In October 2006 I wrote a blog entry about Steve Jobs speech to Stanford graduates. It was a classic speech …. interesting, informative, from the heart and great advice.

Today I came across an article based upon the book Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward by Jeffrey S. Young. The article was written by Bob Hill and published in the eletter distributed by Business Briefs. Phew … I hope I have given everyone credit here that needs credit … but at the end of the day these are words of wisdom are from Steve Jobs, and worth repeating.

Steve Jobs 12 Rules of Success …

1. Do what you love to do. Find your true passion. Make a difference. The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

2. Be different. Think different. Better to be a pirate than to join the navy. (damn … I joined the Navy!)

3. Do your best at every job. Don’t sleep! Success generates more success so be hungry for it. Hire good people with a passion for excellence.

4. Perform SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper. Don’t hesitate to throw bad apples out of the company.

5. Be entrepreneurial. Look for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be acted upon quickly and decisively and jump through that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

6. Start small, think big. Don’t worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. Put a ding in the universe.

7. Strive to become a market leader. Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there’s a better technology available, use it regardless of whether or not anyone else is using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.

8. People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don’t know about it, they won’t buy your product. Pay attention to design. We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them. Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

9. Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you’re at the top of the chain, sometimes people won’t give you honest feedback because they’re afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those who will use your product – listen to your customers first.

10. Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower. Delegate. Let other top executives do 50% of your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say no to 1,000 things to make sure you don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation. Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.

11. Learn from failures. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

12. Learn continually. There’s always “one more thing” to learn.Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don’t like, learn to like them – praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies openly, but honestly.

It is hard to argue with success and Steve Jobs has enjoyed plenty … perhaps you can find some nuggets here to help you on your journey.

I have many times referred to the Canadian Professional Sales Association (CPSA), their services, the benefits to members (including great hotel prices) but their greatest benefit is … good, solid advice for sales professionals.

There are too many people who call themselves sales people and give the profession a bad name.

The legacy of the fast talking, slick “teflon man” salesperson is a hard one to break from … and it is only through a professional approach to selling that we can regain our credibility.

Our focus as sales people is to understand our client’s needs … to listen.
We need to be able to help our client’s solve their busines issues … to understand their pain.
We need to be able to match our service or product, where applicable, to the client’s issues … that is selling.

If we don’t have a good answer for our clients then walk away … DON’T shove a square peg in a round hole.

If we don’t understand our client’s needs then DON’T push a solution on a client, when you don’t know their pain.

The latest CPSA online magazine had a nice story that I’m sure we have all seen in action … the high pressure sales person who shows up uninvited at the office. No appointment, pushy and the epitome of what should NOT happen in sales.

Read about this one … when they show up at my office I just tell them to go away. This article is from the CPSA magazine, which you can access at their website .

How NOT to Conduct a Sales Call
Craig James

Last week I was sitting in the waiting area of a prospect’s office when a young salesperson from one of the telephone companies entered. The office was a small one, with about five employees – the owner, two consultants, an admin, and the office manager. After introducing himself, the salesperson – whom the office manager had never met – launches immediately into his pitch. When he’s finished, about 45 seconds later, the office manager politely informs him that they already have phone service, that they’ve been quite happy with it, and that she doesn’t see any reason to make any changes.

Now, I’m secretly hoping our salesperson can demonstrate his selling skills by recovering from his first two major faux pas (marching in unannounced without an appointment, and launching into a pitch before asking a single question), and deal with this bit of sales resistance in an effective and professional way.

The salesperson responded by pointing out to the office manager a capability that wasn’t being provided by the incumbent provider. Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it? But what if it was a capability the office had no current use for, nor foresaw any future use for, such as international calls? As it turns out, our salesperson got lucky – the capability was one that they could benefit from, but which they hadn’t ever thought to consider.

“You know,” replied the office manager, “we just might need that capability. However, I’m a bit rushed right now – it’s Friday and I have to get our payroll done. Why don’t you just leave me some information, and I’ll call you next week?” Our salesperson’s response was, to my dismay, “I can review this with you right now and give you a quote – it’ll just take a few minutes.” To which our harried office manager replied, “Look, I just told you I don’t have the time for this now…and besides, you just walked in here without an appointment, I don’t know you…we don’t do business like this. I’ll review what you leave and I’ll call you next week if I think it makes sense to.”

“OK”, replies the salesman. “I understand. I’m sorry. Say, I’ll be back in this area on Monday…how about I stop in and we can review it together, when you have some time.”
The salesperson feels he’s scoring some points here, both by apologizing and by being assertive in proposing a next step. So is there a problem here? Well, the apology is a good move, but by plowing ahead with this offer fast on the heels of her admonition about his approach, he’s evincing a lack of appreciation for the effect his cumulative performance is having on the office manager’s impression of him – that of an overly aggressive, self-interested salesman.

And to top it all off, when the office manager says, in so many words, “Thanks, but no thanks”, our friend has the bad sense to say, “Well, [Company name] requires us to try to get an appointment. As if the prospect gives a hoot what the salesperson’s company wants!

What sales postulates jumped out at me as I was sitting there, doing everything I could to restrain myself from leaping up and giving him a free, impromptu training session?

1. Don’t just drop in on prospects – schedule an appointment. We know cold phone calls are often perceived as being intrusive; imagine how an in-person cold call is perceived. Be professional – schedule an appointment.
2. Treat every person – including and especially the office manager or administrative staff – with respect. Not only is treating someone with disrespect in and of itself inappropriate and unacceptable, it’s strategically foolish. If that person is the gatekeeper to the decision-maker, your disrespect will have just ensured that gate will stay closed forever.
3. Respect the prospect’s wishes. Don’t answer with a reply that says, in effect, “I’m going to ignore what you said.” Always put your prospect’s needs ahead of yours–always.
4. Take your cues from your prospect. If she’s eager to engage with you, do so. If she’s interested but not eager, or just doesn’t have the time, acknowledge that, and be willing to play by her rules for now until you’ve developed a level of trust that permits you to regain control.
5. Ask questions first to determine if there are any unmet needs, and, if there are, what they are.
6. Never appear to be self-serving. Your job is persuade a qualified prospect that your offering is the best option for him or her. Do that, and you will, as a by-product, achieve your own goals.

About the Author:

Craig James President of Sales Solutions has over twelve years’ experience in sales and sales management, primarily in technology and software.

I read an interesting article in CEO magazine (online) about the power of passion. The sub title was … How your company thinks about customers determines your revenue.

Its an interesting way of looking at things and in many ways it is dead on. If you have a total focus on satisfying the needs of your customers, providing great customer service and ensure that your whole company focus is on making customer’s happy then the article suggests that you will reap the rewards of growth.

Certainly the opposite is true … if you don’t focus on your customers and meeting their needs then your client base is likely to suffer and you will NOT get growth! It is also true that it is possible to get lots of revenue growth, with no profit attached … and who wants that?

One of the lessons that I have learned over the years is that customers are very demanding and as a company we need to find ways to meet their demands … but that has to be balanced with a pragmatic realisation that we also need to make money.

If you have the happiest customers in the World but in order to keep them happy you are spending more than you are making, sooner or later you are in trouble! Your customers won’t remain happy for long if you are going out of business!

That seems to be so basic as to not even be worth stating … but demanding clients, over enthusiastic sales people and “opportunity” can very easily lead to deals that don’t make sense.

A recent situation in our industry (IT staffing) saw a large client demanding that suppliers offer extremely low markups … OK, if the volume is there and you can keep costs in line you can get aggressive with markups, no problem … BUT there were tool fees, tenure discounts, volume discounts and early payment discount layered on top. It didn’t take a mathematician to understand there was no money to be had and all this client will end up with is suppliers who will quickly realise they needed to to working with their OTHER clients! A classic Lose-Lose scenario … I wonder if the experts at AT Kearney were involved!

The mix was perfect … a big client, offering a big spend, a multi step procurement process that saw companies invest in the process and therefore not be eager to walk away, an overly aggressive procurement person pushing people for decisions “on the spot” and economic conditions that mean most suppliers need new business.

The right answer … walk away. This is a client who will never be happy.

So … back to the article. Make sure you have the RIGHT clients, that they are in fact ABLE to be happy … and service the heck out of them. That is a recipe for success.

Sometimes volunteering can be frustrating … like many business owners I volunteer a fair bit of my time to my industry association, to various charitable organizations and to help out people who ask me for help.

I do it for lots of reasons … nobody forces me to do it. I could just focus entirely on my business and that would probably translate into growth.

I do it because I really believe it is my duty to give back.
I do it because I believe I can make a difference.
I do it because it needs doing … and if I don’t do it then who will?
I do it because I get some personal satisfaction from doing it.
I do it because I also believe that it makes me a better person.
I do it because the people who also volunteer are fantastic people who I am proud to work with.

I try very hard not to get too “bent out of shape” by all of the people who just go along for the ride. I do resent at some level those people who have the capacity to “give” but who choose not to, especially when they benefit from the work I do.

Resentment creates negative energy and I work hard to just let that go … but every so often I let it get to me. I devote hours and hours every month to my industry association … I can ignore the fact that many business leaders in our industry won’t make time to help out, but it really “burns me” when they can’t be courteous enough to return phone calls repeatedly!

There … now I feel better! Maybe I’ll publish names next time.

I have posted a few entries talking about various cultural and religious celebrations that Canadians in our multi-cultural society celebrate, but that are not always understood by everyone.

I find it fascinating to learn about these traditions, and it helps me to better understand the “differences” that make us all a little unique, but can also highlight how alike we are.

Today I will highlight a couple of very religious events … Eid and Rosh Hashana. In addition to these important religious celebrations there is the famous, but certainly less serious event of Octoberfest.

Keep reading to learn a little more about these celebrations …

Eid ul-Fitr

Eid ul-Fitr, often abbreviated to Eid, is a Muslim holiday celebrated after the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan, on the first day of Shawwal. Eid is an Arabic word meaning “festivity”, while Fi?r means “charity”; and so the holiday is a time to give to those in need, and celebrate with family and friends the completion of a month of blessings and joy. For 2009, Eid ul-Fitr will fall sometime between September 20th and 21st depending on the time of the moon.

Before the day of Eid, each Muslim family gives a donation, known as Zakat-ul-Fitr, to the poor. This donation is of actual food — rice, barley, dates, rice, etc. — to ensure that the needy can have a holiday meal and participate in the celebration.

On the day of Eid, Muslims gather early in the morning in outdoor locations or mosques to perform the Eid prayer. After the Eid prayer, Muslims usually visit various family and friends, give gifts (especially to children), and make phone calls to distant relatives to give well-wishes for the holiday. These activities traditionally continue for three days. In most Muslim countries, the entire 3-day period is an official government/school holiday.

Rosh Hashanah

Rosh Hashanah is a holiday celebrating the Jewish New Year and this year falls on September 19th. It is celebrated on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar and starts 163 days after the first day of Passover. It is a time of rest and prayer as well as judgment and remembrance, where God reviews and judges a person’s deeds in the past year. The shofar, an instrument made from a ram’s horn, is blown to awaken people of the Jewish faith and alert them to God’s judgment for the coming year.

During Rosh Hashanah the Jewish communities eat a range of symbolic foods at a special meal for family and friends. Some of these foods include, apples dipped in honey for a sweet year, challah (a round loaf of bread), and fish. Rosh Hashanah is the first of a period of 10 days known as the Yamin Noraim. In this period, people of the Jewish faith are required to carry out a process of self-examination and repentance. Yom Kippur is the last of the Yamin Noraim.

Oktoberfest - September 19-October 4

Oktoberfest is a sixteen-day festival held each year in Munich, Germany during late September (and running to early October). It is one of the most famous events in Germany and the world’s largest fair, with some six million people attending every year. Visitors to Oktoberfest eat huge amounts of food, most of it traditional hearty fare and drink lots of beer.

The Oktoberfest tradition started in 1810 to celebrate the October 12th marriage of Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig to the Saxon-Hildburghausen Princess Therese. The main event of the original Oktoberfest was a horse race.

Other cities across the world also hold Oktoberfest celebrations, modeled after the Munich event. In Canada there is an annual nine day celebration held in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, which attracts over 700,000 visitors annually. While its best-known draws are the beer-based celebrations, other cultural and entertainment attractions also fill the week.

Kitchener-Waterloo and surrounding area have a long history of German roots; Kitchener was formerly named Berlin. A large portion of the population identifies themselves as being of German heritage, and many still speak German well.

A friend forwarded this article along and I certainly thought that the underlying message here is worth repeating. If the number of emails I receive is any indication email has become the PRIMARY means of communication and we are all buried in the stuff!

Mark makes some excellent points and I would add or expand on his thoughts in a couple of areas:

1. If everyone is using email to communicate with their candidates and clients then actually picking up the phone will be a big differentiator … obviously there are time considerations, but if you can justify it then you have a great opportunity to be the person who actually TALKS to people … fancy that!
2. Seth Godin wrote a blog entry called FRICTION and it was about using mass emails to get messages across. Email that is not specifically for the person receiving it can be very easily deemed spam … and then you have lost the person forever. So, IF you need to send email think through what you are saying but also who it is going to. Better still pick up the phone!
3. Mark talks about the impersonal nature of email, the lack of emotion, the difficulty in crafting clear messages … email gets us ALL in trouble. This is not a rare thing … so pick up the phone when you can, especially for people who are important to you.

Read Mark’s messages .. a good article for anyone in the staffing industry AND very applicable in many other industries!

Nine Reasons to Call Instead of Sending Email
By Mark Whitby

As you read this article, take a moment and tune into the sounds of your workplace. Do you hear the hubbub of lively conversation, with everyone talking at once? Or do you hear the clickety-clack of keyboards?

If your sales bullpen sounds more like a “typing pool” than a “trading floor,” it might indicate an over-reliance on email. I’ve noticed that many recruiters prefer to email instead of actually speaking to their clients and candidates.

Here are nine reasons why that’s a bad idea…

1. You can’t build relationships by email. Imagine if you only emailed your friends and family instead of calling them. How strong do you suppose your personal relationship would be? The same applies to your business relationships.
2. The telephone is intimate – you have the chance to really connect with another human being. Email is less personal – you miss the chance to build trust and rapport with your clients and candidates.
3. It’s harder to influence other people’s opinions and decisions by email. Think about it. The telephone is a two-way channel of communication. When it comes to selling, a dialog beats a monolog any day!
4. It’s difficult to convey tone of voice by email no matter how many “smilies” you use There’s always a danger of being misunderstood and a perfectly innocent email can spark a negative reaction from the recipient.
5. Because you can’t read body language by email, potential deal breakers are much harder to detect. Clients and candidates can string you along more easily by email than they can by telephone.
6. Every conversation is an opportunity to re-qualify the candidate, gain leads, referrals and market intelligence. Much harder to achieve by email.
7. When problems arise, a quick telephone call is often all that’s required to resolve things amicably. On the other hand, a heated exchange of emails can quickly escalate issues past the point of no return.
8. You have no control over how quickly someone responds to your email. When you need an immediate answer, use the telephone.
9. Reading and replying to email wastes a lot of time. It’s easy to get bogged down. Instead of spending the first hour of every day in your “inbox”, spend it on the phone instead. I guarantee you’ll see an increase in billings.

When I first started in recruitment, we didn’t have email. Remember when you had to send resumes by fax or post? I’m not advocating a return to the dark ages of recruitment; email certainly makes our job easier. But I’ve noticed that Big Billers still spend a lot of time on the phone.

So the next time you’re about to write an email, stop and ask yourself: “Could I get better or faster results with a phone call?” If the answer is yes, then pick up the phone!

To download a free copy of “Recruiting in Tough Times: How to Increase Your Sales in a Soft Economy,” please visit www.FreeRecruiterTraining.com.

Mark Whitby is one of the leading trainers in the United Kingdom and works with recruiting firms internationally. An expert in motivation and sales performance, Mark is the creator of the best-selling “Recruitment Masterclass” audio program and the founder of the web-based recruiter training site RecruiterTrainingOnline.com.

Yesterday I was at a breakfast meeting in preparation for this year’s United Way campaign. We talked about the “goal”, about the “theme” and about some of the great causes that will benefit from the fund raising that we do.

We also had a guest speaker who is very involved with the charitable world here in Ottawa. His talk was powerful …

• he didn’t talk for too long, maybe 30 minutes;
• he told us a story about a famed US Vietnam pilot who 30 years after the fact met the guy who had packed his parachute every day. He used this story to tie his messages together;
• he talked about himself at a personal level … told us a couple of stories about his childhood, and people who had a positive affect on him;
• he talked about some of the people he has met in our community, and told their story … and how they arrived at a place where they needed help from organisations the United Way supports;
• and finally he tied it back to us and how lucky we are to be part of the “community of hope” as opposed to a “community of despair or even fear”, because both of those “places” exist in all of our cities.

The talk was effective, he engaged his audience and made his point. He didn’t need to “sell” us on anything, just reinforce the fact that there is a job to do … and we were reminded of its importance.

A long time ago, when I was relatively new to the sales world I learned that to be a good salesperson you really should become a good storyteller. If you can tell your company’s story well and truly believe in what you are saying, then as long as you are talking with clients who have a “need” then the “sell” doesn’t need to be hard.

If you are in sales are you telling compelling stories?

OH by the way … EVERYONE is in sales! The parent who wants their child to develop good habits; the friend who wants their “buddy’ to do something with them; the employee who wants a new role etc etc.

Think about it … become a story teller! AND develop interesting and compelling stories!

Community is a BIG word. It can mean the place that you live, it can mean a group of like minded individuals, it can mean a set of people with common goals, it can mean a group of companies in the same industry … whatever way you look at it there is an importance to communities.

You may not spend a lot of time interacting with your neighbours … but you are probably interested in preserving the positive aspects of where you live, and perhaps improving them.

You may not spend much time working on making your industry a more professional, better known and positive influence … but you certainly benefit from the work others do in that area.

You may not think much about the businesses in your “community” but generally they employ people, they pay taxes, they contribute to charities and they play a part in making a community what it is.

Some businesses and some individuals don’t give a lot of thought to contributing to their community … and that is a shame. It is a shame for the community, because those businesses and individuals gain from the community and are not “doing their bit” to help out.

At its basic level the community is vital to all of us, and in my mind we should all “do our bit” for the community. If everyone did what they could, this would be a better world.

Is your company doing the things a good corporate citizen should do … whether the company is a one man company or a multi-national, everyone can do something.

What are you doing for your community?

CANADIAN IT JOB MARKET – Mini update August/September 2009

General Observations:

In July Canada announced that the recession was over, and August saw Ben Bernanke also announce that the recession was technically over in the US. US retail sales rose at the fastest pace in 3 ½ years, however the US continues to suffer from the recession that has cost 6.9 million jobs since December 2007! August in Canada saw the unemployment rate increase to 8.7% but Canada did add 27,000 jobs. There is positive sentiment everywhere you look (at last) and various signs that things are “on the mend”.

More Specifically:

Here at Eagle continue to see a steady increase in orders from our clients. The GTA (Greater Toronto Area) continues to be the busiest market, and Alberta is “talking” about being busy but has not “got there” yet. The news that Encana is going ahead with its split into two entities will be a boost in that market, although the loss of 1,000 jobs coming because of the Suncor/PetroCan merger will hurt. Ottawa continues to confound, with some activity but nothing to cause celebration and talk of a Fall election (the 4th in 6 years) that will just shut down any procurement activity! Montreal and Eastern Canada remain slow, although they have been slower … so its not all bad! On the candidate flow side of things the flow of resumes has been consistently quite high over the last three months, with little variation during that time … again it is the GTA that is the hot spot, probably representing more than 50% of both opportunities and resumes that we are seeing.

The following are some facts/indicators we are watching as of time of writing:

> The price of oil is still in the $70 range which should result in the oil companies ramping up some projects. We are seeing early signs of this.
> Natural Gas prices have been hovering down at seven year lows recently and that has a big impact in the oil and gas world of Alberta in particular.
> The TSX moved up close to the 11,500 range and has been over 10,000 for a while … a positive sign.
> The Canadian dollar is strong, currently above 92c US.
> Prime remains at 2.25%, making borrowing inexpensive. This is good for when companies feel optimistic enough to invest!
> Ben Bernanke in the US and Mark Carney in Canada have both declared that the recession is “technically’ over.
> Unemployment is still bad … now up to 8.7% nationally but Canada did add 27,000 jobs in August.
> The Alberta government is forecasting a $3B deficit, (an anomaly for that province), so it will affect government spending.
> The BC Government introduced tax breaks for oil companies … which might poach some business from Alberta?
> Many sectors appear to be picking up activity … banks, oil companies, provincial governments and telcos all appear to be picking up steam.
> There have been few signs that any “stimulus” package will bring relief in the IT services sector. Hardware companies are benefiting from tax breaks but no big new IT services spending yet!

In Summary:

“They” said the recovery would be slow … and it appears “they” are right! The indicators we see suggest that we have made significant progress in the last three months, most markets are busier and in particular Toronto and its environs and getting quite “hot”. The Fall will be most telling as companies knuckle down after the Summer holidays are all done and the “kids” are back in school. Traditionally it is a busier time and we are anticipating a bigger increase in demand over the coming couple of months. Of course a Fall election could hurt the National Capital region, an “economic relapse” could hurt the whole country and a precipitous drop in oil prices would hurt Western Canada! We live in precarious times … so I am calling for (a) NO election (I read that the Bloc might help stave the election off), (b) lets all remain positive and spend lots of money to keep the economy going and (c) I am going to drive my gas guzzling sports car lots to support my Western clients (sorry to the Green Movement, I’ll support you when we are all stable again!)

Sometimes it is the little things that can give us satisfaction … and that is OK!

Yesterday I blogged about getting control of a VERY busy workload.

Today I put the plan to the test … and I feel better! I definitely got some satisfaction.

I did not get ALL of the things done that are sitting waiting for me, but I did have a productive day … I have been able to cross off some significant “to dos”; I did make a dent in some others; and I got a bunch of smaller things done. That feels good.

Here I am at 6:15pm feeling good enough to take a few minutes to blog! Even that feels good, because I have a personal goal of blogging “almost” every business day, so when I miss a day it weighs on my conscience.

Tonight I will do some catch-up reading and prep for tomorrow, and I feel much more in control.

When the world seems a little overwhelming, when the work seems to be mounting up and the pressure is on … you NEED some satisfaction. Maybe if Mick Jagger had realised that all those years ago, the lyrics to his song might have been different, something like “I am getting satisfaction” … or maybe he wasn’t talking about work stuff!