Thoughts on Over 45 Years of Business Experience

There have been so many years, so many people with me, and not with me, to learn from and observe. To not share, to not put down what I’ve learned where they can be seen and evaluated by whoever is interested seems… wrong. So, here they are, a few observations that I’ll add to as I can recall them, and as I’m reminded of the lessons learned by my current travels.

Hopefully, there will be more to come. I’m open to it, and always looking hard.

If you have questions about these, or thoughts on their relevance to either your own life or others, please share back as well. If you want to do so openly, just comment… if you want a private response, just email me at gadornato@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best.

Best of luck!

Gary

Sales as Problem Solving, A Simple Visualization

Three statements to begin with:

1. Sales are solutions to a problem or a need that is clearly identified for and understood by, a customer.

2. Sales are most commonly affected by the one best prepared to solve that problem or satisfy that need.

3. Almost all needs can be restated as a problem to be solved.

The customer walks into the office, carrying her problem in a large box. She is ushered into a conference room, where there is a rectangular table and four chairs, two each on opposite sides.

The salesman enters the room, carrying the solution in a binder under his arm. The two greet each other, then take their chairs, facing each other. The customer places the problem on the table, in the middle. The salesman opens the binder on the table in front of him.

The difficulties are immediately apparent. The customer is obscured from the salesman by the problem. The customer and salesman are looking at the problem from different angles. The customer cannot fully see the solution that the salesman has in front of him. After an attempt to talk through the solution around the problem, both become frustrated and impatient.

The salesman gets up, folds up his binder and moves to a chair on the opposite side of the table, sitting alongside the customer.

• Now, the salesman clearly sees his customer.

• Now, they are both looking at the problem from the same perspective.

• Now, rather than the salesman presenting the solution, they are sharing the vision of it.

• Now, they are on the same side, working together on the problem.

Whenever you want to provide a solution to a customer, remember to be sure that you are positioned on their side, and not aligned opposite them. Make certain that you see your customer — their needs and values — clearly and without obstructions. Position yourself so that your vision of their problem or need reflects their perspective, not from the angle of what you want to sell them.

Share your solution, rather than presenting it, helping them to see how that solution responds to their problem. Make sure that the customer sees and feels all of those priorities, and engages in the process from a partnership perspective.

In all of these, be certain that you believe in the solution being right for the client yourself. Being persuasive is always far less effective than being sincere, collaborative and correct.

We are all, at one time or another in our lives, salespersons. Whether you are selling a product, an idea, a proposition or a service, the core elements of a successful close are identical. The culmination of a sale is simply an agreement between the parties that the problem has been solved; once there is an acceptance of a solution, the close is inevitable.

A Story about What Matters in Negotiations

At the head of the table sat The Great Man. Older now, he had pioneered the development of mass-produced homes, perfectly aligned with the return of millions from the Second World War. The soldiers had the GI Bill, and the newly created rows of tract houses matched the bill’s financial provisions to a tee. The combination was so powerful that an entire town, largely populated by these dye-cut structures carried the Great Man’s name. He was, of course, extremely wealthy.

I sat at the other end of the long table, a privileged witness to the closing of a massive land deal in South Carolina. A young financial analyst, I was invited as a reward for doing well and showing promise. The conversations bounced around the lunch service, and I chatted with others in my station, happy for the good meal and the coming chance to brag to friends. In a voice just a notch too loud, I commented to my gaggle “I didn’t know that all of South Carolina was worth $130 million.”

Often at parties, there is this moment, just a few seconds actually when everyone in the room pauses at the same time. That moment came at that table, just as I spoke. The words sounded like a shout, carrying across the assembled executives and landing on the Great Man like an accusation.

“So, I’m apparently overpaying for this property, am I?”

I looked for a convenient hole to crawl into. Finding none, I sheepishly responded.

“No, sir. I’m sorry sir, I didn’t mean… I wasn’t…”

The Great Man beckoned me to come to his seat. The walk, through the crowded restaurant, was an interminable death march, made worse by the snickering of my boss’s boss’s bosses, and the downcast looks of my peers. I dragged what I imagined was left of my young career behind me as I approached the head of the table.

“I apologize, sir… it wasn’t…”

“Nonsense! Maybe it’s a sign.” He turned to the smiling suit to his right. “Let’s look into this. Perhaps we should call off the deal.”

“Sir, I.. I…”

“Hush. I appreciate your advice. Look, you’ve been invited to this important lunch. Your bosses must think that you’re special. You might have just saved me millions.”

At this point, the laughter at the table was no longer subtle. I was being humiliated, which was fine… I just couldn’t figure out how to make it end. It quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to be let off easy.

“You know, I like to help out good young men like yourself. Let’s see if I can’t make your life a little better today. Did you drive here?”

“Umm… yes, I did, sir…”

“Wonderful, wonderful… here’s what I’ll do. I’ll offer you $1 million for your car. That should help give you a good start.”

“Sir?”

The laughter seemed like it was coming from not only our table but from all of the tables in the restaurant. Everyone that was with us was now leaning forward, waiting for the coup de grace to be inserted somewhere painful.

“I’m good for it, you know that. Let’s make a deal — $1 million for your car, sight unseen. Let’s shake on it.”

“I can’t, sir… it’s not worth that at all. I can’t take your money.”

“Of course you can! You just pointed out that I was wasting over a hundred million dollars; the least I can do is give you some of what you’ve saved me!”

The trap was closing tighter, and I couldn’t find an escape hatch. I looked around at all the people who would never be my bosses because I’d made a silly remark, and swallowed hard.

“Sir, I thank you, but I couldn’t accept it. I…”

“Ridiculous. Would you like to insult me now by refusing me?”

Done. Trapped, skinned and trimmed for feeding to the hogs. Nothing but the darkness ahead.

“No, sir. I’d never…”

“Then take my million dollars. Here, shake on it.”

He extended his hand. I grasped it, and he pulled me closer to his face. ”We’ll set the terms outside. Let’s go see my new car.”

We got up from the table and headed towards the door, the whole top level of the firm in laughing, gesturing tow. I handed my ticket to the valet and stood shivering in the July sun. As the car approached, a vintage Mustang that I loved, the Great Man spoke again.

“Well, this is a better car than I expected! I’m quite pleased… tell you what I’m going to do. I was going to pay you $1 per year for a million years… I’m so impressed, I’m going to make it $10 per year for a hundred thousand years. How is that?”

The red cape had disappeared, what was left was the sword piercing my neck, reaching down into my spine. Death would be quick.

“Sir, I can’t sell you my car for $10.”

“First of all, you already did sell me your car. We have a dozen witnesses, right boys?” Verbal assent amidst the laughter. “Besides, you didn’t sell it for $10. You sold it for $1 million. You can tell all your friends that you made the deal of the century!”

He reached to my shoulder and pulled me close. He spoke softly, privately and — shockingly — warmly.

“Always remember this: it’s not the amount of the deal that matters, it’s the terms.”

I picked up my car from his office later that week, after taking a cab to my cubicle when lunch was done. The story made the rounds quickly, but the pain wasn’t permanent; in fact, it brought me into a sort of club that I didn’t know existed. I wasn’t the first to be humiliated in public.

Nobody knew what the Great Man had told me, and I didn’t realize the impact that it would have on the rest of my life. I knew, immediately, that I had learned something important and meaningful, it just took adding experience to the statement to give it depth and resonance. In my letter to the Great Man, thanking him for his advice (and for the return of my car) I tried to make sense of it, tried to share the many questions that it raised, but I failed, and left it with just my sincere appreciation, and the somewhat cocky comment that I’d look forward to passing it on someday. Unsaid was my own promise to myself, that when that day came, when I was sitting in the Great Man chair… I wouldn’t actually take the car.

Are You Dealing with Disappointment?

“The definition of disappointment is the distance between expectation and outcome”

One of the most corrosive elements in any professional relationship is a disappointment. When we are disappointed in a partner, in an employee, in a transaction, we are motivated to avoid that relationship in the future and to recalibrate downward our evaluation of the party or product as a result. The act of being disappointed is a surprisingly complex and unpleasant experience, with an impact on our beliefs about our ability to predict responses while dislodging plans that we may have been forming based on our anticipation.

That level of internalized response is sufficient that we actively avoid the source of disappointment, whether consciously or subconsciously; when that source is a person, we begin creating layers of protection that can include avoidance, withholding of responsibilities, even the search for a reason to discontinue the relationship or at least the intensity that had been present previously.

Disappointment is not the same as a negative result. There are numerous times when we undertake — or ask others to take on — tasks where our expectations are limited, where failure is not particularly surprising. Disappointment is when our expectations are for (what we determine as) a successful outcome, and we find something less than that. So, if the outcome is not the determining factor in creating disappointment, we find that the creating of the appropriate expectation is the critical element.

An important clarification: the obvious take away from the prior point would be to consistently create lower expectations… if failure is consistently expected, then all success will be positive, and all failure neutral. Many lower-level employees embrace this philosophy, and in so doing create a trap. When a task or project is brought to them, or a transaction occurs with them, there is an expectation by the other party that there will be some benefit to the relationship. Greeted with the prediction of a lesser outcome, disappointment arrives immediately, regardless of the eventual outcome. This leads to all of the resulting detriments to the relationship as if the outcome was the disappointment, without any opportunity for upside.

The real key is to set appropriate expectations and to communicate sufficiently that expectations are adjusted as circumstances demand. Appropriate expectations can be derived from a thoughtful evaluation of existing expectations, resources and requirements, and of your own capacity to execute. Constructive communication occurs as soon as the circumstances or interim outcomes are different than your own anticipations, with an emphasis on collaborative evaluation of new targets, resources or processes. By creating that shared focus, the negative connotation is placed on the problem, transaction or outcome, rather than being personalized to yourself.

Failure is usually not the desired outcome, but it is enormously less harmful than disappointment and less likely to carry forward the type of lowered evaluations or stigma that can destroy relationships. Evaluate carefully, communicate promptly, and maintain focus on the challenge rather than the personalities, and disappointment can be effectively avoided.

The Confluence of Responsibility and Authority

“Never give real responsibility without giving the corresponding authority”

One of the significant problems in business management is the assignment of a meaningful responsibility to an individual or group without providing them with the authority necessary to execute that task. In too many cases, leadership provides an objective to a person, but forces that individual to go through others to get the necessary resources, or worse, to make critical decisions as to the path taken to achieve the objective.

The separation of responsibility and authority is damaging to an organization in a number of critical ways. First, it completely eliminates accountability — at least, reasonable and valid accountability. When the responsible party has no authority, then the outcome was not in their control: “If I’d only had this person helping me, or these resources that I needed available”. Accountability should always lie in the person who is in control of the necessary tools.

An exception to this is when the limits on resources are expressly provided as a part of the assignment. In those cases, it should always be discussed with the responsible party, and their response — as to their expectation of success, or their concerns regarding specific resource shortfalls — should be noted and factored into any evaluation. As an example:

“We need to have final plans for those offices in the General Contractors’ offices by Friday afternoon” “Understood. What is my budget for furniture and fixtures?”

“We need it to come in at $85 per square foot, and hold 12 offices”

“Based on what you’ve told me that you need, I need at least $110 per square foot to provide the workspaces” “We only have $85. Do the best that you can”

In that case, any evaluation regarding the completed plans cannot reasonably hold the planner responsible for less than the desired outcome. Evaluation of their creativity in living within the given means is possible, but to complain that they failed to achieve your desired aesthetic or functionality has to be tempered with the knowledge that they had already declared that objective unachievable. Your choice, as the assigner of the task, is to either live with the lowered expectation or to assign the task to someone else who believes the resources are sufficient.

When you assign a responsibility but withhold significant authority, you create an environment where accountability is constricted, and sometimes eliminated. The rebuttal to a negative evaluation is reasonably going to focus on “I wasn’t allowed to do the task the way that I believed it needed to be done…” or “I wasn’t given the help that I told you was necessary to get that job done on time.” When a rebuttal is reasonable, it deteriorates the relationship between parties and creates corrosive negativity in morale and production.

In another way, management should use the connection between responsibility and authority as a critical checkpoint. If you are uncomfortable providing the individual or group with the necessary authority to control the outcome, it is an important indicator of a need to review your choice for that responsibility. If a party isn’t capable of making good decisions or allocating resources, are they the right party to be given that responsibility in the first place? More than likely, the answer will confirm the reluctance… and the provision of that responsibility will be improperly selected.

In every way, an alignment between responsibility and authority is a critical component of solid management and organization building. A matching trajectory of increasing responsibility with additional authority creates the strongest possible team, with all of the parties clearly understanding the correlation between their accomplishments and their professional progress.

Opportunity: The Infinity of Doors

“Opportunity results from the identification and resolution of inefficiencies”

Opportunity is the ever-present product of inefficiency. In an efficient universe, all value is fully realized, and the potential for profit is calibrated and limited. It is only in an inefficient universe that transformative profit can be realized.

Inefficiency is most evident in chaos, or where artificial and arbitrary restrictions are imposed. Urgency, prejudice and bias, hierarchal limitations, barriers to resources and mortality compound inefficiencies, increasing opportunities and their power to transform.

Transformative profits fall to the prepared, the intuitive, the unhesitant and the aware.

The exploitation of opportunity demands readiness. Readiness is enhanced through the constructive application of investigation, analysis and experience. Readiness is never random, always the product of a specific effort and choice.

Solving inefficiencies require creativity and knowledge. Creativity is the avoidance of limitations and assumption. Knowledge is the embrace of logical progression and origin stories and is augmented by the application of critical resources.

Delay in approach and action most often prevents ownership and control of an opportunity. Hesitation is a product of self-doubt and lack of focus; forward movement is the essential component of progress.

Awareness demands the prioritization and feeding of intellectual curiosity. Curiosity is the natural byproduct of a life spent valuing of windows over mirrors, and open doors over protective walls.

Opportunity is a door. Passing through the door requires first recognizing that it is a door, choosing to pass through it, then taking deliberate steps forward. It demands that you carry with you every resource and skill accumulated in your past, and the brandishing of an indefatigable, courageous self belief. Those who walk through the door with strength, humility (an awareness of and appreciation for the magnitude of the moment) and conviction are those who change the world, and who in turn are graced with the rarified vision of the infinity of doors.

Preparation Meets Opportunity

“If you value the harvest, prepare well the soil for the seed…”

Positive, even exceptional results are the direct and related outcome of comprehensive preparation. That preparation includes the intentional maturation of the receptivity of the audience/client/market; a focused evolution of the peripheral and supporting aspects of the object; and a polished ability to define, promote and defend the product or idea.

Too often, good ideas die after they are thrown into the field prematurely, without proper context, support and definition. The time, energy and resources committed to the creation of a receptive environment must always be at least equal to the value envisioned for the matured enterprise.

Improve Your Presentation Skills

“Focus every presentation on relevance and timeliness”

Before you enter into a sales presentation or offer, be confident in your answers to these four questions, from the perspective of your audience:

Why me?   What in particular makes me (or those I’m representing) the appropriate source of this offer?

Why this?  What specifically makes what I’m presenting valuable and important to this audience?

Why now?  What is timely, perhaps even urgent, about this presentation or offer?

Why you?  Why is this particular audience the most appropriate receiver of this presentation or offer?

Obviously, this presupposes that you’ll have a clear and precise explanation of your product and offer and that the agenda for the meeting has been made clear… but that is insufficient if there isn’t a powerful connection and a timely reason for their consideration.

Communicating Compensation Programs

“Compensation Programs are the most relevant communication by any entity to its members.”

How the participants of any entity derive compensation for their contributions are the single most critical form of internal communication available for any organization. Regardless of what commands are given, or rules are created, participants understand and respond to a simple precept: what the company wants of me is what it pays me to do.

If an entity professes that it prizes most innovation, but rewards initiative far less than it punishes risk realized, then the motivation for making creative contributions will be negligible. If an entity professes that it values new sales, but offers minimal incentives while providing advancement based on reports filed and meetings attended, then bureaucracies will flourish and sales struggle. If an entity professes that it values commitment and completion, but pays based only on an hourly schedule, then the result will be specific and contrary to the intentions.

Always understand what the entity truly desires of its participants, and ensure that all practical compensation schedules are fully aligned with those ambitions.

Fallacy of Fact, and the Critical Importance of Context

“The least meaningful thing are the facts…”

In the pursuit of understanding, facts — in an abstract — are often the least important component of an important truth. The reason for that statement has everything to do with context, as illustrated in the following story:

A college journalism student was speaking with his professor when they looked out the window at a baseball player taking swings in the batting cage below. The player was routinely launching long fly balls over the fence, and a small crowd was gathering to watch. The professor sent the student down to the field to find out more about the player.

Standing around the cage were three professional scouts. The student approached the first and asked him his impression of the hitter.

“He’s a stud, a real prospect. Over the past week, he’s carried his team on his back, hitting over .500, smacking a half dozen homers and driving in 20 runs. He’s an absolute monster, a great power hitter. “

The journalist took careful notes, then moved on to the second scout for confirmation.

“He’s a pretty good player, I guess. He’s hitting about .290 on the season and has a dozen home runs in the thirty-some games. He has a chance, but he’s got some more to prove before I’d get excited.”

The student was confused… so he approached the third scout hoping to find out which was right.

“He’s not that much of a player, really. In his career here at Tech, he’s hitting about .240, and his power comes and goes… his slugging percentage is below .400 over the three years, which is low for a third baseman.”

Puzzled, the student returned to the classroom and did some research on his own. Armed with the results, he approached the professor.

“Well, what did you find out about that player?” the professor queried. “How special is he?”

The student replied: “I don’t know what to say. The three scouts had very different opinions — one thought that he was great, one mediocre, and one less than good.”

“Did they offer numbers?”

“Yes, all three quoted statistics that proved their points.” said the student. “Which of them gave you accurate numbers?” “All three” replied the journalist. “That’s the problem… all three were right!”

The professor nodded. “So, you have three sets of facts, each of which is accurate, and each of which proves entirely different conclusions. What have you learned?”

“I’m not sure… they each were telling the truth, but they each said something entirely different… how can I tell which was right?”

“This is the important thing for you to learn: Facts are entirely subject to context. A fact alone isn’t important, has little value… what matters is the relationship of the fact to the question that you are asking. If you were looking into the player’s recent performance, then his career statistics are of lesser value than his last week’s work. If you were asking about who was the team’s MVP this season, then the whole year would be more relevant than just the week’s total, or his career statistics. In order for a fact to matter at all, it has to exist within an understood context; without that, facts are often irrelevant.”

In our everyday existence, we are constantly provided with things called facts. More often than not, they are “true”, in that there is some form of confirmation as to their validity… but that validity is mechanical and has little or no bearing on the fact’s usefulness or importance. Here’s a second story, this time in a business context:

The head of sales was reviewing the month’s production from two of his salespeople. The first salesman had made 30 sales, good for $300,000; the second salesman had made 20 sales, bringing in $200,000. The first salesman was told that he’d had a terrible month and that much more was expected of him… the second salesman was praised, and given a nice bonus for his work.

The context was this: the first salesman had been given the best territory, one that had previously generated 50 sales and $500,000… the second salesman was given a territory that had been abandoned, and which had rarely generated meaningful prospects. The first salesman sold far more than the second one did; the second one was of far more value to the company and had done a superior job. The facts, absent of context, told nothing important about the performance of either.

Listen carefully — in most arguments, both sides are telling the truth, despite their opposing positions. The basis for the disagreement is a lack of concurrence on the context, the appropriate basis for whatever outcome is being debated. Focus on finding an agreement there, and a mutual conclusion becomes inevitable.

Purpose of Effective Communication

“It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear”

The purpose of professional communication is to motivate a response, whether that is an action, a thought process, or a transaction. That being the case, the only relevant measure of communication is whether or not what you express creates the response that you’re seeking.

If you say something that you believe is exactly correct, but it consistently fails to get the response that you want, you have two basic choices: you can complain to or about the recipients for their lack of understanding, or you can accept the responsibility of adjusting your own communication. The former decision leads to confusion and alienation, the latter to comity, and a successful outcome.

Accepting responsibility for the result of your communications is a powerful perspective. It leads to improved collaboration, motivation, and appreciation. The selection of effective wording requires a better understanding of your audience’s specific vocabulary; a mutuality of meaning provides a key tool for effective communication. A simplistic example might be the use of negative adjectives to support positive attributes: bad, nasty, sick, and similar words denoting approval and admiration among some groups. Failure to understand that usage could preclude understanding and agreement.

The prelude to effective communication is a sincere attempt to align terminology and perspective with intent and motivation. The process for establishing those qualities includes the establishment of peripheral dialogue; the frequent, nonjudgmental examination of the level of your audience’s understanding; and an evaluation of the resulting outcome.

Constructive communication has only one reasonable objective: the motivation of the desired outcome, action, or understanding. If you find that you are disappointed in the response, look to yourself first and foremost, and work to find a more effective means of expression.