The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations

I’ve read several books that dealt with making conversations work. Here is a brief article that gives specific advice and a clear example of diffusing a verbal attack. Each of us can use this in our business and family lives, but marketers should consider presenting this to their colleagues in sales and customer service.

The Martial Art of Difficult Conversations by Peter Bregman.

Successful entrepreneurs have to beat the odds.

It takes a special kind of person to start a business. It takes skill, energy, dedication and luck to make it successful. The stories told by three entrepreneurs in the following article will sound familiar to every founder of a midsize company.

The statistics surrounding the survival rate for small businesses have long been subject to fervid debate. Depending on who you’re talking to, the predicted life span for a startup can elicit grim to cautiously optimistic responses.

One commonly cited figure is that half of all businesses go under in the first year while 95 percent fail within the first five years. According to a study done by the Small Business Administration, two-thirds of all new small business survive the first two years but only 44 percent will still be operating by year four.

Common culprits for failure include undercapitalization, cash-flow crises, and overexpansion. Then of course there are a host of external factors that nobody can predict — let alone adequately plan for — such as volatile credit markets and unstable economic cycles.

To gain insight into specific practices that enable small companies to keep going and growing even during difficult times, BusinessWeek profiled three entrepreneurs who have reached benchmarks in their companies’ life cycles: three years, five years, and 10 years. Their stories and strategies follow.

Read the article by Stacy Perman for Business Week on CRM-Daily.com.

Beware of anti-marketing!

I was facilitating a discussion with a group of small business owners this morning when a new word popped into my head — “anti-marketing”. Sounds dangerous, but what is it?

I had encouraged everyone to think about marketing as a conversation, in fact, every conversation they have with customers, prospects, employees, colleagues… even friends and family. They were all familiar with the concept of the “30 second elevator pitch” and the USP (unique selling proposition), so I asked them to think about the value of personal storytelling as a marketing tool.

If marketing is every positive conversation we have and storytelling is a great way to connect with customers and generate positive word-of-mouth, anti-marketing would be every negative conversation we have or story we tell. Let’s face it. Who wants to do business with someone who is negative? Do you?

To combat anti-marketing, just be aware of the conversations you have and the stories you tell. If you’re tempted to go negative, bite your lip! Let the other person do the talking for awhile, or find a way to change the subject.

Keep your personal brand positive and you can expect a lot more referrals and a lot better word-of-mouth.

Imagine life as a game.

“Imagine life as a game in which you’re juggling some five balls in the air. You name them work, family, health, friends & spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air.

You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls — family, health, friends and spirit — are made of glass.

If you drop one of these; they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.”

– Bryan Dyson, CEO of Coca-Cola

Leadership Mantras

Not a mission statement or an elevator pitch, they are quick and easy statements that capture the essence of what you want to accomplish. Leadership mantras work like product taglines, imbedding a message in employees’ minds with repetition. To work, a leader must use them and act on them consistently. For example…

“You will miss 100 percent of the shots you do not take.”
“Hire slowly, fire quickly.”
“Hope is not a strategy.”
“Work is not a place.”

Marketing isn’t always external. Leaders must sell their vision to employees and customers. Mantras can be effective, if occasionally hokey, tools.

What’s your favorite mantra? How do you use it? What has it helped you achieve?

Leading your company through a recession.

If you put 15 CEOs in a room and ask them to focus on one important question you get some very practical answers. The following list was compiled by the members of two Vistage CEO groups in the Bay Area chaired by Sterling Lanier.

CEO Driven Activities
- surround yourself with good advisors and seek their help
- focus on sales and staying close to customers
- continue spending on sales related activities
- focus on activities that increase cash flow
- use zero base budgeting and forecast on rolling 12 month basis
- make a cash forecast and action plan for sales down 30%

Get the entire checklist here.

Should you advertise in a down economy?

Most of my clients own or manage midsize companies. Some are finding new opportunities and improving sales numbers during the current economic downturn. Others, not so much.

A few years ago, I developed a presentation that looks at advertising in a recession from the 30 thousand foot level. It asks a simple question: Why advertise in a down economy? This slide show walks you through the process I use in strategic planning sessions or workshops for CEOs and senior executives.

To view in full screen mode, click the SlideShare logo, then click the full screen icon on the slide show control bar. If you prefer a “flat” article, here’s a link that will help.

Also, here’s a post with questions the CEO of a midsize company should ask before cutting the marketing budget.

Selling marketing services to entrepreneurs.

So, I’m reading Seth Godin’s blog about how to read a business book. He linked to the 800-CEO-read blog for May 16, 2008, What is Wrong With Business Books?! – Part II which quoted rather freely from the anonymous “Uncle Saul” at socaltech.com.

And I’m thinking, Seth Godin writes/sells books. I get why this is important to him, but it’s also important to marketing agencies, consultants and service providers who are selling to entrepreneurs.

Bottom line: know who you’re pitching before you make the pitch. Entrepreneurs are different from serial entrepreneurs, who are different from professional managers or second generation owners.

10 business problems you can solve on the internet.

Most of my clients own or manage midsize companies. Some are tech-savvy, others not so much. None are able to spend a great deal of time worrying about the details of their marketing programs, especially the design and operation of their company websites.

A few years ago, I developed a presentation that looks at web strategy from the 30 thousand foot level. It asks a simple question: What is the most important business problem you can solve on the internet? This slide show walks you through the process I use in strategic planning sessions or workshops for CEOs and marketing teams.

In an hour, the execs have a strategy they can communicate to techies and creatives.

What business are you in?

When I work with a coaching client, I ask a lot of questions starting with…

– What business are you in?
– What products do you sell?
– What services do you provide?

When a potential customer takes a look at your website, brochure, mailer, biz card…

– What do you want them to learn?
– What do you want them to think?
– What do you want them to feel?
– What do you want them to know?
– What do you want them to do?

When it comes to websites, I ask…

– What problem(s) does your website solve?
– … for whom?

When I get a sense of the answers from my client’s perspective, I ask…

– How would your marketing team answer these questions?
– How about your sales team?
– How would your customers answer them?
– How do you know?

If the answer to the last question is not convincing — and it almost never is — I suggest that we work on finding a way to get solid answers to these questions before we do anything else. It is rare for a CEO, sales manager, marketing director and a select group of customers to agree on a description of a business and its products/services, let alone the message(s) they are trying to communicate.

If you think it is time to make sure your company is strategically aligned, here are some real world tools from Kevin Connolly, marketing guy.