SuddesGroup

July 6, 2009 | Nick Fellers

Quantum Leap Framework

Have a look below at our Quantum Leap Framework. We use this as a FRAMEWORK for conversation, services, training, solutions and more (just about everything, really, that involves taking some sort of a QUANTUM LEAP with your FOR IMPACT organization.)

FRAMEWORK: A framework can be adapted to situations and organizations. It’s not a one-size fits all process. It provides a pathway for thinking through a challenge or complex issues including but not limited to:

• How to make a quantum leap with your organization
• How to re-design
• Facilitating training/coaching/strategy sessions
• Launch a campaign
• Jumpstart funding
• Engage board members or stakeholder groups at a higher level
• Strategic planning
• Designing a launching a start-up venture (any sector)

I think the applications are limitless.

Here are some example applications:

On Campaigns: A campaign is an execution component of the framework.

Strategic Planning: Most strategic plans talk about the how-to without ever going up to the ‘vision level’ to get consensus about the ‘where to’ or ‘why’ which is needed for SIMPLICITY.

People/Process/Performance: Are functions of the Vision and Strategy.

Decision-Making: Action starts at the HIGHEST LEVEL with leadership making decisions and drawing the ‘line-in-the-sand.’

For me, this FRAMEWORK captures components of BIG CHANGE… BIG LEAPS!

THE QUANTUM LEAP FRAMEWORK

 Email This Nugget | One Comment | Share

July 2, 2009 | Nick Fellers

Thinking Bigger with your Vision, your Board and your Funding

We’ve been on the road doing a lot of training and speaking the last two weeks. While in Albany at NYCON’s Money for Mission I packaged some content in a new way to focus exclusively on the importance of THINKING BIG.

Conference Session Title: Thinking BIGGER – With your Vision, With your Board and With your Funding.

Some of the FRAMEWORKS used:

• The Altitude Framework
• Big Board Questions
• Quantum Leap Framework

Here are few nuggets and remainders/reminders from the session.

Go back up to 30,000’.
Planes fly at 30,000’. It’s an altitude at which you can see ‘the big picture.’ Offers blue sky thinking, vision, etc. Making you aware of 30,000’ we can then also discuss 14,000’ and 3’. Think of these as VISION – STRATEGY and TACTICS respectively. Most of us communicate at the 14,000’ and 3’ level. The BIG sale, the BIG vision, the BIG conversations happen at 30,000’.

On Strategic Plans:
Really tough to talk about where you’re going to go at 14,000’ if we don’t have consensus and clarity at 30,000’.

We spend every day at 3’.
Your prospects don’t. We have a context for every detail [[in OUR heads]] but when we communicate in the details (without first having clarity/framing at the higher levels) it sounds a bit like the school teacher from Charlie Brown.

The Steve Jobs Close
I use this one a lot. Love it.
The story: 1984. Apple board looking for a new ‘seasoned and readied CEO’ (I guess they didn’t think Steve Jobs knew what he was doing.) They zeroed in on John Scully – VP of Pepsi. Spent some time with him talking about market segments, HR, product lines, business plan, etc — the 14,000′ and 3′ pieces. He eventually turned them down. Steve Jobs goes for a walk with Scully and asks one (30,000’) question, “Do you want to sell sugar water to kids all your life or do you want to change the world?” Scully signs up for Apple. Incidentally, that didn’t work out so well. It turned out Steve Jobs was a pretty good leader after all. But, that’s a different story.

Asking for $1M.
We need to actually be able to communicate what we would do with $1M. Simple concept.

Getting Buy-In at 30,000’.
If someone’s not buying in or on at 30,000’ then you can’t move on to the strategy and the tactics of how they can help (the ask). However, once they do, you can move to these levels.

People respond to the level at which you communicate
Going to talk about blue prints? Everyone will talk about the angle of the door. Or, you can talk about the VISION. Your choice.

Not saying don’t have 14,000’ and 3’.
Just need to know the flow. Remember – there is an order: CAST a VISION. STAFF a VISION. FUND a VISION. Can’t fund a vision you don’t have

Think BIG actually makes things EASIER

 Email This Nugget | One Comment | Share

June 19, 2009 | Tom Suddes

You Get What You Measure

With all of our Coaching Clients with Sales Teams, we use what we call a ‘GREEN SHEET’ (Monthly Feedback).

Attached is a genericized version in the hopes that it might help you with your own MEASUREMENT and MONTHLY FEEDBACK.

What I really wanted to share today was the SUCCESS QUOTIENT at the top.

SUCCESS = # of times we SHARE THE STORY…
& PRESENT THE OPPORTUNITY.

SUCCESS = Both ACTIVITY and PRODUCTIVITY.

SUCCESS = # of VISITS (with Qualified Prospects) & # of ASKS.

SUCCESS = RESULTS/GIFTS/MONEY… to FUND THE VISION.

SUCCESS = ROR & ROI & ROE
(Return-on-Relationships & Return-on-Investment & Return-on-Energy)

P.S. All of this is geared towards High-End, Top of the Pyramid, Lead and Major Gift PRESENTATIONS! It’s where the money is.

 Email This Nugget | 2 Comments | Share

June 18, 2009 | Nick Fellers

Nobody wants to fund ‘case management’

Two years ago an ED said to me, “Nobody funds case management.” That’s because nobody understands case management – and neither do I. Case management is like ‘management’, ‘overhead’, ‘operations’, etc.

We spend the better part of 30 minutes talking about all the things that a case manager enabled clients to do/achieve. For this org, it was helping women (w/ children) deal with obstacles to permanent housing and family issues such as getting kids to school, domestic violence, nutrition, etc.

We re-branded our case management as a ‘Healthy Families Initiative.’ Allowed us to focus on the IMPACT of the program. Much easier to talk about, sell and share.

Test yourself, if you’re doing something that’s hard for others to understand then work on the MESSAGE. Start with the IMPACT or OUTCOME or WHY of the program and go from there.

This came up again last week. I was with an organization that helps homeless men and women. We asked the same questions and realized that it was not case management but building a Life Track. We are going to get our Life Track Program funded (and they can spend that money on case managers).

 Email This Nugget | 5 Comments | Share

June 17, 2009 | Tom Suddes

The Just Ask Strategy

I wanted to share our JUST ASK STRATEGY with everyone engaged in the For Impact world.

VOCAB, WORDS, FRAMING have a huge impact on your ATTITUDE and ACTION!

Think about getting an appointment with a donor to overwhelm them with information and ask them for money.

No wonder no one will meet with you.

P.S. Here’s how it works for the For Profit world. Your Board Members will ‘get it’.

 Email This Nugget | One Comment | Share

June 12, 2009 | Tom Suddes

Have You Tried Jargon?

I’m doing a teleseminar for Network for Good on June 23rd around CHANGING YOUR VOCABULARY and NO MORE.

I was writing up the outline a couple of weeks ago around the importance of language, framing, message, etc.

The same day (May 19th), this was the Doonesbury comic by Gary Trudeau Dilbert by Scott Adams.

Everybody in this business uses ‘’INDUSTRY JARGON’. “Annual Fund.” “Planned Giving.” “Moves Management.” “Cultivation.” “Restricted Giving and Unrestricted Giving.” And on and on and on.

Guess what? The people that you’re trying to SELL to don’t understand any of that crap. They’re concerned with your IMPACT.

“Have you tried jargon?” It doesn’t work.

P.S. Re: MBA’s. Remember, if Thomas Edison had an MBA… we’d all be reading by larger candles.

 Email This Nugget | One Comment | Share

June 8, 2009 | Tom Suddes

Measuring Outcomes vs. Inputs

I was with a University President last week talking about his institution’s Message, Framework, Unique Selling Points, etc. He’s an incredibly well-read, experienced, really bright thought leader. He shared a story about American business, especially MANUFACTURING, as it existed 50 years ago. (These are my shorthand notes. He told the story much more eloquently.)

THE ‘INPUT’ PARADIGM:

MAKE IT. INSPECT IT. THROW OUT THE BAD. SELL THE GOOD.

The ‘OUTCOME’ PARADIGM:

MAKE IT. SELL IT.

Replaced the old model with a change in PROCESS (re-engineering around measurement and statistics, etc. Think Edward Denning and Elijah Goldratt.)

The goal was to stabilize the consistency of the PROCESS to minimize and eliminate the BAD STUFF.

Here’s where he went with that re: EDUCATION.

The old INPUT model goes back 500 years (University of Bologna, etc.) Nothing’s changed. Same pedagogy. Teacher. Student. Classroom. If you fail, you’re gone. Throw out the bad. Keep the good. Be ‘proud‘ of the number of students you don’t accept and the number of students who don’t make it.

In education, a new model of OUTCOME-BASED would look at the entire process so that everyone makes it.

INPUT VS. OUTCOME. I found it really interesting and, perhaps more importantly for For Impact leaders, social entrepreneurs, change agents and Development/Sales… think about how this applies to the way we ‘RAISE MONEY’.

The old INPUT-BASED model is all about activity, cultivation, marketing, annual fund, chasing mice.

The new OUTCOME-BASED model (certainly our For Impact model) is all about:

1. Writing ‘TRIPLE NET CHECKS’ to the organization from the Development Operation.

2. A laser-like focus on RESULTS/OUTCOME… not on activities, special events, donor acquisitions, chasing mice, etc.

3. Do only those things that have dramatic, quantum leap, transformational results. (Chase antelopes.)

P.S. A few days ago, a very, very senior development office, principle gift officer actually told our Vice President that the institution needed to “spend the next five years totally focused on building up ANNUAL FUND”.

Can you imagine doing that in ‘business’? Let’s sell a bunch of little stuff to a lot of people… so that five years from now those people can buy more and bigger stuff. We’d be out of business.

 Email This Nugget | Comments | Share

June 5, 2009 | Tom Suddes

Leadership

“LEADERS can afford to be uncertain, but (they) cannot afford to be UNCLEAR.”
Andy Stanley

“UNCERTAINTY is not an indication of poor leadership… the temptation is to think, ‘If I were a good leader, I would know exactly what to do.’

People will not follow fuzzy leadership.”

Pretty self-explanatory quote from Andy Stanley as cited in John Maxwell’s wonderful article in the latest Success Magazine.

• CLEAR… LEADERSHIP.
• CLEAR… GOALS.
• CLEAR… ROLES & RESPONSIBILITY.
• CLEAR… ACCOUNTABILITY.
• CLEAR… DIRECTION.

And, of course, a CLEAR (and Concise, Compelling and Consistent)… MESSAGE.

 Email This Nugget | Comments | Share

June 2, 2009 | Nick Fellers

Reminder: Get Numbers On-The-Table Early

A reminder about the value of getting numbers on-the-table early in an ongoing conversation. This is as opposed to waiting until the seventh visit.

• If forces qualification: If a prospect seemed fantastic but says, “Oh, I/we wanted to help in other ways.” Then you at least know what approach to take and you’ve qualified the ongoing and future conversations.
• A goal – In subsequent conversations (follow-up) you’re working toward a real goal… something concrete… not this ethereal idea of a gift, someday/maybe. This even works if the prospect ‘isn’t there yet’. At least you know where THERE is and you can have an going conversation about THERE and HOW!
• Get it out of the way! Take a deep breath and get the number/project/level on the table.
  
  

   Email This Nugget | Comments | Share

  
  

May 29, 2009 | Tom Suddes

Hold the Interview

Almost every organization I know is struggling with ‘HIRING’ issues. In Jim Collins’ eponymous ‘bus‘ metaphor… it’s always about getting the right people on the bus… getting the wrong people off the bus… and then getting everybody in the right seats.

Why It May Be Wiser to Hire People without Meeting Them by Dan and Chip Heath, authors of MADE TO STICK, was in June’s Fast Company.

I suggest you skim this quickly to get the Big Idea: INTERVIEWS are a worthless waste of time when it comes to decisions on talent.

The real nugget for me in this was the idea of the ‘SIMPLE JOB TEST’. Read more

 Email This Nugget | Comments | Share

• Page 70 of 99
• <
• 1
• ...
• 65
• 66
• 67
• 68
• 69
• 70
• 71
• 72
• 73
• 74
• ...
• 99
• >