David A. Rosen - Helping People and Businesses Achieve Remarkable Results...

Mike Bosworth and StoryLeaders -- Going Beyond Customer Centric and Strategic Selling

As someone who has been deep in best practices for selling and marketing over the last nine (9) years, I have seen a number of sales and marketing methodologies and approaches in action.  The Customer Centric Selling and Strategic Selling approaches,  have always resonated as the most effective and practical to raise the bar on sales productivity.

Mike Bosworth has now, in my mind, eclipsed himself again and set the bar even higher with his new StoryLeaders approach.

I just got off the phone with Mike and read through his white-paper Download SLmtbstory723. 

Mike is focused on effecting the 87% of reps who are not able to build trust and report with prospects.  His new approach, is to help the 87% of reps who need a process and training to build report and trust through Story telling Techniques.   From what I can tell this complements his previous approaches and doesn't replace them.  

For anyone in the position of needing to improve their communications skills, relationship building, or sales, I would recommend reading the white paper, learning more and attending his workshop.  Here is a copy of the registration form Download Public Workshop August.  A press release describing more about his new business and approach can be found here.

I hope you find his latest business as exciting and game-changing as I do.  Great job Mike and best of luck.

What's Your Story? 

Acrelic Group Client Effort helps L-3 Communications Win an Emmy Award

Even though I am creative and before I went to business school I auditioned and was accepted to be an "actor", I never thought I would be involved in the Emmys.  Well, after realizing that I didnt want to be a waiter for the rest of my life, I ditched my acting career and went into business.

You can see their Emmy Here:

http://www.l-3com.com/edd/news/news_emmy.htm 

Ill just say that, more than 25 years later, after I gave up my acting career, I feel great about how our client, L-3, won an Emmy. 

My team and I were involved in many facets of validating, launching and growing this business.  Our efforts over several years, starting in 2001, were quite valueable in providing a commercial entry in a defense oriented business unit.  This part of L-3 was originally owned by Northrop Grumman.  They came to me to help validate their business plan.  The product was orginally used in fighter planes.  The great team realized that their product had potential in the TV Broadcast Market.  We realized that there was also a compelling market opportunity with the shift from Analog TV to HDTV.

Our effort validated and modified their business plan.  The Business Unit then asked us to help bring the product to market.  The challenge was that they were used to selling to the military, but not sure how to bring the product to market quickly to 3200+ stations in the market.

The end result was we reduced their go-to market budget by 7 figures, helped them build a commercial marketing and sales process, and helped them capture > 50% market share.   You can read more about on our Clients Page and click on the Success Spotlight.

Congratulations L-3.  We are excited to have been a part of capturing the market in HDTV and helping you win an Emmy for your contribution!

Five (5) Important Considerations for Writing Your Business BIO. Who am I? Who are You?

As I type this, I am taking a break from re-writing my BIO/CV.  A client and friend of mine, Steve Francesco* of Francesco International, provided some very clear and constructive feedback that my current BIO does not reflect the “high-tech troubleshooting, courageous, business leader, employee and entrepreneur” that he knows me to be.   Steve is a Pharma marketing exuctive and probably one of the worlds leaders in the “Switch” process.  (Moving pharmaceuticals from Prescription to OTC [Over the Counter]).   

 

His points, about creating an effective profile, were spot-on:

 

1. Be Clear about Who you are and what you have to offer.  A bio must be a sales sheet about yourself and quickly identify what you could do for someone
2. At the introduction of the Bio, “…summarize who you are that will grab attention”.  Then he says.. “tell them, in detail, who you are and then at the end, summarize again who you are..”  
   
   I have always referred to that as:
   
   

“Tell them what you are going to tell them, Tell them, then Tell them what you told them...”

3. There needs to be a theme of comprised of three things that describe who you are and what makes you unique and valuable
4. The theme needs to be incorporated and inter-twined into each function and chronological position you have held and the outcomes you have achieved.  His point is to provide the weave and threads that connect all of your past to each other and tell the story…
5. Too much detail can mask the real message and power – cut out content that is not related to the theme or you uniqueness because it can distract the reader from seeing what they need to see

 

The other value and power of his feedback is that it wasn’t just “edits” or feedback about the content of the resume.  I recently had five (5) CEO’s and CMO’s (Chief Marketing Officers), critique my BIO.  This highly successful group of executives provided very detailed edits like you would get during a “red-team” proposal review,  and showed lots of “red” in edit mode in Word.  But none of the executives viewed my BIO from a marketability or sales perspective. 

 

And, unfortunately, I thought I was done.

 

Steve comments were very strategic and he told me about what the BIO said about me, what the reader learned, and how it made the reader feel about me.  (I.e. Am I someone who could assume the reader’s problem or take a significant responsibility off of the reader’s hands and be trusted).  And, when I said to Steve, “Lets get on a GoTo Meeting and review the document details”, Steve said “No.  This is not the time to review the document, it’s about thinking more strategically.”

 

So, I am now re-writing the summary of the CV and then will re-write the details of my background to match.

 

The lesson here?  Be prepared to re-think what you have done, improve from your past, and be open to criticism from the people who matter…

 

Good feedback and important to remember. 

 

Wait till you see my new BIO.

 

Thanks for your help Steve.

Mr. President, Here is One good Idea that will Create Jobs and Ensure US competitiveness over the next 20-40 years!

Cisco's Big Bet on New Songdo: Creating Cities From Scratch  via www.fastcompany.com

I thought this was a well done article by Fast Company's Greg Lindsay. 

As we know, there are at least four factors affecting US competitiveness over the next 20-30+ years.

1. Population centers outside of North America will be doubling and tripling over the next 20-30 years while US population will remain flat
2. Trend towards urbanization is driving people from rural and suburban areas to Cities
3. Basic infrastructure will be need to for work, education, transportation, housing, shopping etc. to support the growing populations
4. New cities like SongDo will be built throughout the emerging world.

The content in this article strikes at the heart and core of US competitiveness and the types of programs that will keep us in leadership positions in business over the next 30 years.  John Chambers is brilliant with his investments here.

This is where Obama should be focusing and committing to investment and low-cost capital dollars.  ...Not to re-pave the toll roads where private companies are expected to maintain the highways.

We need to find the places where cow-paths are being paved for the first time, the way the original "New Deal" helped bail out America after the war.  Lets provide and support US businesses to get into the middle of the Infrastructure for NEW development outside of North America.  If we want to grow our countries businesses and continue to maintain our qualifty of life and education, we need to understand our global positions and opportuniities. 

But, we should ride along side of Cisco's lead and think beyond telecom, data, internet, and tele-presence, but energy, medical, agriculture, factory automation, handling equipment and a variety of other industries.  Why don't we build the hospitals, imaging centers, waste management for these new cities?

It seems Chambers read the popular book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded" from Thomas Friedman.  Have you?

I would love to hear your thoughts.