Culture clashes

As we prepare for the switch to the other (Wordpress) version of this blog, I posted this entry: "Culture Clashes" there.

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Responsibility

Yesterday, because of my screw up, I created stress and emergency planning responsibilities for others. As manager of my son's minor hockey team, I booked the team into a "contact" tournament, when our league plays by non-contact rules.

Not everyone reading this blog knows much about hockey, but it is the major sport in our region and at professional level can be quite intense and physical. Body contact rules are in place to ensure younger players and those without training in the more forceful aspects of the game are not put at risk.

But, in going ahead with the tournament booking, I failed to check a website which would have confirmed we were heading into the contact space (at age 11-12, many leagues consider the kids old enough to play contact hockey, but our district doesn't, at least for recreational or house league play.)

Parents arriving early saw intense body checking and naturally were fearful for their kids.

On arriving at the scene, our coach convened emergency meetings with parents and the tournament organizers. He took responsibility and leadership to obtain the tournament organizers' co-operation in arranging unofficial rule modifications, gave the players a crash course in some things to watch out for, and (after concurring with the parents), decided to go ahead with the tournament, with the understanding that if conditions appeared unsafe on the ice, we would leave the game immediately.

As it is, all went well, the kids had a great day, and we ended up dead last.

Can lessons be learned from this experience relevant to Construction Marketing?

Details are important, even for non-detail people. A simple check with one website would have avoided the problem.

Mistakes can create opportunities. We all learned from the experience, and I think grew. Our kids saw how hockey can be played differently -- but were reassured after the day that we would properly revert to our own league rules.

Cultural and rules variations can exist within specialized areas. Smiths Falls and St. Isidore are the same distance from Ottawa, but the separate leagues play by entirely different "contact" rules. We should not forget these nuances in our marketing because they can be important.

One person's error can affect many. Here I feel the pain (and relief that all went well).
We must accept responsibility for our decisions and actions. No one else is to blame. Notably, our coach accepted responsibility for MY mistake; he needed to quickly adapt and adjust the program to accommodate the special circumstances here.

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The "on behalf of" call -- and other ineffective sales tricks

As Chase and Daniel Smith continued to work at Construct Canada yesterday, I spent some time in the office putting out fires and catching problems. Screw ups in our invoicing system, a mistakenly placed ad (which I caught with the help of our administrator just in time), and the writing of marketing materials for future projects took up much of my time.

And there was the inbound call I did not return.

"Hi, I'm calling on behalf of the Society for Marketing Professional Services . . .",
I listened a few more seconds, then hit "delete".

But wait. Readers here know that I'm a true believer in SMPS and will do everything I can possible to support the organization. Surely, it would take me only a few minutes to return the call. I'm busy, I know, but not that busy.

But I had good reason to delete the message, and this is my message to my staff and anyone else that sells for a living.

If you can't clearly state why you are calling in a message, and you dare to say you are calling "on behalf of" a respected organization, you are most likely selling some way overpriced marketing or promotional stuff, but don't have the courage to be direct about it in your call. You really don't know me, do you . . . Since the answer is 'no', I might as well save my time and not answer at all.

(If the rep is persistent and calls again, I will return his call, but the answer will still be 'no.')

Frankly, I'm afraid that in the past, our less-than-effective sales reps fell into the same trap when they called from a qualified, relationship-focused list we provide them. It almost is the natural thing to do, to find yourself reading from a mental script, and repeating your 'standard' message.

In some cases, I suppose, the process still works. A few will buy, and a few will say 'Yes"; so you can handle the "Nos", the "no answers" and the banality of rejection.

The same generally ineffective (but far too common) sales process applies in many other situations.

Every year, at Construct Canada, a few people approach our booth -- and every other one in the show -- cheating the rules and trying to sell us something. If they are caught, they can be kicked out of the show. We are usually reasonably courteous to them, however, because they are in our face.

Other reps send scripted, "personalized" emails, which reek of standardization. (The really bad ones don't even bother with purported personalization. They join the ranks of services which tell me I've won a million in the lottery, or can have my sexual powers increased with little blue pills.)

And bad canvassers, knock on my home door, with the clipboard in hand and big name tag on their shirt. (I slam the door on them, though readers here know that I acknowledge canvassing can be cost-effective and in fact a truly valid business survival strategy in certain circumstances.)

If you are a sales representative, you must be getting a little frustrated with this posting. How can you reach the real decision-makers when they give you this sort of rather blunt and unfortunate response.

I will give you one simple, but effective, answer.

Know who you are calling, and why, as an individual, and know why they really should listen to you before you make that call.

Think of this carefully.

If you spend more time carefully considering and relating to the needs of your potential client you will have a much greater chance of achieving a valid connection and results.

You may say this model works for extremely high ticket relationships, and not smaller ones, and I agree, to a point. But some effort to learn about the individuals you are calling can be relatively easily achieved often with simple online resources (linkedin.com is truly effective) and the time you spend on this research will be far better spent than griding through the lists.

Back to my first example.

I'm not exactly invisible on the Web, of course. The caller working the SMPS list could have quickly learned of my relationship with the association and some of the things I've done, and communicated by a personal email before phoning.

(We are currently evaluating a sales candidate who passed this initial screening test brilliantly. Seeing the public advertisement for the salaried opportunity, he checked, discovered much about me, and then sent a highly personalized email. I invited him to continue with our evaluation process, which he is doing, now. He has earned his introduction.)

Simply put: If you are a sales representative and have a "call list" put the phone down and hold off the introductory email until you actually know who you are calling. And when you do, have a valid reason for connecting, hopefully to give value rather than sell stuff. I promise I won't hang up on you or ignore your call if you follow these rules.

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Construct Canada 2009 Day 1

Daniel Smith with one of our special booth guests handing out papers and calendars.

I flew home yesterday evening, leaving Chase, Daniel Smith, and a group of Hooter Girls from the Niagara region to hand out calendars (with highly gender-specific images) and sample publications, as they met other exhibitors, attended seminars and programs, and generally "connected" on the Construct Canada show floor in Toronto.

This show, at least theoretically, represents a Home Run marketing opportunity. Most of our clients, after all, are businesses seeking to market their products and services to the construction industry in Ontario, the demographic profile of the greatest part of our business. As well, because we can help attract visitors to the show, the co-ordinators are happy to accept trade-outs of booth space for advertising, reducing our costs significantly.

But here is a sobering number. Last year, I asked the sales representatives attending the show to keep close tabs on the leads they acquired and the results they attained. We'll start with the really bad news. Two of the three representatives attending didn't bring in one piece of measurable business in the year following the show (they are no longer employed with us).

The third representative, our most successful salesperson, achieved $4,000 in sales.

If you add up the costs of hotels, food, travel, and time, we easily consumed that much in show costs. In other words, we paid 100 cents on the dollar -- hardly a route to profitability.

In planning this year's show presence, I considered these numbers in assessing our plans, and we devised some changes that should reduce our show-related expenses by about 50 per cent.

Of course, events like Construct Canada have other advantages. They allow us to reconnect with existing clients, scope out the competition, and observe larger trends and issues. So it is still worthwhile attending.

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Time and place

We're at Construct Canada, booth 3027.

Today is the first day of Construct Canada, the largest Canadian construction trade show. After a five hour drive to Toronto yesterday, we completed the booth setup and will be ready to go when the show opens at 10 a.m. this morning. Our booth number is 3027.

This is approaching our first decade at the show, and there is some symbolism about the booth location, a spot near where one of our former competitors had a regular space.

In the earlier years of our business, I didn't think of participating in the show, but received a phone call out of the blue from the show organizers asking us if we could generate some positive advance publicity for the event. With no association with the event (and no advertising commitments from the show organizers), my initial thought was "Why should we do this?" but a sixth-sense instinct took hold and I treated the show organizer's request with respect, producing a really positive story for them.

Then I learned that one of our then-new competitors had a booth at the show, and decided that I would see if we could match the competitor's presence.

The show organizers had red faces. They had unwittingly entered into an exclusivity contract with the competitor, barring us from the show. (They thought the restrictions would apply to another publisher, not us -- they didn't know about us until shortly before their request for publicity.)

In other words, we had provided the show a favour without expectation of return, and the show, bound by a conflicting contract, had to favour only our immediate direct competitor.

One rule of business is that any situation which is obviously unfair and unreasonable will "correct" even if legal contracts suggest it shouldn't be possible. This is the art of interpretation and is how judges work around messy situations in the court room, and how honorable business people work around messes in practice.

The show organizers quickly worked with us on some special co-operation, including granting me a special "unofficial" presence on the show floor as an exhibitor without a booth! Next year, they discovered a work-around; the show had another section where we could participate. The location wasn't quite as good as our competitor, but they threw in free carpeting, electrical and other goodies, reducing our costs and making the whole experience worthwhile.

This year, our competitor is not at the show. And we now have the competitor's former space.

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Strengths and weaknesses

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Of course we need to work within our weaknesses, but in business, we should focus on our strengths.

I thought about this yesterday evening, returning home from a board of directors meeting of the Ottawa Construction Specifications Chapter where I committed to a Jan. 12 presentation on social media and online marketing.

Our son, Eric, had just arrived home from a hockey practice that I had directed his entire team (I am the team manager) to attend.

Trouble is, I had sent him -- and the entire team -- to a practice that had been rescheduled, and two other teams were booked for the ice.

The "rationalization" for this scheduling error which disrupted the lives of 15 kids (and their parents), is the league co-ordinators revised the practice schedule several times and I had an earlier version. But this is not a good excuse. My job includes a responsibility to be careful about the details. (The other teams helped out last night by allowing our team to share the ice.)

I'm simply not very good at details.

This means I would not make a very good accountant. Sure, I can grasp the big picture and make sure that the overall business can run properly, but you wouldn't want me to balance the books!

Should we focus on our weaknesses, however, and let them dominate our minds?

No. The challenge is to figure out how to use our strengths to over-ride the weaknesses.

In this case, my wife (who is a detail person) agreed to check the schedule -- then she had to call on me to show her how to read the computerized entries (my strength, her weakness).
You certainly can enlist others to help.

Other weaknesses require your own attention and effort, generally if they impede in your ability to achieve your fullest strengths.

Sometimes you just have to get experience. I don't have experience in public presentations, but know it is important to develop this ability -- so the Jan. 12 presentation is a good start. If I fail, it isn't the end of the world; if I succeed (I will . . . ) it is a stepping stone to larger things.

Finally, sometimes you need to give special effort and hard work to overcome your weaknesses. the best way to do this is to use your strengths as a motivation.

I am a competent writer, and really good at journalism, but lacked any social skills or interpersonal relationship-building talent as a young person. This could of course be a rather serious barrier to a successful life. I solved the problem by fully expressing my strengths with an African adventure -- which then allowed me the opportunity to overcome many, but not all of my weaknesses.

The basic rule is this:

Do what you love, and you do well, and you will find your weaknesses either become insignificant as others compensate, or you have the energy, resources, and ability to work around them.

But my son still gave me a (well-deserved) glare when he returned home from the practice that wasn't supposed to be.

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