There is a cure for the common cold call. Don’t do it. It’s not that it can’t work but rather that it is a very inefficient method (produces minimum results for maximum effort) that should be used only as a last resort.

Here are some ideas about how to approach an important decision-maker in a manner that has a much better probability of getting a meeting:

• Do research on them to learn about their business and personal goals, interests and experience. The more you know before you contact them, the greater the potential outcome of your interaction.
• Reach out to them through a common connection. This may be through the staff on an Association they belong to, one of their colleagues whom you know or somebody who knows them personally. If you don’t have a common connection, create one.
• Start the relationship in “learn” mode, not “sell” mode. If they want to buy from you, that can be determined after communication begins so don’t assume it. If it turns out that they are not a candidate to purchase from you but they like you (partially because you didn’t try to sell them), they may make a valuable introduction to somebody else.
• Develop a keen understanding of their concerns, which are often shaped by conditions in their industry so that you can speak intelligently with them about their perceived needs
• Email blast short messages with very appealing titles that indicate strong subject matter understanding of their industry, market and needs. If the title is right, the percentage of recipients who read it is dramatically higher.
• Create a new email blast campaign every Quarter and follow up every single email sent with a series of 5 phone calls that span the Quarter: 1 a week later, 2 & 3 spaced a week apart and 4 and 5 spaced a month apart.
• Be active in Associations where your target prospects congregate. Help bring in Members, with Events and make friends with the staff and with Board Members. They know the members and can open doors after you’ve contributed.

Achieveeeeeee!

Trying to build up the courage to take some risks in your business? On this page you’ll find free business assessment tools that will help you. They were inspired in part by reading “Shadow Divers” by Robert Kursonwill, which I’d recommend you read.

It will provide you with a compelling illustration of just what extreme risk looks like. A quick business assessment of this venture would have had large red letters marked “danger!”

What is Deep Wreck Diving?

Deep wreck diving is among the most perilous of human activities. These brave adventurers risk their lives – and often lose – in pursuit of glory, riches and perhaps simply to test themselves.

But what does deep wreck diving have to with business & corporate growth?

The business owner who considers such a risk is betting on his/her ability to win or, in the event of a loss, starting over. Is that you?

Important Questions: What are the risks?

This is one of the most important questions regardless of whether you’re doing a free business assessment or paying for one. In the case of deep wreck diving, for example, the risks are huge:

• Strong and very unpredictable currents,
• Limited visibility in which to get lost both inside and outside the wreck,
• Sharp edges and heavy objects on damaged/decaying ships and
• The almost inconceivable pressure on the human body when depths beyond 100’ below sea level are explored.

Every 33 feet you descend into the ocean increases the pressure on your body by one atmosphere. 95% of diving in the ocean is recreational and takes place in depths of less than 50’. Divers report that at 130’ the body starts rebelling, and at more than 200’ – where this story takes place – hallucination and even worse set in.

As if those problems aren’t enough, returning to the surface must be done very slowly – often up to an hour- with rest/recovery at specific depths in order to allow the body time to adjust. Those who return rapidly to the surface often do not survive.

Important Questions: What are the rewards?

What’s the Return on Investment (ROI) on such a venture? Financially, it would depend upon the value of goods salvaged from the wreck. The reputation or Brand impact for your Company would be measured in the ability to convert success into future business. The Personal Satisfaction from such an undertaking may also influence your go/no go decision.

THIS Opportunity

These divers report having explored the sunken U-869 60 miles off the New Jersey coast beginning in 1991 for 7 years! It was a boat that simply couldn’t have been there according to the war records of the Allies and German military. It was enticing yet far more difficult – 230’ below sea level – than other deep sea wreck explorations attempted by anyone. As a business owner, your assessment template should be based on the idea that you don’t consider something like this unless you truly understand the risks and are willing to take your chances.

How they did it

Meticulous planning, a very experienced team, operating as safely as possible and avoiding bad weather were just some of the keys to success. You can’t leave persistence out of the equation however. Lesser adventurers would have given up on this quest years before this team did. As you look at your own team, do they have the right stuff to attempt a major move? This is not a good time to perform an inaccurate assessment.

The Result

The divers ultimately did solve the mystery of the U-Boat. 3 diving companions lost their lives. The surviving families of the crew of the U-Boat were told of the fate of their love ones. Valuable items were recovered but the divers primary satisfaction came from solving the big mystery… by taking the big plunge.

Are you considering a big plunge? Think deep. And take this free business assessment that we developed just for you.

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You CAN set a higher bar, strengthen your sales team, your sales processes and drive higher sales in a matter of months! This straightforward PowerPoint presentation,“Build & Turbo-Charge Your Sales Team”, gives you a practical step by step checklist on what to do to make it happen.

Rank your current status A, B or C on each item. If you score an “A,” keep up the good work, if you score a “B,” focus on it & figure out how to do better. If you score a “C,” get some help re-engineering it or out-source it. Sell more right NOW! I’m allergic to long sales cycles… and you should be as well.’

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We have a 110 year old arts and crafts bungalow whose old basement with a very low ceiling is visited by mice every winter.  In 12 years as official mouse warden, I’ve trapped more than 100 mice and that’s a large enough sample for me to believe that I know at least a little about what works and what doesn’t. I’m a freelance Consumer Reports of mouse traps.

For years, my staple “tool” has been the familiar spring-loaded trap that sits on a ¼” thick 1.75″x4″ piece of wood. My bait of choice is thick, sticky peanut butter. The particular mousetrap brand I’m using now is from www.tomcatbrand.com and features a yellow cheese-looking platform to hold the bait.

Approximately 50% of the time that the bait disappears, I get the mouse. The other 50% of the time, the bait is gone and the spring is not sprung. (business consultant brain is now thinking about the product’s effectiveness and conversion rates as this tale unfolds)

Then, I saw a new product at the hardware store that worked like catnip on me: the Ortho Home Defense Max … now get this… “Kill and Contain™” Mouse Trap.

Unlike the traditional trap, this trap offers several appealing advantages:

• The trap is housed (Home™) in a plastic unit (contain™) with an open “door” so that there is less possibility of coming into contact with a trapped mouse – I can release the trap externally and drop the dead mouse (kill™) into a bag or waste basket (Defense™ accomplished). Marketing consultants refer to this as “convenience”.
• The bait loads from a backdoor conveniently into a tray so I can’t accidentally snap the trap on my fingers. Financial consultants call this “risk management”.
• The packaging is really cool. The plastic house has a neat curved shape and the lever to set the trap is a striking red. Marketing consultants call this “the cool factor”.

So, what’s the problem? I’m less likely to get hurt, it’s cool looking and I really like well -engineered gadgets.

Well, in side by side testing in my basement over many months with positions of both kinds of traps randomized, the darn cheap traps outperform the Ortho 3 to 1.

What’s the matter with those stupid mice? I’ve presented them with a better packaged, full featured solution and they keep “buying” the sensible solution.

The mouse of course isn’t the buyer. It’s the homeowner who, like me, is taken in, initially at least, by the packaging and sexy branding. I still hope the Ortho will prove its worth but right now I’m feeling like it was ME who was caught in the trap (some would call this “GOTCHA“).

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IBM’s Willy Chiu, VP for IBM’s Cloud Labs described how the company is working to be able to string them all together through virtualisation and cloud-based provisioning so as to be able to dynamically manage business services. “Ultimately, it’s all about changing the economics of enterprise computing. It’s all about boosting efficiency. And it’s about doing more with less.”

Before Twitter, before Google, before Microsoft there was IBM. The gold standard of corporate excellence was a proud organization and the “men of IBM” wore blue suits with white ties. IBM stood for reliability and innovation. It was the “go to” equipment choice – don’t bother considering the alternatives.

But dominance led to complacency and IBM lost its way. This loss of prestige and power was personified by its inability to understand young Bill Gates who clearly outmaneuvered IBM in Microsoft’s early days. Since then, the proudest of U.S. corporations has been quiet for a long time. Its biggest news was its 2004 $1.75B sale of its PC business to the Lenovo Group. IBM once dominated this business but failed to keep pace with Dell and Hewlett Packard.

Can IBM rise once more and be king? Stay tuned.

–Art Jacoby