What better way to come up with a great and marketable idea than to invent it out of necessity . . . as the Moms in this article did.
What gave them the advantage is that they started with a known need (their own) and then found the best way to fill it: their invention.
Stating the obvious, I suppose, but the point is that instead of thinking up a "Great Idea," these Mom-preneurs started with a specific need . . .and then realized that others in the target audience likely had that same need.
According to the article: ". . . the term “mom inventors” yields about 290,000 results on Google"
"HEALTH navigator? Conflict coach? Pollution mitigation outreach worker? These
emerging jobs aren’t household terms yet, but they are a natural fit for older
people looking for new career opportunities, said Phyllis Segal, vice president
at Civic Ventures, a nonprofit research group based in San Francisco."
— That's the opening paragraph in Elizabeth Pope's article in the New York Times.
You might ask, "What does it have to do with the subject of this blog—Selling Face-to-Face?"
If you're a reader of this blog who is selling services, particularly consulting or other kind of contract work, then — alas — one of the objections you need to be prepared to respond to is this one: "The IRS (and state tax people) look very closely over our shoulder when we try to work with contractors. The IRS prefers that we just put people on the regular payroll, so it is easier for the tax people to be sure we've paid all the taxes and such. So, sorry, we just can't risk buying your services."
So, given that objection, how do you respond? My suggestion: read this article in the New York Times Small Business Guide section. It's by Katherine Reynolds Lewis, and it links to some other comments and related articles.
The article is written to advise the businesses that may take on contractors; that tells you the concerns and hot-button issues, which you can turn around to your own situation.
One comment: I can't find the reference right now, so am relying on memory, but seems to me there was an article not long ago that the IRS was in the process of hiring 6,000 new agents, mainly to police this issue, of firms seeking to take on contract employees as the economy was so weak they couldn't risk taking on payroll employees.
The good news? That's 6,000 new jobs!Great news in the headlines!
The bad news? Let's not even think about all the contractors, consultants, free agents and free lancers who are not working because of the shadow of a potential IRS audit hanging over the process.
More bad news? Let's not think about the work and productivity that could flow if businesses didn't need to "invest" so much in fighting and avoiding audits.)
Way
back, once upon a time, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew
up, so went to law school. (Like a lot of people who didn’t know what
they wanted to be.) I made it through some bar exams, and found myself
admitted in NY, VA, and DC
I
did learn a lot of Important Stuff in law school, the most important of
which was learning that what I did not want (now that I was grown up)
was to spend my life practicing law and fighting other peoples’ Zero-sum
Games.
I segued into management consulting, and found my niche. As a
consultant, I got paid to explore (vicariously) varieties of careers and
organizations, some in the business world, others in government.
My
specialty was open-ended: discovering why organizations and the
individuals within were under-performing, and crafting methods to help
them function better. Which meant that I got paid to do a lot of fun
stuff (fun to me, at least). Meeting with people on all rungs across
organizational charts, from Top Dog to New Kid (and comparing different
perspectives and skills). Riding with the best (and worst) performers
and figuring out why the difference. Developing and presenting
workshops: some for sales managers and reps in organizations including
Xerox, Kodak; other workshops for overseas officers for the U.S. State
Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
From this work has flowed books like SUCCESS QUESTIONS FOR WINNING THE GAMES OF BUSINESS & LIFE,
as well as two others coming out in late 2012. I also took what I had
learned from my own marketing efforts, as well as from some of the
workshops I developed for clients, and produced a series of practical
sales-training guides: SELLING 101: Essential Selling Skills; SALES TRAINING TUTORIALS; and SALES PRESENTATIONS & DEMONSTRATIONS Handbook.
But it was not all management work. Early on, I’d been fascinated by the work of Captain Cousteau (THE SILENT WORLD)
and others exploring in the world beneath the ocean surface. (At one
point–still figuring out what to be when I grew up–I even gave serious
consideration to becoming an oceanographer.)
In
a way, that early fascination with what’s hidden in the depths beneath
the ocean surface transformed into a new fascination: to explore the
as-yet-unrecognized deeper potentials latent within human beings. Are
we just melanges of chemicals and synapses, or are we “transformers” (if
you will) of other energies still mostly dormant within us?
My
sense is that we are on the verge of breakthrough discoveries in the
world of what I term, not “the para-normal,” but rather “the
dormant-normal”. I’m exploring those possibilities in a series of
technothrillers: A REMEDY FOR DEATH; A CERTAIN POWER; JOINING MIRACLES (not really a thriller, more a parable); and another in progress.
If you don't already have SALES PRESENTATIONS & DEMONSTRATIONS, you can order it here as either an e-book or paper book. (If you don't have an e-reader, Amazon will provide a free app to enable you to read it on your smart-phone, tablet, or PC.
Apple was founded by a Genius, Steve Jobs, and now has emerged the secrets of how Apple trains employees to serve as geniuses (small g, as opposed to capital G for the late Genius-in-chief.)
Now it seems that Apple's sales training manual has emerged. It makes for interesting Ah-ha! moments if you've ever been to an Apple shop: you'll be rehearing your conversations with the sales folks there.
But, from the perspective of your humble blogger, who has written a good many sales training and interpersonal skills books and courses, it is (a) well done, and (b) not all that unique in content, though (c) the presentation of the ideas and skills seems well done (from the little you can see in the leaked excerpts.)
But Sam Biddle in Gizmodo is most detailed. I won't repeat, only this: "Selling is a science, summed up by five cute letters. (A)pproach. (P)robe. (P)resent. (L)isten. (F)ind." Not all that different than my concept of the Selling Wedge (in my book, SELLING 101, and others; pardon the shameless plug!) The basic concept sounds to my ear an adaptation of Consultative Selling, also covered in SELLING 101 and a good many other sales training books and programs. (Not that Apple uses the term consultative selling . . . at least not in the parts I've managed to see. But it's there, of that you can be sure.)
The Apple books also gets into nonverbals: things to do and avoid with prospects, as well as how to read what the prospect is "telling" you nonverbally. (Just in case you've missed good stuff on nonverbals, you might check out my little book, SALES PRESENTATIONS & DEMONSTRATIONS
But to have the APPLE acronym to work with! That made memory easy.
And, oh yes, Apple has good products! That makes it even easier.
Amazon has recently upgraded its Kindle software, so what appears on the Kindle comes out closer to the visual quality and layout of the printed version.
What Amazon Prime means to you as a reader is that you can borrow it free, from Amazon, for however long you want. As I understand it, if you're a Prime member, and own any version of Kindle, you can borrow up to 12 books each year. Only catch, only one book at a time.
And if you borrow a book and find it so indispensable that you just gotta have it? Just "return" it, virtually, buy it, and borrow another.
If just want to buy Selling 101 in e-format, not borrow it, same link gets you there.
Fascinating perspective on career reinvention and entrepreneurship in, of all places, Britain's New Scientist, Myshkin Ingawale, co-founder and CEO of Biosense Technologies. The hook:
"When I was 17, I was clueless about what I wanted to do with my life. Now I'm 27 and I am as clear as I can be – I want to a successful entrepreneur, starting and growing more than one organisation in my lifetime. Sometime over these last 10 years, I'm not exactly sure when, I made the transition from "clueless" to "clear as I can be".
Definitely worth reading on a variety of fronts. I'll leave you to it.
The New York Times this past weekend ran an article on Sam Palmisano, who is retiring after about a decade as CEO of IBM. Particularly interesting to me were the four questions he devised as a tool to help get key people thinking in productive new ways.
"The four questions, he explains, were a way to focus thinking and prod the company beyond its comfort zone and to make I.B.M. pre-eminent again. He presented the four-question framework to the company’s top 300 managers at a meeting in early 2003 in Boca Raton, Fla."
Those questions:
• “Why would someone spend their money with you — so what is unique about you?”
• “Why would somebody work for you?”
• “Why would society allow you to operate in their defined geography — their country?”
• “And why would somebody invest their money with you?”
Seems to me those questions — especially the first — are equally useful for business ventures a lot smaller than IBM, including those of us who are setting up new businesses or consulting ventures, reinventing careers, or taking a fresh look at whether we're as effective as we could be.
Further, a savvy sales person could incorporate them into a consultative selling approach, adapting these questions into a form to be asked of potential prospects … thereby establishing the need for your product or service.
As I mentioned here recently, this Selling Face to Face site is aimed at new business start-ups as much as at the sales training needs of experienced sales teams.
In that regard— new business start-ups and how-to — here's an interesting link to an article on Wicked Start a free site designed by an experienced entrepreneur and management consultant. I haven't personally checked it out yet, just read the article and looked at the Wicked Start website, but it seems definitely worth your taking a look.
As I understand, when you sign up you get access to a series of how-to checklists and templates to hold your hand through each of the major steps of a new business start-up from scratch.
It's free, so I'm not at all clear on the business model.
Here's the article I read, which came to me via the "Small Business from the New York Times" weekly e-mailing.