šļø LongForm
Want to reduce the noice and just focus on things with a little more meat - the this category is for you. Like so much on this site we have a ‘WIP’ as i take some out - and put some in - but safe for at least starting in 2026.
Why Some of Your Salespeople Are Dragging ā and How to Fix It
“To get deals over the line in todayās high-pressure sales environment, sellers must undertake new, challenging activities outside their comfort zones. The ongoing need for agility is taking its toll: In a recent Gartner survey of more than 900 B2B sellers, 89% report feeling burned out and 54% report actively job seeking.”
“nearly six in 10 sellers describe the leadership of their sales organization as not understanding what āreallyā motivates sellers.”
“Sellers experiencing drag are plagued by workday boredom and distraction. They procrastinate. They āgo through the motionsā to satisfy activity-tracking requirements. Meanwhile, progress on true priorities languishes.”
and and and … you can read it all on HBR
.. meanwhile the word ‘buy’ appears once in the entire article … and even then … well see for yourself
“Maximize seller buy-in by being transparent.”
That is the only reference to ‘buying’ is the need for the sales person to have buy in to what leadership is up to.
‘Customer’ is mentioned 7 times …
I am at a loss to understand how to improve the sales process without really talking about the buying process and customers … I know crazy talk right?
ANARCHY
Then again, the article was written by a bunch of Gartner analysts.
My Speciality ? Generality !
A slightly edited version of a post originally published on February 14th 2016 @ Beyond Bridges, now archived here
A friend and reader of this blog just sent me this link, which is a third party version of the LinkedIN map below. It seems to be limited due to LinkedIN's API constraints, so it can't map more than 499 of your connections. That said, there does seem to be a lot more information and analysis that surrounds the graph. Andy it means YOU can go try it out on your network. Thank you David.
A good friend of mine messaged me through LinkedIN. He is a fast thinking, witty, bright, intelligent, big thinking kind of guy. He's also interested in his next gig - so let me know if you want an introduction. Anyway, to my point. He had been on my LinkedIN profile and commented;
I think you would be well served to pare that list (of skills I had listed in my summary)Ā to maybe 4-5 distinct and specialized areas where you really shine better than the rest. Things like Leadership, Marketing, Communications are too generic and readily available in the marketplace.
And I agreed. In fact, so much so that IĀ pared it down to zero. My skill list is summarized in another part of the profile anyway. But it got me to thinking.
I am a big fan of Mike PescaĀ over at SlateĀ who delivers a daily podcast called The Gist. Try it. You won't regret it. A couple ofĀ weeks ago he had Eric WeinerĀ on as a guest, and they spent some time talking about where genius comes from. Turns out that Eric has just written a new book about 'how genius happens'. One of my takeaways was that genius emerges from generalism - not speciality. For example, he talked about the fact thatĀ Einstein was not the most knowledgeable physicist of his time, but his value was that he was broad in both interest and knowledge. AĀ 'Renaissance man' ifĀ you will. This an absolute opposite to what we live with today. We eschew the 'polymath' in favor of the 'monomath'. From the site Gain Weight Journal;
Unfortunately, we live in an era of monomaths now. This means specialists. The problem with that is that people get stuck with one way of thinking, they have blinders on, and cannot see the big picture, including the relationships and similarities between different things.
I know, even our education system is driven to a singular focus and it seems to be getting worse. For myself, IĀ focussed on Maths and Physics in my education from the age of 15. Maybe I was bored. Maybe I could see the future, but despite that formal focus,Ā I did put an effort into ensuring that I didn't get locked up in that world and miss out on everything else that there was to offer. (Though I probably shouldnāt have read all three volumes of Lord of the Rings over a two week period shortly before some year end exams!). Back to the plot. Reading that quote reminded me of what we used to say back in myĀ Group Partner days ... "The Last Thing You Ever Need Near A Problem Is An Expert" Good. Because I am not. LinkedIN 'Labs' used to runĀ something that visually mapped your connectionsĀ so you could see clusters of people in your network. They closed it a while back, but at the time I wrote aboutĀ it, dubbing itĀ 'Cloud Hopping'. I also observed that most people hadĀ a very tight network of very few 'clouds'. This was mine.
A highly distributed interconnected network, emerging from European and American networks in finance, technology, application Ā and social disciplines. I think Derek was spot on. My strength is not my speciality. My strength is my generality. And, while I wouldĀ absolutely not describe myself as a genius, I am definitely a cloud hopper. A connector. And there are not manyĀ of us around, or at least we tend to keep quiet, because we live in an age where value is placed on 'what you know'. The 'who you know' is almost written off as 'the old boys club' .Ā But onceĀ you understand the value of theĀ role that Gladwell calls out in The Tipping PointĀ - the pieces fall into place.
My Speciality? Generality!
I first published this post on Beyond Bridges on February 10th, 2016. That site has gone, the words archived,
š„ War, 2007 - ā ā ā
It is what you might expect from a movie with Jason and Jet - and nothing wrong with that.
Return On Effort
"This time he was here to help us understand some truths about how we really run the business, make decisions, and value what's worth doing. When I say value, I don't mean a list of generalized "values", or the bullshit phrase of "adding value", but how we attribute value when evaluating our options and making tradeoffs."
š¬ Jason Fried
š§ Coordination Costs
The Stripe co-founders were candid about their failure to predict where the economy was heading. They also said they overspent on things like ācoordination costs.ā Thatās not a term Iāve heard before, but I suspect it is a reflection of getting too big and too inefficient.
š¬ Jessica Lessin
It's a new term to me aswell - BUT recently on LinkedIN there was a meme running around - which used this graphic.
It's pretty self explanatory. The formula is that for every person you add to an organisation, the number of potential conversations increases - a lot. If 'n' is the number of people in an organisation, the number of potential conversations is n-1 + n-2 + n-3 .... in other words ...
3 people ... 2 + 1 = 3 4 people ... 3+2+1 = 6 5 people ... 4+3+2+1 = 10 6 people ... 5+4+3+2+1 = 15
And adding 1 person to a 10,000 person organisation adds 10,000 possible new lines of communication.
Accounting Practice At Uber
‘The Information’ reports this morning (my bold)
Uber said its mobility division (the ride-hailing business most people know the company for) brought in $3.8 billion in revenue in the most recent quarter, growing 73%. But baked into that number is $1.1 billion flowing from a change earlier this year that prompted Uber to start recording all the fares it gets in the U.K. as revenue, instead of just the take rates remaining after the company pays its drivers.
I assume this is because Uber lost the battle in the courts about whether the drivers worked for them or were independent in the UK. So - if they work for them, then the whole ride is revenue. BUT - there will now be a flip side to that, in that there are now a whole lot of expenses on the other side that need to be taken out.
Is there an accountant in the house that is tracking the shenanigans that is - and seemingly always will be - ‘Uber’.
Rewriting History - In A Good Way
In many ways the 1619 Project is focused on unpacking actual history from the American narrative of history.
Meanwhile, I continue to be bowled over by the story/stories that are emerging in Rachel Maddow’s new podcast. I am so often amazed that I jump onto the internet to cross-check what I am hearing but the fact is that though the Ultra Podcast is telling a different story - it is again focused on unpacking history from the American narrative of history.
Unlike the 1619 project - Maddow’s story is much more recent and there are many accounts, news items, photographs and stories just out there for anybody to read and hear. Maddow has just done a great job in connecting the dots - because it is all otherwise ‘hidden in plain sight’.
It’s too obvious to go into the parallels of these stories from the late 30s and early 40s to the more recent stories of the late 10s and early 20s.
What is mind-blowing is that until Maddow came out with this podcast, this whole sad thing was buried, lost and forgotten.
My prior posts re Ultra …
Developers Don't Know What They Don't Know
An old adage - but is ‘top of mind’ recently.
Ā
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If the IRS want ‘a little chat with you’ …. would you ‘do some research’ and then take the case on, or go find a tax accountant?
-
If you needed medical attention would you have a friend ‘check out the symptoms and then diagnose you - or would you go to a doctor?
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If you were sued for malpractice … get a lawyer - or ‘bone up’ on what youneed to know
…. you know the list is endless.
There is a tech podcast I listen to regularly - and a recurring theme is the difficulty of doing sales and marketing …
The solution - apparently - is to do some internet research - and ‘fix the problem’.
As I say - recurring.
I donāt listen to every edition - but I listen enough to be confident in my assertion that ‘they have not ever reached out to a professional sales / marketing person that could help them and I wonder why this is?
I do lay part of the blame at the feet of those people who lead those disciplines. I do understand that there are schmucks in those two worlds that makes you wonder how they make a living - but we also know there are bad lawyers, bad accountants, bad doctors ….
But Sales and Marketing? It canāt be that hard ā¦ Iāll read up and solve my problem.
Meanwhile
I find that it is tech-oriented people who are particularly flawed when it comes to this kind of āthinkingā - and I use that word loosely.
Anyway - that’s all I have to say. Right now I have an app to build this week. It’s all worked out. This afternoon I am going read up on java and python. Then tomorrow I will build my prototype. Should be all done by the weekend.
I mean - it can’t be that hard can it?
Why Are Architects More Famous Than Builders?
Well. at least for real-world construction. As we build out the internet, I feel it is the other way round. Why is that? I wrote this just yesterday ā¦
Frank Lloyd Wright, Julia Morgan, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, Gaudi, Le Corbusier ā¦ are legion in the world of architecture ā¦ yet few people know the names of the people or companies that built the buildings they designed.
Today I discovered this gentle and informative Twitter account that highlights the names of building designers - not building builders.
1999: Burj Al Arab in Dubai, designed by Tom Wright of WKK Architects
— The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) October 31, 2022
99/100 pic.twitter.com/YbaTimr5rX
Is it odd that In technology, the ābuildersā have become the industry names and we know so relatively few designers?
The Glass Cliff
What absolute crap and drivel ā¦
ā Britainās current dumpster fire (i.e. the British Pound reached its lowest level against the US Dollar in its entire history last week) began a long time before Truss came on board. She inherited the mess; she didnāt create it.
I am fully aware of the Glass Cliff problem - this is not an example.
Yes - she inherited a mess. She then doubled down to make it worse.
š„ Everything Everywhere All at Once, 2022 - ā ā ā ā
One of those multiverse movies that isnāt your usual. Well worth a watch. No disappointment.
š„ The Gray Man, 2022 - ā ā ā
Letās watch The Gray Man I suggested. We did, both of us looking at the arch other throughout .. the story seemed familiar. And then it didnāt. And then it did. We watched to the end. It was familiar because weād watched it already. Just didnāt remember. And now ā¦ the following morning. Here we are again. Still not knowing what it was about.
We Are Becoming A Power Skills Economy
Josh Bershin writes that we are becoming a power skills economy.
In other words, automation did not eliminate work at all ā it created new jobs, better jobs, and an acceleration of our workforce into what we now call the āservice economy.ā We are essentially shifting to the right in this model.
š¬ Josh Bershin
BTW, in case you are wondering, āPower Skillsā is the 'new' name for āSoft Skillsā. To be fair, it did need a new name. Itās also fair to say that whilst heās not wrong, he fails to mention that in the last 15 years (where he references 2007) no mention that the average income of people is flat and that real income is declining.
But that's a different opportunity.
Oh - and maybe not so 'new' Josh was talking about this back in 2019 - and gave us a few clues as to what he was talking about, this is one of his graphics.
Here's My Take
1) Becoming? I think it is really more like that we are starting to recognize these skills. They have always been there - and though not necessarily recognised or even understood - I bet if you find successful people in that 'old' economy - they would demonstrate a lot of these traits.
2) Josh is not alone in highlighting these skills and their importance. What nobody is doing is organizing these skills into a taxonomy - much less an ontology. (What's the difference you may ask) Stan Garfield has a very simple explanation)
Taxonomy
Ontology
... except now there is.
More of this to come, but have to say, very excited by a company I have been talking to that has not only done a lot of research into these skills, but also which skills are most important - and why, depending on what you are trying to do.
Not only that, but they are releasing an app that will allow anybody to
- assess their personal strengths and weaknesses across all skills
- define which of those skills they should focus on to maximise their ability to be most succesful at what they are trying to do
- all through a self paced, self directed, learning program.
As I said - more to come. Just to say - the cavalry is on its way.
Featured Image by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
The Lore Of The Rings
I was delighted to be joined on the People First podcast by Ramsey Avery who is the Production Designer for the Amazon series - Lord of the Rings - Rings of Power.
Wonderful conversation that I know you will enjoy.
š„ Mr. Harrigan's Phone, 2022 - ā ā ā ā
Maybe because I have recently been watching some below average / average movies recently - that this one stands out. On another day. I might rate it at 3 1/2 stars - but leaving at 4 for now.
Hereās the question ā¦ coincidence ā¦ or action from the grave?
š„ Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard, 2022 - ā ā ā ā
Itās a documentary - so move on if you donāt like them. Personally - big as the issue was - I totally missed the story when it was in the news. BUT very good. I would like to have seen more delving into the Libyan connections - rather than a āsimpleā fraud - maybe there will be a part two?
š„ Cleanskin, 2012 - ā ā Ā½
Mindless. Watched as part of a binge-watch when I was feeling sorry for myself. Not too hard to keep up. Definitely donāt bother if you are sitting down to āwatch a movieā.
š„ Thor: Love and Thunder, 2022 - ā ā ā Ā½
I have watched all the Thorās and this one is VERY different - probably because Taika Waititi isnāt just the director (Thor - Ragnarok) but also the writer. Not sure what the āMarvel Headsā will say / are saying ā¦ but for me it worked.