The Thinking Director's Blogsite

Well you’re now into the final quarter of this year, I guess you’re either in Period 3 or 4; how’s it shaping up? Is the year as disastrous as we were all led to believe it would be, or are you in good shape and reaching out for new business?

I think that the bunker mentality that was firmly in place at the beginning of the year is still there and current banking evidence indicates that although lending is just about on plan, companies are just refinancing to get rid of debt at a lower rate.

Greece has officially defaulted and the consequential knock on effect appears to have been averted by the Eurozone and IMF stepping in with a 109b Euro support loan. Spain, Portugal and Italy have yet to be so firmly addressed, is it this that makes us so nervous or is there something else closer to home?

I believe that there have been some fundamental shifts in our paradigms, the basis for our business planning and operational efficiency are being firmly tipped over by the new business models whereby data and its ready availability has led to a price transparency; that in turn has led manufacturing, racing, to shift its cost base to the poorer paid quarters of the globe and raise it’s aspirations to niche added value segments. Service industry meanwhile looks to the web as it’s saviour for the delivery of everything from customer service to sales order processing and ready access to even more data from which to claim it’s differentiation.

So what has actually changed this year for you? Has your mindset changed or are you still thinking that things will get better? – They won’t, the business environment will just change and then change again and then change yet again.

Unless you have already fundamentally changed how your organisation addresses your market or at least are thinking about how you will change your approach, Q4 2012 really won’t be any different from Q4 2011, that is, unless your competitors have already stolen a march on you and taken your market.

Hard hitting, straight talking video clip about how we do everything we can to avoid being rejected in sales.

Strategic partnerships work the same way, there has to be meaningful, value based dialogue and that probably comes from your desk.

If you’d like to explore your strategy further, give us a call – we can often add a different perspective.

http://www.carr-consultants.co.uk/sales_planning.php

Enjoy the video ; my thanks to Jeffrey Gitomer.

Last week I took a call from an old client who was seeking advice. Talking to him it reminded me how highly I rate him as an MD and why. One of the reasons is because he works towards problems, in fact he almost attacks them like a demonic dog and those around him tend to quake wondering if they’re in the firing line.

Problems to him are the very reason for the existence of his role. In this particular case he had a problem with getting credit insurance on a new contract. It wasn’t the issue per se that jogged my memory about him but rather the fact that the problem had only come up an hour earlier.

Working alongside him, I used to quietly smile to myself when I saw, time and time again an issue or problem arise and he would instantly action it, be it a phone call, a memo or to call someone into his office.

I tend to be more cautious and reflective before moving into action and I hold my hands up to say that I do have a number of outstanding items on my To-Do List.

It’s not that  I’m not task focused but if I emulated him I could probably have done a couple of the items by the time I’d actually made my list out.

So which way of working do you prefer – towards or away? If you changed, would it improve your performance?