Some new books...

"The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World"
Ferguson, Niall

"Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days (Recipes: a Problem-Solution Ap)"
Livingston, Jessica

"A Short History of Nearly Everything"
Bryson, Bill

"Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"
Pink, Daniel H

"The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story"
Lewis, Michael

"The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream"
Coelho, Paulo  

"The Design of Everyday Things"
Donald A. Norman 

"Steve Jobs"
Walter Isaacson 

"I read books about successful people. In fact, I read every book or magazine I could get my hands on. I would tell myself 1 good idea would pay for the book and could make the difference between me making it or not." - Mark Cuban

Personal Momentum by, Matt Pavia

My good friend Matt Pavia who is out teaching in Peru wrote one of the best posts I have read in a long time... check it out: http://mjpavia.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/personal-momentum/

For those determined to rise to another orbit – intent to someday look back to the place they left behind – what is needed is rocket fuel. It lies deep within our souls – you can summon it, you can ignite it. Eventually, you will soar.

Hire the athlete, not the resume

Frank Slootman was the former CEO of Data Domain. His track record speaks for itself and he recently took on the same role at Service-now (Service-Now Names Software Industry Veteran Frank Slootman as CEO). During some down time between ventures, Frank wrote this excellent book recapping his experience taking Data Domain from $0 in revenue to a $2.2 billion acquisition by EMC. The book is called "TAPE SUCKS: Inside Data Domain, A Silicon Valley Growth Story" (available in Kindle here and paperback here). 

Although this entire book is solid, one chapter in particular jumped out at me and helped me with my recent career transition - "Chapter 9 - Hire Athletes, not resumes".

Hiring can be very challenging for early stage ventures because they are unproven and high risk. New hires often have to take pay cuts. Looking for the perfect resume is a bit like a man looking for the perfect woman - when he finds her, it turns out she is looking for the perfect man, and he ain't it! Moral of the story: it is hard to land a candidate who meets your resume criteria, as you are not that good a catch yet yourself.


After suffering through a few instances of this mismatch at Data Domain, we adjusted our search algorithm and began looking for candidates who did not have the resume yet but did have the potential and desire for a career break to get to the next level. We call them "athletes": candidates with the right aptitude and behavior for your profile but without the prerequisite experience.


Put differently, we started looking for people who we thought had their best work still in front of them, rather than behind them. How did we know? You can't just rely on the resume or references - you are making a bet that they can become what you need them to be. We looked for energy, pedigree, passion, ambition, intelligence, intensity, and desire for the job. We staffed many (if not most) of our executive and key managerial roles that way.


Our approach worked so well that we started to prefer this style of hiring even later on when could attract "resumes." In fact, it drove a vital ingredient of the Data Domain culture: everybody had something to prove. 


The thinking to "hire athletes, not resumes" has grown more accepted in recent years, and startups have adjusted to this style of hiring. But there was a time when it was hard to get past the "resume mentality," e.g. just looking for all the boxes to be checked. We stumbled upon our way of thinking by sheer necessity, yet it grew into a key component of the Data Domain success formula.

My thoughts...

The challenge is most companies do not think this way (no one ever gets fired for buying IBM, right?). You probably won't change their thinking either. What you can change is your positioning in the market place... try this instead (regardless of your age/experience).

"If you're looking for someone who can check the boxes; I'm not your guy. If you're looking for the best athlete. You found him."

Whether you're looking for a new job, career/industry, or promotion - Don't lead with experience (or lack there of)... lead with value, passion, intelligence, and excitement. The rest will fall into place.

New Job? Don’t Give Up Too Soon

This is an old article from SalesGravy.com; the website is labeled as the "fastest growing international community for sales professionals". Jeb Blount is the guy running the show over there - I had the pleasure of meeting him in person a few years ago at the National Collegiate Sales Competition.

Not that any of my readers are quitters, but this is a good article to get you fired up no matter what you are starting....

New Sales Job? Don’t Give Up Too Soon
by Jeb Blount

Most people when faced with challenges quit too soon; most often right as they are on the cusp of success. This is especially true with salespeople in new sales jobs. Starting a new sales job and taking on new challenges is frustratingly hard. There are many dark days when you feel like all you do is fail and there is no hope. As you get closer to success things actually seem bleaker. You are tired, beat-up and worn down. It is at this point that faith and persistence have to take you the last mile.

Faith is crucial - faith that by doing the right things every day the cumulative impact of these actions will pay-off.

In sales this means consistently prospecting, qualifying, presenting and following up. Faith is an internal belief system that you create that helps you remain focused on working towards your goal when no tangible evidence exists that the hard work you are doing will get you there.

Persistence is the fuel of winners. Persistence is determination to win in spite of self-doubt, roadblocks, failure, embarrassment, and setbacks. Persistence picks you up off the ground, dusts you off, and sends you back into the game. Persistence is the last, final push that sends you across the finish line.

If you have just started a new sales job I promise that the first few months will be miserable. It won’t be easy to learn new behaviors. Each day you will be given a dozen reasons to quit. Don’t do it. Don’t quit! Instead get up every day, reflect on your past success, and consistently do the sales activities that build your funnel. I guarantee that if you do the right things, have faith that your efforts will pay off and persevere when you are ready to quit, you will be rewarded.

Sales Advice

I recently received some sales advice and thought I would share.... I'll keep the "advice giver" anonymous for the time being, but they are a well respected sales person in my eyes. Here it goes:

Selling is easy. Just remember that customers are people and they make decisions, are made happy and get pissed off by exactly the same things as the rest of us.

Never take anything personally, it's just business. None of this is life threatening.

If someone comes up with an objection (e.g. "that won't work here because") STOP, think and the next sentence that comes out of your mouth should be "that's not a problem". Amazing how those words diffuse a multitude of situations...

Oh and Read "Selling to Vito". Best book on selling I ever read. Many deals die on the CEO's desk. So sell to the CEO.

My advice is go for it. Good luck.

25 New Books on My List

"Hey, you should read..... ". I hear that all the time and I keep a list; then I buy them on Amazon. The lists grows from personal recommendations, blogs, twitter, presentations, meetings, etc. I am also a huge fan of buying books for their cover. Most of them tie back to sales, but they have twists of management, leadership, influencing, clawing ahead, company strategy, etc. All good stuff to get your fired up.

I put them on a shelf, read them or parts of them (when I get around to it), and often refer back to them. Here is my most recent list that has grown over a few months and a quote from Mark Cuban to help me justify buying them.

“I read books about successful people. In fact, I read every book or magazine I could get my hands on. I would tell myself 1 good idea would pay for the book and could make the difference between me making it or not.” – Mark Cuban

·         “Executive Presence: The Art of Commanding Respect Like a CEO” by Harrison Monarth

·         “Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It” by Marshall Goldsmith

·         “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles” by Steven Pressfield

·         “Rainmaking Conversations: Influence, Persuade, and Sell in Any Situation” by John Doeer

·         “Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload” by Bill Kovach

·         “The One Minute Manager”, by Kenneth H. Blanchard

·         “Only the Paranoid Survive”, by Andrew Grove

·         “Strengths Finder 2.0”, by Tom Rath

·         “Poke the Box”, by Seth Godin

·         “High Output Management”, by Andrew Grove

·         “From Bud to Boss”, by Kevin Eikenberry and Guy Harris

·         “Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow”, by Chip Conley and Tony Hsieh

·         “Speak as a Leader”, by Herman Cain

·         “Boring Meetings Suck”, by Jon Petz

·         “The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels”, by Michael Watkins

·         “The Effective Executive”, by Peter Drucker

·         “On Leadership”, by John Gardner

·         “First Break all the Rules”, by Marcus Buckingham

·         “Leadership is an Art”, by Max DePree

·         “Execution”, by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan

·         “Claw Your Way to the Top: How to Become the Head of a Major Corporation in Roughly a Week”, by Dave Barry

·         “Small Is the New Big and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas”, by Seth Godin

·         “TAPE SUCKS: Inside Data Domain, A Silicon Valley Growth Story”, by Frank Slootman (Kindle only)

·         “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done” by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

·         “Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion”, by Gary Vanerchuck

MapQuest and AOL

We used to say "MapQuest it" or "IM me on AIM".

We don't anymore.

Technology is always changing and adapting. Are you?

Chasing Quota

Walter Brown is one of the top sales authors you never heard of. You won't find him on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. He has a simple website that promotes his only book, Chasing Quota.

Chasing Quota is one of the best sales books I have ever read. It is clear, precise, and simply genius. Walter recently posted an updated version of his book in a .pdf version I uploaded here: Chasing Quota 2. Read it. It's only 25 pages.

Here are a few of my favorite lines from the book:

WHO SHOULD BE IN SALES:
Maybe you, if you:

• Love to win
• Hate to lose
• Like money a lot
• Like people, and vice versa
• Believe strongly in your product and service
• Truly help prospects find solutions
• Can persuade
• Can tolerate income risk
• Can tolerate rejection

Sales Success Can Be Summarized in Eight Words:

BUILD A GOOD PROSPECT PIPELINE, THEN HARVEST THAT PIPELINE

Every Prospect's Three Basic Questions Are:

WHY DO IT? WHY NOW? WHY WITH YOU?

Keep it simple - sell to those questions 

Problems are normal:

SO DON'T WASTE ENERGY ON WHY THE PROBLEM CROSSED YOUR PATH. INVEST THAT ENERGY IN SOLVING IT.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

- Bob

Focus on the road not the wall

I recently read a fantastic post on Ben Horowitz's blog entitled "What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology". This part jumped out at me and I had to share...

"When they train racecar drivers, one of the first lessons is when you are going around a curve at 200 MPH, do not focus on the wall; focus on the road. If you focus on the wall, you will drive right into it. If you focus on the road, you will follow the road. Running a company is like that. There are always a thousand things that can go wrong and sink the ship. If you focus too much on them, you will drive yourself nuts and likely capsize your company."

"Focus on where you are going rather than on what you hope to avoid."

Stay tuned for more on the venture capital firm Andreessen-Horowitz (they have funded Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and Groupon).

Dave Schneider - Zero to a Billion - Lessons Learned in Silicon Valley

Dave Schneider, the VP of World Wide Sales for EMC BRS division (formerly Data Domain), started a blog called "Zero to a Billion - Lessons Learned in Silicon Valley".

I had the pleasure of working for Dave at Data Domain. He is a class act and an excellent sales leader. His posts are insightful and I hope there will be plenty more to come. Enjoy.

read the frickin’ manual - Mark Cuban Spotlight

I'm a huge fan of Mark Cuban (here's his bio). I like his blog and his off the whim posts. You can tell his posts are real and uncensored. You should bookmark it.

Every now and then he writes about sales related topics like he did in his post today Taking No for an Answer and other Business Mistakes

I thought I would share this part:

"It takes work to find qualified prospects. It also takes courage to overcome the fear of not knowing what will happen next. It is very, very easy to send someone an email every hour or daily.  That is what  a lazy person is going to do.  Spend all of two seconds hitting the resend button. A smart, focused and successful salesperson will gear up and do the homework necessary to find their next customer. That is a sign of confidence . Knowing that you believe so much in what you do, that it is going to be fun and exciting to find your next customer and show off with how amazing your products/service/idea is. If the last person didn’t get it. That is their problem. Not yours."

Mark also did a series of blog posts in 2007 on Success & Motivation. He shares in depth his attempts at starting, growing, and failing different businesses. This will get you fired up.

"I remember sitting in that little office till 10pm and then still being so pumped up, I would drive over to the gym I belonged to and run 5 to 10 miles on the treadmill going through that day, and the next in my head. Other days I would get so involved with learning a new piece of software that I would forget to eat and look up at the clock thinking it was 6 or 7pm and see that it was 1am or 2am. Time would fly by."

"After drinking that cheap champagne, I wasn’t getting out of bed till about 9pm, so I had tons of time to lie on the floor and read. It worked. Turns out not a lot of people ever bothered to RTFM (read the frickin’ manual), so people started really thinking I knew my stuff."

Enjoy.

- Bob

Here is how I will respond to challenges

Here is how I will respond to challenges to make my life better:

• Not jump to conclusions
• Always have a positive attitude
• Find the good in little things
• Control my activity; let the rest go
• Build relationships
• Smile
• Have the energy that no one else can find

I challenge you to take a look at your approach.

Quick Resume Tips

• .pdf it
• Save it with your name BobFennerResume.pdf
• Make it one page unless you really have that much to say
• Load it with $, %, #'s. If you can't come up with $, %, #'s, you're not trying hard enough.
• Cover pages are a waste of time
• Ask Google if you're stuck: try this and that 

If you really want to know how I feel about resumes, read this.

The Things We Think and Do Not Say

"That's how you become great, man. Put your balls out there." says the stoner looking clerk to Jerry Maguire late at night as he publishes his manuscript.

The Things We Think and Do Not Say.

The answer is simple "Fewer clients. Less Money".

Despite your opinion on Tommy Cruise, I love this part of the movie Jerry Maguire. Jerry sits and writes. He vents, comes up a solution, a new stance, and takes action on it.

I have incorporated this in my professional life (not freaking out and putting manuscripts in everyone's mailbox)... I call them "My Jerry Moments" and I end up writing them a couple times a year when I am frustrated and looking for answers.

The format I use is:

1. Vent
2. Set Goals
3. Create an Action Plan

I usually read them over a few times and think it over for a few days. It is interesting to go back and read my thoughts and opinions at a certain time. In hindsight, life is usually not as bad as I thought it was. It's amazing to see what you can accomplish when you have a clear head, goals, and action plan to move forward on. Do you use any similar methods?

- Bob

Brandon Croke: “Rockin’ the interwebs since ‘86”

I first met Brandon Croke through The Sales Centre at Ohio University and have always been impressed.  If you don’t know Brandon, consider this your formal introduction. As his website states, he’s been “Rockin’ the interwebs since ‘86” and dishing out the goods on marketing, social media, brand strategy, and much more. We recently caught up and I thought I should share...

Bob: What are you up to these days?

Brandon: Right now I'm a Marketing Consultant for small businesses and start-ups with a focus on digital strategy. I graduated from Ohio University two years ago and studied marketing, psychology and sales (a dangerous combination) I've been working in digital marketing for a few different agencies since I graduated and have been fortunate enough to explore the evolving world of "social media" with Fortune 500 brands, colleges and small businesses. I blog at www.brandoncroke.com and tweet at @bcroke.

Bob: What is all this social media stuff about?

Brandon: This is a really tough question to answer and it really depends on who is asking it and in what context. The most basic form it’s about People (social) and Ideas (media). 

It's funny because "social media" is all the rage right now and half of me thinks social media is revolutionizing business and culture and the other half thinks it’s a big joke that is blown out of proportion. Technology and the Internet are revolutionizing business and people's way of life. So many people get caught up in this social media echo-chamber when they really should open up their eyes to the entire digital revolution that is happening around us. 

People have always been social, but there have never been the technology to enable global, instant, peer-to-peer communication.

The problem I have with people focusing on "social media" is that those words usually conjure up images of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and in turn fail to take into account the broader digital implications that may be more important than Facebook. (yes there are things more important than Facebook, especially when it comes to digital marketing)

Bob: You've had a lot of experience helping businesses with social media and brand strategies. What are the typical gaps you see?

Brandon: Gaps: There is no silver bullet or magic pill. Most people want a quick and easy fix to all their problems. They want to "set it and forget it", but that's not how the real world or digital world works. Another problem is that marketers have a tough time integrating social/digital strategies into the rest of the marketing mix. Everything needs to work together, and all your efforts are nothing without a great product or brand to stand behind.

I've worked on a lot of different projects and talk to lots of people about their social media usage and every conversation unveils something new and unique. 

The old big guys don't want to be "social" they want to make money. The problem is that setting out to make it in social media with the goal of making more money for this quarter is the opposite way someone needs to approach the issue. Being fun, creative and artistic isn't in the DNA of most large businesses and this new wave of marketing messaging, mediums and strategy really throws veteran CMO's for a loop.  

On the other hand, small businesses (who now have the ability to reach a global audience) typically don't have the time or resources to devote to a remarkable social media strategy. Unless one of the leaders is "hip to it", there is usually little hope for an outside consultant to set up a few pages and solve all their needs (important to note there are hundreds of consultants ready to set you up for every social media account under the sun and in turn set your business up for failure).  

Some people just don't get it and signing up for social media accounts isn't really going to help your cause. The bottom line is if nobody likes your brand in real life, it’s not going to matter if/when you sign up for a Facebook page. Focus on giving something people love first, then you can figure out how what you stand for can be amplified through social channels.

Another big mistake people make is that they spend so much time and energy focusing on social media while they may be missing other crucial digital areas such as their website, search engine rankings and e-mail marketing. Fortune did some great research last year that showed e-mail marketing and SEO were the top 2 online marketing activities that produced a positive ROI. Meanwhile social media was towards the bottom of the list, with many marketers not knowing or questioning the ROI of their social activities.

Bob:  I'm a soon to be college graduate and I need a job. What do I do?

Brandon:

1. Find things that interest you. 2. Go out and meet people.

Find people working in a company, industry or position you have an interest in and say " I think what you do sounds interesting can I buy you lunch sometime to learn about your background and hear how you got to where you are today?" Meet as many people as possible. People hire people they know and trust. In my personal opinion there is no better way to get to know someone and build trust than through social media. 

Bob: What are some tips to improve your personal brand?

Brandon: Make sure you are Google-able, meaning when someone Google's your name they find things that would make them want to talk to you, work with you, or hire you. It's funny because like social media, personal branding has gotten a lot of coverage lately. But I think your personal brand is just a new way of saying what do people think of you? Be a good person; make friends, listen, and care. If you can do that through digital mediums that is great, but more importantly make sure your real-life self is in order. 

Bob: If you don't already, should you blog? Why or why not?

Brandon: Not everyone is going to be a great blogger. However, if you have ideas or a unique perspective on the world you should share it. Almost every company I know thinks they should blog, wants to blog, and concurrently has no idea how to blog. You should always take a chance to practice your writing and you never know when your blogging ability will land you your next job, project, or promotion. To be honest, my last blog landed me a job, a chance to work on special projects and a promotion.

<end of interview>

Additional Links:

I highly recommend you check out this presentation by Brandon called “The Age of Disruption” – it will not disappoint.

Analysis paralysis

The term "analysis paralysis" or "paralysis of analysis" refers to over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation, so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome. A decision can be treated as over-complicated, with too many detailed options, so that a choice is never made, rather than try something and change if a major problem arises.

A person might be seeking the optimal or "perfect" solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution.

What are you over-analyzing?