DOTC - How to Manager Your Manager

2011

What is the primary function of a Sales Manager?

Let's say you're selling copiers - no big stretch there.

Your company/dealer/branch conducts Monday morning group meetings followed by individual, one on one, 'Sales funnel' sessions.

Consider the following:

Scenario 1 - New Sales Rep

Your company-owned, CRM has to be updated, all the stages of the cycles illustrated and filled.

Your funnel covers 150% of your quota - all target accounts diagrammed, bases covered, red flags seen.    Number of appointments, number of cold calls, demos, etc. etc., etc.

All normal and ordinary. You're ready and prepared for that meeting with your Sales Manager.

Scenario 2 - Old-Salt

Same company, same meeting.

You've been moving copiers since 1980 and remember selling machines on real cold calls; face to face, demo in the lobby, one appointment close.

All your prospects' and clients' business cards are at your fingertips. You've worked with more sales managers than you can remember.

Your Monday morning routine includes reminding the Sales Manager why you're still there, how much gear you've landed over the past decade and how many more are coming down in the next 30 days.  You present this verbally because you don't get paid to play with spreadsheets and computers.

EMBED-Horrible Bosses: Trailer - Watch more free videos

Unfortunately, this Monday is different.

Today, senior management is in on the meeting to introduce the new manager.  Today, you get to meet the new guy, your new manager.

So you're both in the same spot. Now what?

Listen to the introductions, nod your head, play their game, and become part of their agenda.

Is that really what you want to do? 

Does your manager hold dominion over you? Really?

How about you try to help him define his role in supporting you?

How about you show him he works for you?

What, do you think that can't be done?



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TheDeathOfThe PC: A Call to the Channels Transform Now

My Rover, Grass Valley Fire, 2007

It isn't that we are not familiar with tough business decisions.  We all know somebody who has been a victim of such acts.

HP's announced decision to let die WebOS and TouchPad - a product that lived just 49 days - in and of itself is stupendous.

Spinning off their PCs may seem surprising unless you once sold IBM ThinkPads and remember selling IBM printers.

Go back to IBM, heck go back to the Mopier, the HP9065, and Edgeline; is it really a surprise that after investing a billion, shifting leadership, HP drops and adds?

There is more, much more here, and it is not all Dark.

"...Kindles and Schmindles..." Print...is...Dead...

Buggy whips, that's all I'm sayin...

911 - Never Forget

iPhone 5 - Better Than R2D2 ? "Help me Oki Wan, You're my only Hope..."

Paper?  What paper?

Jus sayin..

The Imaging of Greg - "MPS Summit: What a Difference Three Years Make"

"Yup, I was in Vegas at the “Recharger show.”


Well, technically, I attended the 2011 Managed Print Summit, which to me, seemed even more out of place, until I looked at the scheduled presenters: Ed Crowley, Robert Newry, Mike Stramaglio, Jim Lyons and Greg VanDeWalker – all MpS regulars, each in the ecosystem from early on if not the very beginning.


And there were more. Jim D’Emidio, Ed McLaughlin, Mark Mathews and Jim Phillips – old-skool hardware and infrastructure dudes who each see the impact of MpS.


And the new guys? How about Brendan Peters from Intel, Tim Grimes from Research in Motion or Gordon Jones from Green Hills Software? Googlitize them if you don’t know who they are. For now, let’s just say wireless, intelligent devices and security software. Yeah, at an MpSummit, the day before the large toner cartridge show. Who woulda thunk?..."

Read the rest at The Imaging Channel



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This is What HP Should Do with TouchPad/WebOS: "Execute Order 66"

Give more TouchPads away.  And by more, I mean to give another 500,000 away.

Quickly put together a Mega-Cloud, now.  

Call it the "MacGyver Cloud"; duct tape, paperclips, hope, and a prayer - whatever it takes, string it together.  

In this cloud, give away 6-month subscriptions to the Wall Street Journal, HBR, LeopardONE, MPSInsightsPro, LuLu, TMZ, on and on.

Bundle all of it in. Free.

Hook up with Verizon and get on their network, into their stores.  Hell, buy Verizon.

Get every remaining print publisher on the phone, in a Halo room, or to the West Coast and offer up an advanced conduit to 1 million customers, through MacGyver. Negotiate for a percentage and target Amazon/Borders; the Nook and the Kindle.

Spark up the TouchPad plants.  Rationalize, re-calibrate and reorganize PSG around generations of TouchPad.  Get this new team out there selling MacGyver and giving away TouchPads through every channel.  EVERY CHANNEL.  Sell it at 99 bucks - through Walmart.

Call the second model, "TheNext" and release a Leopard print version.

Buy a f*cking advertising agency, not another technological oddity.

I'm not done yet.

The Dubious Monk On Professional Printer Destruction

Author Nathan Dube, also known by his twitter handle @dubiousmonk

As time has gone on I have "worn multiple hats" in my tenure at Expert Laser Services. Graphic Artist, Managed Print Services Specialist and Social Media Marketing Engineer are all responsibilities I have held or currently hold.

As of recent I have also taken on a new role, one with as much prestige as any. In fact I am one of only a few professional "Printer Destruction Specialist" in the world. This is a humbling and rewarding career, one of which I know there are many aspirants...

In this post I would like to outline what makes a great printer destruction possible. Below you will find a most useful guide for the annihilation of print and copy devices that if practiced regularly, will ensure a most sublime level of expertise in the noble art and science of printer destruction.

Quigley - Another Analog Guy in a Digital World

A couple of weekends ago, I was fortunate enough to squeeze off a few rounds from a Sharps 1874 - you may remember the 1990 movie, "Quigley Down Under" with Tom Selleck.

The weapon had a prominent role.

At its peak, the Sharps was considered one of the best, long-range firearms in the world.

From the Uberti site, makers of Sharps replicas:

"...In 1874, after 700 Comanche warriors attacked 30 buffalo hunters in the Texas panhandle, the hunters used their Sharps rifles to exact a punishing toll. By the early 1880s, the long-range models had become the favorites of professional buffalo hunters because of their long-range capability..."

Indeed, even today, the long-gun is a fully functional, work of art:  double triggers, lever action, 34" barrel, 15 pounds she delivers a good kick, our black powder loads were clustering in 8 inches, 300 yards - we aren't that good.

The Sharps is cool - but the movie/sales metaphor?

Rugged individualism in the face of despotic ownership and management; Analog Guy, in a digital world full of other analog guys who think they're digital.

Huh?

"Dear Steve, I've never owned a Mac, or an iPhone and I don't have an iPad..."

I don't even know you, but you seem to know a great deal about me.

So Steve, thank you for my Droid X.

Thanks for forcing Microsoft to integrate a mouse, even if it was on DOS 4.0.

Thank you for getting IBM to utilize 'preemptive multi-threading in OS/2 even though it was a doomed OS.

Thanks for pushing the 3.5" floppy.  Thanks for letting all the peripherals that attach to the Lisa automatically connect.

Thanks for AppleTalk.

Thank you for seeing I really only wanted three or four songs from an album.

Thank you for disrupting the music industry - giving us Lady Gaga and incredible, mind-blowing live shows. (figure it out)

Thanks for recognizing a dwindling need and not allowing the iPad to print.

You beat the PS/2 and helped IBM find a new way.  

You destroyed the music industry and helped them find a new way, giving us immediate access to the music and artists we, the people, wanted to hear, at 99 cents a pop.

Sony, because of you, experienced the stink of defeat, the folly of internal business silo and they found a new way.

Talking, Rumors Flying - IBM to take Xerox; HP Getting out of PC's, Oracle to Pick up HP

All over the 'Net:

Xerox a good Purchase Target - WOW

"IBM to purchase Xerox" - WOW, WOW

"Samsung Eyeing HP's PC business" or not, Huh

Dell Smack Talk to HP - duh...

The Unthinkable -

"Oracle should Buy HP" - No Way!

Business as Usual -

To Customers - "Business as Usual" - YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY TODAY.

To the Channel - "Business as Usual" - YOU HAVE NO CREDIBILITY TODAY.

Why -

How did we get here? - History, repeats

The Dude - Speaks

Does All This make Sense? - No, Yes.

Android to the Rescue - TouchMy X

The DOTC read on all this...