Copywriting
This is for all the “Little” People…
07/01/08 23:28
Read a great post on Simplenomics entitled, “Here’s a Little Used But Highly Profitable, B2B Sales Tip.”
I couldn’t agree more with what I considered the main theme of the article. Listen to the “rank and file” if you want to know what’s REALLY going on at a company.
At one point in my consulting career, I was hired several times as a “turnaround specialist,” and this was the very first (and sometimes only) thing I did:
1) Survey everyone in the company– top to bottom. Ask basically four questions:
2) Throw out all the responses from senior management. For the most part, they’re the bozos that caused the problems in the first place.
3) Correlate and summarize the results, coming up with three specific recommendations. Build these recommendations directly from the result of the surveys. By the way, you don't necessarily want to tell senior management where those recommendations come from-- they often tend to discount the “little people.&rdquo
4) 9 times out of 10, the client would end up telling me I was “brilliant,” and would want to hire me to implement the recommendations. If the payoff was big enough and I felt they would really follow through, I might consider it.
The moral of the story: Often, there is real WISDOM deep within the organization itself. The solutions to most companies' problems are already obvious to most folks who have to deal with them themselves day in and day out.
Smash the upper management BS-o-matic, haul that “dead moose” carcass (you know, the one nobody wants to talk about) off the conference room table, and harness the knowledge already buried in the organization.
————
Best part of the story? As the article pointed out, just by listening to the “worker bees,” I had instant credibility within the organization and often made truly lifelong friendships that are among the most satisfying of my career.
I couldn’t agree more with what I considered the main theme of the article. Listen to the “rank and file” if you want to know what’s REALLY going on at a company.
At one point in my consulting career, I was hired several times as a “turnaround specialist,” and this was the very first (and sometimes only) thing I did:
1) Survey everyone in the company– top to bottom. Ask basically four questions:
- What works?
- What doesn’t?
- If you could get rid of one thing, what would it be?
- If you could do MORE of one thing, what would it be?
2) Throw out all the responses from senior management. For the most part, they’re the bozos that caused the problems in the first place.
3) Correlate and summarize the results, coming up with three specific recommendations. Build these recommendations directly from the result of the surveys. By the way, you don't necessarily want to tell senior management where those recommendations come from-- they often tend to discount the “little people.&rdquo
4) 9 times out of 10, the client would end up telling me I was “brilliant,” and would want to hire me to implement the recommendations. If the payoff was big enough and I felt they would really follow through, I might consider it.
The moral of the story: Often, there is real WISDOM deep within the organization itself. The solutions to most companies' problems are already obvious to most folks who have to deal with them themselves day in and day out.
Smash the upper management BS-o-matic, haul that “dead moose” carcass (you know, the one nobody wants to talk about) off the conference room table, and harness the knowledge already buried in the organization.
————
Best part of the story? As the article pointed out, just by listening to the “worker bees,” I had instant credibility within the organization and often made truly lifelong friendships that are among the most satisfying of my career.
