Hi!

    My name is c.j., your trusted Sales Advisor, and here's the October 2009 issue of Psyche-Selling ^TM eNewsletter. 

    While we were having lots of discussion last month on Sun Tzu and the Art of Sales Leadership, many people were asking what’s the difference between a plan, and a strategy.

It’s also coincidental that some companies start planning their strategies now, and so this month’s content will be on creating winning strategies.  Hence, this month's topics:

1. The 3 Building Blocks of Formulating Winning Strategies; and

2. Mind Your Gap

  This issue's main article is on  "The 3 Building Blocks of Formulating Winning Strategies", and it gives a simple yet practical approach to formulating winning strategies. Whether you are the CEO of a multi-national corporation, or if you are a sales manager figuring out how to meet your sales targets, there will be some ideas to help clarify your thinking, and act strategically.

    In brief:

• While a plan consists of how you reach your goals, and how you allocate resources to reach those goals, a strategy will consist also of how you respond to customers’ and competitors’ responses;

• Contrary to popular belief, a strategy does not have to be always long-term, nor does it ignore the details.  In fact, if your strategy does not take into consideration of the details, you are likely to fail;

•  The key to developing winning strategies also lies in how you develop insights about your industry, your customers, your competitors and your internal capabilities.  Know yourself, and know your adversaries, inside out.   Read on... ...

    To read the rest of this newsletter, pls. click here (http://www.psycheselling.com/page4.html).

The 3 Building Blocks of Formulating Winning Strategies

by c.j. Ng

     With increasing pressure from the competition, the customers as well as shareholders, many managers responded with “We MUST implement a better strategy”.

     However, when asked what exactly is being done with the new strategy, the reply is usually along the lines of “we plan to launch a new product”, or “we plan to have a new sales/ customer initiative”.  Strategy seems to be related with some kind of planning.

     More importantly, most new sales strategies tend NOT to deliver the expected results.  Somehow, the managers either seem to miss some important ingredients, or don’t know how to mix the right ingredients with the right processes.

   In any case, here’s a simple yet practical guide to formulating winning strategies.  All you have to do is to master these 3 key building blocks:

• The Goal, and how to reach it;

• The resources required; and

• Responding to customers’ and competitors’ responses

The Goal, and How to Reach It

   Whether you are hatching a plan or formulating a strategy, it all starts with a Goal, i.e. what do you want to achieve eventually.  Before we even look at the steps on how to achieve this goal, here are some questions you may want to ask yourself first:

• Why you MUST reach this Goal?  What happens if you don’t?

• Does your team share your sense of urgency to reach this Goal, or do they have other ideas?

• Do you and your team BELIEVE that you can achieve the Goal that you (or very likely, your boss) set?

     Interestingly, most managers blame the lack of motivation of their staff and team members when goals are not met.  However, if team members don’t resonate with these goals, or in these days, they feel that achieving such goals will only serve to inflate the bosses’ pockets and not theirs, they won’t want to commit themselves to help you achieve those goals. 

   In short, if your team feel that it is your goal, and NOT theirs, they won’t make it work for you.  This is not a New Age gimmick to motivate younger Generation-Y team members.  Rather, making your goal feel as if it’s your team’s dates back 2,500 years ago in China when military strategist Sun Tzu mentioned the need to arouse your people so that they identify with your Goals.  He called it the Way; in today’s terminology, we call it the Goal or the Vision.

Having asked the question “Why this Goal”, the next question will be “How are we going to achieve it”.  In a nutshell this involves:

• How do we get there?  What are the steps involved to reach our goals?

• What other information do we need?

• How do you monitor the progress?

Some people set strategies and Goals so far out in the future that they could not answer the above questions.  Without providing the answers, such “goals” are at best “hopes”, and such “strategies” are more like general directions.  It will be difficult to get your desired results as such.  But if you do, you empower your team to take the appropriate actions.

The Resources Required

     Having passion and a drive to succeed is not enough to achieve your goals.  You will also need to have the right resources as well. 

     In many cases, companies whose strategies fall short of expectations make one of the following mistakes:

• Under allocation of resources to support a goal; and

• Allocating too much of the wrong resources to reach the goal

   The former tends to occur with companies with tighter budgets.  Some typical incidents could be when a company is launching a new product, it tries to save costs by reducing the manpower in the R&D department, or cutting the marketing budgets.  At times, when expanding into overseas territories, some companies even hire commission-only agents to develop those territories.

     The result of such under-allocation of resources is simply there isn’t enough coverage in the market to get the customers to know you, let alone getting a significant number of them to buy from you.

     On the other hand, companies that are cash-rich tends to waste their cash by spending them on resources that are not needed.  Typical examples are the Dot.Coms in the late-90’s and early 2000, where I a bid to generate “eye-balls”, most Dot.Coms simply advertise indiscriminately.

     The result is that the Dot.Coms wasted the cash which could have used in improving their product offering to attract steady revenue streams instead.

     Is cash or funding the only resources to allocate in your strategy?  Absolutely not.  Here are some other resources that you may want to commit to make your strategy a success:

• The right people with the right skills and attitudes;

• Machinery and equipment;

• Materials and ingredients;

• Marketing network, channels and connections

     Ultimately, no company will have endless resources to allocate or commit to a strategy. You may want to prioritise what needs to be one first, and allocate your limited resources accordingly.  Failing to plan, is planning to fail.

Responding to Customers’ and Competitors’ Responses

     When you take action, there will be either positive and negative responses from customers and competitors.  Here’s the difference between formulating a plan and a strategy: when formulating a strategy, you will have to anticipate what will be the likely responses from customers and competitors.

     If you get positive customer responses, expect competitors to exert their pressure, usually by providing similar products and services.  That was something Netscape did not anticipate when it was the leading web browser in the mid-nineties.  It didn’t take long for late-comer Microsoft to literally drive Netscape out of business with the Internet Explorer.

     Even when a new product or service fails, competitors can also learn and improvise from your failures.  Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) launched one of the earliest and most ambitious Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs), the Newton, in the late 80’s, but it flopped.  In 1996, 2 years before Apple decided to cease development for the Newton, Palm Computing launched the Palm Pilot, and it was a great success.

     Whichever the case, you will be imperilling your plans if you don’t take into consideration of competitive pressure.  Here are some tips on how you can counter-respond to the responses of your competitors and customers:

• Be creative and surprise both customers and competitors by doing the unexpected (出奇制胜);

• Think 2 products ahead, so that when your competitors start providing the same products, you can introduce the upgrades or the newer and better versions;

• Provide better quality of selling and create value to your customers.  While it is very easy to imitate the hardware, it is a lot more difficult for competitors to emulate how you serve and add value to your customers.

As illustrated above, you will need more than broad directions to formulate your strategies.  You will need to gain insights about you customers, competitors, industry trends and even the mind-sets of your team to make your strategies deliver your expected results

     Need more ideas on how you can improve your quality of selling, meet your targets and make your customers adore you?  Simply e-mail info@directions-consulting.com or call +86-136 7190 2505 or Skype: cydj001 and arrange to buy me a cup of mocha.  All information shall be kept in confidence.

Power Breakfast Hour: 11 November 2009

The 3 Building Blocks of Formulating Winning Strategies

     Join International Sales Leadership and Performance Coach c.j. Ng in this Power Breakfast Hour in Shanghai where he will be sharing with you how to formulate better strategies that will meet your expectations in simple yet practical ways:

About PsycheSelling.com

Sales... ...the lifeblood of a company, a matter of "life and death", survival or extinction.  Indeed, something that needs to be studied, applied and re-modified consistently.

Yet today,

• many companies still don't have a coherent approach as to how they can generate more sales and achieve better margins;

• many sales people are still lying to their customers so that they can meet their targets at the end of the month;

• many customers are still waiting ethical and professional sales people to help them find out their real needs, and provide solutions that work 

Psyche-Selling ^TM is set up so that companies and sales people can make healthy profits and STILL provide genuine solutions to customers.

Psyche-Selling ^TM would like to create an environment where customers can trust sales people to give them what they want, and NOT be pushed with all kinds of products and services.  In return, customers will become loyal fans of these ethical and professional sales people, and repay them many fold for the long-term.

Psyche-Selling ^TM will not rest, until the above is achieved.  Not just in China. Not just in Asia.  But everywhere where buying and selling takes place.

Psyche-Selling ^TM is a wholly-owned brand of Directions Management Consulting Pte Ltd that specialises in the field of improving sales performance by enhancing the performance of the entire sales team.  Apart from the regular "selling skills training", Psyche-Selling ^TM conducts pre- and post-training analysis, interviews, monitoring and reviews, working closely with managers and even senior management, to deliver real improvements in sales leadership and performance.   

Hence, Psyche-Selling ^TM would like to be known as the preferred choice of outstanding and remarkable clients, and pride ourselves as such.  We will also be continuing to assist our clients achieve greater heights in 2009 and beyond.

Enquiries and suggestions, pls. e-mail info@psycheselling.com or visit www.psycheselling.com