… its commercials in India are better.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Why You Should Listen to the Great Wil Wheaton
Simply put, Evil Wil Wheaton is the best villain ever.
Now, while I’m not an English Literature major, I am a great researcher and after doing my research on what makes a great villain, and using the web to harness the wisdom of crowds (via the mighty Google), I believe I have a reasonably good understanding of what makes a great villain and why Evil Wil Wheaton, who shows up regularly on Big Bang Theory is the best villain ever.
Simply put, a good villain should be:
- real
Evil Wil Wheaton is a regular guy like you and me. He’s not a fictional superhero or a larger than life immortal that we know to be fictional deep down. - confident
Evil Wil Wheaton know’s he’s the man. - unyielding
He never lets up. Year after year he maintains his superiority over Sheldon Lee Cooper, our protagonist on the Big Bang Theory. - charismatic and manipulative
Never has there been a villain more charming. With the exception of our protagonist, every one loves him. - self-serving
He makes up a story about his grandmother to beat the protagonist in a card game in his first appearance. - enigmatic and fascinating
You can see Evil Wil Wheaton shining through in Fawkes, the antagonist to the heroine Codex in The Guild. - a hero in his/her own right
When the protagonist steals the new release of Raiders of the Lost Ark with 21 additional seconds in his third encounter, Evil Wil Wheaton organizes the lynch mob. - complex and deep
You know there’s more to Evil Wil Wheaton than meets the eye. - attractive and seductive
If Evil Wil Wheaton qualified for People’s sexiest man alive list, even though I have no idea what makes a man sexy, I have a suspicion he’d be there.
and, most importantly, he or she should:
- own the hero’s backside
When he goes head to head with the protagonist in his second appearance, it’s obvious that he just own’s the hero’s backside.
So what’s the point of all this?
Simply put, you should listen to the words of the one and only Wil Wheaton when he speaks. When he says you should spend more time back in the analog world, even if only for a few hours a day, he couldn’t be closer to the truth. Take Wil’s Word. You’ll be happier for it.
The Three Secrets of Successful Salespeople
A recent post over on the HBR blogs on the “persuasion tactics of effective salespeople” did us all a favour by highlight the three fundamental principles, drawn from socio-, psycho-, and neuro-linguistics, that persuasive salespeople use to break down our procurement barriers. By understanding these “heavy hitters”, we can keep our guard up and be more objective in our procurement processes.
- They speak in our language.
Successful salespeople understand that each customer (organization) has a unique language and they take the time to learn that language. This helps them “fit in” and leads us to believe that they must have a better solution, even if all they have is a better means to communicate with us. - They talk about our problems, goals, objectives, and values.
Whereas most salespeople will spend as much time as you will allow them talking about how great their company is, how great their product is, and how great their service is, successful salespeople talk about how important your problem is, what the best way to solve it is, and the value you will get from the right solution (which, by the way, just happens to be theirs). - They converse with you as if you are a friend
and not a sucker they are going to take for as much as they can get (even if that is their ultimate goal). They spend time forging a personal connection with you so that you will want to do business with them, regardless of how good their product or service is (which you will already believe in after all of the talk about your problems, goals, objective, and values).
So next time you start feeling too comfortable with a salesperson, step back and objectively judge the situation. What hard data did the salesperson give you? How does it compare with the competition? What level of service will you really get? And should you maybe be conducting (part of) this event through an e-Sourcing platform so you can focus on the relative value of the offerings to insure that you are only spending time in negotiations with providers who can truly solve your problem at a reasonable price point. And while a good relationship with the supplier will often be important to your success, a good relationship alone is not enough if the supplier doesn’t have the products or services you need.
DnB’s Mobile Capability is Good But …
… it’s no substitute for the real thing.
There’s been a lot of hype recently about Dunn & Bradstreet’s new Supplier Risk Manager Mobile functionality, and a lot of coverage on the blogs. I’m not going to say it’s undeserved, as it is one of the first enterprise applications in the supply chain space to make an effort to embrace mobile computing, but I’m not going to hype it either.
The reality is that while D&B are advertising three capabilities, there is really only one real use for the offering (and I’m pleased to say that, when grilled, they readily admitted it), which is:
determining whether or not an alert needs to be acted on now, or later.
A properly configured Supplier Risk Management System will be configured to send out alerts anytime something might need to be looked at — as the system will be ignored otherwise. When an alert is sent out, the first thing that a recipient needs to do is determine how serious the alert is and whether or not more research needs to be done and/or an action needs to be taken. With the mobile platform, that works on ‘Berries, ‘Droids, and iPhones, a risk manager can drill into the alert and see why it was issued (reduced credit score, late shipments, plant shutdown, etc.) and then drill into the supplier profile to determine what effect the reason for the alert could have on the supplier and/or the relationship. The manager can then determine if the alert needs to be followed-up on or not, and if the follow-up (whether additional research, a call, or another action) has to happen now or later. This is useful if the manager is on the road and doesn’t have easy access to the regular application or if the manager is just enjoying personal time and doesn’t want to drop everything to run to the [home] office to figure out whether or not something needs to be done — which could be the situation if the alert is for a major supplier of critical inventory.
The mobile app also allows you to search for suppliers and look up (random) company profiles, but let’s face it, that’s not something you’re going to be doing when you’re on the road or on personal time — especially when it’s so much easier on the full application. It’s neat, but you’re only going to be doing it when conduction sourcing events back at the [home/hotel] office. In short, it’s good, but don’t place unreasonable expectations on it, or they’ll be dashed.
Using Consultants and Advisors Wisely
Today’s guest post is from Robert A. Rudzki, President of Greybeard Advisors LLC, who has (co-) authored a number of acclaimed business books, including Beat the Odds: Avoid Corporate Death and Build a Resilient Enterprise, On-Demand Supply Management, and the supply management best seller Straight to the Bottom Line.
Maybe it is the urgency of the current business environment, but in the past few months we’ve heard about several large procurement consulting projects that did not turn out well. For a recap of some of the classic reasons for potential trouble, see my earlier posting on Consultants: Use Them Intelligently.
Two of the most recent stories that came to our attention involved different firms but a common thread: “success fee” or “risk free” procurement consulting engagements. For those of you who are not familiar with the practice, “success fee” or “risk free” consulting obligates the client to pay to the consulting firm a fairly hefty percentage of the “savings” generated during the project. Often, 30 to 40% of the first year’s benefits are due as payment. These arrangements are also sometimes known as “shared savings” engagements.
Beyond the large total cost of this option (often 3 to 4 times more expensive than the classic professional time and expenses approach), major challenges/drawbacks of a success fee approach include:
- Potential misalignment of interests between client and consulting firm (the client often wants not just negotiated cost reduction, but implemented results — along with fundamental transformation and capability building; consulting firms in a pure success fee or “risk-free” arrangement are incented to drive quickly for negotiated savings, and then depart for their next client.)
- Administrative and practical complexities of agreeing on savings calculations, and the potential of disputes regarding payments due.
- Unpredictable, and potentially unproductive, behaviours from client employees if the existence of the shared savings arrangement becomes known.
When a client asks us whether we would entertain doing sourcing advisory work on a success basis, we take the opportunity to have a full disclosure conversation on the subject. For example, at a minimum, Greybeard presents the detailed pros and cons, including estimated total costs for the project scope, for three options: professional time and expenses, success fee, and a hybrid of the other two. That information is the catalyst for a meaningful conversation. And, it enables the client firm to make an informed decision that is in its best interests, not the consulting firm’s best interests.
Thanks, Bob!