Posted by Robert Merrill on July 14, 2009 under uFunctional Values | 
I heard that. Stop laughing.
No less than the Harvard Business Review just confirmed what I felt all along—the only reason I can sell at all is that I sell for a company I love.
Read the third comment to the HBR article—it saddens me, but also renews my determination to be different. Right now, uFunctional is just me. I love what I do (most days, anyway) and I believe in it. Get me started talking about software-intensive businesses and how to form a combined team of bizzies and techies and create value by creating software, and you can’t get me stopped.
It’s a problem. I just posted a comment to Roxx Allaire’s post, “What are the 7 Keys to Success in Sales,” that a key skill is Listening. Oops.
If uFunctional ever grows beyond just me, I hope I have the courage to keep it a team that those who represent it can love, and summarily fire those who would undermine that.
Failing that, I hope I have the courage to scuttle the whole thing.
Posted by admin on August 25, 2008 under Concepts |
First, thank you for using your limited time to read this.
“Be Useful” is the informal uFunctional motto.
I learned this concept from Kari Myrland, my mentor in technical sales. “On every sales call, the prospect is giving us a scarce resource—their time. We should always give them something of value in return.”
I learned that business people were thirsty for straight talk about information technology. Even if we found out that our company did not offer products or services the prospect could use, we would spend some time just answering questions. I don’t know if we closed more business or not this way, but it made nearly every sales call feel positive and successful, and that’s important.
Now that I’m on my own, I still remind myself to “be useful” in every sales situation.
Another part of being on my own is professional networking. I’s not something that comes easily to me. But it helps me if I go into each networking opportunity telling myself, “Be useful. You probably know concepts, information, and people that would be useful to someone here. That’s your goal. Meet as many people as you can, and be useful.”
For some reason, this mind trick takes most of the stress out of networking. I don’t know if I generate more leads or not this way, but it makes those dreadful networking events less dreadful, and that’s important. If you struggle with networking, you might try it.
I hope this blog entry was useful to you. Thank you for taking the time to read it.