The Salesby5 Blog

Vision at 55, just like driving the speed limit, sucks.  Unfortunately, what you’ll find  is designers love putting together beautiful marketing materials that only a fourth grader can read due to the 8-point font.  Have a good look at all your marketing materials, business cards and websites to make sure you use a legible font and text size.  If the customers with the money can’t read what you put in front of them, they’ll likely toss your materials, rather than admitting that their eyesight is too poor to see what’s in front of them.  So make sure you use clear and concise words anytime you communicate with prospects and clients and you use a font anyone can read.  How do your marketing materials hold up?

This weekend, Pixar took top honors at the box office with Up, smacking about $70 million dollars out of our pockets and tickling the cranky critics. At the same time, GM is approaching bankruptcy and, if it clears, will be the third largest in the history of this country.

Why bother mentioning both of these companies in the same post? Although it would be insane for me to say that I know what that one thing was that sunk GM and made Pixar a winner, I will offer up food for thought. GM lost the race because they offered too many choices (aka brands) to allow for their success and Pixar kept it simple.

In 2008, GM manufactured Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, HUMMER, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling. General Motors began by purchasing different car and truck companies in its early years, but kept the manufacturing, looks and brand personalities separate. More recently, it merged different brands and models together. No longer was it clear to GM and its customers what a brand or model stood for and why it was necessarily different or better than its shared parts cousin.

Pixar’s history is quite different. Since the launch of Toy Story in 1995, Pixar has only launched one movie every one to two years. Pixar has been nominated six times and has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature 4 times since its inception in 2001. The company’s movies consistently earn well at the box office and are well received by critics and viewers alike.

If you review the mission statements/objectives of these companies, you will notice that GM’s generalized statement talks about providing their customers “superior value” from “products and services.” Contrast Pixar’s objective to “develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.”

When you overwhelm your employees with too many options, you make it difficult for them to provide a clear and concise sales message for a particular item. Additionally, it does not allow your company to focus on what matters most and what your company can be the best at. At the same time, too many choices confuse your customers. The decision becomes overwhelming and customers become lost. Could you slice your product offering in half, leaving more time to better your best offering? What effect would this have on your employees and your customers? I’d love to get your feedback in the comments!

As seen on MySA.com

A word that people can’t stop saying is “viral.” Everyone wants their ideas, videos, books, products and services to all go viral. On the other hand, we’re stuck making the same old boring thing, slightly repackaged in hopes that people will notice. What you really need is a dramatic difference. Notice that it’s not a minor difference, it’s not a slight difference, it’s a DRAMATIC difference. Eureka! Ranch, where the Swiffer Sweeper and the American Express Centurion Card aka the “Black Card” were developed, say that a dramatic difference causes organizational chaos and provides a 370% better chance of success and profitability. That means, you have to change systems, move people, add new support or whatever else is required to cause a massive shift. So, if you want your (fill in the blank) to go viral, be remarkable and do something dramatically different.

The video above caused my wife to repeatedly say “I wish we could go back and do this” is a perfect example of doing something dramatically different. After one week and at the time of this writing, this video had over 7 million views.

As seen on MySA.com

Thank you for joining us over here to continue, Innovate or Die.  If you hadn’t seen Part 1, head over to MySA.  In developing your product or service to be meaningfully unique, you’ll need to leverage three additional points.

Explore Stimulus

Exploring stimulus is a crucial component to the development of new ideas.  In typical brainstorming, people make a list of ideas to develop something out of nothing.  Imagine if you decided that you wanted to buy a new digital camera.  Rather than coming up with a list of features you’d dreamed up, wouldn’t it be easier and more effective if you reviewed different models for the features, benefits, designs and quality to make a decision versus trying to come up with a list of things you think you’d like?  Exploring stimulus when developing a new product is the same, where you begin with some building blocks to develop brand new ideas.

Leverage Diversity

Leveraging diversity requires taking different members of your team, even suppliers and vendors, and looking to them to provide new pieces of inspiration.  If you only ask one team for their view on a rose, they might all come back saying beauty.  Leveraging the diversity can yield different perspectives on the same rose including vitamin c tea, romance and rose water.  Bring in different teams and look at what different world views can do for your process.

Drive Out Fear

Drive out fear by applying a system to your innovation process.  Deming, who helped Japan rebuild after WWII implemented what we knew in school as the Scientific Method.  Plan > Do > Study > Act.  Plan what you’re going to do and what you want to test.  Do what you’ve planned inexpensively.  Study the results.  Act on your findings to adjust your idea.  A fail fast, fail cheap attitude is best in finding out whether your idea is worth determining that you should continue, you should quit or you should continue but adjust course.

My first real job during and after college was working for Candy. Candy is an amazing leader. From time to time, I’d blow it. I would fill out an application incorrectly for a client, miss an overnight shipment drop by mistake because I put it in the FedEx box instead of UPS or I broke the refrigerator. Each time as I would sheepishly approach her about it, she would respond, “If that’s the worst thing that happened today, you’re doing great! Most people can’t even say that.” She knew that I gave her my best. Some of these mistakes could have had significant impacts on the business, but she always maintained an amazing attitude. Of all the things she taught me over the seven years I worked for her, and there were many, her amazing attitude was the most powerful.

Now, working with the fantastic SalesBy5, I have an amazing team surrounding me, with another great leader. Sometimes, things don’t always go the way I need them to. Hey, mistakes happen. Every time, I think about how Candy would respond. I try my best to always issue the same response, and then help my team get back on their feet to get the situation resolved. For me, an amazing attitude is easy when things are great. When the amazing attitude remains even when circumstances aren’t great is when you see a true leader. Remember, leadership has nothing to do with your title; it’s an attitude. I hope I can live up to the examples set for me.

What do you think it takes to be a great leader? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

As seen on MySA.com

I never thought I could write this post! But my dreams, my memories and most of all, my desire to inspire others encouraged it.  Some of the people mentioned in this post have no idea that this happened!

It’s June 2009.  I took my family to Lake LBJ, 85 miles north of San Antonio, to a great RV park that has incredible views and is surrounded by the lake. As fast as we can, we are in the water, dogs included. The next day, the Salesby5 Creative Director and awesome friend, Kyle Derr and his family arrive for a day on a boat, tubing behind the boat and fun. During the 3rd hour, we found the “party” sandbar right off of Horseshoe Bay.  It was less than 3’ deep in the area where we parked and all eight of us got out and had fun. A few minutes later, Kyle realized that the boat was drifting far away and moving at a rapid pace. The anchor had not held. I dropped my life vest and started swimming towards the boat.  I swim in our pool and play hard with my kids all the time. I figured I was up for the swim, it was just a little further, right?

The boat was continuing to drift. I did not know how fast I was swimming but soon realized that it was not fast enough to catch the boat. I looked back to ask for help from Kyle and saw I was over 40 yards away.  No one could hear me and they were not looking in my direction. I kept swimming, seeing the white rope attached to the anchor and it was a good 7’ closer to me than the boat. I started hyperventilating and then I started to panic. I’d swam further many times, most recently with the kids on my back up the Frio river and down the Llano. This was different. I had no life vest, no one could hear me, I could not stand up, I had nothing but faith as I look back. For the first time in my life, I prayed for my life and my ability to get to the white rope. I was shocked that I could not hold my breath for more than about 4 seconds, I was not floating and was vertical in the water. The harder I would breath, the less oxygen I felt like I was getting. At this point, I felt I could not possibly get to the boat. Something was very wrong!

I did one thing right! I realized there was one thing, one thing that could save me. The white rope.  I began praying and selling myself on making it to the white rope that held the anchor. The rope was closer to me than the boat and I knew that after what seemed like 20 minutes or more of swimming, the rope was closer. Not close, but closer. Well, I sold myself by focusing 100% of my brain on the white rope and I made it. The memories continue to freak me out and I thank God I am here. I never planned on telling anyone this story, but I realized that it will not go away in my mind.  I think of it too often and there is a reason. The reason, in my words, is that you can sell yourself and others on whatever you choose in life. You choose to sell or un-sell. I sold myself and I am still in shock that I was able to do what I did in my state of mind and being at the time.

You are what you say you are. You sell you or un-sell you. I am at greater peace by sharing this in writing, as it has completely freaked me out for weeks. My 9 year old daughter and 6 year old son almost lost their dad to stupidity. It happens.  I got some extra time. Thank you to anyone who uses this to help sell yourself or others!

With the warmest of regards,
ERIK