really the singles and doubles that count.

As I thought about it, the best sales people hit singles and doubles, a lot or . . . most of the time. It's the big homerun deals they won every so often that put them into the stratisphere.

What can we learn from this?

My take away is:

Too often we aim for the fences. When we do this, we swing hard and because of the natural laws of sales, the client avoids making a decision because the deal is too big and therefore too risky. So, we have no sale.

Second, when we aim for the fences, we tend to put all our time into this one sales, the equivalent of all our eggs in one basket. And we know the "all our eggs in one basket parable."

Third, when we swing for the fences, we swing hard. Sometime trying too hard causing us to fall down when we swing (like one baseball great often did) . . . the equivalent of making mistakes. We force the ball. Sometimes, baseball, like golf, like selling, is about finesse. You have to hit through the ball, and not hammer it. Like sales, espeically in consultative type selling, you have to act somewhat aloof, not starved, and not trying to go for it all.

My point here is this. One of the worst sales people I knew, changed to become one of the best, by hitting singles (in some cases he hit bunts to get on base (really small deals)). Now he is a major hitter for Bearing Point - viewed by many as their top sales person.

But you wouldn't know this 10 or 15 years ago. How did he get so good? He hit singles. A lot of them.

He learned the art of the small deal. He learned it by seeing the small deal so many times, it became instinctive. Now he is hitting grand slams. He is the Barry Bonds of Bearing Point - without steroids!

Hit singles. Crawl before walking. Walk before running. Practice before heading to the marathon.

Best of luck! Visit my web site http://www.josephbmurphy.com/

Quiet Speed - by Joe Murphy

Slow Down - Don't Speed Up
I have read and reread the book titled "Secrets of a CEO Coach" to gain some of the key points of someone (the author) I really respect. Debra A Benton is the author and has a lot of great ideas anyone can implement.


One is this idea of "Quiet Speed." I fall into the habit of trying to do a lot. A lot means working hard. Working hard means doing a lot more of what you normally can accomplish. You pile stuff onto to your workload until you find it almost impossible to get things done.


Work Overload - What Winds Up Happening?
Simply, you speed up, to get your pile complete. When you speed up, you get harried. You talk faster. You become impatient. You become - often - curt and perhaps rude, when you talk to those around you. These people don't know you've picked up more work that you have to get done in one day than any normal human can do.


But the feeling you have boiling inside you is - Get out of my way, I have to get my work done, and why aren't you people getting me this information I need to complete my job, and why aren't you working as hard as some of the rest of us (especially me!).


What You Look Like
By looking "hasty", by talking fast, you appear nervous. By looking nervous you are stating "I am not important and I may not belong here."


You also appear harried, out of control. And the last thing a top executive, client or internal executive, wants to do is give someone who appears out of control, something to be done that is important.


What You Should Do
You have to harness your energy. You have to consciously SLOW DOWN. You have to pace yourself. Pace means becoming more deliberate in your actions. Create a list of all the things you have to do (on paper). Then break the list into sublists for each major item on the list. Each subtask is an activity that when complete, is one step closer to getting the major item on your list complete.


Sure, we've all heard about the list thing. Sure, you have. But, do you do it? Answer is: Either "no" or not as often or as well as I should.


So you have your list. But back to Quiet Speed. You must convey a look of being relaxed. Perhaps the list making will help. The appearance will help too. Because the more harried you are, the more you begin to miss and forget things. Then you become frenetic.


Frenetic is not a good thing to be labeled as being.


You want to exude poise. You want to appear confident. You want to appear memorable.


So, slow down. Work on Quiet Speed.


Thanks - Joe Murphy

A Secret - A Book By Ram Charan On Selling by Joe Murphy

Profitable Growth - a Book By Ram Charan

I picked up Ram Charan's book called Profitable Growth. As I was reading his points, it struck me that this book is about looking "what can be." It is a book about creating the future of a business.

I would not call the book powerful in any sort of way. (Sorry Ram, you are far smarter than I could ever be). But I would say, it's a book that sales and marketing professionals have been waiting for. It is a book about how to take risks to drive top line growth. Anyone who is not an accountant or an HR exec or contracts person will appreciate the fact that businesses spend far too much time with "how do eliminate this little expense here and there." I am a spendthrift, so don't get me wrong. But sometimes I think about how we spend money unwisely in one area and then in another area, like, hiring great sales professionals, we penny-pinch.

I have been working in sales, and business development practically all my life. Recently, over the past 7 years, I have been turning around sales organizations and building new revenue streams. Start-ups within companies is hard work. People are impatient - the people at the top. They go with great gusto, saying "Yes! We need more revenue. About ....hmmmm.... 90 days later, they go, "Where's the revenue? Look at this cost! Do you know how much would go to the bottom line?"

Ram Charan makes his case for growth. He has 10 "essential" tools (really appraches - and mindsets - not really tools like a spreadsheet or a spade - for you people who want "hard" and tangible things).

He talks about hitting singles and doubles, rather just trying to hit home runs every time. I think this is a great expression. Too often management is looking for the quick hit - a home run, a grand slam in some cases. But in reality, give me singles and doubles often enough and I will out score the company hell bent on the big hit - the home run. Why? Because often the supporting mechanisms inside the company cannot support the grand slam and the deal goes south and profitability is impacted. Give me a double and that is enough for the inner workings of the company to get ready and support this smaller endeavor. Once they know how to support this piece of work, they may be ready to hit the homer.

Anyway, get the book. It makes the case, in my point of view, for sales and marketing and how to drive more revenue by focusing peoples' attention, time, and money on growth, and how to do so, without jumping across the Grand Canyon in a single leap. And more importantly, it's from a true consultants' perspective, someone who gets paid a lot of money to advise the best and the brightest.

PS - if you don't know Ram, he is a consultant to the biggest and best companies in the world. His advice is sought after by many CEOs and top executives on how to build a business. Ram is self effacing, but serious. He travels about 350 days a year - helping companies see the obvious and frame situations for managers to understand what they have to do, rather than what they think they should be doing.

Best of luck! Visit my web site http://www.josephbmurphy.com/

Act Boldly and Unknown Forces Will Come to Your Aid

"Act boldly and unforeseen forces will come to your aid." This is a quote I heard from Brian Tracy. Brian Tracy is one of the few positive business leaders dedicated to helping others achieve personal greatness who has actually studied and applied what he has learned to his business.

Brian Tracy's books, audio programs and videos are among the best in the world for anyone who wishes to become excellent in their field.

Today, I write to dedicate this little page to Brian Tracy's helping me and others.

Here are two excellent programs I recommend to you from Brian Tracy:
1. Pathways to Personal Excellence - this is a one hour video program that is perhaps the best of it's kind. I have shown this tape to hundreds of my staff and colleagues in the US and around the world. When I brought it to India, the young staff stayed to watch it were mesmerized. They devoured it. For me, the video has brought me hundreds of thousands of dollars in monetary returns. It has saved me countless hours of time saved and has been at least partially responsible for turning my life around.

The video has 100's of practical ideas and concepts for you to apply to your personal achievement. I guarantee if you watch it at least 10 times over the course of 30 days, you will find yourself focused and energized.

2. The Psychology of Achievement - this 6 CD audio series is a mini-course in psychology and what it takes to reprogram your mind to become successful and better in life and work. It is a great program to replace the radio listening - which is bubble-gum for the ears!!! - with protein for the mind. I don't care if you spent $200 on Sirius radio - it's still worthless junk telling you absolutely everything about nothing. Try listening to this CD program over and over until you reprogram your thoughts of "I can't have it" and "I wish..." with new thoughts of "I can have anything I put my mind and efforts to..." and "I can become anything I need to become..."

Okay. That's it for today. Try these two programs out. They are a very small investment on your personal development future.

PS - if you are interested in other great programs - let me know and I will post others....