Elena Petricone

Flywheels, Ideas, and Individual Actions to Better Manage the Government Services You Buy  By Steven BorneConsuming Government Publications For most Americans, their largest annual purchase is government services. Yet we are irresponsible consumers! If we chose to invest comparable time and effort, we could reap better value at less cost year after year. Furthermore, the United States could enjoy a global economic competitive advantage once our actions led to the most cost-effective and efficient government among developed nations. The keystone of this transformation rests with individual citizens and not elected officials or political parties. Our challenge is to motivate ourselves to initiate a cultural shift toward greater civic responsibility. Author Steven Borne explains in Consuming Government that the secret sauce is to start locally on the smallest levels of government services, then, as our management skills, tools and habits grow, expand upwards to broader layers of government services. From there, he argues, solutions can be driven upwards through communities versus the current stagnation from our oscillating political party control. The multitude of ideas introduced in this book can serve as a catalyst to align interests, talents and passions of our citizens for this civic culture transformation. What people are saying… “Steven Borne’s Consuming Government is an important wake-up call to anyone who thinks that voting is enough. And to those who don’t even do that! There is so much in this book that forces you to decide what you think–and what you can do about it. Liberals, conservatives, and complete cynics will find much to agree with and disagree with, but that’s just the point. Mr. Borne isn’t out to convert you. Just to make you think–and then do something about it.”–Susan Estrich, Syndicated Columnist, Professor of Law and Political Science, USC “I have spent much of my career trying to educate the American public about the need to improve government performance, restore fiscal responsibility, and achieve needed political reforms. In Consuming Government, Steven Borne clearly explains how small changes at the citizen and community level can help to achieve big changes nationally. He is to be commended for imploring us to see our frustrations with government not as a Washington problem, but as an American problem that we each have a responsibility to help solve.”–Hon. David M. Walker, Former Comptroller General of the United States Steven Borne’s first foray into the 2000 NH primary process exposed him to the inefficiencies of the presidential campaign process and to writing letters to the editor. His letters were intended not to complain but to offer solutions to problems. An aggregation of all these ideas led to a fledgling independent party, which unfortunately failed to get itself onto the NH ballot. Ultimately he recognized the way to revitalize our democracy was to get US citizens to change behavior. Since then, the siren song has called to the engineer in Mr. Borne to enable our nation to self-correct how we might best manage all the government services we buy, starting with local actions. Borne holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire, MBA from Northeastern University and is the current President of the Rye (NH) Civic League. Click here to learn more and purchase Consuming Government.

Discovering Unexpected Rewards at the Back of the Pack I have run in the annual 5-mile “Minuteman Classic” in historic Concord every 4th of July for more than 25 years. Though by no means an elite runner—my one Boston Marathon took 4 hours and 15 minutes—I’ve always loved this little Colonial-themed road race so much that each spring I rev up a special training regime around it involving short, easy runs for two months before the race, then pick up the pace and push harder until race day. One recent year, however, an unexpected challenge struck. The previous November I’d come down with Lyme arthritis, a subset of Lyme disease that typically balloons one knee up to the size of a softball. For the next few months, I could neither run nor walk without horrid stabs of pain striking at me when I so much as stood up. Fortunately, a crutch, antibiotics and basic rehab ultimately made the worst of this diminish so that by spring my right knee pain had all but disappeared, convincing me I’d be fine for this year’s meet yet again. So throwing caution and common sense to the wind, I pinned on my official bib minutes before 9 AM on the big day and milled around with 300 others ready to go. Then, at the appointed time … CRACK, CRACK! Muskets fired into the air by two Colonial-garbed “minutemen” pushed us ahead gingerly with ever-quickening paces past the Concord Free Library and the 300-year-old Colonial Inn. A half-mile further, we clopped en masse by Hawthorne’s Old Manse, clattering next over the Old North Bridge and then past the Minuteman Statue, Emerson’s “shot heard round the world” testament on its plaque egging us on. Not long after, however, at Mile Marker #2, a throng of seasoned runners effortlessly whizzed ahead. I reminded myself that I had never been that fast a runner anyway so as to wash away any concern. Still the ease with which they moved seemed disconcerting, ominous. Two hundred yards later, a gaggle of newbies slipped by me too and at Mile Marker #3, pain-pricks at my knee began to jab at me. I was definitely running at a slower pace so that by Mile Marker #4 I was hard spent to keep up even with the back-of-the-pack. 500 yards later, gasping past the big yellow Henry David Thoreau house, I found myself alone totally, just asphalt and me. Most of my competitors had left me in their dust. Should I quit? Just walk from here on? I’d never quit any race before but this time a shock hit me hard: What if I finished dead last? What if everyone beat me, even the mom or dads pushing strollers? The ghost of Louisa May Alcott then sprinted right by me, running hard in a hoop skirt down the middle of the road, as she so loved to do in olden days. I squinted behind me, way back in the distance. A lean, tall woman runner was giving it her all but apparently managing only scant progress. She not me would be the last racer! If I could only sustain this snail’s pace a half-mile more, despite the pain, I’d finish as the penultimate racer, not its very last. I could live with that. The final stretch now in view, I embraced such a meager consolation prize and trudged on. Instants later however, my construct collapsed as that struggling last-place loner out of nowhere came level with me … then pumped ahead! At the same instant, my knee pain had grown louder, clawing and scraping and tearing me down. Rapidly losing all control and resolve, I helplessly watched my only remaining competition grow smaller as she moved farther and farther away. A police radio next crackled near my ear as a helmeted officer on a bicycle slid beside me to ask, “You OK?” Despite knife-like stabs in my knee, I gave him a nod. Still he voiced words into his unit that I’d prayed I wouldn’t hear. “I’m with the last racer,” he said. It was official! Ahead at the finish line, a half-dozen onlookers were cheering the morning’s final stragglers. Spying me, they began to whoop. “You can do it! You’re almost there!” Was this admiration or pity? I didn’t know. Nothing left to lose, I decided to give them a show. Summoning every waning reserve, I began pushing myself forward, determined to look as good at the end as I had felt at the start. So I pounded toward them, sprinting, stomping, veritably stampeding. 35 yards to go, 30, 25. I ran bolt upright, lungs grinding, eyes tight shut, legs up and down again and again. Strangest of all I was devoid of all pain! No jabs, pricks or stabs. 20 yards now, 15, 10. My loyal fans yelped and howled, feeding off my insistent abandon. “You’re doing it! Almost there!”  I seemed to be moving faster at this moment than I’d ever run in my entire life, Louisa May’s sprint-spirit somewhere within nudging me with an invisible boost. Gliding thru the finish line funnel, I now stood out from the entire pack, my steadfast fans viewing me as the ultimate in never-say-die. Slowing to a stumble for my cool-down, my former dire knee pain ironically returned. I may in fact had set my healing back six months tho truth be told, I didn’t care. Locking eyes with an off-duty Concord firefighter, he hurried over to extend his hand. “Nice work out there, man!” he blurted.” You did so great.” Then: “Better than I could do!” He drifted off while others came over to high-five me and clap me on the back. But the firefighter’s words clanged loudest of all. “Better than I could do.” Better than you could do? Me? The last racer? I have never won a road race in my life, resigning myself long ago to the reality that I never could. So I’d never know what it

Wednesday, June 12, 2019, Concord, MA “The key is to bounce back!”–Deborah Lee James Please join us as we welcome our keynote speaker Deborah Lee James, the 23rd Secretary of the Air Force, Sector President of SAIC, and author of Aim High: Chart Your Course and Find Success! Also Greg Stone, author of Branding with Powerful Stories: The Villains, Victims, and Heroes Model (Praeger) for Expert Roundtables (see below). How can any of us in business today survive and thrive in the face of ongoing anxiety, unsettledness and dysfunction? Our keynoter Deborah Lee James will try to help by sharing her hard-earned lessons-learned for career and personal success, e.g., use challenges to grow stronger; stay true to yourself and your goals; always prepare to “zig-zag” when your plans go awry. “You can learn as much—even more—from failures and disappointments as from successes,” she explains. “The key is to always bounce back.” 23rdSecretary of the Air Force (under Barack Obama) and former Sector President of defense contractor SAIC, Deborah Lee is also author of the current best-selling book Aim High: Chart Your Course and Find Success (Post Hill Press/Simon & Schuster) with a foreword by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Founder of LeanIn.org and OptionB.org. Adam Grant, Professor, Wharton School and NY Times bestselling author adds: “Lead several hundred thousand people, manage a budget over $100 billion, and secure the nuclear enterprise. That’s what Secretary Deborah Lee James achieved as only the second woman ever to run the U.S. Air Force. Her new book feels like a personal conversation with her as she takes you behind the scenes and shares valuable leadership lessons for your career and your life.” Where and When: Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 10:30 AM – 2 PM at the Colonial Inn (Heritage Room) in historic Concord. “Exceptional Networking” included and books available at CEO Club discount. Registration: Paid-up members in good standing free admission and autographed copy of Deborah Lee’s book. Non-members & guests: $79 at the door, $59 by EOD June 7. Add $15 for autographed book. Seating almost filled so click ASAP for registration & payment on Eventbrite. BONUS! Pre-lunch “Expert Roundtables” led by specialists in a variety of business disciplines will guide lively dialogues leading to insightful, actionable takeaways. All attendees are eligible to participate at no extra charge. Open to CEOs, Consultants, CFOs, Business Owners and Entrepreneurs of companies, professional service firms, nonprofits, law firms etc. of any size. Annual membership plans range from $1,500 to $3,500. Sponsorship opportunities also available. This event is sponsored by Club member Lan-Tel Communications, New England’s premier structured cabling, security, and IT infrastructure installation & integration company since 1992: http://www.lan-tel.com/ To learn more about The CEO Club of Greater Boston, click here.

By Ken Lizotte CMC As part of his ongoing column in Money Inc. Many of life’s major arenas and how we approach or practice them, such as environmentalism, writing, travel, war and peace, politics and rebellion, philosophy and introspection, are steeped within the life and legend of Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau’s studies of nature for example, conducted without the slightest aid of today’s body of science or available technology, continue to serve as the underpinning for such events as the annual spring nature census at Walden Pond where environmental scientists and other naturalists gather every year to survey the effects of climate change on plant life. And Thoreau’s 1849 essay on civil disobedience has influenced millions over the course of more than a century and a half since he first penned it, including the likes of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Frank Serpico, FDR and the anti-war protesters of the 1960s. But despite all this notoriety in so many significant life categories, one segment of Thoreau’s contributions that has been little explored is his impact on business. As an uber-independent personality who spent so much of his adult live indulging in his curiosity and passions to the exclusion of a trade or career, Thoreau’s business contributions have been passed over by historians and wide-eyed Thoreauvians alike, to the point of provoking chuckles today at the mere suggestion. Many scoff at even the notion of the b-word belonging in the same sentence with Henry’s name. But there is indeed a case to be made in terms of business milestones achieved by Henry Thoreau in his lifetime. As a result, a number of lessons his insights offer us are worth to paying attention as we strive to attain our own business goals. Here are four worth contemplating: 1. When founding a business or embarking on a profession, envision what you want, believe in it, then go after it. In our modern era, companies are continually told to formulate a “vision” or mission statement in order to know where you’re going. But too often the path to such a vision/mission is traveled in a backwards direction by trying too hard to be practical, reasonable or careful. In a dog-eat-dog world, hard-nosed pragmatism is the only sensible approach, they insist. Yet leading thinkers disagree, particularly those who have upset previously long-assumed apple carts to create such astonishing breakthrough business models as Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Google and Uber. They adhere to Jim Collins’ landmark advice to set “big hairy, audacious goals” as well as to Thoreau’s own dictum “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be,” adding, “now put the foundations under them. 2. When confronted with a problem, research your way to a solution. Henry Thoreau acclimated to business at an early age, growing up amid his father’s pencil factory. Studying at Harvard however he had chiefly immersed himself in the classical literature as well as Greek, Latin, Italian and other languages. So upon returning home after graduation, one might assume that such an academic focus afforded him little or nor preparation for a career in the family business. But just the opposite proved true. Pencil manufacturing in the US at the time was extremely competitive, with many pencil “products” lacking the reliably fine-point consistency we are accustomed to today. So inspired to uncover a solution to this, Henry took himself back to Harvard for a week to engage in an MBA-like “independent study” project, specifically aimed at how to fashion a “recipe” for pencil lead that would transform Thoreau pencils into an efficient product that everyone could use and love. Drawing on his Harvard-acquired study and research skills, he soon located a solution that in fact had already been put into practice in France. It was well-known that pencil factories there had found a way to regularly churn out high-quality pencils composed of a precise formula of high-quality graphite and clay that facilitated writing and drawing characterized by predictable neatness and legibility. The discovery, plus Henry’s additional improvement of the pencil’s point, elevated Thoreau pencils to the top of its industry. Over time, American pencil-makers as a whole were able to join those in Europe in transforming this utensil into an instrument of communication that solidly left the inkwell and quill far behind. 3. Measure what you can by keeping records. Another widespread misconception of Henry David Thoreau is that his naturalism bent was so anathema to materialism that the mere mention of numbers and bookkeeping would send him sauntering quickly back into the woods. Yet when visitors to Walden Pond pass by a replica of the one-room cabin he had built there in the mid-19th Century, they also encounter a plaque commemorating the painstaking accounting he made of each and every cost involved in his little building project. To whit:   Board’s: $8.03 1/2, mostly shanty boards   Refuse shingles for roof and sides: $4.00   Laths: $1.25   Two second-hand windows with glass: $2.43   One thousand old brick: $4.00   Two casts of lime: $2.40. That was high.   Hair: $0.31. More than I needed   Mantle-tree iron: $0.15   Nails: $3.90   Hinges and screws: $0.14   Latch: $0.10   Chalk: $0.01   Transportation: $1.40. I carried a good part on my back. In all: $28.12 ½ Thoreau ends with this notation: These are all the materials excepting the timber, stones and sand, which I claimed by squatter’s right. 4. When running a business do it your way — even at the cost of failure! A “Thoreau School” in Thoreau’s hometown of Concord, Massachusetts, founded and managed by Henry and his brother John, defied many of standard education principles of that time. Rote memorization, for example, was out as was corporal punishment. Instead the vision of the brothers’ school was based in such humanistic principles as building character, encouraging innovative thinking, and instilling a love for life-long learning. Though the Thoreau School thrived for many years, it

By Ken Lizotte CMC As part of his ongoing column in Money Inc. In a world filled with tweets, ever-breaking news, a thousand TV channels and podcasts galore, is there any point to toiling away at an article, then seeking a journal or magazine willing to publish it? It would seem that no one is likely to read about your hard-earned wisdom any more, much less be influenced or educated by it. Yet many of the reasons that have always propelled business experts to take the time and trouble to write and publish an article (or two or more) still ring true today, ensuring those of us who do make the effort will surely reap the benefits of competitive advantage when measured against those who do not. Here are five reasons how and why this is so: 1. Publishing articles can promote your business If your target market consists of multiple specific industries, spreading the good word about your service and products via industry publications can amplify and extend the reach of your marketing. While advertising can do the same thing, that can be quite expensive while provoking skepticism vs. buy-in. Recognizing that someone is paying for an ad causes us to doubt its veracity while content verified by a third party, such as by the editorial staff of a publication, does not. Thus an article in a publication may transmit virtually the exact information found in an ad, yet the article and its author will be considered more believable. 2. Publishing articles offer higher levels of credibility A white paper posted on a website or LinkedIn is nothing more than an article the author never bothered to get published. Although most such unpublished articles are perfectly worthy of publication, their authors simply chose not to take the next logical step. As a result, an opportunity that could’ve elevated an author’s credibility to the status of “thoughtleader” has been missed. 3. Published articles are high-level sales tools Retirement benefits thoughtleader Dan Cassidy makes it a practice to show up at every sales meeting with a briefcase filled with reprints of his many published articles. When his prospect’s talk turns to a particular topic Dan has written about, he quietly mentions, “I actually published an article on that very subject in a business journal. Let me see if I have it with me.” He then shuffles through his case until he locates said article, pulling it out and sliding it across the conference table. The relevant reprint serves as an additional credibility touch point that moves Dan a step closer to landing the client. This tactic is a fine example of how published articles can function not only as marketing tools but as selling tools as well. 4. Publishing articles can promote your book Do you wonder how to get the word out about a book you have recently published in addition to traditional actions like book reviews and radio interviews? A great one is to carve text out of your book for use as a standalone article. Doing so delivers the “flavor” of your book while alleviating the “heavy lifting” of writing an article from scratch. Such “article-excerpts” typically persuade would-be book buyers to learn more about your book by clicking over to Amazon or your book’s website. Sales of your book increase as a result. 5. Publishing articles can lead to actually WRITING a book! Many business experts long to write a book of their own but get stuck on how to make time for such a lofty goal. The idea of sitting down for hours on end and plugging away at such a lengthy text can be off-putting to say the least. But by writing and publishing smaller “chunks” of what might eventually become a full book is one strategy for making things a whole lot easier. After a year or so of such “piece work,” voila … your book is born! From there, the production stage of publishing a book will complete the job, e.g., editing, cover design, printing, etc. Writing articles that can later be used as chapters can make your daunting dream of a published book at long last come true. Publishing articles separates you from your competition in that only a scant few of your competitors, if any, will also be engaging in it. By positioning yourself as a published thoughtleader, you and your company will be viewed as a go-to expert without equal. Once that transformation takes place, customers will begin seeking you out and telling their colleagues to do the same. Ken Lizotte CMC is Chair of the CEO Club of Greater Boston, and Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc., which transforms business consultants, CEOs, attorneys, finance experts and other business leaders and their companies into published “thought leaders.” Author of 8 books including The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority that People Turn to Every Time (McGraw-Hill), Ken has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Fortune, Business Week, Investors Business Daily, Financial Times and many more. A Certified Management Consultant, he has penned columns for Huffington Post, the American Management Association and Boston Magazine. Ken’s keynote and training clients include multiple appearances at Harvard University, the Concord Festival of Authors and the National Speakers Association; the 2017 Microsoft MVP Conference; the CEO Club of New York City; IMC USA; and retreats and conferences sponsored by private companies, nonprofits, professional service firms and national business associations. A cofounder of the National Writers Union and past president of the Institute of Management Consultants (New England chapter), Ken is current pro bono president of Thoreau Farm Trust, the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau. He lives with his family in Concord, Massachusetts.

By Ken Lizotte CMC As part of his ongoing column in Money Inc. It’s 8 PM and everyone has left the building except the guy at the top, Steve, CEO of a mid-size manufacturing firm. For months now, Steve has been struggling over cash-flow problems with no solution in sight. Coming up with each new payroll has been terrifying him more and more as each deadline demands yet another inventive solution for meeting that period’s payday. As the city lights turn on in the street below his 4thfloor corner office, Steve feels as though he has come to the end of the line. He needs input from someone who has been here before yet none of his people qualify, not his CFO, not his COO, not any of his VPs. No one under him has served as the top officer of an operation as large as his, and no one outside the company comes to mind as someone he can turn to and confide in. Plus, of course, he dare not reveal to his executive team that their own paychecks are in jeopardy due to circumstances beyond his control. That would only send them slipping out the door with updated resumes in search of positions more secure elsewhere. An antidote to Steve’s “loneliness at the top” condition does exist – but only if he is lucky enough to hear about or stumble across it. In most major cities, CEO “oases” of one sort or another assemble top officers just like Steve to support each other in times of trouble that only a lonely CEO is in a unique position to know. Fred Green, Chair Emeritus of the CEO Club of Boston, explains that CEOs “often can’t ask their employees for advice as such employees simply would not know how to respond. Nor can they share much with their spouses, unless their spouse has also served as a top officer, which is usually not the case.” Green adds that CEOs would also not want to go to their company’s board of directors because directors (technically the CEO’s boss) might begin speculating that their CEO does not know what he or she is doing and, as a result, may no longer be the right fit for the job. So the CEO feels trapped, with nowhere to run or to hide or to seek help. But CEOs fortunate enough to discover a CEO oasis can find the kind of support they need that enables them to hang on and reorient toward a profitable course of action. A CEO group affords weary CEOs a watering hole where, in addition to supportive feedback, they can also relax and socialize with like-minded peers, make contact with helpful resources (attorneys, consultants, IT vendors) and even offer counsel of their own to other CEOs stuck or confused. This last feature instills a feeling of satisfaction that they too can help their colleagues by “giving something back.” “A CEO club is a place where you can talk to people who will understand you because you all know what being a CEO feels like,” says Joe Bodio, CEO/Founder of LAN-TEL Communications, and a CEO Club of Boston member for over 17 years. ”A lot of us have found ourselves in the same place at one time or another which makes all the difference.” Adds Brian Urban, CEO of Sencorp and four other companies, “Being able to meet and get to know CEO peers from different industries or even a similar one can help a lot due to the sharing of like information. It has added new skillsets to my repertoire and processes useful to my companies. Investment in a CEO group setting can contribute greatly to one’s overall success.” It should be noted however that, when trekking across the sands of a lonely-at-the-top desert, a variety of distinctly different CEO oasis “models” can be available to relieve the pain. Here are the most common: CEO roundtables: These small groups of 8-10 CEOs meet regularly to recommend action steps and takeaways to each other that might solve a colleague’s current challenges. They then hold each other accountable for commitments made from one meeting to another.  Meeting once a month for a half-day, roundtables usually include a facilitator. Vistage: Like roundtables, this national organization with chapters in most US cities operates groups of typically 8-10 who meet regularly to support each other, again with the aid of a facilitator. The difference however is that Vistage’s monthly meetings are intensive all-day sessions, not half-day. CEO Clubs: Primarily speaker- and panel-driven breakfast, lunch or dinner formats, CEO clubs gather perhaps 40-50 attendees to network and take part in shorter (one hour or less) small group roundtables as well as hear presentations.  Some of these groups, e.g., Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, also provide ongoing roundtable sessions that take place on a separate day. C-Level Community: This innovative online subscriber service provides resources, blogs, webinars, an Expert of the Week Q&A, etc. for CEOs who don’t wish to leave their offices! But offline breakfast networking and speaker programs are also provided so it offers a sort of best of both worlds. Chief Executives Club sponsored by Boston College: This less intimate format attracts literally hundreds of executives, CEOs and VPs alike, who network over a luncheon buffet which includes a keynote by a name-brand CEO. No smaller support groups or additional programs are provided. With so many variations of CEO support available, no valid excuse exists for a top executive to continue functioning all alone. That watering hole in a nearby oasis can replenish, revive and dispel the overbearing heat of an impending business disaster. Those CEOs who have taken themselves out of such scenarios report they now face every new troubling challenge with a confidence braced by the knowledge they are not alone. Ken Lizotte CMC is Chair of the CEO Club of Boston, a branch of CEO Clubs International, and Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc., which transforms business consultants, CEOs, attorneys, finance

By Ken Lizotte CMC As part of his column on Money Inc. Asking questions is critical to succeeding in selling your product or service or your business in general. Too often otherwise good sales reps fail because they just haven’t learned to stop talking and start listening. They want so much to tell a prospect everything they can possibly think of about their fabulous product or service that they refuse to let their prospect get a word in edgewise. This is many times a fatal mistake. As CEO and role model of your firm, are you too often making the same blunder? The objective of basic sales questions is to identify what your prospect actually wants. What they want may not at all be the super-duper bells and whistles that you perceive as your product or service’s greatest attraction. So start by asking the simplest question of them all: “What can I do for you?” Then pipe down and listen closely to what your prospect says. It’s the surest way to gather invaluable consumer feedback. As you listen more closely, gradually ask other questions relating to what your prospect is seeking. Once you’ve heard enough, explain those aspects of your product or service that can benefit your prospect. Operating in this manner, you will no longer feel a need to shoehorn all the features, bells and whistles into the conversation. Since your prospect may have little or no interest in many of these, you will thus save everyone lots of time and wasted breath. By asking more questions and listening even more, you can take any sales conversation to a higher level. By pointing out possible needs that the prospect hadn’t considered, as a reaction to your having listened closely for your prospect’s perceived needs, you will establish “value distance.” This means positioning yourself not only as an expert who can solve problems but also as someone who can add even greater value than that, a value your prospect would never have imagined. Your soon-to-be new clients will now begin believing that they would be utterly foolish if they passed on enlisting your services. Once a prospect reaches this point, the next and final step is to merely iron out the details. Questions to Ask Yourself Along with questions to ask your prospects, consider also valuable questions you should ask yourself. These will often heighten your efficiency as to who should be considered a worthwhile prospect to meet with at all, thereby increasing each sales call’s likelihood of success. 1. Are You Targeting the Right Market? When sales seem hard to come by, we often incorrectly identify poor sales skills as the culprit. Yet it may be instead that the market we’ve targeted doesn’t really want or even need our service. Or maybe its prospects don’t typically have the wherewithal, i.e., the money (!), to afford our fees. When you search elsewhere for more qualified “prospect profiles,” your sales success ratios may find themselves leaping up a rung or two. 2. Do You Rank Your Prospects? Even when directing your efforts toward the right target prospects, certain categories of these prospects may tend to naturally become clients in contrast to others that will prove difficult no matter what you offer them. To keep yourself from running around in circles, try “ranking” your prospects according to their probability of becoming customers of yours. How to do this? First, draw up a list of characteristics notable in those who typically do hire you. A few examples: size of company, revenue of company, industry your client companies serve, officer in company who typically makes the decision to hire you, etc. Also note the characteristics of those who tend not to hire you. Sometimes prospects that seem like obvious customers for your product or service turn out to be duds time and time again. By looking at both sides of the prospect equation, you’ll end up with a scoring grid divided into such categories as High Probability, Moderately Probable, Ambiguous, Poor Prospect, and Totally Unlikely. In time, those preferable categories will become easier to spot and focus your energies on even without stopping to rank them. 3. Are You Making It Too Easy for a Prospect to Become Your Client? This may sound astonishingly counterintuitive but in my experience making your prospects jump through a few hoops before they sign on with you can be quite effective for weeding out the window-shoppers and tire-kickers. Your ranking system can help with this although sometimes even with ranking you will still get fooled. So an added protection against such prospects unlikely to sign on with you is to stretch out your selling process. Examples might include giving prospects some “homework” to do, setting up a second meeting, trying out your product etc. Your aim here is to make your prospects demonstrate that they are genuinely interested and motivated in you as their vendor and business partner. Once you’ve got them jumping through most or all of your rings of fire, you’ll have a “keeper” of a client who will sometimes stay loyal to you for many months if not years. 4. Are You Presenting Yourself to Your Prospects as Their Equals? What distinguishes a true industry leader from just another vendor or contractor is that this expert or company is the genuine article, that is, the best there is, the go-to authority, the expert with an edge. Consequently, relate to your prospect as if you’re already on the payroll. Listen, ask questions, explore, share, rank, brainstorm, and offer innovative and insightful advice. As your prospect’s industry thought leader, assume an air of confidence that suggests hiring you and your firm would be the best decision they ever made. As management guru (and industry leader) Alan Weiss teaches consultants in his writings and his speeches, “It’s entirely within our power to control the sales process. But that requires the confidence to believe that we have value to offer and the diagnostic skills to determine what the actual

By Ken Lizotte CMCAs part of his new column on Money Inc. Most days we CEOs are caught up fighting fires, initializing paperwork, running to and from meetings and, well, running, running, running. At the end of each day, we are often spent, exhausted, and, frankly, glad to be out of the building! So why would any self-respecting chief executive choose to jump into an even deeper time and energy suck like the prospect of writing a book? What good would it do you? Why should your company care? The truth is there are many good reasons to write and publish books (yes, plural … more than one!). Benefits will accrue not only to you the book’s author but also to the firm and everyone employed by it. Customers and clients too can be swept up into the positive fray. Consider these probable outcomes: 1. Writing a book will raise your company’s visibility among its target markets including its already established customer base. There is little in business comparable to the excitement that develops when someone has published a book. Your company will thus benefit as your new book expands its notoriety. 2. Writing a book will elevate your company’s reputation among its target markets. Visibility and buzz are one thing but how customers and prospects actually feel about a company is quite another, and frequently a far more significant connection. Reputation, the essence of brand, holds the capacity to draw buyers your way vs. instill them with satisfying vibes that will keep them coming back again and again as well as sending their friends, families, colleagues etc., to your door. By manifesting the good works described or implied in your book, buyers of your product or service testify proudly that their commercial association with you is a worthwhile one. 3. Writing a book will deepen your understanding of your company’s value proposition. There’s nothing like the process of writing to bring forth more clarity with regard to your own understanding of your writing’s subject matter, which in this case will always be, one way or another, what your company does and how it does it. Just as public speaking forces us all to think quickly on our feet, so too does writing demand a deeper level of knowledge and insight in order to refine our intended messages. Thus both CEO and company discover newer and better ways to communicating company value. 4. Writing a book will empower you to more confidently fulfill your role as your company’s leading thinker and communicator. Everyone looks to the decision-maker at the top as the “thought leader” in all company matters, for good or for ill. Though this perception is an impossible one for any one human being to fulfill, writing and publishing a book tends to upgrade the writer’s “confidence quotient” while de-stressing daily large or small interactions. Because you, their CEO, has invested the time to think through, analyze, and articulate big-picture problems that your company aims to solve, you become equipped on a higher level perspective-wise to deal with what are often confusing sometimes hourly challenges. Of course, despite all the above advantages, writing and publishing a book is nonetheless a daunting and time-consuming endeavor indeed. But as with most things in life, happy endings as a result of book authorship will frequently result only after a hard literary struggle and climb. But if the commitment is fully and truly made, then you the new author will soon be enjoying a new lease on your professional life, as well as sitting on a higher rung on the competitive ladder of your company’s industry. PS: Meeting such a challenge may even inspire you to consider and eventually embark upon a seemingly even crazier challenge: the writing and publishing of book #2! Ken Lizotte CMC is Chair of the CEO Club of Boston, a branch of CEO Clubs International, and Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc., which transforms business consultants, CEOs, attorneys, finance experts and other business leaders and their companies into published “thought leaders.” Author of 8 books including The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority that People Turn to Every Time (McGraw-Hill), Ken has been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Fortune, Business Week, Investors Business Daily, Financial Times and many more. A Certified Management Consultant, he has penned columns for Huffington Post, the American Management Association and Boston Magazine. Ken’s keynote and training clients include multiple appearances at Harvard University, the Concord Festival of Authors and the National Speakers Association; the 2017 Microsoft MVP Conference; the CEO Club of New York City; IMC USA; and retreats and conferences sponsored by private companies, nonprofits, professional service firms and national business associations. A cofounder of the National Writers Union and past president of the Institute of Management Consultants (New England chapter), Ken is current pro bono president of Thoreau Farm Trust, the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau. He lives with his family in Concord, Massachusetts.