"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES: (Theme -- Sales and Marketing)
First, Thank you -- almost 1000 executives participated in our January live video program with Pat Lencioni yesterday (kudos to The Scooter Store and McDermott which had the most). February is marketing guru Seth Godin, Feb 10, 11:58am -- 2pm EST -- watch live or on-demand at your convenience.
Warren Buffett's partner, Charlie Munger, has called Chet Holmes "America's greatest sales and marketing executive." Chet ran nine divisions of a company for Munger, doubling the sales volume of each, most within 12 to 15 months, and again doubling sales for several years consecutively. "It was all in the constant focus on 12 competencies," explains Chet. And Chet's book The Ultimate Sales Machine has been #1 or #2 on Amazon in his category, ranked up there with Gitomer and Rackham. Michael Gerber, of E-Myth fame, wrote the foreword. I would encourage you to read his book, especially chapter 4 -- this is a serious book on a critical topic for 2009 -- sales and marketing.
Help Double Sales -- Complimentary Conference Call with Chet Holmes -- next Thursday, Feb 5, we're hosting a conference call with Chet -- 30 minutes of content, 15 minutes of Q&A -- 11:44am -- 12:30pm EST. Sign-up at this link and pick-up some techniques from a true master in sales and marketing. Chet is also the opening two-hour keynote at our Sales and Marketing Summit April 21 -- 22, New Orleans. A chance to test drive his content.
Case Study -- Maddock Douglas Doubles Billings in 2008 -- Five years ago Maddock Douglas was one of the largest privately held ad agencies in Chicago (founder Mike Maddock is an EO member). However, they saw what was happening to the ad industry--it was becoming commoditized - and decided they needed to reinvent their company. For years they had been helping leading brands launch new products and services. Today they go much deeper with their clients by researching, brainstorming, branding and launching new products, services and business models for them (since large firms are so bad at innovation). In Neil Rackham's terms (author of Rethinking the Sales Force) Maddock Douglas has pushed even further into being a consultative selling company working more closely with executives higher up in the organization. How could you take over doing more for your larger clients as they cut back their own workforces? How could you take over entire internal processes for them?
$2 Billion in New Revenue -- Today Maddock Douglas is the leading Agency of Innovation® with billings that have nearly doubled in the past year. 25% of the Fortune 100 are clients and they have created over $2 billion in new revenue for their clients. Besides being founder and CEO, Mike Maddock is a regular contributor to BusinessWeek.com (Think -- "Control the Ink"). This week he mentions the daily huddle as a key part of a culture that is focused on innovation and growth -- take three minutes and read his latest article.
Case Study -- Customer Cancels Reduced in Half -- not bad for a commodity business during a downturn. John Ratliff, founder of 350 employee Appletree Answering Services noted in an email to me "Well the results are in from our 4th quarter, 4th and 3 theme. We missed our goal by less than 1%. Our goal was 201 cancels and we had 203 or 3.02% of customers. Our second best quarter in the last 5 years was over 4.5% of customers, so a dramatic improvement. It was nearly half of our 6% average per quarter for the year. Obviously in this current marketplace we could not be happier!" The key to their success was picking a critical number, making it a theme, and focusing on it.
"The Power of 10" Theme Videos -- continues Ratliff "We are hoping to ride the success of 4th and 3 with our 1st quarter theme "The Power of 10" which combines a customer attrition goal with a new sales goal to yield $10,000 in Net New Monthly Base Rates in each of the 3 months of the quarter. No theme would be complete without a cheesy Appletree video so the links are below. It gets a little dry in the middle but that is the message for our staff and it was important to get it in there. We had to break the video in 2 due to YouTube's 10 minute limit." If you want to see how a company rolls out a theme, watch clip 1 and clip 2.
Two Outstanding Articles on why the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the Super Bowl this weekend -- the first on Coach Mike Tomlin (36), the youngest coach in Super Bowl history. Entitled "Secret to Steelers Coach Tomlin's Success: Take Note" my favorite line "For all his chattiness on the field, Tomlin was a deliberate thinker, given, a sociology professor said, to hanging back in an argument so he could analyze data -- the thoughtful approach he takes today when talking to reporters." The second article entitled Steeler's Owner Turns Business into Family is about owner Dan Rooney (76) -- may we all be business owners like Rooney! Both articles align with lessons learned from Pat Lencioni yesterday -- the Steelers truly have a "healthy" leadership and football team. Go Steelers!! (OK, I'm a fan).
Amsterdam, Ireland, Barcelona, Sydney, and Perth -- I'm on the road in Australia and Europe (living in Barcelona for a few months) leading Rockefeller Habits workshops -- stop in if you're in the neighborhood -- dates below.