What is valued?

Changing our thanksgiving tradition, I served Jane and my 4 kids, 15,17,19 & 21 chicken marsala and broccoli rabe for lunch and chicken curry for our dinner. The reaction was surprising as we as a pack descended on the meal. With two home from college, it was interesting to see how years change the person.

I read the paper and news to the point of an addictive behavior. I see the angst and turmoil in industry and business, typically a reaction to a quarter by quarter or month to month basis as oil nears $100 a barrel. Living here in VT, I am surrounded by a sense of security and sustainability as companies like NRG Systems and Green Mountain Coffee compete globally and Orvis manages to “offshore” some of the tightest fly rods around.


Bottom Line: I have questions today, what makes good good? What makes great not good enough. Being from sales it goes down individual performance. How do others in the organization feel as special projects pop up and they not understanding how they are measured or how they impact the business? For me, job statisfaction and productivity came to mind.

Thanksgiving and a situation assessment ------>

A good friend called yesterday and I asked him if business value is enough, he said "I don't think so." That sent me back, but since I woke up this morning, I am back to the fundamentals. POWER who can make the biggest impact on today and personal value, where can I apply, to make some one's vision or miss on closer to home for them? The value of time, the most important element, in particular the timing when I decided to join thg, or who would of thought six years ago that I would be living in bucolic Essex, VT?

With the Thanksgiving this week, it is time to reflect inwards, for me, towards my family, to see how our mission and vision is aligned as a unit. We will under take our own situation assessment and use it as a way to develop onto the same page.

This holiday please feel free to share a situation assessment with your family, it could make you laugh or make you cry, and it is worth the time.


Bottom line; I am thankful for all those people in my life that put me in and gave me the opportunity to share this with each of you. I hope you print off at least one copy and share it with someone you love.

Trusted advisor relationships are not product centric.

Increasingly, Global 2000 CIO's are moving into the position from a business background and not a technology one. All are moving away from technical mumbo-jumbo into business discussions and for the topic of this discussion all are receiving hundreds of calls a week from well intentioned salespeople about a product or service will solve one woe or another.

I worked for companies who pumped out product after product, the proverbial, spaghetti on the wall. Unfortunately they were field tested when a sales person stuck a spec sheet in front of the client, because of a briefly mentioned business or technology issue yet to be solved. I talk with many product managers, many never spent a day in the field. Product pumping often starts at the top, one CEO went as far as saying lead with service X, if that does not sell, switch to product Y and if that fails move to service B. This particular company had a very high turnover rate and had up to 3 or 4 salespeople covering the account in as many years. So much for a trusted advisor relationship.

As a father of four kids, I hope that we all learn from experience. Here is what I learned;

Listen first and ask questions. Find out what the business issue is, find out how that ties to the companies vision and mission. Ask the person what they think the solution is, pull out the nuggets where you can add unique value and articulate your value.

Have product marketing talk to users about what is lacking in the market and build relevant solutions around those issues.

Have specific messages for each executive. Generic messages are just that. Know the business problems you are going to solve and defend your unique value with rigor and passion.

Boutique firms need to establish clear and concise value propositions that need to be clearly differentiated against larger competitors.

Bottom Line: Competitive advantage does not come from generic messaging. Marketing and sales campaigns must be aligned to problems and not products or services.