Human Resources Management Confusion: Demanding Excellence Vs. Creating A Culture Of Excellence

May 3rd, 2012

Do you know that on average, there are 178 sesame seeds on each McDonald’s BigMac bun, which seems to be pretty reasonable on the surface.

But the reason why this is a problem is because the human body can’t digest sesame seeds. The body struggles and struggles, investing significant amount of energy, but keeps losing.

And this is what’s happening to many IT companies’ business development departments.

Management keeps demanding excellence and peak performance, but excellence and peak performance are missing from the department’s cultural DNA.

The reality is that when you merely demand excellence from others, you’re unlikely to get it. After all, it’s just a demand, like ordering your goldfish to ride a bicycle.

But when you immerse merely good people in a culture of excellence, those people will “drown” in excellence and become the reflection of their environments. You don’t manipulate the person but the environment and the culture.

So, what is the problem?

This is exactly what we discuss this month’s brain-explodingly conspicuous episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “Human Resources Management Confusion: Demanding Excellence Vs. Creating A Culture Of Excellence”.

Enjoy!

Posted in Talent Attraction, Team Development | View Comments

Are Your IT Talent Selection and Recruitment Practices Leading Your Company Down The Doom Loop?

March 27th, 2012

We can say that the biggest differentiating factor in an IT company is its collective brain power, but when we look at human resources management in IT companies, what we can see is pretty disappointing.

Most HR professionals in the IT sector are not ready for the post Internet era.

Instead of talented value-creators, HR folks are still looking for docile, obedient weaklings with superficially impressive resumes and credentials.

Docility and obedience are needed to support the dictator on the top, and impressive paperwork is needed to prop up the company’s intellectual shallowness.

But the problem is that people who are worth hiring, because they are so good, are not willing to play this retarded game.

So, IT companies either end up with losers or start playing a different game.

And this is what we discuss this month’s brain-fryingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, Are Your IT Talent Selection and Recruitment Practices Leading Your Company Down The Doom Loop?

Enjoy.

Posted in Talent Attraction, Team Development | View Comments

About Compensating Information Technology Business Development People

March 3rd, 2012

Convenient pay-for-performance schemes (scams) might be easy to administer, but the sad thing is that IT companies don’t even realise how much they lose on the profit side of this pay-for-performance nonsense.

It may be a convenient payment structure for ditch-diggers, but for serious brain work like business development, it’s a losing proposition.

There is significant research proving that “if you achieve this, then you get that” type payment in knowledge work is a waste of time and a chief cause of talent attrition.

Why?

Because “if you achieve this, then you get that” is the bedrock of entrepreneurship. People who accept it are your competitors. People who want some security in their lives are employees either at your company or at one of your competitors’.

So, if you give your people the “if you achieve this, then you get that” ultimatum, then the vital few, Pareto’s 20%, leave your company either for the competition or they set up shop and become your competition.

And you’re left with Pareto’s 80%, the trivial many, that is, the bottom of your work force.

So, how to avoid this rather miserable situation.

This is what we discuss this month’s spine-twistingly electrifying episode of Commando Consulting, entitled, “About Compensating Business Development People”.

Enjoy!

Posted in Talent Attraction | View Comments

Five Reasons To Flex Your Marketing Muscles Not Your Sales Muscles

February 7th, 2012

Some experts say, in order to increase your sales you have to sell harder. Some take this idiocy as far as professing that in order to sell more all you have to do is to put more feet on the streets and more fingers on telephone dialling pads.

The fact that maybe the business owner should first maximise the existing sales force’s productivity is hardly ever mentioned.

Most IT business owners are obsessed with increasing gross sales even at the detriment of net margins. They run on the erroneous mentality of, “Yes, we lose out on every sale, but we make up for it in volume.”

But personally I believe, you should focus on marketing. Instead of selling harder, you have to market better and differently, so your marketing system can sift, sort and screen to your target market, and have only pre-interested, pre-motivated, pre‐qualified buyers seek you out who are predisposed to do business with you.

And this is what we discuss this month’s toe-curlingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “Five Reasons To Flex Your Marketing Muscles Not Your Sales Muscles”.

Enjoy

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Sales | View Comments

15 Ways Marketing Can Support Your IT Sales Success

January 2nd, 2012

Just as suicide bombing has become popular in recent years to draw attention and cause horrific damage to both life and property, forced selling in the IT industry without due marketing has also gained popularity, based on the false notion that marketing is a waste of money, and the secret to higher sales is just hiring higher number of more aggressive salespeople who are willing to go through concrete walls to meet buyers.

But it has turned out to be a big belly flop, and as a result of that retarded approach, most IT companies are forced to compete on price as replaceable vendors. The status of the respected industrial authority, even if it’s ever existed, is dead and gone.

So, IT companies either carry on competing on price and duking it out in bidding wars, responding to RFPs, or pull their stubborn heads out of their arses, realise that times have changed and start changing with the times.

And this is what we discuss this month’s toe-curlingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, 15 Ways Marketing Can Support Your Sales Success.

Hope you find it valuable.

Enjoy!

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Market Positioning | View Comments

“How To Segment The Marketplace For Your IT Business

November 25th, 2011

Imagine a thoroughbred race horse that is locked up in a small stable.

The horse feels something is wrong but doesn’t know what. He wants to run in the fields, but his owner denies him the privilege. The owner, who knows nothing about horses, is frustrated because the horse is acting up by kicking the door or the walls of the stable.

Then on race day, after six months of confinement and lack of training, the owner brings the horse out for a race.

Of course, the horse loses, and the owner is now thinking about turning the horse into sausages.

Now, I don’t say that you should turn your bad clients into sausages or show negative feelings against inappropriate prospects. All I’m saying is that in all your dealings, favour prospects with “great client” potential and emotionlessly walk away from problematic prospects.

Note that it is your market that defines your branding, positioning, packaging, pricing and even the claims you make.

You must know your market’s size, growth rate, demographics, psychographics, technographics (technical sophistication: abacus vs. computers), needs, purchasing habits, and many other factors. Different companies segment their markets differently, but this segmentation method you’re about to read about applies to every industry.

There are two attributes to consider…

And this is what we discuss this month’s mind-menglingly splendid episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “How To Segment The Marketplace For Your IT Business”.

Then come back here and voice your thoughts.

Enjoy!

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Market Positioning | View Comments

Sales Lead Mismanagement In IT Companies And How To Remedy It

October 28th, 2011

Do you know that in Sweden prostitution is perfectly legal, but it’s absolutely and positively illegal to hire a hooker? I mention this hair-raising fact because while sales lead generation is legal, many IT companies believe it’s illegal to use automated and systematic approaches to do sales lead generation.

Ask most IT managers about sales leads, and most of them tell you they need a lot more leads than what they have.

Then you look at their operations and see that they generate all the leads they need, but as much as 80% of all sales leads mysteriously disappear, and the a large percentage of what’s left is not properly qualified.

So, what can IT companies do to improve their practices of generating and nurturing sales leads without losing the best of them?

And this is what we discuss this month’s stupefy candid episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “Sales Lead Mismanagement In IT Companies And How To Remedy It”, and located at http://www.varjan.com/articles/1110-oct-sales-lead-mismanagement-in-it-companies.shtml

And after reading this literary masterpiece or listening to it, feel free to hop back here to discuss it in some detail.

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How to Use After Action Reviews to Debrief IT Consulting Projects

October 4th, 2011

Speech coaches have been teaching for years that the most important parts of a speech are the beginning and the end. Pilot instructors teach their students that the most dangerous parts of flying are take-off and landing. And I know from experience, that the two key moments of skydiving are leaving the plane and landing. In skydiving there is a third moment: the opening of the chute.

In IT projects, there are two key moments. The start and the finish. These two elements have the greatest impressions on clients. Yes, we want to do a great project, but we’d better place extra emphasis on the beginning and the end.

And this is what we discuss this month’s brain-fryingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled How to Use After Action Reviews to Debrief IT Consulting Projects.

Enjoy

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17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 2

August 31st, 2011

Have ave you heard that in a desperate effort to win the Second World War, British scientists had come up with the brilliant idea of feeding Hitler with female hormones, so over time, he would have become docile and submissive just like his younger sister, Paula Wolf.

This great strategy, as explained in Professor Brian Ford’s book, “Secret Weapons: Technology, Science and the Race to Win World War II”, was that British spies would mix oestrogen into Moustache Dolfie’s meals, and slowly but surely he would “calm down”, so the Allies could reason with him.

The other piece of British warfare imbecility to win the war was by putting glue onto Nazi soldiers’ boots and sticking them to the ground.

So much fuss for nothing. Or as good ol’ Will wrote a few years ago, “Much Ado For Nothing”.

And the interesting thing is that this is happening in so many IT companies as well. They hire the big fancy advertising agencies to come up with new slogans, but nothing significant happens. Lots of smoke but no fire.

And this is what we discuss this month’s brain-fryingly exciting episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, 17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 2.

Enjoy your reading and share what you think.

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing | View Comments

17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 1

July 27th, 2011

Have you heard that every year 13 people are killed by vending machines? Yes, that’s correct. Machines fall on them and literally squeeze the living daylights out the poor bastards. It usually happens to people who raid vending machines and try to pry the goodies out of them.

By a mind-menglingly staggering coincidence, similar fate is waiting for IT marketing managers who try to pry too much out of their direct mail campaigns without doing the necessary preliminary work to prepare their campaigns for best performance.

They haphazardly put their packages together, and then equally haphazardly roll them out to their markets. And quite often, the highly anticipated marketing campaign performs a spectacular belly flop and falls flat on its arse.

After this little incident, campaigns are often abandoned to their fate, and die a slow and agonising death.

In this article we look at 15 ingredients that are often missing from direct mail campaigns and undermine their overall performance.

And this is what we discuss this month’s mortifyingly mesmerising episode of Tomicide Solutions, entitled, “17 Common Direct Mail Mistakes IT Companies Make Part 1”.

Posted in Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing | View Comments

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