It’s your business. You are the final decision maker; you are accountable to the board, or perhaps there is no board and you are the founder/owner. So where do you go when you need advice? Have you established a mastermind group or advisory board? Do you really have “all the answers?” Who questions your answers?
Toyota apparently felt they had done well by convincing the NTSA to limit the recall investigation. Oops. It’s backfired. Now the money they saved is going to be lost and more. The banking industry seems oblivious to the disdain of the consuming customers and is already finding “sneaky” ways to charge higher interest. They are also fighting Credit Union requests to allow the Credit Unions to lend a higher portion of their assets to small businesses. They never learn.
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Finding people is a consistent problem we encounter just about every time we ask CEOs or key executives what their biggest issue is when it comes to hiring. If it isn’t in the top three it is always in the top five.
Yet when you ask them what their process is to find top talent most reply in the same way, “We run ads” or “We post it internally.” That is the way 80% of all companies go about finding people.
Below are three real life examples of alternative ways of finding people. Read the rest of this entry
Readers of this blog know that I have postulated that the model for high end sales has changed; accelerated away from the traditional models to a trust based model. This also applies to networking; no selling, only building a trusting relationship. A colleague questioned me recently as to why I thought this was the case. Is it really simply the economy that’s driving this change? My response that was “no, it’s more than just the economy, although the economy is certainly accelerating the change.” So what are the drivers?
If you’ve been following the posts on this blog, you will recognize the similarity between the comments I have made about the art of networking with the comments made on the sales process. The sales skill ladder has four rungs: Product Base Selling, Solution Based Selling, Consultative Selling and finally Trust Based Selling. As I’ve mentioned with respect to sales, the first three rungs are salesperson oriented. The fourth rung is truly, genuinely, authentically client focused. We have the clients best interest at heart. It’s the same for networking!
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Yesterday, I got on my soapbox concerning networking etiquette and what I believe networking really is all about. And that is building trust and long term relationships. I mentioned that it is a long and difficult process. It is also highly rewarding.
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I’ve managed, somehow, to develop a network of colleagues who will often refer folks to me for many different reasons; potential clients, business owners, and increasingly executives in transition. This economy has become very challenging for everyone.
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