Clean Dorm Room Syndrome

Last night I attended a marketing event hosted by two Jigsaw partners, LucidEra and Phone Works.  From reading other technology company blogs (yeah, I’ve mocked them before, but all the cool blogger kids are doing it) I realize it is customary for me to give a bunch of shout outs to the executives and post pictures, but I’m not that dorky. Not yet anyway. Let’s just say that they put together a very clever variation on the standard cocktail hour marketing event by combining wine tasting, golf and sales analytics.  (Wow- that sounds like Obama a few weeks ago- there goes my Pennsylvania audience)

After downing my usual amount of alcohol for a Tuesday, business oriented event like this (one more drink than all the hosts combined), I blurted out my opinion of sales analytics. I’m all for analyzing the numbers, keeping the CRM system up to date, and doing a host of other sales related activities- as long as you don’t fall into what I call the Clean Dorm Room Syndrome.

While in college, I was (like so many eventual salespeople) a liberal arts major. I avoided all those numbers oriented classes that made you do weekly assignments because they interfered with my important social life “obligations.” My classes were graded mainly on papers or exams that were due at the end of the semester. So naturally I let everything stack up until the last possible moment and then crammed book after book into my junk food and stimulant fueled brain. That’s another reason I went into sales- because everything client related is last minute, needed “ASAP”- so there is no project to be put off until tomorrow...

Anyway, during these end of the semester weeks I had to constantly resist not only the  “normal” temptations of my everyday life- which I’m not listing here for fear of immediate imprisonment, that my mom might be reading or that I might want to one day hold an office at my kids’ schools above “meeting scribe”- but some seemingly innocuous time wasters as well. When the alternative was writing a paper on “Why the South’s Prolific Mustaches caused their Defeat” or reading a 1200 page book of Tennyson’s lesser known inner gay  sonnets, suddenly I noticed that (for the first time in 2 months) that my dorm room really needed cleaning. So in crunch time, 12 hours and counting until the paper is due, I’m going to tackle a job that would make Jigsaw’s corporate cleaners flatly renig on their contract.  Yes, a clean dorm room is something I don’t really want to do, but it is better than actually studying.

So to spell out the analogy for the room temperature IQ folks- sales people, even sales managers and sales support folks, that get too caught up in the analysis (paralysis) in the face of contacting clients and pushing deals forward are like me when I was cleaning the dorm room to avoid writing a paper. Observe the numbers, use cool dashboards and big brains from companies like LucidEra and Phone Works, but don’t prioritize too much time doing that stuff.

P.S- And yeah, you may have seen our “teaser” emails talking about the big announcement that Jigsaw is making on June 4th.  Marketing has me firmly muzzled to keep me from letting out any specific details on the new program, but get ready to see me wearing tights. (I know you’re excited).

Comments

[Paul Revere]

save your dignity, Garth, don't let them dress you up like Fowler on the TV show!

[Ken Rudin]

Hi Garth --
It was great seeing you at our event, and thanks for the mention in your blog. I generally agree with your comments about making sure people don't use analysis as an excuse to avoid making sales calls. But the main purpose of analytics is to help people focus on the right activities and avoid wasting time on other things. I wrote more detailed comments on my blog: http://www.lucidera.com/blog/index.php/2008/05/28/using-analytics-to-avoid-wasting-time/

[Garth Moulton]

Ken-
Well written and thought out post. I think you're right- I lumped sales pipeline analysis in with more administrative tasks like entering in CRM data, filling out "deal reports" and other make work that seems to increase with the size of the sales team (or how much of a paper pusher the sales manager is).

I think my perception has been formed by the exact lack of real sales analysis (either because the information wasn't there or there was no one who could present it in an actionable way)that you mention above. Giving sales people insight into what they are truly doing wrong and pointing them in the right direction is not a waste of time at all- in fact it is just the opposite.

How Sales 1.0 of me- I'll tap the mat on this one and defer to you. (before you explode my ear like Kimbo Slice).

Don't get used to it, though- one of the coolest things about this blog stuff is that i can shoot my mouth off and when faced with a legitimate counter argument i can just say "nuh ugh" and write some rap lyrics. What rhymes with LucidEra?