Following up on my post about the ‘Sales Driven Funding Operation’.

A CRITICAL position on a sales team is THE Sales Manager.

IF you are committed to a sales team then you should identify THE sales manager. This is the person who fulfills these duties:

• Is the ultimate PLAYER/COACH: This person has the street cred and is usually the organization’s BEST sales person. This person has also accepted the role of COACH to the team.
• Has ultimately ACCOUNTABILITY: This person is 1) accountable for the sales team results, and 2) the person to whom each sales person is ultimately accountable.
  • There are also cases in which the sales manager can use others to support this function. Example, let’s say your team has ten sales people: they can report to a deputy but ULTIMATELY report to the sales manager.
• Is the ultimate PLAY CALLER (or referee): If three sales team members want different changes to the engagement tool (for instance) the SALES MANAGER is empowered to LEAD and make-the-call, end-the-dispute, or unite-the-team around a clear decision.

Just having this vocabulary has been powerfully clarifying for organizational leadership responsible for building sales-driven funding operations.

Nick, Kerry and our Coaches are constantly striving to help tell Founder’s Story, the Math Story, the Timetable Story, the 3 ‘Best’ Stories that support the Engagement Tool, the Funding Story and much more.

Of equal importance is how each one of you TELL YOUR OWN (PERSONAL) STORY…your provenance, your uniqueness and the ‘why’ you are where you are and you are doing what you’re doing.

For all concerned:

You don’t need to tell your story better. You need a better story.

Screw the Business Plan. It’s about the Business Model.

In presenting this idea to an amazing group of Social Entrepreneurs recently in Ireland, someone came up at the break and said, “All Business Plans now look the same. There’s a template for the Business Plan. You can buy a Business Plan online and simply fill in the blanks.”

UGH!

A BUSINESS MODEL is a framework and a visual (ideally) guide to achieve organizational goals.

A BUSINESS PLAN rarely, rarely (if ever) is an Action Plan. Business Plans are a lot like Strategic Plans… totally useless as an actionable guide to what needs to get done!

Business Plans and Strategic Plans are an exercise in fiction, mostly incomprehensible gobblygook and always end up ‘sitting on the shelf’ or ‘used as a doorstop’. (I know. It’s an old joke. But it’s actually not a joke. It’s true.)

What does your BUSINESS MODEL look like? Your ACTION PLAN?

Can you share with your team, your board or your investors a simple BUSINESS MODEL and a legitimate ACTION PLAN (30 days, 90 days and 1,000 days)?

Here’s For Impact | The Suddes Group’s simple BUSINESS MODEL.

It’s a ‘funnel’. Three big, easily understood pieces. We have an Action Plan for the ‘blue’, the ‘red’ and the ‘green’.

Revenue/Income is inversely proportionate to the ‘Funnel’. The more RESOURCES we provide… the more EXPERIENCES we can share with audiences and attendees… the more opportunity there is to provide SOLUTIONS, value and return on investment.

***This did not just ‘appear’ one day on a piece of toast. It’s been a (almost) 40-year iteration… with at least 63 versions since Nick and I drew it out for the first time 9 or 10 years ago. FWIW.

As you search for Talent… and look to hire the best fiT… look for these T-PEOPLE:

The ‘deep‘ vertical line is pretty clear. CFO’s should know everything about finance. Chief Development Officers (CDO’s) should have a ‘deep‘ understanding of sales, etc.

The ‘broad‘, horizontal line is what makes the difference between a ‘good’ teammate and ‘great‘ teammate.

The ability to bring this background, knowledge and experience to the ‘creativity/innovation table’ is what allows a small but Talented Leadership Team to change the world.

Special Note: Tom Peters wrote many years ago about how much he loved talking with people with ‘GAPS IN THEIR RESUMES’. As always, he was way ahead of his time. The horizontal line across the top of the ‘T’ allows for GAPS IN THE RESUMES, six months backpacking in Europe, doing NOLS or Outward Bound, taking a sabbatical, a trip around the world or whatever else makes you a much more interesting and valuable person.

You can read a great article on this by Brent Schlender from my favorite magazine Fast Company. It’s titled The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes but it is more about his lost years, so called wilderness years, as well as referencing the “barefoot hippie who dropped out of college to hitchhike around India”.

I would say that Tom Peters had it right on… and that Steve Jobs represents the classic T-PERSON. (However, as I’ve noted before, not exactly perfectly balanced.)

“Resumes are dead. Interviews are largely ineffectual. LinkedIn is good and portfolios are useful.

But PROJECTS (my bold caps) are the real future of hiring.”

This fits into my own recommendations to almost anyone trying to find the right TALENT.

1. Profile the Job/Role. “If the job could talk (as my good friend Bryan Driscoll says)… what would it say about the role and job?” This is particularly important when you’re moving to a new Model or Methodology, e.g. For Impact, Today | Tomorrow | Forever, Sales, etc.

2. Hire for Attitude… Train for Skill. I’ve seen this rule violated so many times because the ‘candidate’ had all the right stuff/skills on the resume… but their Attitude was totally wrong.

3. Try It – Test It. This is why I love this article. Bring somebody on as an Independent Contractor for 30 days, 60 days or 90 days… and give them a Project to actually see if they can make it work. This also is a great way to determine personality fit, attitude, etc.

*Don’t just sell me on yourself… DESIGN something. PLAN something. WRITE something. SELL something. DELIVER on something.

***Weird. A few days ago, I had just responded to a senior development officer at a large university who asked about a new Director of Development. Since this was an internal move, I suggested he give him the ‘Interim’ title for 60 or 90 days to just see if it works.

Final thought from the Old Guy. I have hired and helped hire hundreds (thousands?) of people. Clearly, it’s one of the most important things that we all do. It’s ridiculously easy to hire people; and sooooo hard to let them go.

Take the time to do it right.

***If you are a For Impact Organization and need help with this search/hire/train part… give us a call. We are getting pretty good at it.

The reason I love this ‘formula’ is because we at For Impact | The Suddes Group spend so much time on ‘Design’ and ‘Culture’.

The authors of UNCOMMON SERVICE talk about the tangible nature of the design challenge (strategy, business models, board charts, etc.)… they ask, bluntly, “What the hell is CULTURE?”

They talk about the three C’s of Culture: CLARITY… COMMUNICATION… CONSISTENCY.

Alliteration aside, these are 3 pretty big things to think about as you’re building your own SALES CULTURE or ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE.

As the headline reads: Culture Takes Over When the (Leadership) Leaves the Room.

One of the all-time great lines I’ve read in my life comes from Hoppe, the boxing trainer, to Peekay, the protagonist:

“First with the HEAD, then with the HEART.”

In our world (and the boxing world), that means think, strategize, prepare, practice (head) … and then present with enthusiasm, emotion, passion (heart).

HEAD then HEART.

As always, there’s a corollary to this: HEART then HEAD.

“First with the HEART, then with the HEAD.”

This would be Zig Ziglar making his classic contribution to the sales profession: “People buy on EMOTION (HEART) then justify with LOGIC (HEAD).”

So, maybe the real story would go like this:

First with the HEAD… then with the HEART… then with the HEAD.

Special Note: While working in Ireland a few weeks ago with Social Entrepreneurs Ireland and the O’Brien Foundation, I had an opportunity to meet an incredible young superstar who is changing the world, Alan Kerins.

Alan was a star ‘hurler’ who made a trip to Zambia that changed his life. He has now created the Alan Kerins Projects supporting community and youth leadership programs.

I urged Alan to find and read a copy of Courtney’s THE POWER OF ONE, not just because it was set in Africa and about sports/boxing, but because it is a great STORY. And, it tied to our discussion of the Irish nun who is her own ‘Power of One’ in Africa!!!

I was trying to think of the appropriate ‘gift’ and wanted to send them a link to Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech, where he talked about life vs. work… encouraged the graduates to “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”

It’s always worth listening to this to gain a different perspective.

Full Disclosure: I LOVE Steve Jobs as an Entrepreneur, Business Leader, Design Superstar.

However, I’m not sure he actually ‘lived’ what he was suggesting in this commencement speech… at least as it relates to life and family and priorities. There were certainly large parts of Walter Isaacson’s biography (published after Jobs’ death) that bring up a lot of questions around this. Jobs supposedly authorized this biography in part “so his kids could get to know him”. His ‘business’ life at Apple, Next, Pixar, etc. had so consumed his life that he felt he needed a writer to explain himself to his children.

Not exactly ‘balance’.

Hey New England, there’s still time to join us live in Boston and save! Register for the For Impact Experience before this Friday, May 11th, and receive $100 off the regular price of $145.

3 reasons to join us:

1. Simple. Actionable. Big. Bold. For Impact Ideas. (Delivered to you in 3.5 hours!)

2. It’s the “Anti-Workshop“… Lots of interaction and experiential activities so you don’t get bored.

3. It works. In the words of an attendee, “The best part of the For Impact message is that it’s so simple it’s almost embarrassing to have to pay for it – but it has paid us back 1000 times over.”

REGISTER HERE with coupon code: ficommunity.

Details:
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
8:30 AM – 12:00 PM (ET)
City Year Headquarters
Lavine Civic Forum
Boston, MA 02116

This is the shorthand/brand of the PLAN for the next 90 days: P90X(I) May/June/July!

*Attribution for this goes to Steve (#32), Associate Athletic Director at the University of North Dakota and a ‘big’ part of the Sales Team!

Goals of P90X(I) are very specific and very clear:

1. CLOSE ALL Pendings!!!

2. CLOSE Portfolio’s ‘LOWEST HANGING FRUIT’! (Anyone in top Portfolio who can be closed within this 90 days!)

3. PRE-DISPOSE our Next, Best, Top 33 for P90X(II) (Sept/Oct/Nov)!!!

Important Note: CLOSE means CLOSE. An ANSWER. MAXIMIZE RELATIONSHIPS… AT THIS GIVEN MOMENT. A YES. A NOT NOW. A NO.

*This CLOSE is for the 2012 final push to finish off a $300M ‘Campaign’/Funding Initiative.

Sub-Goal: NO (or relatively few, almost no) ‘PENDINGS’ at end of 2012!

Action: Do your own P90X for the next 90 days!!!