Conrey is for Closers

Yeah its been a while, I was recharging my batteries, resting my brain, and dealing with some reality. But expect more Conrey is for Closers this week.

What do you do when you are outselling capacity? Is it a good thing? The proverbial “Good problem to have?” or are you harming yourself long term? A good salesman should be in sync with the production team wherever possible without letting them hold themselves back. The sales force should be the foot on the gas pedal for your production. The production team will usually be the significant other in the passenger seat telling you to slow down before someone gets hurt.

Find that balance to keep both sides happy and everyone wins, but if you’re slowing down – especially in today’s economy – then you will lose ground. Momentum is the most powerful force in business.

I’ve recently been reading Drive by Daniel Pink, who you see above in his TED talk. The basis of the book is that people are motivated differently by intrinsic and extrinsic things. Pink argues that for creative work, extrinsic motivation leads to short term success but is not a good long term method of motivation – however extrinsic motivation works great for menial mechanical tasks.

Now if you consider sales to be a menial mechanical task you should probably stop reading here. In fact, you probably should be asking yourself why you are reading this blog at all. If you agree with the premise that sales is “creative” work in the same way that visual design, software development, art, or music are, then it leads to the obvious question. SInce 90% of salespeople’s pay plan is commission based, and commissions as an extrinsic motivator are shown to be a less effective motivation technique, why wouldn’t you pay a salesman a good wage and let the commission structure die on the vine?

Surely a good salesman can make more money through commissions than with a base salary alone, and some salespeople “need” that extrinsic motivator (see Justin’s 2-4-6-8 problem post), you could argue that Pink’s premise is exactly what leads to the 2-4-6-8 problem.

In full disclosure, I’ve been both a 100% commission based employee and worked on salary and the mix of both. The book did stir up my brain though and made me wonder if -as Pink says repeatedly in the book- there is a gap between what Science knows and what Business is doing.

As part of my “reclaiming my commute” push, I’ve been listening to Punk Marketing on audiobook this week. This is not an old book, it came out in February of 2007, but the sense of how dated the examples and references are are amazing after just 3 years.

Myspace was still huge, Twitter didn’t exist, the iPhone didn’t exist, and the TV ads and other campaigns are long forgotten by now. And the cell phone companies they reference, Cingular and Alltell, no longer exist.

Remember that when you think that Facebook or Twitter are going to continue to be the dominant social network in the future. When you think that you will continue to be the dominant player forever, you’ve already lost the future.

I’ve been in Boulder this whole week for Boulder Startup Week and being here has reminded me of all the awesome things from my 5 years here previously. I’m not the only one effusive with my praise for this rapidly growing tech town. See Chris’s writeup at RWW, or the Tweet stream for the #bsw hashtag.

At the same time, Francine Hardaway posts a beautiful piece at Fast Company about Gangplank and the young but growing startup culture in Phoenix.

Everyone talks about how great the startup community is here in Boulder, and I can definitely see that while I’m here. But I’m sure I’m not seeing everything, I’m sure there is infighting and backbiting here too – just like our beloved Valley of the Sun. Does that mean we can’t learn from Boulder? Of course not, this is a town smaller than Chandler or Mesa but still has this reputation of openness. Boulder is farther from Denver than Chandler is from Phoenix but it doesn’t feel as far away.

I love it here in Boulder, but it just gives me more hope for what Derek and the rest of the Gangplankers are doing in Chandler. Remember none of this tech community was here in Boulder eight years ago. The grass is awfully green here, but its green where you live too – don’t forget that.