Ode To An Icon

A few months back we lost Zig Ziglar to pneumonia at the age of 86.  Born Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar, he was the tenth of twelve children who started his professional career selling pots and pans.  He became one of the world’s most famous salesmen, a powerful motivational speaker, author of 25 books and an icon to many in the sales and business worlds.  He is known for his pithy but memorable words of wisdom aimed at achieving business and personal success.  We thought it would be fun to recount and remember some of our favorites here.

 

“If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” – Zig Ziglar

“Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the ‘gotta have it’ scale.” – Zig Ziglar

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” – Zig Ziglar

“The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity.” – Zig Ziglar

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Zig Ziglar

And finally, a personal favorite and fitting for a remembrance post –“Make today worth remembering.”

 

We’d love to hear your favorites.  Just might be the one that turns on that lightbulb for someone reading, as Zig did for so many along the way.  Thanks for your passion, Zig Ziglar.  May you rest in peace.

Are your clients looking to the East?

If you are sales professional, chances are your clients are in some way invested in or impacted by a dependency on China.

We do a lot of research on companies for our clients here at Finlistics, and one of the most common themes we see right now is discussion regarding growth expectations and challenges in Asia.  With a total population of 3.9 billion people in Asia, and over 1.3 billion in China alone, this is a market that is too big for most companies to ignore.  That being said, there have been significant challenges in China to overcome due to government restrictions, economic challenges, etc.

A recent USA today article entitled, “China’s growth rebounds but still vulnerable” (USA today.com, 1/18/13, link shown below) offers some potentially encouraging news, albeit tempered.  You can read the full article, but in our opinion some of the more interesting tidbits are regarding the growth rate predictions and the government policies that will continue to impact growth opportunities for foreign companies.

Mark Williams of Capital Economics is quoted as saying, “Growth of 8 percent or so is about normal now for China.  There’s scope for a lot of people to be disappointed, because many still have an inflated sense of how fast China should be growing.”

The article also says “Chinese leaders are trying to reduce reliance on exports and investment by nurturing self-sustaining growth driven by domestic consumption but consumer spending growth is slower than they want.”  And that, “Consumer prices are especially sensitive in a society where the poorest families spend up to half their monthly incomes on food.”

So how might these dynamics be impacting your clients?  It never hurts to find out.  Are they counting on significant growth from Asia or China to meet their 2013 financial goals?  Do they have current business in that area that might be at risk?  Asking these types of questions may help you uncover new opportunities for your products or services.  At the very least it’s an opportunity to present yourself as a business partner vs. product vendor and to show you’re paying attention.

The full article,  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/18/china-economy/1844377/

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Pie In The Sky

If you sell for or into the tech space, you probably have “cloud” overload by now with all the news, attention and conversation about what most of us grew up thinking meant pretty, white puffy things in the sky.  Today there are public clouds, private clouds, consumer clouds, corporate clouds…..

The reality is it means a lot of things it never used to mean – not the least of which are big challenges, and big opportunities for companies and their service providers and partners.

Rackspace, an IT hosting company based in San Antonio, TX, commissioned a study by England’s Manchester Business School which was released last week and found that cloud computing allows U.S. businesses to slash information technology costs by about 26%….and that 62% of those same companies say that deploying in the cloud improved their bottom lines.

Sound like something that would get your clients listening?  The article, though, highlights something we don’t hear as much about.  It seems to show that the opportunity is not only getting your piece of the cloud pie (get it? – the pie in the sky – too much?) that’s clearly there, but may more significantly be sticking your fingers in the leftover pie as companies implement cloud solutions and find savings in their technology spending.

Manchester interviewed 1,300 companies in the US and UK.  Their findings included:

• 68% of US firms are plowing cash back into their businesses – using cost savings to improve and expand product lines, services and other offerings.
• More than 60% are using money saved to hire new employees, give raises and offer bonuses — employment at the American companies surveyed increased 28%.
• More than half of the start-ups surveyed said they wouldn’t have been able to afford on-premise data centers at the time of their launch.

So….the gist is….as Intel’s Jason Waxman is quoted as saying, “The more companies can save on computer infrastructure, the more they can spend on infrastructure.”  He calls the public cloud market “an astronomical opportunity.”

Where is your opportunity?  The cloud market is rapidly getting crowded.  And no doubt, the opportunities are big enough to share.  Intel’s compounded annual growth rate for servers is about 25% to 30% a year based on expansion of private and public clouds.  How can clients you support in high tech capture some of this growth opportunity?  How can your solutions enable growth in high tech companies that compete with Intel?

And what about that extra cash companies are saving as they make the transformation to cloud technologies?  If companies are spending it on new products and on their employees, what solutions do you have to support their efforts?  How can you help them more successfully launch or support those products?  Or manage employee processes as their employee base continues to expand?

That just may be the silver lining (and on that note, I promise to stop with the metaphors).

To read the article in full:

http://www.toptechnews.com/news/To-Save-IT-Costs–Cloud-Is-the-Limit/story.xhtml?story_id=111001U8UUSC&full_skip=1

What do Michael Dell, $500 million in cash and you have in common?

 

If you’re a sales professional calling on High Tech, most likely more than you think…

The Dell buyout announcement, whether it goes through or not, is a bold confirmation that the PC and High Tech industries are in transition and the players in these industries are facing identity and strategy challenges that may ultimately determine their long-term survival. 

Michael Dell is taking his company back to the tune of a $24 billion leveraged buyout, including $500 million of his own personal cash.  According to a recent article in USA Today, Dell plans on taking his company back in order to transform it from a PC-based tech firm to a player in the higher margin software, services, mobile, cloud and data center based businesses.  

Whatever the end goal, the common theme is positioning to compete and grow in a changing market.  And there’s no question Dell is not alone in their need to change.  Per the article, “Runaway consumer attention on touch-based computers has sidelined interest in PC makers in recent years.”  This runaway attention resulted in PC sales slipping worldwide 6.7% while tablet sales grew 75%. 

The Internet of Things?

This is pretty cool…..do you know what the Internet of Things is???

According to Wikipedia, “The Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects (things) and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure.”  Hmmm….plain English, please?  This video does a pretty good job….check it out!

How is your  businesses planning to participate in and leverage the Internet of Things? How are your clients planning to participate?  What effect will an Internet-enabled world have on you and your business….and on your clients?  How can you help?  Something to think about…

New Year’s Resolutions – Companies have them too!

What are your resolutions this year?

Exercise more, spend more time with the family, climb Mt. Everest?  Whatever those things are, we set out every January 1st vowing to accomplish them during the new year. Most of us set our goals by looking at where we are, what we would like to do differently or better, and make a commitment to change in the upcoming year.

Your company likely has set new goals for the upcoming year as well.  And, you most likely have new sales goals to go along with them.  So, not surprisingly, you can bet your clients have set new goals, too.

Do you know what they are?

Mnemonic – quick! What does it mean?

We all learned tons of them as kids: ROY G BIV– the colors of the rainbow; Every Good Boy Does Fine – the lines on the treble clef as you learn to read music; righty tighty, lefty loosy – how to turn a screw;  Thirty days hasSeptember – days in the months; and on and on.  A Mnemonic is a device, such as an image, rhyme, or figure of speech, used to assist learning or memory.

 So here’s a new one for you – enABLe.  How do you improve your sales?  You show how your solutions enABLe results for your clients.  Remember these three things when you pitch business….Prove how your solutions…

A – Align with your clients key goals

B – Make sense in terms of Business logic

L – Create Lasting benefits for their business