Author: tazewelldave

Some years ago, I attended a workshop for Veterans setting up small businesses.  After careers in the Air Force and defense industry, I was starting my own consulting company. It was a big event at a local country club with a lot of government and business speakers.  But one speaker was head and shoulders above the others: Congressman Donald S. Beyer Jr.  Don Beyer could relate to his audience because his father was an Army officer who later in life became an automobile dealer.  Don, aside from his work with the Beyer Automotive Group, was elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, appointed US Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and elected US Representative for Virginia’s 8^thcongressional district.  But he spoke as a businessman at heart.

The reason Congressman Beyer’s presentation was so compelling had a lot to do with what he didn’t do.  He didn’t use complex charts.  He didn’t read from a script.  He didn’t sell politics (or cars).  He didn’t talk about himself unless it illustrated a point.  And he didn’t have more than three main points to get across. I won’t repeat what he said because a lot of it was audience-specific, but I would like to pass on his three main points, which I’ll never forget.  They are worth considering by any business owner wishing to succeed. Here are Don Beyer’s three big ideas for small businesses with comments of my own.

1. Be Persistent

When we start our businesses, we’re full of adrenaline and optimism. Our prosperous futures are just over the horizon.  Then come disappointments and lulls in the marketplace.  Customers are not quickly lining up.  A big and easy contract is followed by small and difficult ones.  It’s like we’re swimming as fast as we can with our nostrils just above the water.  We wake up in the middle of the night rethinking every decision.  Our friends tell us that’s normal with small businesses, but it doesn’t seem normal.  Normal is where we sell stuff, make money and have fun.  Should we take the off ramp and move on to something else or keep at it and press forward?  It’s a given that we can lose our companies by either decision, but if our business models are sound and we control our costs, persistence pays dividends.  No business ever succeeded by backing off.

2. Differentiate or Die

We believe we can help people with our solutions or else we wouldn’t be in business.  We love our solutions.  We want to change the world with them.  The trouble is, customers can’t see the brilliance and usefulness of our solutions until we demonstrate how our solutions are different from our competitors. Customers can’t see what we see if we haven’t shown them anything worth looking at.  Customers can’t read out minds, but they can read our value messages. The first thing to do before crafting value messages is to make sure we offer something so different from our competitors that it is unique to us.  If we don’t, we’d better have lower prices and be prepared to eventually be squeezed out of the market.  In our value messages, we should honestly and earnestly state how our solutions are better by their superior performance, simplicity of operation, high ROI, etc. We should tell the truth and tell it loudly.

3. Make No Small Plans

It seems natural that small businesses should have small plans. Small plans are easy to deal with. They’re manageable.  But small plans will not help us build bigger companies, if that’s our goal.  Just as dreaming of having our own companies got us here, dreaming of bigger and better futures can get us there.  That’s the magic of what we can do in business.  We sell, they buy, and wealth is created.  But there is no participant trophy in the sport of business.  We win, we lose, we make money, we don’t make money. No matter what business sector we’re in or what we sell, if we want to win more and make more money we have to convert our dreams into actionable plans.  Actionable and achievable plans.  And we have to nourish them.  Big dreams don’t survive the dawn unless we feed them breakfast.

You’ve just started your presentation.  You look out at the faces turned your way and you begin to speak.  The words come easy because you’ve prepared and practiced. Some people are nodding and some are smiling, but some are frowning and some are looking out the window.  You suddenly feel unsure of yourself and fall back on your heels.  But don’t panic.  Rest assured that what you’re seeing is completely normal and expected.

I know because I work with some tough business audiences.  I teach sales seminars that invariably include Sponges, Vacationers, Experts, and Prisoners.  This is not a new concept.  Even though sometimes called by different names, four types of audience personas are generally accepted.  Based on my experience, I believe the four can easily be sorted by two variables: positive/negative attitudes and active/passive behaviors:

1. Sponges (aka Explorers and Learners) – Positive Attitudes and Active Behaviors

Sponges give you warm eye contact and frequent head nods.  They likely arrived early to get a front-row seat.  Speakers and trainers love Sponges because they really want to hear what we have to say.  They give us encouragement to press on even when the after-lunch low-sugar let-down comes.  But don’t fall into the trap of speaking only to Sponges and ignoring the others. Include everyone in the conversations.

2. Vacationers (aka Shoppers) – Positive Attitudes and Passive Behaviors

Vacationers have warm smiles and vacant stares.  They’re off in their happy places with sandals and boat drinks.  But they’re salvageable.  The key is to bait the hook with something they’re interested in and reel them back into the room.  Compliment them on something.  Ask their opinion.  Find a way to get them to tell a story.  Don’t let Vacationers off the hook.  If you can engage them in the moment, they can be valuable contributors to group discussions.

3. Experts (aka Judges and Graduates) – Negative Attitudes and Active Behaviors

Experts are found in almost every crowd.  Frowning. Working with technical wizzes over the years I’ve had several in a room at the same time trying to out-expert each other.  Some Experts never meet a factual statement they can’t refute.  They’re usually smart.  Don’t argue with them.  Acknowledge their expertise and let them share their knowledge, but help them allow others to speak.

4. Prisoners (aka Cynics) – Negative Attitudes and Negative Behaviors

Prisoners avoid eye contact.  They don’t want to be with you.  They may not want to be with anybody.  Perhaps their boss sent them not knowing that it means they’ll have to work over the weekend and miss their kids’ ball games. Or there’s a personal problem.  Prisoners don’t join in discussions.  They’re different from the shy ones; they have an aura of hostility around them. But you don’t know their situations, so don’t put them on the spot by confronting them.  If you can, approach Prisoners at a break and engage in small talk. You might be able to win them over just by being kind and understanding.

These are just a few thoughts on how to identify and deal with the four basic personas people reveal at presentations and business meetings.  Clearly, not everyone in the audience is the same.  Not everyone is as enthused about your presentation as you are.  But if you pay attention to each individual and take steps to bring them together, both you and they will benefit.

What does it take to build a successful business development team?  There are a lot of right and wrong answers.  Since it’s a team you’re building, a good way to look at it is through a sports lens.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve not found a business situation yet where a sports analogy isn’t apt.

1. Anybody can play this game

If you want to staff up a winning sports team, you wouldn’t just hire anybody off the street, would you?  You want talent.  Overall talent and specific talent.  How do you identify talent?  In sports, they use statistics and tryouts.  But too many businesses hire people who are available (why are they available?) and who they know.  A better way to staff up your BD team is to identify talent not only with strong resumes and solid interviews but also with personality assessments.  Not everyone has overall aptitude for sales and for specific sales jobs (outside sales, inside sales, account management, etc.).

2. If you can play well, you can manage well

What do most companies do when they want to reward rain-making business developers?  They usually they promote them to managers and vice presidents. Have you experienced that the talents that gave those natural salespeople great results are not necessarily the talents that produce the best business leaders?  BD stars have a natural aptitude for sales.  They often have little empathy for the rest of us and make indifferent mentors and coaches. It reminds me of that golf lesson when the pro said, “Just swing like this!”

3. Individual efforts are more important than fundamental skills

In business as in sports, the harder you try the worse it can get.  The wins don’t always go to the teams that work the hardest.  They go to the teams that master fundamental skills and play as one.  When was the last time your business development team was trained?  Even pro baseball players go to spring training every year.  In sales training, the new players learn how to play the game and the experienced players relearn what works and share their experiences with others.  Business development should be a team sport.

4. Goal setting is more important than process improvement

It’s essential that business leaders task their business development teams with goals for the quarter and the year.  If you don’t have goals you can’t focus on winning.  But sometimes too much attention is paid to the goals and not enough paid to the processes needed to achieve them.  Want to be number one in your business sector?  Great!  But before you commit your team to it, make sure it’s an achievable goal and then prepare, prepare and prepare.  Assemble your talent, train them, build them into a team and give them the right plays to make.

5. Players are only motivated by the money

And there’s one more very important thing. You need to motivate your team. It’s not just about the money, though financial incentives are important in keeping your players from becoming free agents.  Those of us who’ve had the good fortune to play on winning business development teams loved the challenge of competition and the thrill of winning.  When a team comes together with the right talent, the right management, the right preparation, and the right strategy – all directed by inspiring leadership – it’s a joy to be part of.

Now, bust those myths and go out there and win something!

David Potts is the author of Etiquette for Engineers and Customer Relations and Sales from A to Z, bothavailable through Amazon.  His blogs can be found at https://solvingthesalespuzzle.com/