of Both Ears
I'm reading the Harvard Business Review, and seething.
I've been promised, in a black banner headline across the top of HBR's cover, "The Breakthrough Ideas for 2005."
Inside another headline, of the size normally reserved for moon landings, repeats that promise. I quickly decide that 2005 could be a record year for such ideas, because there aren't five ideas, or even ten. There are 20! If we maintain that pace for the next decade, we'll have 200 huge ideas to absorb. Will we have enough time?
I try to recall the breakthrough ideas of the past 20 years. Hamel and Prahalad's "core competencies" seems to have survived and helped fuel the outsourcing boom. "In Search of Excellence," however, seems to have been a Phoenix in reverse; it soared through the air, then crashed into ashes. And then there's "reengineering," the buzzword that engendered the most buzz. This idea proved so utterly worthless that an estimated 70% of reengineering initiatives failed -- an estimate I got from the embarrassed author himself.
I'm suspicious about HBR's bold new ideas, too, because their writers clearly have spent far too much time packaging them. There's "The Velcro Organization," "Everyone into the Gene Pool" and "Blog-Trolling in the Bitstream." Reading these conjured an image of Einstein toiling at his wooden desk in Princeton late one night. He's pondering his headline for e=mc2, and smiling; he's feeling really good about "It's All Relative, Baby!"
This is the Harvard Business Review, however, so these must be big ideas. Let's choose one at random, "The Velcro Organization." Here's its big idea as summarized by the editors:
| "When your customers are located around the world, it's not enough to have effective, efficient functions. You also need to know the people and relationships that work in particular locales." |
Breakthrough! Bet that never occured to any of you!
Later, Big Idea #17 suggests that workers should be allowed mid-career sabbaticals, to reenergize them and their companies. At least three acquaintances suggested this to me, independently of each other, more than 20 years ago. Obviously, we should have contacted the Harvard Business Review. Silly us: we thought the idea already was dated.
The editors save the ultimate irony for the end: Big Idea #20, "Don't Believe Everything You Read." The HBR's editors summarize this breakthrough rule -- and I'm not making this up:
| "Be skeptical of anything touted as 'new.'" |
I suddenly had an impulse, and decided to check the cover. Was it the April 1st issue? Those kidders in Cambridge! But no, the cover read "February 2005."
These annual Big Idea issues exist for one reason, of course. As advertisements show us every day, few words equal the impact of the word "new," and Americans love lists: best-seller lists, most beautiful people lists, lists of batting average leaders, lists of lists (The Book of Lists sold millions of copies). But Harvard holds itself out as a source of information immune to these market temptations. As a result, we read Harvard publications believing we can trust them.
The problem isn't merely the deception; it's the diversion. Businesses don't need bold new ideas; they need to execute the old ones: know your market, improve continuously, create and communicate a distinction, serve clients passionately. Few companies master these basics, and they are just that: the basics.
But perhaps I should be grateful. For years I have worried that I was missing something by routinely ignoring this magazine. Apparently, all I was missing was several yards of wool -- the bolt of fabric they've been trying to pull over our eyes.
at Gettysburg
Galactic Inc. believes it is dazzling its prospects with slide after slide that highlights Galactic's excellence.
The lights go on. The prospect praises Galactic's work and insight and promises to call Galactic soon. Two days later the prospect calls.
Merely Global got the business.
Galactic's presenters did not know that bullet points deserve their name: Their bullets killed them. How?
Because whatever you sell, you do not sell things; today, not even products are products. They are solutions preceded by a service -- advice -- and followed by other services, including support. This means that you are not selling slides, although some companies' obsession with PowerPoint might suggest otherwise. You are selling the people clicking the slides.
This dictates that the key in presenting is not presenting your ideas well. It is presenting your people well. When prospects gaze at slides, they are not looking at what you are selling: you. If you darken the room for dramatic effect, your problem only grows more dramatic. Now your prospects are not looking into your eyes -- where relationships are made -- and they are not listening to you. They are reading.
| "Ever since we outlawed PowerPoint several years ago, our stock has shot up." - Scott McNealy Founder and CEO Sun MicroSystems |
Naturally, you can jolt them from this dangerous practice. Just say something that does not appear on your slide.
But this makes them flinch. They wonder if they understood your slide, because the point you are verbalizing sounds different from the one they read. They feel disconnected, distracted, and uncomfortable -- a virtually unsellable prospect.
You must look into their eyes.
The rules of evidence reflect this point. The rule against hearsay forbids a party from admitting into evidence a statement made by someone outside the courtroom. That person must appear in front of the jurors, because the law also believes our eyes are windows to our soul. The jurors must be able to look the person making the statement in the eyes, to gauge whether that person is credible and sincere.
Your prospects must, too. So use slides only to illustrate a point that you cannot express well in words. Otherwise, make contact.
Prospects cannot choose in the dark.
-- Excerpted from What Clients Love
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Harry Beckwith is the best-selling author of Selling
the Invisible, which has been named one of the top
ten business books of all time, with over 675,000
copies sold in 14 translations. He is also author of
The Invisible Touch and What Clients Love, which
have sold over 275,000 copies in 13 translations. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National |
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Speakers' Association convention, and has made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is
cited regularly in national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis and is the father of six. |
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