The Trouble With Great Employees

In reading that little comic on the left from OneFTE about Finding Answers it ocurred to me that the answer you're looking for is usually with that great employee that just left.

As well as full time work since I was about 16, I have worked a number of part-time and secondary jobs. With all the companies I've worked for both large and small I've seen an interesting pattern. Good employees keep getting assigned more work without getting paid any more money, and eventually leave. When they leave this workload is spread thin across the rest of the work-force with virtually zero handover.

I remember doing tech support and customer service for a telco. When I got promoted into the sales team I left behind a number of additional responsibilities. The ones I can remember were, Training new staff, Developing training material, Gathering requirements for a new CRM, Responding to complaints and escalations and Assisting with interviewing new support staff.

No single person took up more than one of those responsibilities in my wake, and some were abandoned entirely. I'm not saying I'm a "great" employee per se, because I was nothing compared to a colleague of mine. She organised all the social/'company culture' including events, birthdays, games, competitions, etc and she took on responding to complaints and escalations but was already rostering, standing in for team leaders, taking care of inwards correspondence, answering all e-mail queries and I'm certain even more.

The average staff member on the other hand simply took calls and that was the extent of their duties. We happily took on extra responsibility (for no extra money) because we were bored. Our jobs were too easy. That's why I quickly moved into sales and my other colleague left the job as soon as she finished university.

The problem with great employees is that they don't want to be doing what they are great at. They want to take on the next challenge that they can be great at. And if they get bored they get poached (by another department or another company).

That too is the problem with great sales people. They build up massive pipelines, establish strong relationships and loyal clients. And when they leave it all disappears with them.

So how do you utilise great talent, while simultaneously keeping them engaged? The first thing is that you recognise that they won't be doing that job forever. Once you realise that you can start preparing for their departure from day 1. Once they have mastered a new task they've been assigned you need to somehow retain the knowledge they've acquired. Have them record the details of the business process somewhere (company intranet, training manual, etc.).

Now with the knowledge ready to pass on and they are starting to get bored it's time to assign them another task. Once both tasks start to get burdened assign them a less great employee to assist them. The idea is that this 'assistant' will soon replace them.

This does two things : 1) it gives less skilled employees the opportunity to upskill, 2) it stops great employees from getting bored.

Now you need to speak to your stellar performers on a regular basis to find out which tasks they truly enjoy doing and let them keep working on it. You also need a career path for them. Find out what they want to do and keep giving them tasks that take them in that direction. And when it comes time to salary reviews make sure you give them a small boost proportional to the work that they are doing. And try to provide an incentive for any revenue generating work that they do.

How does this apply to sales people?

You can take advantage of this in various ways:
1) Train junior sales people by giving them exposure to great sales people
2) Give great sales people help with admin, research and non-revenue generating activity
3) Preserve the industry knowledge the sales person develops by passing it on to a junior
4) If that sales person leaves there is someone who is already intimately familiar with their pipeline who can step up
5) You can have more people in the company developing the relationships with clients, so that when the sales person leaves they don't take all their clients with them

Now all of the above things take a lot of work and many companies can't afford to have additional headcount to help with tasks that seem trivial. But I would consider it insurance. When great people leave their workload falls on other people who are not prepared for it. As these people get more to do they become stressed and unhappy with their role. Eventually even your average employees start to leave.

I've seen a small number of key resignations have massive knock-on effects for companies. To the CEO or the CFO this would probably be nothing more than a small blip in a P&L statement. But what is lost is the opportunity cost, knowledge/understanding and morale.

And when the people affected by these problems are in a revenue generating capacity it can at best stifle growth and at worst vastly reduce performance.

Are you at the "forefront" of your industry?

There's one part of the IT industry that I spend a lot of time focusing on and every client and prospect I speak to thinks they are the absolute best. On a weekly basis someone tells me "no one is doing what we're doing", "we're at the forefront of our industry", "none of our competitors have a product like ours", etc.

Plenty of my clients complain that "all [us] recruiters sound the same" and that our sales pitches are identical. Why should they use our services if we all sound the same? Based off that feedback I've tried to change my pitch. I don't use any of the standard recruitment buzzwords, I instead go straight for the jugular: "I'm talking to a great salesperson at [your competitor] who wants to make a move, would you be interested in having a chat to them?" It shows that I 1) know their industry because I know exactly what companies they compete with and 2) that I'm willing to back my services with actions (supplying a good candidate) and not empty rhetoric.

But so many of the clients that spend their time scrutinising their suppliers can't articulate why someone would want to work for them - and in particular why they would want to leave a competitor to work for them. They all think that they are revolutionising the IT industry with what they do.

I've been asked about what vendor/service provider someone should use for their business and I referred them to the company that impressed me the most as a recruiter. They weren't a client but they pitched me incredibly well and never once said that they were the best or at the forefront. If you have to say it, it's probably not true.

One of my candidates just finished a project for a major telco. They were offering a new service but as far as they could tell all the providers in the industry looked the same - even them. So they commissioned him to find out points of difference and give them a way to differentiate themselves. Theirs is by far not the best product in the market, but that shows me a great level of self-awareness. I spoke to all of their competitors to see if they were interesting in using his knowledge to help them with their go-to-market strategy. The reply was the same from all of them - they knew what they were doing. They didn't need help with their strategy as they were already miles ahead of all their competitors. No one was doing what they were doing. They just needed pure hunter BDMs to go out and win new business.

So who are you pitching to? How do you sell your business when someone sells to you? How do you sell your business to people you interview for jobs? How are you perceived in your industry? If you're the 'best' in the market, what can you say to show that, rather than say it?

Head in the Clouds - How to Find the Right Cloud Provider

The 2011 Longhaus report on Cloud in Australia is worth reading. At least for those in the industry or for those looking to find an ICT Managed Services provider. It can be purchased from Longhaus here "Australia’s Trusted Infrastructure-as-a-Service Cloud Provider Market 2011".

Recently I wrote a blog post titled "Is Ninefold the Only True Cloud Provider in Australia". Since then a lot of research, marketing material and random spruiking has come my way about the cloud market in Australia, amongst which has been the Longhaus report. Of all the information I found that to be the most in-depth and honest. After all the data I was inundated with I discovered that the answer to my question is squarely - NO.

One of m biggest complaints about the cloud market is what's been dubbed "Cloud Washing". E.g. re-branding your online service as a 'cloud solution'. While this is widespread, it's not in fact as bad as it first appears, because the needs of different types of companies varied. As a special note here, I'm not talking about software solutions (e.g. Salesforce.com, Office 365, Google Apps, or any SaaS). Offering your software, with on-demand licenses and solution stored off-premise and "on the cloud" is an excellent move.

I'm talking about ITaaS. Putting your IT infrastructure "on the cloud" to avoid needing an on-premise solution and paying for how much and how long you will use it for. With that in mind I thought I would create a quick write-up to act as a guide to choosing a cloud provider. Without promoting any particular company, I will highlight the solutions suitable for each need and how they stack up against each other.

Software Development

If you want a platform to develop new technology and have it accessible on-line there are a lot of things to consider: Force.com, Google AppEngine, Microsoft Azure, etc. These PaaS solutions allow for software development on the cloud, and are a cost effective way to develop software without purchasing a full IaaS solution.

Tech Savvy Businesses or Technical Business Units

The On-Demand, Per-Hour/Week/Month, pure IaaS solution is probably best suited to a startup, a small business with a good IT person/IT team, or a technical business unit within a larger company. If you're technical enough that all you need is infrastructure and you know what you're going to do with it, then these types of services are best suited to you. These offer "true" cloud pricing models and aren't as heavy on the value added services. Good providers to consider:

• Ninefold
• Cloud Central
• BitCloud
• 6YS
• Amazon EC2/EC3

Small-Medium Business who wants a managed service

For a small business who wants a managed service there are a lot of providers out there that can offer a cloud solution. This is for people who wants more than an online portal where they can purchase cloud-computing 'space' with a credit card and be done with it. They are more interested in the Value Added Services, managed services, etc. Good providers in this space:

• Brennan IT
• ASE IT
• Applaud IT
• Melbourne IT
• Bluefire

It's also worth considering the Telcos, especially if you are also looking for Voice as a Service but you should be prepared to pay a premium (Macquarie Telecom, Telstra, Optus, TPG (through IntraPower)).

Smaller Enterprises

Smaller enterprises need to start worrying about security, data integrity and bandwidth. If they grow rapidly can their cloud provider support this growth? Do they have data centre capacity? How much support do they give and can they support multiple VAS.

• Any of the Multi-National Consultancies with a good cloud offering (CSC, IBM, Fujitsu, HP)
• Any of the major B2B Telcos (Macquarie, Telstra, Optus, Verizon, AT&T)
• Smaller infrastructure based consultancies (Brennan, Infoplex, Bluefire, NEC)

Larger Enterprises

Larger enterprises need to consider bandwidth, security, data-centre capacity, bulk user discounts, VAS, service delivery management and account management for a large number of users. At this stage the heard begins to be thinned. "On-Demand" and truly elastic solutions with short-term billing become less capable of delivering 100+ seat solutions.

• Any of the Multi-National Consultancies with a good cloud offering (CSC, IBM, Fujitsu, HP)
• Any of the major B2B Telcos (Macquarie, Telstra, Optus, Verizon, AT&T)

Large Australian Companies

For a large Australian company (Banking, Mining, Government and potentially media & entertainment) there are different concerns. They have a larger number of seats (10,000+), need dedicated account management and possibly multiple service delivery management streams.  Companies like AT&T and Verizon have had a poor track-record delivering local solutions with a lack of Australian capability. Many companies have noted they over-promise and under deliver.

Stick to Telstra, IBM and Fujitsu. Consider CSC, but their local capabilities are certainly not considered as strong as the other contenders.

MNCs - APAC Solutions

For multi-national companies it's not always wise or even possible to have a 'global' solution and often they need to consider an alternative APAC provider. With Verizon and AT&T they can combine network infrastructure, voice and data infrastructure to get a good group bundle. Many IT consultancies (Accenture, IBM, etc) use their cloud solutions for WANs, VaaS, etc and would potentially be better suited going to Telstra. But I'm not sure about Telstra's international capabilities.

For companies with their telecommunications and network infrastructure sorted I would suggest staying away from the Telcos and going with a consultancy with APAC datacentres - IBM, Fujitsu, CSC.

I would steer clear of the Off-Shoring companies - their cloud offerings have received quite poor ratings and the only reason to go with one is an attempt to substantially reduce ITC costs. We can leave the On-Shoring/Off-Shoring debate for another blog-post.

Do you have any feedback, comment or questions? Leave a comment below or contact me on LinkedIn:

http://au.linkedin.com/in/rickdzekman

Google Apps Biggest Win

In reading the article "Google convinces Spanish bank BBVA to use cloud" got me thinking about what this means for the industry.

Having run not only my own business, but also had a lot of freelance consulting work, I've used Google's "Apps" since their incarnation; from Gmail & calendar, to docs, to web tools like Analytics and even their less known tools like the App Engine. These free tools have allowed me instant access to all my information from anywhere in the world.

I've quite often kept highly confidential information on my Gmail account and in Google docs documents and not once did I think that it was possible for someone to access my data because it was on a share server. Having a solid understanding of technology I also knew that Google's advertising within Gmail was not risking my privacy and that my confidential information was safe - simply because of the one-way nature of encryption. In fact I've found a supplier for my business because of an ad that popped up when e-mail my business partner about how to solve a particular dilemma.

A lot of people think that a public cloud being 'secure' is a lot like radiation from a mobile phone. It all sounds safe, and all the studies suggest that it is, but the technology is so new. How can we really know what will happen in the long run?

Now that Google has won a 100,000+ seat account it is not only a victory for them but for the entire cloud industry. That a bank is willing to trust their data to Google, a company often chided about privacy concerns, and to boot putting their inter-office communications in the cloud, speaks a lot to the growing confidence in cloud.

The biggest concern the bank had was whether or not there was enough bandwidth to support the move. The bandwidth concern raises some interesting issues for me with regards to the NBN. Surely businesses in Australia should be the biggest group pushing for the NBN roll-out regardless of the cost. Large businesses like the big-4 banks or mining companies can afford to pay Telstra to roll-out private pipes for their networks. What about the SME's who rely on public infrastructure?

This big win from Google reminds us that technology is growing at a rapid rate and with that expansion we are losing a lot of concerns we use to have: data sovereignty, down-time access, off-line access, etc. Is our infrastructure ready to support these changes?

Who's Got the Time?

When you're pitching a new system that can improve Business Process effeciency, possibly even making certain tasks obsolete, how do you go about pitching it? Just saw this great comic from onefte.com that succinctly highlights this very dillemma:





How-to Get Found By a Recruiter On LinkedIn

Some interesting statistics for you:

Out of the last 30 candidates who's CVs I've sent to a client
 - 3 Came from job boards
 - 4 Came from Word of Mouth / Referrals
 - 8 Came from a LinekdIn job ad
 - 15 were headhunted

100% of those 15 headhunted candidates came from LinkedIn, 2/4 of the referrals were made through LinkedIn. As a result - 25/30 of the latest candidates that have been referred to my clients were because of LinkedIn.


In order to get discovered you need to make your profile discoverable. Here is a Do, Don't & Don't Forget list as a basic starting point.

DO:

• Use the "skills" feature
• Include technologies you've sold in your summary and for each company you've worked for
• Include the industry verticals you operate in in your summary and company descriptions
• Set your current location
• If you have a vanity title in your 'headline' put a real comparable title in your summary and company description. E.g. instead of "Client Director" put BDM/New Business Development in there, or for "Associate Director of Client Engagement" put BDM/New Business Development.
• Ask people for recommendations
• Join groups related to the products you sell
• Include more than 1 job you've worked so I can find you by 'past employer' as well as current
• Include contact information (e-mail & phone number)
• Show your full name
• Specify a relevant industry ("Computer Software" as opposed to "Information Technology Services")

DON'T:

• Put more than 2 roles in "current", 3 AT MOST if you run multiple businesses, even then I would advise against
• Crowd your profile with keywords repeated so many times that you jump to the top of search results - I skip past these profiles
• Put only your current job on your profile
• Hide your name or put only your last initial, and certainly don't be an 'anonymous' user
• Set your current location to just "Australia", make sure you set your CITY as well otherwise I will certainly miss you in searches
• Set your industry as your client's industry (although if your objective is using linked in for new business development in a very specific vertical I could see good reasons for doing this)
• Crowd your profile with every industry you've sold in and every technology you've ever sold. Put the skill you have the most recent experience in

DON'T FORGET

• To change your profile's "headline" when you change companies
• To change your "Company Website" when you change companies
• To include your contact information
• To include 'details' about the role you had at each company, including which technology you sold
• To add skills
• To re-arrange the order of your profile to put the most relevant information at the top (in my case, my contact details)

A lot of these are helping me identify you out of profiles that don't match what I'm looking for (specific city, company, job title) and to identify the specific skills you have that I might need (industry verticals, technologies sold).

Are you trying to change your specialisation? how about your location? what about a complete career change? LinkedIn is a great tool for doing that. Recruiters on the other hand are not. I'm in the job of headhunting - finding people who sell the same product to the same industry but are looking for more money, a bigger territory, a better product, a smaller (or bigger) company, a better boss, etc.

I can't help you become a sales person, I can't help you change industry, I can't help you change specialisation, and I can't help you do anything other than what you have experience doing. And most of the time I can't even help someone move city, let alone move country.

With that said your LinkedIn profile won't "trick" me into interviewing you. If it does I'll quickly find out I can't help you and you'll have wasted both my time and yours. It's fine to put "looking to make a move into sales", or "looking to move to the IT industry", there might be someone out there who can help you. There might even be a recruiter who's specific brief was to find someone out of the industry or not in sales. But this falls outside the realm of most headhunters. In my case I can help you make a small step up, but not a step sideways.

Goals, Money & Happiness

It's that time of year again - the time when everyone slowly starts giving up on their New Year's resolutions. I simply don't make New Year's resolutions but I do make regular goals.

My goal setting background comes from reading and listening to motivational speaker/writer Zig Ziglar. Since first hearing one of his seminars I have developed a lot of ideas about having sales oriented goals, as well as business and professional growth goals.

My key takeaway from Zig was that your goals must be specific and measurable. "I want to earn a six figure bonus this quarter", "Within 2 years I want to be a senior BDM", "I want to win a large MNC account which will generate $1M of revenue every year", etc, etc.

The next thing I learnt from Zig was that you need to identify all of the things that are preventing you from being able to achieve your goal right now. What skills, experience, items, etc don't you have that you need for that skill right now. Now based on this specific, measurable goal with identified broken down obstacles you need to identify milestones. If your goal was "lost 20kg in 6 months", you would break it down to 3kg a month and again 111grams per day and then focus on daily tasks and measuring your progress daily.

For a sales goal you can't break down "$100k of commission" into a daily task, so the best way to achieve it is to look at metrics. How many deals do you need to close and with how many companies? To close that many deals of that size how many prospects do you need to call on? To meet that many prospects how many cold calls, warm calls and networking calls will you need to make to achieve this goal? Then break that down into a daily and weekly basis.

If you have large scale, long term goals, e.g. Close a mega deal with XYZ Company by this time next year, breaking it down into small milestones is important but has a big dilemma - there are no rewards for any of your minor goals. You could spend a year trying to close that sale and for that whole year get no commission for all the conversations you had. So as well as long-term goals you need some short-term goals to keep you motivated along the way.

And that's why New Year's resolutions fail more often than not. They tend to be grandiose goals, with no clear objectives, no measurable metrics and nothing to motivate you along the way. Could you imagine starting a new BDM role and your boss gives you a phone, a laptop and a car and says "go win some big accounts". No training, no introduction to stakeholders, no metrics, no targets, no idea if you are doing a good job or not. (nb. I know a company that does operate this way and is reasonably successful but because of their culture only hire very specific kinds of people).

Now if you're reading this blog you're probably a sales person and making a ton of money, retiring early and having an indulgent lifestyle is probably a big part of your long-term goals. As a result you've probably heard the cliche "money doesn't buy happiness" and been told not to make "money making" a priority in your life. Now I know some incredibly successful and very well off people and they will all agree that money does not in fact buy happiness. But guess what? There's more to life than just being happy. Money can buy plenty of other things that make life worth living - comfort, luxury, excitement, adventure and experiences in general.

Now at a quarter of a century old I tend to seem very young to most of my clients and candidates. But I have a lot of mentors who are incredibly successful and the one thing I've learnt from them is that to be successful you need to know where you are going and how you are going to get there. Most 'accidental' and 'overnight' successes are born out of years of hard work. In the Art of War, Sun Tzu says "opportunities multiply as they are seized". But opportunity and chance favours the prepared. Luck favours those who are able to identify opportunity when it is presented and then chase after it.

The last thing that the most successful people in my life have told me is that it's important to enjoy the process of achieving your goals. You can in fact 'learn to love it'. Learn to love making those calls, learn to love doing those presentations, learn to enjoy haggling, bargaining and negotiating. Learn to enjoy closing. That's probably the best advice I've been given and I find that I often need to remind myself of it.