There is an old saying: “nothing in life happens until a salesperson sells something”. I subscribe to this philosophy in business, and want to recognize “the rainmakers.”

The Free Dictionary defines a rainmaker as: (Business / Commerce) Informal chiefly US an influential employee who creates a great deal of business or revenue for his or her firm.

While each and every employee plays a critical role, rainmakers hold a very special position within companies. These people take concepts, ideas, products and services to market and turn them into revenue streams. They find customers who need these solutions and are willing to pay for them. They create value; they sell.

This is by no means an easy task; and, it carries a ton of risk. There is an enormous amount of emotional risk involved because of the high probability of rejection—what happens if the prospect says no? The rainmakers are on the front-line; they are in many cases doing things that have never been done before. They can be thought of the Special Forces of business because—to borrow the Navy Seal motto—they have to adapt, improvise and overcome. And, the financial health of the firm, let alone their own personal finances, depends on them being successful.

They play a game of probability (known as a “closing ratio” – the percentage of deals won versus total proposed). The very best are clutch players – they bring in the game changing deals, when they are most needed. Their success ultimately feeds the entire company.

Prolifiq is blessed with phenomenal rainmakers. All clutch players blessed with intuition, foresight, imagination, drive and determination. When they tell me something is going to happen, I take it to the bank.

Oh, how I love it when it rains.

Ronald Reagan was famously quoted as saying the most fearful words in the English language are: "I’m from the government; I’m here to help you.”

On Monday, we received an official visit from Beaverton, OR’s Mayor, Denny Doyle, and Beaverton Business Development Manager Steve Thompson. What a refreshing meeting.

The Mayor started with an apology that it took him since January to visit us and learn about our business and what we needed from our local government. Mayor Doyle is a former private-sector businessman who is very pragmatic about his city – he knows what’s good for the business community is good for his community. He spent a lot of time listening and sharing with us his vision of economic development built around “clusters”, regions and cooperation.

Prolifiq is proud to call Beaverton home. It is a convenient commute for all of our employees; the public transportation (Max line) stops at our doorstep; and, we love the plethora of ethnic food choices within walking distance. Mayor Doyle’s vision and development plans – if achieved – will continue to make Beaverton an ideal location for us to continue to call home.

Mayor Doyle – thank you for accepting your calling to serve the public; for making the time to visit us; and for your vision of community cooperation. Let us know what we can do to help you.

So, I went ahead and did it. I got up on The Content Bureau’s soapbox (see: “What to say”) to talk about the impending “Death of a (Pharma) Salesperson”.

I responded to the position proposed by the folks at Deloitte, where they muse about the future of pharma sales reps by asking the question: “What if they all went away?” Interesting premise, though improbable.

Stacy and her crew were great to work with and they did an excellent job editing my first drafts--and we got it all done in two days. Ladies, thanks for the opportunity. Hopefully, I’ll get invited back.

One of my most favorite people in this world, Arlene Ricker, retires tomorrow from a National Account Director position selling robotic pharmacy systems for McKesson Healthcare. While McKesson should most certainly lament her early retirement, I couldn’t be happier for Arlene.

I first met Arlene while introducing for NEC a suite of computer telephony applications (CTI) layered on top of a telephone system to serve hospitals. Arlene was the VP of Nursing and managed a workforce of over 1,500 people at our Alpha deployment site. Arlene had come up through the clinical ranks and was tasked with a complete and total re-engineering of the hospital to a new care-delivery model.

Arlene realized telecommunications was the key to the success of the model, and for several months she peppered me with suggestions on how to enhance our applications and what new ones to build. We quickly realized we had a visionary on our hands, and I invited Arlene to join the team. Took about a year, but I secured her as a business development person covering the whole US.

In mid-life, Arlene jumped off the cliff. She abandoned her pager (something she carried 20+ years) and jumped in her first week by attending our national users’ group meeting. Her unique combination of industry knowledge, technical insight and customer empathy propelled our performance. In her first year, sales increased 400% and the trajectory continued unabated until the team disbanded at the end of the 1990’s.

During this time, Arlene logged 150,000 air miles a year, got married, earned her private pilot’s license, and bought an airplane. Needless to say, Arlene works hard and plays hard.

I received a call one day from Caren, Arlene’s VP, asking for a reference on Arlene and how to hire her. Arlene ultimately accepted the job; and, on a Pittsburgh pass-through I visited Arlene at her office. Caren came into the office, knelt down and venerated me saying: “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Such is/was Arlene’s impact on people and companies.

Arlene is the ultimate care-giver: smart, kind, considerate, compassionate, demanding, and delivers tough love when needed. If you ever had the chance to be in her care – as a patient or as a customer – you were in good hands.

I am anxious to “read” the next chapter of her story; and, to learn of the lives she will touch in her next endeavor. Congratulations Arlene; thank you for all you have taught me and the care with which you treat us all!

I just finished a call with Stacy Crinks, the founder/owner of The Content Bureau, a full-service copywriting agency. They are copywriters extraordinaire (full disclosure: Prolifiq is a customer). Stacy has invited me to be a “guest columnist” on their corporate blog because of what we do and who we serve. She believes her clients will be interested in reading what I have to say.

While I am flattered by the invite, I am a little intimidated for several reasons: 1) Stacy and her people are professional writers – that’s all they do; all day, 2) I know how to behave when I am standing on my own soapbox; what do I say when I have been invited to stand on someone else’s?

Stacy and I spent about ¾ of an hour discussing the “etiquette” of her site, her hopes for my piece and potential strategies.

So, today’s question is: what do I say?

I start many conversations by asking: “How are you?” More often than not, the response is a one word answer: “Busy.” In many cases this is an accurate description of a person’s activity level; however, it really doesn’t tell me much about how the person is doing.

I first noticed this phenomenon during the last economic downturn and recovery (2001-2003) and I was as perplexed by it as I am now. I can understand the reluctance, in a business setting, to respond with an emotional response such as: happy, sad, angry, elated, fearful, proud, brave, hopeful, disappointed, etc. But, I don’t understand it in a personal setting – but I’ll save that discussion for Facebook.

During our bi-weekly leadership meetings, I go around the room and ask everyone how they are FEELING about the business. When I first started this, many in the room were uncomfortable “exposing” their emotions in this “group-therapy” type session. Others were reluctant to offer any “negative” emotions. Over time  I have found this to be very effective at guaging the temperature of the company. I believe we have intuitive skills that alert us to danger and that this will manifest itself in “negative” emotional reactions, such as: concerned, afraid, doubtful, etc.

Last Fall and Spring these meetings consisted of a lot of “busy” and “concerned”. I think this had everything to do with the economy.  There was so much negative press regarding the economy and the outlook, that I believe everyone was fearful for their future. Today, with our revenues up, and our business activities expanded by more than 50% (because of new market introductions and new product development) I would expect to hear “busy” and “overworked”. What I am hearing more often these days is: excited, hopeful, happy, etc. I actually think this is a leading economic indicator.

Yesterday on Bloomberg.com billionaire and Forbes columnist Ken Fisher predicted the S&P 500 will increase 25% in value by March – this on top of the 25% gains since the bottom on March 9, 2009. This is a reflection of how robust the economic recovery is and how rapidly our economy has digested the recession. I know unemployment is 10.2% and will remain high for some time; however this is a lagging economic indicator.

Companies will be reluctant to hire on increased business for two reasons: 1) the fear the recovery is false or short-lived and 2) the desire to reap profits to rebuild depleted corporate reserves.

People like to work and especially enjoy it when things are going well. What this means is,  when you ask someone how they are doing and they answer: happy, elated, hopeful, etc., what they are really saying is: “I’m busy.”

In a recent article posted to Bloomberg.com, author David Evans chronicles the behavior that has led to billions of dollars in settlements assessed by the FDA and DOJ for unapproved use case marketing and selling activities by some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

In almost all cases, the firms have plead settlements while simultaneously characterizing the behavior as “aberrant” and limited to the actions of one or several rogue salespeople.

It appears the FDA and DOJ are getting wise to these defense strategies as indicated by their language in recent Corporate Integrity Agreements (CIAs). Recent agreements call for companies to have systems in place that: 1) manage the activities of sales representatives so that they stay in bounds regarding selling activities, and 2) provide “alerts” to management and compliance officers that preemptively notify when “aberrant” behavior might be occurring. (see: “Practical Compliance Advice from recent CIAs”, written by Epstein, Becker & Green partner Steve Skwara).

This is no laughing matter; nor, is this insignificant. Patients’ lives may be at risk. Shareholder value is certainly at risk (see: “One Percent”). For patients and shareholders, it incumbent on the industry to self-police by putting systems and processes in place to ensure compliance. “The best hope,” US Attorney Michael Loucks says, “is that drug companies actually honor the promises they keep making -- and keep breaking -- to obey the law of the land.”

 

 

Recently I read one of Seth Godin’s blog entries entitled: “Dunbar’s number”. The gist of the blog, and the number, is the average human being can only truly connect with 150 people, thus forming what Godin calls a “tribe”.

Yesterday, I logged in to LinkedIn and I learned there are over 4,176,000 people in “my network”. Based on Dunbar and Godin, that means that I am “connected” to 27,840 tribes. The number of tribes is almost the same as the number of people in my hometown. Looked at differently, I am connected to 8.3% of all LinkedIn subscribers (LinkedIn claims 50 million subscribers).

While I use LinkedIn almost daily, I am not sure how to comprehend 4 million plus connections. I am not sure how to use these connections. The challenge is filtering though the noise, because I should be able to reach whomever I want.

Now, if LinkedIn could just add a “Dunbar” button which would map for me the most important connections in my network, I’d be a happy guy.

I spent Saturday afternoon diagnosing a very elusive electrical short in the circuit for the lights on my front porch. Elusive problems are difficult enough; they are very challenging with a deadline looming. The deadline: Halloween. My wife and I wanted the lights working by the time Trick or Treating started in our neighborhood – 6:00 PM.

Well, I conquered the problem, the lights were working and we had enough candy for 400 children. Sounds like a lot; but, our first year in this house, 1998, we had over 1,000 children visit. We have watched a gradual but noticeable decline over the years with an especially sharp drop-off in 2001, post-9/11.

My childhood memories are filled with hours and hours of running through the crisp air of a Pennsylvania autumn, hyperventilating behind a stiff plastic mask; coming home with pillow cases of candy for my mother to inspect. The candy bars were huge; the Baggies of “Indian corn” too numerable to count and too “risky” for our parents to let us eat. We knew which houses gave the best candy, and we knew which houses to avoid. It was definitely a time of innocence.
I don’t know whether there is a demographic shift taking place in my neighborhood – all the children ageing to the point of private parties, or being too “cool” to Trick or Treat – or if there are bigger forces at work. The net of it is that we had roughly 45 visitors; Dylan and his buddy had a big night as they went out twice and came home with a mountain of candy; and, we have most of what we bought left over. I compared notes with many of my co-workers and the reports are similar.

Reflecting on this, the Cat Stevens “Where do the children play” lyrics come to mind:

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
But tell me, where do the children play?

Have we become so jaded as a society, our world become so dangerous, or do we just have so much going on that something so innocent and fun as Halloween is supposed to be that we just can’t do it anymore? Or am I just becoming old?