Decision Making- Black, White, and Grey

Decision Making: Black, White, and Grey

There were many times I sat in a meeting when an important decision had to be made. Someone from accounting or operations would say “That is a black or white situation.”
With my background being in sales I was not always sure this was the case. There are many business decisions that are cut and dry, however too many times people look for a simple yes or no answer to solve a complex problem.

Company policy is a vital part of any organization. You have to have structured processes in running any business. These policies need to be set in the best interests of the company and then properly communicated to the employees responsible for following them. Too many times companies do not have set policies, so when situations do arise there is no consistency in their reactions. Internal policies are important so that everyone is treated fairly. Employees must know what is expected of them in the role they fill. They must also know what behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not. External policies are equally important so the company’s vision and mission can be achieved. Without these policies chaos will certainly ensue.

My problem with black and white decisions arises when the concept of flexibility is removed from rational thought. Too many times I found myself in situations where someone, citing company policy, made a wrong decision that drastically affected the company. If you have a policy that states that any order received after 9:00 A.M. will not be delivered until the next day, there probably is a good reason behind it. If you don’t set a cut-off time you will never be able to maintain a delivery schedule that accommodates all your customers. But what happens when one of your biggest customers is out of stock on your best selling item and forgot to call their order in on time? My answer always was that if we can physically make this delivery we would. These were the decisions that were not black or white; rather I liked to call them grey.

In the world of sales we constantly exist in gray. To ensure customer satisfaction you can’t throw the rule book out, but you better have the flexibility to bend it a little. I would always look at a problem as an opportunity. How can I handle a situation that goes from a loss for someone to a win-win for everyone? While that was always my goal, it certainly was not always achieved. You have to decide what you can live with and what you can’t. Once you do this you can render a decision that takes everyone’s best interest into consideration but still protects the company’s best interest. Anyone can make a black or white decision. The ability to make those “grey” decisions is what makes a person successful in the long run.

The Rule of Seven

I recently attended a sales seminar and one of the topics discussed was the number of times you need to contact or touch someone before you can truly make a connection and open the door to a sale. The presenter referred to this concept as "The rule of seven." The theory is that it takes seven forms of communication in order to gain some trust and begin to build a relationship with a potential customer. Examples would be a phone call, an e-mail, a direct mail piece, a personal letter, a written article on your product or company, your website or a reference from another associate. All of these can be used to reach out to prospects in the hope of gaining them as customers.

I'm sure everyone knows of sales people that close most of their business on the first call. If you have a superior product and a flawless presentation, a one call close is very possible. The decision to buy is often an emotional one rather than a rational one. If you hit the right nerve with the buyer you can immediately close the deal. While there are the sales superstars who can achieve this result on a regular basis, for the majority of us it will take a number of efforts to close the sale.

The key to sales is to be consistent with your message and remain persistent, but not pushy. You need to present the benefits to the buyer in multiple ways in order to get your message across. Some people respond to visual stimuli (letters, e-mails, written articles, websites) while others respond to audio stimuli (phone calls, voice mails, a reference from an associate). That is why using a combination of both forms of communication helps insure your message gets through.

Most decision makers are bombarded with sales messages on a daily basis. They have built up a defense mechanism to deflect most of the information they receive. If you have something special or unique to offer, you may catch their eye, but chances are it will take several efforts to do so. Your role as a sales person is to use everything at your disposal to cut through the clutter, once again in a persistent, not pushy way.

It is easy to get discouraged when the only word you hear all day is no, but do not use this as an excuse to give up. Keep track of your efforts and make sure you remember "the rule of seven" as it pertains to them. Most sales people tend to quit asking for the order after the first no, when in reality you might need six more attempts to turn that no into a yes.

Staying Positive Amoungst So Much Negativity

It is extremely easy to find constant sources of negativity in the world. One of the easiest ways is to simply turn on the local news as it is often filled with negative stories. Unfortunately, most of the stories revolve around bad things happening to good people. There is nothing that anyone in the world can do to change this, as it is part of everyday life. I would sum up this type of negativity as unavoidable. The negativity you want to avoid is usually brought on by the various people you interact with on a daily basis. The ones that want to bend your ear about everything that is wrong with their job, their boss, their life, ect.

I worked in an office setting having direct supervision over a staff of twenty people. In my eighteen years of management not one day went by without some kind of major problem arising. In fact most days there were multiple problems all worse than the one before. While I know it is a cliche, my first response to "we have a problem" was "there are no such things as problems, only opportunities". In all honesty I really believed that to be true. I found that in managing people, if you start to panic, all hell will break loose with the rest of the troops. Now that I work on my own I sometimes have to remind myself that problems really are opportunities in disguise.

While I think most people would like to think of themselves as optimists, in reality there are very few people in the world who truly are. I myself, a staunch optimist, will let negativity creep into my psyche. It is only the fact that I can not stand to be around negative people that snaps me back into a positive state of mind. It is hard for me to dwell on some minor issues in my life that given the right attention and some time, will correct themselves, when there are so many people in this world facing serious, often life threatening situations everyday of their lives. You need to put things into their proper perspective before you start complaining about the problems you may face.

Negativity will never go away, as it is woven into the fabric of society. How you choose to deal with it is entirely up to you. You can easily succumb to the masses and join in the rant, or rise above the complaints and find a better way, a positive response.

Managing your Customer Relations

I think everyone would agree that customers are the life blood of a business. As I have said before, without customers you really do not have a business. Keeping your company and the products and/or services you provide in the forefront of their minds is more important than ever in our current business environment. Fortunately there are numerous CRM(Customer Relation Management)software systems on the market that are designed to help you organize and keep track of all forms of contact with customers, prospects, and other business associates.

A simple Google search for CRM will provide a good start to finding a software system that meets your particular needs. I personally use a management tool designed by an independent software developer, so I not recommending one system over another. What I am recommending is that anyone who has daily, weekly, or even monthly contact with people that are vital to their business have some kind of system in place to keep track of your communication efforts.

Time has a way of slipping by, and if you do not have an organized approach to maintaining consistent communication with all of your contacts, opportunities will surely fall through the cracks. One of the biggest benefits of a CRM system is the ability to track your efforts and record your results. This enables you to create consistency in your selling efforts by developing regular campaigns that can deliver your message to both existing customers as well as future prospects. A trackable system prevents you from bombarding your contacts with too much information or even worse, forgetting about them altogether.

As we close out another year, now is a good time to analyze your current CRM efforts. If there is no system in place, make plans to implement one. If you have a system in place, make sure that it meets the needs of your business and most importantly, it is being used to its full potential. In a tough market, nobody can afford to loose customers. An effective CRM system provides an important tool that works to help ensure your company remains relevant in your customer's mind.

Recapture Your Vision

In business you often hear companies refer to their Vision and Mission statements. While a mission statement tends to define the actions needed to accomplish the company’s objectives, a vision statement should point the direction to achieving them. The vision gives the company something to strive for by creating an identity they wish to achieve for themselves. It should be able to define the expectations that have been set by the company’s leaders. The vision needs to be the driving force that provides a company its present and future motivation for being in business. While having a vision is important to starting a business, following and maintaining a vision is crucial to the success of that endeavor.

Many times the reality of business life will cause a company to loose sight of their original vision as they battle the day to day fires that constantly arise. As you get caught up in working in your business you will tend to forget to work on your business and its future path. Sometimes just getting through another day is the main focus. Unfortunately these days turn to weeks, then months, then finally years. While by many standards you may see yourself as successful, this is often based on the fact that you have survived long enough to still be around. The reality of your present situation is most likely radically different from your original concept of what your business would be like.

Another potential scenario is having an outdated vision. While you have been successful in achieving what you set out to accomplish, your original vision may no longer be relevant to your future goals and objectives. In a good way you have outgrown your expectations and now need to set new goals and objectives. In setting the bar higher you need to develop a whole new vision. To maintain success a company must always have something to aim and strive for. A company can never stand still, as it will actually begin to slip backwards. Truly successful businesses are never satisfied with the status quo. New visions provide new innovations that continually drive the company’s growth. If you sit back to admire all you have achieved, get ready to watch your competition go speeding by.

At any given point in time of the business life cycle you must be able to know and understand where you are and where are you going. In order to do this you must be able to maintain or update your company’s objectives. In other words you need to recapture your vision. If you take an honest approach to this task it will lay the groundwork to continued success.

Sourcing Information from Website Forums

Up until a few months ago, I was not really familiar with the benefits of participating in forums that are starting to pop up on many company, community, and special interest websites. I belong to a few professional organizations that have an open forum for members on their website, but other than skimming over some eye catching topics, I never took the time to actually read and respond to other member's posts.

Recently I started to seek out websites that have forums relevant to my business or special interests. I began to read some threads, which are basically a topic starter, and the posts that follow, which are a response to that thread. Once you are registered in the forum, you can add your own threads and posts to any of the listed topics. While the majority of the information contained in a forum revolves around people's opinions, you can still learn quite a bit from actively participating in them. If you are looking for information on a particular topic, you can add your question as a thread and then see what kind of answers you receive back.

Some of the benefits I have personally derived from business oriented forums are links to websites and organizations that I never knew existed, advice on a particular issue, and feedback on my theories and opinions that I expressed in my own threads.

There are also many social forums out there on just about any subject imaginable. They provide a great place to exchange experiences with other people who share your same interests.

While every forum may be a little different in nature, they all work on the same basic premise, an exchange of information and ideas. As long as you remember that for the most part people are expressing opinions, not facts you should still be able to use them as a valid resource for obtaining information.

The Power of Self Assessment

I spent close to twenty years as the sales manager for a wholesale distribution company and one of my main tasks was to constantly track and measure the sales team's performance. There would be weekly one on one reviews as well as monthly and quarterly performance evaluations all designed to align individual goals and objectives with those of the company. It was extremely time consuming, but beneficial in driving growth and improving the bottom line. It was this constant assessment that contributed to twenty years of profitable growth.

Now that I work for myself I have adopted this approach to evaluate my own performance. I have put processes in place that track my weekly results in four critical areas that are directly tied to the overall growth of my business. I conduct a monthly review of my efforts to ensure they are in line with my goals and objectives. On a quarterly basis I review my overall marketing plan to make sure it is still on track,and then make any necessary adjustments to my current strategies. This self assessment is designed to keep me moving forward, but more importantly to keep me committed to the vision and mission I established for my company.

I wish I could say that I have accomplished all the goals I set for myself, and everything is going according to schedule. The reality is that starting any business is hard work and extremely demanding. I have changed my business model numerous times and have made countless mistakes along the way. The one constant through the whole experience has been the process of self assessment. This is the single most important reason I even have a business. It has kept me focused and committed to the tasks at hand. It has allowed me to learn from my mistakes and make the necessary adjustments to get me back on track. It prevents me from making excuses and holds me directly accountable for my efforts. Most importantly, it gives me a reason to get up everyday and get back to work.

Assessing your performance is not the easiest thing in the world to do, however it probably the most important thing you can do for yourself. People close to you tend to tell you things they think you want to hear. You are the only person in the world who can honestly assess your efforts and performance. Utilizing this powerful tool and all the benefits it can provide will be directly tied to your eventual success or failure.