“A while back I was in a meeting with a marketing leader of a Global 100 software firm.  He shared a story about their new CEO at the time. The CEO asked 10 members of the executive team to write a list of their top-10 customers. Amazingly just 4 of the 10 executives got 5 of more of the customers correct!  Their VP of Sales faired best, with correctly listing 8. 

In the same meeting it was pointed out that the top-10 customers accounted for over 50% of their $300 million in revenue. The CEO immediately declared that, “we’re focusing on our customers first!” From that meeting they dubbed their new initiative as, “The Customer First Plan.” ”

http://blog.startwithalead.com/weblog/sales_leads/index.html

Extraordinary sales comes from reconizing that your best customers are usually your biggest.  Wanting to increase your marketshare?  Start with those strategic accounts that already know you and your products, seek to deepen the relationships and the results will be greater sales and higher profits. 

“Technology on its own isn’t strategic. But technology combined with the business idea is more strategic than ever.  In fact, the ubiquity of technology is what makes it strategic.”  — Jim Champy (Re-engineering Guru)

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, an Italian economist and sociologist, Vilfredo Pareto, noted that 80% of Italy’s money was held by 20% of its population. More study concluded that other countries had the same imbalance in wealth distribution. The Pareto Principle became widely used to explain and motivate in other areas, such as sales, marketing, personal development, and human resources. When you look at the 80/20 rule mathematically, the distribution can change. What do today’s mathematics say about the Pareto Principle? Is the 80/20 rule still accurate or has a shift occurred?

The U.S. Military uses typical training techniques and modifies their delivery in order to turn an ordinary person into an extraordinary leader.When we think of military training, sometimes we think of a drill sergeant screaming in the face of a new recruit. Although this does happen, the branches of the U.S. Military utilize some of the same techniques we use in corporate training - except the delivery is different. This delivery creates the extraordinary members of the U.S. military.Many corporate organizations refer to their new hire programs as “boot camps” - it’s an appropriate nickname, but in theory only. A military boot camp, as well as a corporate one, uses accelerated learning techniques. A great deal of knowledge is crunched into a short period of time, but that’s where the similarities end. Military boot camps use shock value and “break down” techniques as a way to mold a recruit into someone else, while leaving the best characteristics of the person intact. According to one former member of the U.S. Navy, the boot camp formula is break down, instruction, and reinforcement - both negative and positive. The other element of training is adaptation - the military consistently adapts the training recruits receive in step with changes in the world. Perhaps that’s a page corporate training can take to heart. Continue reading this post…

Why be just one of the crowd?  Why suffer in silence because your voice is unable to be heard?  Following the herd is the most sure fire way to be lost.  Why is it then, that most of us are trapped in the herd of mediocrity.  Why do we continue to conform to being average.  Is there something that causes us to cluster toward the average, instead of stepping out into greatness?

I believe that many of us, individually and corporate, just don’t know how to break out and distinguish ourselves.  Most of us are also fearful that if we do ‘dare to be different’ that we will appear to be foolish or weird.

What steps, both small and large, can you take to breakout and start out on the path less travelled.  Here are a few steps that you can take that can point you in a new direction:

Continue reading this post…

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“We receive three educations, one from our parents, one from our schoolmasters, and one from the world. The third contradicts all that the first two teach us.”
~ Charles Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755)

In 1897, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, in his study of the patterns of wealth and income, observed that the distribution of wealth was predictably unbalanced. He first discovered this pattern in 19th-century England and found it to be the same for every country and time period he studied. Over the years, Pareto’s observation has become known as the 80/20 principle.

The principle is simple, but counter-intuitive: Nature creates imbalances. This is true for money (20% of people have 80% of the wealth), crime (20% of criminals commit 80% of crimes), energy usage (15% of population uses 85% of energy), competition (20% of suppliers have 80% of market share)and even carpet (20% gets 80% wear and tear).

Paretos’s findings have touched a great many students of business and economics. In fact, every MBA graduate at one time or another has heard of the “80/20 Principle”. The “80/20 Principle”, also know as Pareto’s law, simply states that approximately 80% of the output is a result of just 20% of the input.

In Pareto’s case, he found that 80% of the world’s resources/wealth was under the control of just 20% of the population. Please note that the use of the term 80/20 is used loosely and is not to be taken literally. The disproportionate relationship could easily be 90/10, 65/25, 70/10, etc.

The basic idea behind Pareto’s law is that the relationship between input and output is rarely if ever balanced. The key then is to isolate what input is causing the most output. This law can apply to an infinite number of disciplines and can be used to increase productivity on the micro and macro level.

The list of relationships goes on and on, but here are just a few examples: 1) Business: Customers-to-Sales, Product Lines-to-Sales, Items-to-Sales, Raw Material-to-Finished Product. 2) Sociological: Automobile Type-to-Number of Accidents. 3) Personal: Hours Worked-to-Productivity, Types of Investments-to-Investment Returns, Scheduled Tasks-to-Personal Happiness.

In a non-linear world:

1) Celebrate exceptional productivity, look for the short cut. Be selective, only do what you do best.

2) Keep it simple. Size often creates complexity - which in turn creates inefficiency. Pour your effort into the 20% that makes a difference. Sometimes it is better to lose unprofitable customers to competitors

3) Hold on to your good customers and employees forever!

4) The key to 80/20 is not time-mangement. Don’t try to do more. Just do more of the right things.

5) Do what you enjoy because enthusiasm and success is a complementary cycle.

If you’re serious about using your changing yourself, for personal and professional growth, then, at one time or another, you’ll need to address these 7 normal, predictable challenges.

In all the years we’ve been coaching and counseling, doing seminars and developing self-help tools for people, we’ve found that almost everyone has to face at least one of the following:

1. Resistance to Change. Let’s face it: The familiar is comforting, even if it’s not good for you.

2. Lack of Familiarity. It can be as if a voice in your head says, Hey, my mom and dad didn’t do it this way, so it must not be right for me.

3. Fear of Making Mistakes. You can be paralyzed by this fear, which is in itself the biggest mistake you can make.

4. Not Enough Time. Sometimes this is simply a matter of emotional or intellectual laziness, coupled with a lack of real desire.

5. Wanting to Be Right at All Costs. Needing to be right neutralizes your willingness to work things out.

6. Misidentifying with Your Feelings. Those feelings feel “normal” and, therefore, you can perceive them as a part of you.

7. Feeling Too Vulnerable. It’s as if you’ve removed your armor and may feel dangerously exposed.

How can you deal with these? There are lots of ways, among them using the tips that are posted each week. Theses tips are designed to help move you through all 7 of them. Of course, recognizing that you’re faced with one of these is the first step, and it’s easy to be in denial about that. So ask yourself, Honestly, do I feel as if I’m being held back by any of these 7 challenges?

You may find that you need a coach, too, someone who’ll offer you specific strategies for creating deeper resolution. If one of these issues is particularly “big” for you, it can turn into an emotional blind spot and limit your ability to grow beyond it. But if you can learn to see through the blind spot, you can gain self-awareness and wisdom. You can emerge from the tunnel of suffering created by misunderstandings and mis-perceptions. You can open your eyes and see a new world with new possibilities.

I am a huge fan of Seth Godin. Seth has written a number of books. All small, succinct and influential [at least to me]. His blog has a post that embodies much of what he offers, but todays post, was beyond amazing. Here is what he said:

That moment

When you are sitting right on the edge of something daring and scary and creative and powerful and perhaps wonderful… and you blink and take a step back.

That’s the moment. The moment between you and remarkable. Most people blink. Most people get stuck.

All the hard work and preparation and daring and luck is nothing compared with the ability to not blink.

Being safe is many things, but it is not extraordinary.