Saturday, May 23, 2009

T-Ball

So Caden is on his second year of T-Ball. Boy 1 year makes a difference. Not that he is any larger or smaller than the younger kids, just his patience, focus and abilities are much improved. Sure, I missed this weeks practice and am going off one practice. But hey, I am drawing far fetched conclusions.

Anyway, I learned that teams have the choice to call outs or not. That is that even if you get out you still get to run bases. Or you can call outs and they go to the dugout. Our team is going to have outs. I think this is good. The real world is you get out sometimes, you fail or you don't always succeed. OK sure, they are 5 and 6, but next year when there are outs is it fair that they don't know it? The only people we are foolin are ourselves.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Presentation Skillz

Had a chance to sit through a presentation where the presenter was slow, trying to be funny, and was not connecting with an audience. I would like to know if this was happening during some of my presentations.

It seems easy to identify when people are not connecting. However it is impossible to engage an entire room. Then when you ask for feed back almost everyone says you were great. No suggestions for improvement.

Not sure where I am going with this other than be honest on evaluations. Every body is now evaluating everything. If you are not honest they will never get better.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Have you ever clicked the next blog link at the top?


I did. The blog was in another language (As are most) I could not figure out why this picture.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

A different corporate view

Had a chance to see a partners user conference the last couple of days. Manatron (www.manatron.com) is a ISV (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISV) that is backed by a software investment company. It is interesting to see their view of top line growth. I recently have seen a decrease in this vision however it is clearly a working business model.

They are definitely a good company. Focused on employees, customers and product development. In my opinion companies that succeed do focus on these areas. Sure there are other things they focus on, however the people are always the most important.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Waiting a day?

You ever get that email, phone call or one on one interaction that really upset you and you wanted to address the issue right here and now? I know I do.

One thing I have learned in the last couple of years it to wait till the next day. By then usually I find it not that important, or I re look at the situation and have a new perspective. It is more productive and the outcome is much, much better.

Sure, sometimes you must react to a situation. You are the only one that can make that decision. I am just suggesting that you evaluate and take some time to make the right choice.

Emotion is powerful and can help motivate you, give direction and motivate people. However it can cloud judgement, make quick bad decisions and really ruin long term relationships.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Things done right!

Went to a Sonicwall event on Friday. It was in KC at a great steak house.

The room was a bit full, however I know how these things go. People cancel at the last minute, some show up that didn't RSVP and things change. Other than it being a bit crowded it was great. To the point, on time and informational.

Would I normally travel 4 hours each way for a 2 hour informational event. Well probably not. However I would rather travel 8 hours for 2 hours of great information than 2 hours for 8 hours of bad information. Besides, Kevin traveled more than 8 hours to come to Hays to deliver a lunch and learn. I would have traveled the 8 hours just to support Kevin.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Gone fishing.

Had a chance to do some fishing the last couple days. I found that fishing can be similar to sales. When we went fishing this weekend at the lake house we took the boat out across the lake, with bait and a cooler. Fished for a couple of hours with a result of 2.

We than came back to the dock. While messing around I casted out several times and ended up catching 9 right there in a matter of minutes.

This is like sales. Sometimes we get all the fancy tools, spend hours cold calling and focusing on the large opportunities, RFP's and traveling long distances. When revenue exists right at our own dock.