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The Big Picture of Business – Collaborations, Partnering and Joint-Venturing… Priority for Business.

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The biggest source of growth and increased opportunities in today’s business climate lie in the way that individuals and companies work together.

It is becoming increasingly rare to find an individual or organization that has not yet been required to team with others. Lone rangers and sole-source providers simply cannot succeed in competitive environments and global economies. Those who benefit from collaborations, rather than become the victim of them, will log the biggest successes in business years ahead.

Just as empowerment, team building and other processes apply to formal organizational structures, then teamings of independents can likewise benefit from the concepts. There are rules of protocol that support and protect partnerships…having a direct relationship to those who profit most from teamings.

Definitions of these three terms will help to differentiate their intended objectives:

  • Collaborations – Parties willingly cooperating together. Working jointly with others, especially in an intellectual pursuit. Cooperation with an instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected.
  • Partnering – A formal relationship between two or more associates. Involves close cooperation among parties, with each having specified and joint rights and responsibilities.
  • Joint-Venturing – Partners come together for specific purposes or projects that may be beyond the scope of individual members. Each retains individual identity. The joint-venture itself has its own identity… reflecting favorably upon work to be done and upon the partners.

Here are some examples of Collaborations:

  • Parties and consultants involved in taking a company public work together as a team.
  • Niche specialists collectively conduct a research study or performance review.
  • Company turnaround situation requires a multi-disciplinary approach.
  • A group of consultants offer their collective talents to clients on a contract basis.
  • The client is opening new locations in new communities and asks its consultants to formulate a plan of action and oversee operating aspects.
  • Professional societies and associations.
  • Teams of health care professionals, as found in clinics and hospitals.
  • Composers and lyricists to write songs.
  • Artists of different media creating festivals, shows and museums.
  • Advocate groups for causes.
  • Communities rallying around certain causes (crime, education, drug abuse, literacy, youth activities, etc.).
  • Libraries and other repositories of information and knowledge.

Here are some examples of Partnering:

  • Non-competing disciplines create a new mousetrap, based upon their unique talents, and collectively pursue new marketplace opportunities.
  • Widget manufacturing companies team with retail management experts to open a string of widget stores.
  • A formal roll-up or corporation to provide full-scope professional service to customers.
  • Non-profit organizations banning resources for programs or fund-raising.
  • Institutions providing start-up or expansion capital.
  • Managing mergers, acquisitions and divestitures.
  • Procurement and purchasing capacities.
  • Corporations working with public sector and non-profit organizations to achieve mutual goals in the communities.
  • Private sector companies doing privatized work for public sector entities.
  • Organ donor banks and associations, in consortium with hospitals.
  • Vendors, trainers, computer consultants and other consultants who strategically team with clients to do business. Those who don’t help to develop the business on the front end are just vendors and subcontractors.

Here are some examples of Joint-Venturing:

  • Producers of energy create an independent drilling or marketing entity.
  • An industry alliance creates a lobbying arm or public awareness campaign.
  • Multiple companies find that doing business in a new country is easier when a consortium operates.
  • Hardware, software and component producers revolutionizing the next generation of technology.
  • Scientists, per research program.
  • Educators, in the creation and revision of curriculum materials.
  • Distribution centers and networks for retail products.
  • Aerospace contractors and subcontractors with NASA.
  • Telecommunications industry service providers.
  • Construction industry general contractors, subcontractors and service providers in major building projects.
  • Group marketing programs, such as auto dealer clusters, municipalities for economic development, travel and tourism destinations, trade association and product image upgrades.
  • International trade development, including research, marketing, relocation, negotiations and lobbying.

Characteristics of a Good Collaborator:

  • Already has a sense of self-worth.
  • Has a bona fide track record on their own.
  • Have a commitment toward knowledge enhancement.
  • Walk the Talk by their interactions with others.
  • Supports collaborators in developing their own businesses, offering referrals.
  • Have been on other teams in the past… with case studies of actually collaborations.
  • Have successes and failures to their credit, with an understanding of the causal factors, outcomes and lessons learned.


    • Benefits for participating principals and firms include…

    • Ongoing association and professional exchange with the best in respective fields.
    • Utilize professional synergy to create opportunities that individuals could not.
    • Serve as a beacon for professionalism.
    • Provide access to experts otherwise not known to potential clients.
    • Refer and cross-sell each others’ services.
    • Through demands uncovered, develop programs and materials to meet markets.

    About the Author

    Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

    Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

    Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

Resistance to Guidance: Why Sales, Coaching, and Leadership Practices Falter

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Do you know what’s stopping you or your company from making the changes necessary to have more success? Or why prospects aren’t buying something they need? Or why clients aren’t adopting the changes they seek? The problem is resistance. And as change agents we’re inadvertently creating it.

Change requires that a complacent status quo risk its comfort for something unknowable – the probable loss of narrative, expectations, habitual activities and assumptions with no real knowledge of what will take its place. People don’t fear the change; they fear the disruption.

The Status Quo of the System

To understand why our status quo is tenacious we must understand systems. Simply, a system – for the sake of this article families, corporations, or individuals – is:

  1. a collection of policies, beliefs, agreements, goals and history, uniquely developed over time, which
  2. embrace uniform rules that are
  3. recognized and accepted by all and
  4. constitute the foundation of all decisions.

Because of the law of homeostasis (simply, all systems seek stability) any change potentially disrupts the status quo and will be resisted, even if the ‘new’ is more effective; even if the system seeks the change; even if the persuader is skilled at persuasion tactics.

Until or unless a system is able to shift its rules so that the new product, idea or implementation has the ability to fit in and new rules are adopted that reconfigure the status quo from within, change faces an uphill battle. The system is sacrosanct.

To get folks to change their minds or accept a solution and avoid resistance, it’s necessary to first:

  • help the system discover the differences between the new and the old,
  • help the system discover the details of the risk,
  • facilitate an acceptable route to managing the risk,
  • facilitate buy-in from the right people/elements

regardless of the efficacy of the proposed change or the need.

Our Guidance Pushes Against Stable Systems

Entire fields ignore these change management issues to their detriment:

  • the sales model fails 95% of the time because it attempts to push a new solution into the existing status quo, without first facilitating a buyer’s non-need change issues;
  • coaches end up needing 6 months with clients to effect change as they keep trying to push new behaviors into an old system – and then blame clients for not listening’ or believing they have the ‘wrong’ clients;
  • consultants and leaders have a high rate of failed implementations as they attempt to push the new into the old without first collaboratively designing new structures that will accept the change.

Persuasion and manipulation tactics and guidance strategies merely push against a stable system. As outsiders, it’s unlikely we can acquire the historic knowledge and consensus from all relevant insiders, or design the new rules for systemic change, for our ideas or solutions to gain broad acceptance throughout the system.

We can, however, facilitate the system in changing itself. Then the choice of the best solution becomes a consequence of a system that is ready, willing, and able to adopt excellence.

Obviously, having the right solution does not cause change: pitching, suggesting, influencing, or presenting before a system has figured out how to manage change is not only a time waste, but causes resistance and rejection of the proposed solution. So all of our logic, rational, good content, reasoning, or persuasion tactics are useless until the system is ready. Facilitate change first, then offer solutions in the way that the system can use it.

The question is: do you want to place a solution? Or expedite congruent change?

Listening for Systems, Facilitating Change

For the past 30 years I have designed unique models that facilitate change from the inside. Used in sales, and now being used in the coaching industry, my Buying Facilitation® model offers a unique skill set that teaches systems how to change themselves, and includes listening for systems rather than content, and a new way to use questions (Read Dirty Little Secrets (www.dirtylittlesecretsbook.com.).But whether you use my model or develop one of your own, you must begin by facilitating change, not by attempting to first ‘understand need’ or place a solution or idea.

I’m suggesting that you change your accustomed practices: the idea of no longer listening for holes in a client’s logic to offer guidance goes against the grain of sellers, coaches, and consultants. By listening for systems, by focusing on facilitating change and enabling consensus and change management, change agents are more likely to sell, coach, and implement.

I’ve written a new book (What?) to help you hear what others are really saying rather than just what you want to hear. I’ve made it free: www.didihearyou.com. Read it, and then let’s start a conversation. Let’s begin to think of managers, sellers, leaders, and coaches as true consultants who can hear what their clients mean. Let’s add a few facilitation skills and be the agents of real change with integrity.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.

The Big Picture of Business – Business Moving Forward from the Dirty Side of the Recession.

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The economy and business climate are now on the dirty side of the recession. Recognizing the damages done results in healthier run companies for the future.

This is comparable to what is called the ‘dirty side’ of a storm, hurricane or other weather created disaster. During those clean-up periods, the infrastructure rebuilds and optimistically moves forward by correcting certain damages done by the storms.

Signs are that our economy has somewhat recovered from the second worst recession in history. Many companies kept their heads in the sand during the economic downturn, fully intending to return to business as usual.

What happened in the recession was that many businesses went under. In my professional opinion, 25% of those that faded away probably should have. A great many frail companies were not on firm foundations and had abdicated their abilities to improve and serve customer bases.

As fallout from the recession, many people were thrown into the workforce. Many fell into jobs for which they were not suited. Many downsized and out-of-work people were forced to reinvent themselves.

Many became ‘consultants’ of one sort or another. Many fell victim to frauds and scams. Services and websites sprung up to capitalize upon the avalanche of new entrepreneurs. Some sites offered the platform to become a consultant with a national firm by paying them subscription fees. The already inflated world of “reputation management” websites lured people into buying advertising in order to create the facade of being a “consultant.”

Distinctions must be drawn into three consulting categories (and percentages of their occurrence in the marketplace):

  1. Vendors selling products which were produced by others. Those who sell their own produced works are designated as subcontractors. (82.99%)
  2. Consultants conduct programs designed by their companies, in repetitive motion. Their work is off-the-shelf, conforms to an established mode of operation, contains original thought and draws precedents from experience. (17%)
  3. High level strategists create all knowledge in their consulting. It is original, customized to the client and contains creativity and insight not available elsewhere. (.01%)

As one distinguishes past vendors and subcontractors, there are six types within the 18% which constitute consultants (with their percentages in the marketplace):

  1. Those who still lead in an industry and have specific niche expertise. (13.5%)
  2. Those who were downsized, out-placed or decided not to stay in the corporate fold and evolved into consulting. (28%)
  3. Out of work people who hang out consulting shingles in between jobs. (32%)
  4. Freelancers and moonlighters, whose consultancy may or may not relate to their day jobs. (16%)
  5. Veteran consultants who were trained for and have a track record in actual consulting. That’s what they have done for most of their careers. (2%)
  6. Sadly, there is another category: opportunists who masquerade as consultants, entrepreneurs who disguise their selling as consulting, people who routinely change niches as the dollars go. (8.5%)

Clients are confused and under-educated, not able to discern the ‘real deal’ consultants from the hype. That is why those of us who are veterans write these articles, speak and advise on best practices. Enlightened clients hire real consultants and get great value, as opposed to companies who fall prey to under-prepared resources.

There are five generations in workforce, more than any time in our history. Each generation has different working styles and must be considered according to their attributes. Age discrimination for workers over 40 is rampant and cruel.

Workplace illiteracy is higher than ever before. 50% of employees in the business world are considered functionally illiterate.

Society must not be lulled into a false sense of security right now,. The recovery phase of the recession has been steady and real. Much of the damage was done and will take years to fix. This could cause the next recession.

I believe that small business is resilient and will try its best to stay on firm grounding. Wise entrepreneurs will bring in qualified mentors, as opposed to wanna-be consultants. Cool heads will prevail, and small business will recover and prosper.

Small business has learned many lessons from the recession. While some will still fight change and adhere to the same processes that got them into trouble, I see great opportunities for forward-focused businesses.

The biggest source of growth and increased opportunities in today’s business climate lie in the way that individuals and companies work together. Those who benefit from collaborations, rather than become the victim of them, will log the biggest successes in business years ahead.

About the Author

Hank MoorePower Stars to Light the Business Flame, by Hank Moore, encompasses a full-scope business perspective, invaluable for the corporate and small business markets. It is a compendium book, containing quotes and extrapolations into business culture, arranged in 76 business categories.

Hank’s latest book functions as a ‘PDR of business,’ a view of Big Picture strategies, methodologies and recommendations. This is a creative way of re-treading old knowledge to enable executives to master change rather than feel as they’re victims of it.

Power Stars to Light the Business Flame is now out in all three e-book formats: iTunes, Kindle, and Nook.

More BIG Questions and BIGGER Answers

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Here are a few more sales, business, and life answers that can help you make more sales TODAY, and help you build a personal brand and reputation FOREVER.

1. Jeffrey, what do you do EVERY DAY to build attraction and brand?

What do you do to create consistency in your daily business habits? And I wonder how many of your daily habits take the long-term view. Or are you just trying to make sales to make quota? Big mistake.

I want to talk about one element of your personal business habits: Your personal outreach, your daily outreach that builds attraction, personal brand, authority, known expertise, recognition, position in your industry, Google rank, social media presence, top of mind awareness, and reputation. Oh, that.

Sounds like a LOT of work. But actually it takes LESS time than your morning bathroom routine once you’re set up and rolling. And these are habits that create attraction. Real attraction. Value attraction.

The cool part is it costs (almost) nothing. All you have to do is allocate the time, and (most important) commit to DAILY OUTREACH.

Here are two of my consistent actions:

  • Blog or personal website. A starting place, a landing place, and a jumping off place for stories, ideas, opinions, photos, videos, training, and anything else your customers or followers would find BOTH interesting and valuable. On a blog you can mix business and personal, as long as it’s not offensive. Your posts can be subscribed to and delivered by email. OUTREACH: Blog with a minimum of a weekly, if not daily, post. You have unlimited space for text, photos, and videos. Your blog is an opportunity for people to realize both your intellect and your passion.
  • YouTube. Video is the new black. This is a chance to convey messages, training, subject matter expertise, testimonials, and offers of value. Your viewers can subscribe, and your posts can be cross-pollinated on your blog, your Facebook page, and your LinkedIn profile.

2. Jeffrey, there’s a HUGE misused and misunderstood word in small AND big business. The word is ATTRACTION. How do small business owners attract leads in today’s social world?

All business social media must be combined with your traditional business and Internet outreach. To attract, the key ideas are ‘personalized messages’ and ‘value-based’ messages.

If you’re looking for more attraction (who isn’t?), here are some of the small business, internet, AND business social media value-based messaging and marketing elements I use to transfer my messages. My messages and posts both attract and connect. Go to these links and follow me. Then study them, learn how I do what I do, and emulate it.

  • LinkedIn – Jeffrey Gitomer – The number one business resource. I post my thought of the day or link of the day. RESPONSE: People like it and share it with their connections. That has lead to more than 23,000 connections.
  • Twitter – @gitomer – I tweet three or four times a day. I usually send out one link a day. RESPONSE: I am re-tweeted or favored more than 100 times a day, and I gain between 50 and 100 new followers a day.
  • Facebook business – /jeffreygitomer – Like me, then read a bunch of my posts, then be inspired to comment or post. RESPONSE: All of my followers (likers) read it, and when they like it or comment, all of their connections can see it too.
  • YouTube channel – BuyGitomer – People watch a few of my 300+ videos. RESPONSE: more than 25,000 subscribers.

You cannot control how people search. You must be findable by company, person, product, topic, and keywords that will get your name to pop up.

It’s not one thing that creates attraction. It’s a strategic combination of a social, online, and face-to-face outreach MIX that attracts interested buyers. It’s a confluence of value-based things that are available to customers and prospects.

Look at the diversity of my offerings, and the multiple opportunities that prospects have to find you, be attracted to you, connect with you, and buy from you.

3. Jeffrey, how do I attract leads at a face-to-face networking event?

NOTE WELL: Most people take networking for granted, and think of it more as a place to meet friends and clients rather than capture an opportunity. They also fail to realize that people, whether you know them or not, are cultivating an impression of you – not just about what you look like, but also based on how you act, and how you dress.

Your physical presence, your physiology, and your communication prowess can determine whether the outcome is business or no business.

Here are 3 networking attraction tips for your learning and connecting pleasure:

1. I shake and look. When I shake someone’s hand, it’s a firm grasp and a direct look in the eye.

2. I smile. Even in New York City. I find that by giving a smile, I get a smile.

3. I ask before I tell. Whether I ask for their name, or a simple “how are you?” I want to hear the other person before they hear me.

Face-to-face networking is still a GREAT way to attract and connect in the world of social and online sales.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Motivation Is An Inside Job

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Why do we do what we do? What causes us to succeed, fail, procrastinate? Is it our environment? Our biology? Our New Year’s resolutions? There’s much debate why our motivation goals fail and how to resolve them. I believe we’re addressing the wrong issues.

Why Promoting Behavior Change Causes Resistance

Everything I’ve read on resolving ‘motivation’ issues focus on behaviors: why, how, when. Courses, keynote speakers, books, attempts to pump up, stimulate, and otherwise inspire. All trying to cause the ineffective behaviors to change to effective ones. But change doesn’t happen this way. Motivation involoves both shifting beliefs, and creating new habitual behaviours, that our unconscious status-quo will accept and adopt over time.

Here’s why: A behavior is the action – the representation – of a (largely unconscious) belief. Lasting behavior change occurs only when there is first a shift in the beliefs responsible for the behavior (Complex, due to the habitual and systemic nature of our belief?behavior connection).

So: a belief change will trigger a new behavior to match the new belief.

Trying to change a behavior, without changing the underlying beliefs first, causes pushback because our status quo is being disrupted and threatened. So new behaviors to respond to Commit! Achieve! will create resistance without the necessary buy-in from the foundational beliefs that caused the problem.

To effectively motivate ourselves and others, we must facilitate an unconscious shift from the ineffective beliefs to successful ones, and then introduce new commensurate behaviors. While there are certainly helpful training and coaching approaches to accomplish this, one way to get there is by listening to our Internal Dialogue.

A Case Study in Motivation

I’m going to use myself as a case study, as I have had a continual issue motivating myself to get to the gym. Basically, I trigger my healthy beliefs whenever I hear my Internal Dialogue rationalizing why I don’t need to go. Motivation is an inside job.

Here’s how I do it. I deeply believe I’m a healthy person, and that the gym is a necessary evil to maintain my identity. Whenever I hear my inner voice making excuses [“It’s so cold outside. You really would be better off staying inside where it’s warm.”] I have a trigger that pings me to shift me over to my higher-level beliefs Self, Health, Excellence – who I am. “No, you idiot. You’re a healthy person because you work out, so shut up and bundle up and get out the door.”
Indeed, by listening to my Internal Dialogue in many situations, I’ve trained myself to automatically counter non-motivating behavior with my higher-level beliefs that will then motivate me. (I have written a chapter on how to shift from behaviors to beliefs in my new book What? Did you really say what I think I heard? that’s offered free at www.didihearyou.com.)

Motivating Our Teams to Excellence

We can adapt this for our teams. Right now, we tell them ‘how’ and ‘why’ to succeed. We are hiring keynote speakers to ‘Motivate’ our sales forces and leaders, bringing in consultants to ‘Motivate’ more success. But all this is accomplishing is pushing new activities into the habitual status quo and merely getting some meager shifts that last a brief time. Then we blame the failure on our staff or the training.

Let’s motivate by teaching folks to listen to their own Internal Voices. Here are a few pointers (and again, my new free book has an entire chapter on how to accomplish this):

  1. Listen to your Internal Dialogue when you hear yourself making excuses. Behind every resistance is a belief that is holding the ineffective behavior in place.
  2. Notice the underlying beliefs that keep your current ineffective behavior in place and see if you have other beliefs that might be reweighted to take over for the ineffective ones (In my case, I move ‘health’ up on top of ‘comfort’ when it comes to the gym).
  3. Shift/reweight beliefs to put the effective ones on top.
  4. Add new behavioral choices that match the reweighted belief.

It’s more complicated than merely attempting to add some new behaviors, of course. But the change will be permanent. And you can use the skill any time change is required.

Begin the process of listening to yourself more closely and more often. If you want to learn more about bridging the gap between what’s said and what’s heard (www.didihearyou.com) I’m offering the digital book for free to make sure everyone has the capability to communicate, change, and motivate by truly listening. Or go to www.sharondrewmorgen.com to learn more about facilitating change in sales.

About the Author

Sharon Drew Morgen is founder of Morgen Facilitations, Inc. (www.newsalesparadigm.com). She is the visionary behind Buying Facilitation®, the decision facilitation model that enables people to change with integrity. A pioneer who has spoken about, written about, and taught the skills to help buyers buy, she is the author of the acclaimed New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: Why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

To contact Sharon Drew at [email protected] or go to www.didihearyou.com to choose your favorite digital site to download your free book.