I recently read an interesting story in a Blog about statistician Abraham Wald and the unique way he applied statistical reasoning to save lives during WWII.
“During the War, Wald tried to determine where to add extra armor to airplanes. Based on the patterns of bullet holes in returning airplanes, he suggested that the parts not hit should be protected with extra armor.”
Why would he suggest that?
Wald was looking at what is sometimes called ‘dead evidence.’ He reasoned, “If these planes are returning, we know that if they are hit in the spots they have been hit, they can still fly. The planes that did not return must have been hit in different places. So put the extra armor wherever the returning planes were not hit.”
“Most people would have a natural inclination to put the armor where the returning planes had been hit. The real answer is simple, but counterintuitive. It's called ‘dead evidence’ because it is what people ignore when they make these judgments.”
“How can you use this in your business? Think about the ‘dead evidence.’ Don't look just at winners, look at losers to see if they did the same things as the winners. Don't just look at what the top companies in your industry are doing, look at what all kinds of different companies are doing. Sometimes you can learn more by looking at failures than at successes.”
Michelle Nichols, a sales speaker, trainer, and consultant ( info@savvyselling.com ), wrote a terrific article, titled “Repeat: It Pays to Repeat Yourself,” in the May 17 issue of Business Week magazine. Her article described the following five ways to get your sales message across and close a sale using repetition.
Listen for repeated complaints from customers. If customers complain about something more than once, then it’s truly causing them pain. If your solution reduces the pain, then you have a strong benefit to close the sale.
Repeat your benefits. Explain your pain reduction solution several different ways so that you can be sure they understand it and that they can repeat it to others in ways they too will understand. More than three benefit solutions are too many.
Repeat your prospecting calls. It’s better to call repeatedly on a small targeted list of customers than to make only one sales call on a large potential customer list. Repetition of benefits creates familiarity with you and your solutions.
Ask for the order repeatedly. When the prospect says no, find out what’s holding them back, try to overcome the objection or compensate for it, and then ask for the order again. Repeat this process until the customer says yes or gives you a logical reason for a firm no.
Encourage repeat customers. While 60% of customers are quick decision makers, 40% find deciding so painful they put it off. That explains why customers have to be asked repeatedly to buy, even when the facts point clearly to buying from you.
In his excellent Blog Leadership By Example, Jim Citrin recently wrote about the legendary leadership of Sean Fitzpatrick, captain of New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team from 1992 until his retirement in 1997. It was Fitzpatrick's leadership off the field that made him so highly regarded.
Fitzpatrick believed that the core leadership lesson that could translate from rugby to business is that excellence is achieved only when people relate not just intellectually, but also emotionally to their organization.
He believed that you couldn’t motivate people over the long term without “an emotional connection, a historical context, and a purpose larger than the self.”
Does your employee or management team have an emotional connection with the core values of your business? Do they know what your goals and aspirations are? Do they feel part of your team and understand how they contribute to the success of the business and in turn, to their own personal success?
If they don’t, it’s not too late to begin developing your own team of “connected” employees and managers. They will be the foundation of your future success.
“During the War, Wald tried to determine where to add extra armor to airplanes. Based on the patterns of bullet holes in returning airplanes, he suggested that the parts not hit should be protected with extra armor.”
Why would he suggest that?
Wald was looking at what is sometimes called ‘dead evidence.’ He reasoned, “If these planes are returning, we know that if they are hit in the spots they have been hit, they can still fly. The planes that did not return must have been hit in different places. So put the extra armor wherever the returning planes were not hit.”
“Most people would have a natural inclination to put the armor where the returning planes had been hit. The real answer is simple, but counterintuitive. It's called ‘dead evidence’ because it is what people ignore when they make these judgments.”
“How can you use this in your business? Think about the ‘dead evidence.’ Don't look just at winners, look at losers to see if they did the same things as the winners. Don't just look at what the top companies in your industry are doing, look at what all kinds of different companies are doing. Sometimes you can learn more by looking at failures than at successes.”
Michelle Nichols, a sales speaker, trainer, and consultant ( info@savvyselling.com ), wrote a terrific article, titled “Repeat: It Pays to Repeat Yourself,” in the May 17 issue of Business Week magazine. Her article described the following five ways to get your sales message across and close a sale using repetition.
Listen for repeated complaints from customers. If customers complain about something more than once, then it’s truly causing them pain. If your solution reduces the pain, then you have a strong benefit to close the sale.
Repeat your benefits. Explain your pain reduction solution several different ways so that you can be sure they understand it and that they can repeat it to others in ways they too will understand. More than three benefit solutions are too many.
Repeat your prospecting calls. It’s better to call repeatedly on a small targeted list of customers than to make only one sales call on a large potential customer list. Repetition of benefits creates familiarity with you and your solutions.
Ask for the order repeatedly. When the prospect says no, find out what’s holding them back, try to overcome the objection or compensate for it, and then ask for the order again. Repeat this process until the customer says yes or gives you a logical reason for a firm no.
Encourage repeat customers. While 60% of customers are quick decision makers, 40% find deciding so painful they put it off. That explains why customers have to be asked repeatedly to buy, even when the facts point clearly to buying from you.
In his excellent Blog Leadership By Example, Jim Citrin recently wrote about the legendary leadership of Sean Fitzpatrick, captain of New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team from 1992 until his retirement in 1997. It was Fitzpatrick's leadership off the field that made him so highly regarded.
Fitzpatrick believed that the core leadership lesson that could translate from rugby to business is that excellence is achieved only when people relate not just intellectually, but also emotionally to their organization.
He believed that you couldn’t motivate people over the long term without “an emotional connection, a historical context, and a purpose larger than the self.”
Does your employee or management team have an emotional connection with the core values of your business? Do they know what your goals and aspirations are? Do they feel part of your team and understand how they contribute to the success of the business and in turn, to their own personal success?
If they don’t, it’s not too late to begin developing your own team of “connected” employees and managers. They will be the foundation of your future success.
