Tag : career management

  • Inquisitive Analysis

    Posted Nov 1st, 2010 By in Business Strategy Coaching, Clarity & Focus With | No Comments

    Inquisitive analysis for business strategy coachingBusiness Strategy Coaching:

    Following on from my blog “I wish I’d known that then” about the Wealth Dynamics profiling system (for details go here), I’ve been working with my “Accumulator” profile for over six years, and have really got a handle on how the 8 profiles interact.  I particularly understand which profiles my Accumulator works well with, and how.

    My steady, analytical, considered approach is a great counterpoint to the dynamic and rather chaotic energy of a ‘Creator’.  I describe myself as ‘the guy who holds on to the kite strings’ – we all know if kites are allowed to just go wherever they want, they soar straight up into the sky and quickly come crashing to earth, and with a steady and experienced hand on the strings they can rise and rise (my thanks to Patrick Moore, Supporter/Dealmaker extraordinaire, for that analogy).

    When I left corporate world, the first thing I did was consulting on Key Accounts Strategy – analysing the accounts’ strategic value, using my peculiar analysis skills. I say “peculiar” because for about 15 years I’d shoe-horned myself into a role that wasn’t really the best for me – as an Accumulator I love being analytical, and the Key Accounts roles I was doing really needed the more relationship-building skills of a Dealmaker. So I adapted my analytical bent, and analysed the relationships as well as the hard numbers. And in the process created the style I call “Inquisitive Analysis” (IA).

    IA is all about understanding the numbers and the people.   A core question in the approach is: “What else has to be going on here for this to make sense?”  With the numbers, it’s “What variables are we missing here, that lead to this market or financial performance?” (scarily often, it’s competitor activity that hasn’t been considered!).  And with people, it’s “What has to be in their mind, for that behaviour to make sense?”  Starting from the premise that people rarely do things they know to be wrong or stupid, it’s generally possible to construct a workable approximation to their model of the world – and to communicate more effectively within it.

    So despite being in essentially the “wrong” job for a fair chunk of my career, I still managed to come out of it with a unique talent, something that really sets me apart.

    What’s your unique talent, the thing that makes you truly special?

  • Do what you love and the money will come!

    Posted Sep 24th, 2010 By in Clarity & Focus, Loving your Work, Motivation & Management, Sales and adding value With | 1 Comment

    As Featured On EzineArticlesWhat a crock of ****!

    I love sitting around in beachfront bars, sipping a cold beer, occasionally glancing up from some esoteric tome to observe the passing totty. Regrettably, I can’t find a way to “monetize” that. I also love talking to people about their aims and objectives, and asking awkward questions they don’t want to confront. I have found a way to monetize that. It’s all about picking the right things that we love – the ones that answer my two “Big Business Questions”:

    • How much do I want to do this?
    • Will I make any money at it?

    I’ve managed to monetize my passion for what I call “inquisitive analysis” – by a lot of bloody hard work, and by doing some stuff I would really rather not have to. I’ve studied successful businesspeople, trained in NLP and communication, created a rather nifty analysis tool … and left the suburban comfort of my home office and started selling to people.

    It’s only fairly recently, largely through the excellent work of one of my mentors, Nick Heap, and also of my coach Jules Cooper, that I came to realise that if I wanted to have a successful business, then I’d have to do some things that right now I’d really rather not do. Asking people to hire me for a start. Expecting them to pay for the time I’d been giving away for free. Or selling them my products. Even cold calling!

    Of course, we can all point to examples of successful people who say their work is their passion, and they’d do it even if they didn’t get paid. And I believe we *can* all achieve that blissful state. But not by just ‘doing what we love’. When you look at some of the most famous successful work-lovers, we can detect a common theme. They all identified what they needed to do, so that they could be successful at what they love. And got on and did it. Top personal development trainer Chris Howard talks about how he grew his business after he learned to love cold calling. Chris says that we’re told that successful people are the ones who are willing to do the things that others won’t, when in fact it’s that successful people are the ones who learn to love the things that others hate.

    Bill Gates loved computer programming, but he recognised that he needed to get good at selling, marketing and putting deals together. Pretty soon he was more about doing the deals than writing the code, and appeared to absolutely relish creating them. Warren Buffet hated speaking in public, yet he recognised that he needed to present his vision for his companies, made himself do it, and eventually became an entertaining speaker who appears to have great fun on the podium. Oprah’s passion is as a broadcaster and presenter, yet she has created for herself a love of running a business such that she is involved at every level of Harpo Productions.

    So it’s not a case of successful people do what they love, and the money magically comes flowing in. They work out how to add value doing what they love, and what things they are going to have to do, to deliver that value. And then they learn to love doing those things too.

    So it’s not “Do What You Love” – it’s “Love What You Do”

  • Who’s at most risk?

    Posted Dec 28th, 2008 By in Business Strategy Coaching With | No Comments

    Opportunity Matrix™ - how NOT to be a Busy Fool

    In the current economic climate, I suspect that the old work paradigm is going to fail a lot more people.  We already know that the promise of a “job for life” has gone – that’s been the case for a long time now, probably since the 1980’s at least.  So any hope of leaving education and settling into a comfortable career that will last you to retirement is long gone.

    Whos most at risk ...

    Who's most at risk …

    With specialisation it has become increasingly difficult for experts to find alternative companies that can employ them – because only the largest need somebody full-time doing what they do.  So when the downturn pushes vulnerable companies into “rightsizing”, these experts are the hardest to re-deploy – either inside the company, or via outplacement.  Of course, there are plenty of smaller companies who need their skills, but they can’t afford to take on a full-timer to provide them.  And the paradigm is that the secure way to go on is to have a full-time position.

    So at best the experts find themselves in a job where they do their specialism for some of the time and something else (possibly allied, possibly not) for the rest of the working week.  I think that’s a bit of a waste – of the expert’s talent, and of their enthusiasm for their specialism.

    I’m an expert in (and an enthusiast about) Key Account Management (it’s one application of my core skills: analysis, prioritisation and focus).  Since coming out of corporate life, I’ve been offering my skills to smaller companies on a “fractional” basis – they hire me for a proportion of my time, to look after their Key Accounts for them.  I’m currently working for two widely different businesses, neither of which is ready for a full-time account manager.  And the rest of my time is spent doing consultancy and developing other ways to use my skills – Key Accounts Strategy, opportunity (or portfolio) prioritisation, helping entrepreneurs get focused.  So clients are getting the level of expertise they need, and I can stick to what I do well.

    And the great thing is, my overall income is actually safer than if I’d been in a corporate job.  I can seize opportunities much more easily – in order to take on another client, I don’t have to weigh up their offer against what I’ve already got, I can do both.  When I reach capacity, I can replace the lower-earning (or less fun) contracts with new ones as they come up, or bring in associates, and take a margin.  And if one of my “employers” does get into difficulty and can’t afford to keep me on, it’s not the end of the world for my bank balance.  I might lose maybe 20% of my income, but I won’t lose it all, which is what would happen (has happened to me) if I lost a full-time job.

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