"That person is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; who has earned the appreciation of honest critics and endured the betrayal of false friends; who appreciates beauty and finds the best in others; who leaves the world bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; who knows that even one life breathes easier because he or she has lived. This is to have succeeded." ... Ralph Waldo Emerson

In business, the fastest way to improve on your success and long-term profit is to educate your people, your prospects, your vendors, your prospects, and your customers - GET THEM to BUY what you are offering. Stop wasting time on the 5% of your company that costs the most and often does the least - Sales and Marketing.

The Best Way to "Sell" is by NOT SELLING: For Owners and CEOs, optimal sales are achieved not by concentrating on Sales or the Sales Force, but rather by example - and by teaching and encouraging your every Staff Member, Asssociate, Employee and Vendor to educate your prospects and customers in how they will gain by buying and adopting your products and services. As soon as you provide a copy of the e-Handbook Higher Margins to your people, it will begin doing 95% of the work for you.

You can call it Zen or Empathy or any other name, but the bottom line is that it is what we all want: good information that helps US - in a pressure-free environment.

Start Enjoying Business More While Enjoying More Business. You will gain a LOT more profit by teaching all of your people how NOT to SELL! Read excerpts from John's e-Handbook or see his Free Papers

Instead of you or your people constantly trying to more put lipstick on the Pig (Product)to increase orders and profits, admit that all pigs occasionally smell bad.

Customers ONLY buy what THEY need to achieve THEIR goals, desires and solutions. What John calls the "Reverse Sale" has been summed up very well in the book: "High Probabilitiy Selling" by Jaques Werth. It is available in paperback at Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/High-Probability-Selling-Re-Invents-Process/dp/0963155032

Contact: mail@johncschuler.com   Web Site: www.johncschuler.com

The key to improving revenue and profit over time is to the Improve Education and Motivation for everyone across your company. While maintaining operations.

Fortunately, this can be now done effectively and affordablly.

"We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure." Gerald Brenan, (1894–1987) British writer who spent much of his life in Spain.

The Strategic CEO is both a Leader and Teacher. And now, a new eHandbook makes the job of educating (and thus motivating) all your people quick, easy and inexpensive.

The United States Army War College Handbook ... defines STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP as, "...the process used by a leader to affect the achievement of a desirable and clearly understood vision - by influencing the organizational culture, allocating resources, directing through policy and directive, and building consensus within a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous global environment which is marked by opportunities and threats."
            Ref: Strategic Leadership Primer, 2nd ed. United States Army War College, 2004

By educating and motivating all the people in your company - Sales and Non-Sales alike - you can dramatically improve the Effectiveness of Your Customer Acquisition and Retention process in your firm. To read more on this topic, see the article at the bottom of this page, or click on the Free Papers excerpted from John's e-Handbook.

Just as the U.S. Army War College Handbook of Leadership helps military leaders, the CEO's Handbook: Higher Margins  gives you and your Staff a viable tool to motivate and educate all the "Non-Sales" people in your company. Because it is realistic, logical and entertaining, it will be embraced by everyone from clerk to manager across the board. It exudes common-sense and shares the value of real-world experiences. It is unique in that it Includes a Free Confidential and Personal Phone consultation with John. For more information, or to set a a free consultation today, drop John a line at: mail@johncschuler.com

By including and educating EVERYONE across your company - we will motivate even the quiet competent ones who were previously "idling in boredom". We can now turn all your "Non-Sales" employees into profitable Sales Assets who embrace prospects and turn them into Customers who then become Profitable Clients.

"Sales" is no longer just for the Sales Force.  Even introverted Engineers and Shipping Clerks will soon cope well with Prospects and Customers without breaking a sweat.

"Marketing" is no longer just the province of the Marketing Group.

Every person in your company will become a motivated and willing "Income Enhancer".

Whichever measurement of success you use at the moment, be it Share Price, Market Share, Net Margin, ROI, Revenue Growth, etc., it all starts with the Revenue Stream itself.

Adding more direct people to the Sales and Marketing Groups can actually diminish the Revenue Stream.  They can act as passive boulders that slow the flow. But now, we can turn your Revenue Stream into a River of Profit by increasing the number of tributaries that Feed the Stream. 

Imagine you have a small company with 10 people in Sales and Marketing and 100 throughout the company.  The 90% who are NOT in Sales and Marketing have most of the day-to-day contact with your customers and prospects.  They are the areas of opportunity where we can increase profits most dramatically. 

Forecasts: Many CEOs feel compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time with their VP of Sales just to get comfortable with the Current Forecast - in order to avoid unwanted surprises and ensure peace of mind.

Sales: More than a few CEOs get personally involved with the day-to-day management of Selected Accounts - because those accounts are key to this month's or this Quarter's Revenue Stream.

Profits: Leaving all the work of generating leads, getting sales and protecting profits in the hands of just a few people is no longer a formula for success.

These across the company gains are funded directly by the additional monies NOT spent in from fine-tuning (again) your prviously-isolated Sales and Marketing People.

To get started, send a confidential email today to: johnschuler@comcast.net

John Schuler © 2007/2008

The Situation:

In many companies, even technical ones, the "Sales Process" is poor to terrible - because it does NOT utilize the very strengths and capabilities taught to its own engineers – the basics of Observation, Measurement, Planning and Intervention

The Trap:

Even bright and capable CEOs with a solid engineering education, once they grow beyond the start-up phase, soon fall into the day-to-day "Sales" trap of "Tactical Concentration".  They focus on a few "sales employees" and key customers - instead of developing a viable Upstream Marketing Plan and implementing a longer-term Marketing and Sales Plan using ALL their people.

Why the System Stays Broken:

Most people HATE "Sales" because they equate it to "Peddling".  And most people, especially engineers, want NOTHING to do with it. So even CEOs who have technical educations and who should know better, devolve into the quagmire of using just a few sales and marketing people.

Definitions:

Marketing:  Offering a product or service. Usually a one-way communication via many means.

Sales: What we do AFTER the Prospect or Customer says: “No!” Using empathy and intelligence to help people make good decisions that are in their best interest: Only about 5% of all activity, even in a dedicated sales force is actually “Sales”.

Pedding: Trying to get money from another person by any means – harmful or not.

Prospect: A person who has shown interest in your product or service – and can afford it, too.

Suspect: A warm body; interest and financial status unknown.

Working In A Vacuum:
Even worse, these two groups usually work in isolation from their own expensive and often-capable talent pools - to "manage" the prospect and customer base. To quote Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford Business School: [*] " In almost every field there are accepted truths, or conventional wisdom, that guide decisions and actions.  And in almost every field, including medicine, many practitioners and their advisors are unwilling or unable to observe the world systematically because they are trapped by their beliefs and ideologies.

"[*] Jeffrey Pfeffer & Robert I. Sutton: Hard Facts Dangerous Half-Truths & Total Nonsense; profiting from evidence-based management. Harvard Business School Press Edition (c) 2006p14

By educating the employees and associates of today - who will become the Directors, VPs and CEOs of tomorrow, about the real experience-driven value of properly implementing and managing the Customer Acquisition and Retention aspects (Sales) of their future companies, we will all have done a significant service for our Students, their future Customers - and for our Society at large.

And since our Customers are the ones with the money, and they will get better solutions because we educated their "Support Engineers", they also will fare better and have even more money.  

Giving Back:

Now if we can just build into every person and graduate who goes through the "Customer Relations" course the desire to tithe to their Alma Mater ! (;-)

With some 30 years in training and leading technical people in the sales and applications-support of complex equipments sold to C-Level Executives and Factory Managers, I’ve seen much wrong, and some right, in literally 1,000s of companies in the US and Europe. Over the years I found that the method that is most helpful - for the companies who have the courage to adopt it - is the concept of doing "Applications" 95% of the time – and "Sales" for the other 5%.

Personality:
The three key ingredients for anyone to better interface with customers and help their companies succeed - all other things being equal – are intelligence, empathy and personality. 

In the Capital Equipment world where Million-Dollar-Plus Systems are the norm, the pre-sales engineer is the one with the personality and ability to intuit the prospect’s needs. The post-sales engineer is the one who is more-typically introverted, but has enough personality bandwidth to go into the field to help an existing customer – without causing harm.

Education:
The truly introverted engineers who have no desire to even attend a "Customer-Relations" educational class or seminar are often the truly brilliant ones who are point-focused.  They too are much needed in the overall scheme of things, but perhaps only in the background where they are more comfortable.  The key - as in all education - is to fit the teaching to the student. 

Fortunately, it is often possible to improve the Customer Relations aspect of the "Engineering Personality". For those Engineers and other Non-Sales people with the desire and ability, and who can understand and internalize the differences between "Sales" and "Peddling",  we can expand their horizons while still permitting them to maintain their self-respect and prowess. 

The Bottom Line:
In many cases, the engineers and other workers who later find they don't really like being chained to a design desk or manufacturing area are the very ones who are good candidates to become "Sales Engineers" or Field Applications Engineers or Customer Support Technicians. They can contribute greatly to Customer Satisfaction, Company Growth and Improved Margins and Profits.

For more information, send email to: johnschuler@comcast.net