30 June 2007 
Press Release: Partnership of The William Oncken Corporation and Management Training of DC, LLC
The William Oncken Corporation
3522 Gus Thomasson,
Phone: 972-613-2084 Fax: 972-613-3182
Email: Onckencorp@aol.com
Website: www.onckencorp.com
CONSULTANTS TO MANAGEMENT
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jack Yoest
Management Training of DC, LLC,
202.215.2434
Jack@Yoest.org
THE WILLIAM ONCKEN CORPORATION ANNOUNCES
PARTNERSHIP WITH
MANAGEMENT TRAINING OF DC, LLC
Dallas, Texas, July 4, 2007 – The William Oncken Corporation (WOC) is pleased to announce it has signed on Management Training of DC, LLC, (MTDC) to launch an initiative to broaden the world-wide reach of WOC’s leadership training products.
Since 1961, The William Oncken Corporation, a management consulting company, has trained more than one million managers and leaders. Our flagship seminar, Managing Management Time™, was specifically designed for those individuals in an organization who are valued as much, if not more, for their judgment and influence than for their time and personal effort. WOC is best known through the article, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?, which appeared in the Nov-Dec 1974 issue of the Harvard Business Review. That article has been one of the two most-requested reprints in the history of the Review and has been declared an HBR Classic.
Accenture reports that 30 percent of organizations are “mismanaged.” Which means that judgment and influence skills are being allowed to atrophy. And this results despite billions of dollars being spent annually on training and “employee learning and development.”
In a move to address this need and opportunity, Jack Yoest, President of MTDC, states, “We are honored to have become a licensed agent for WOC. This affiliation will allow us to bring the Managing Management Time™ series to more global leaders. This is exciting because MMT is the proven gold standard in creating an environment where managers can most effectively lead their organizations. We recognize that the imperative today for leaders at all levels of the organization is to be in control of events!”
Jack draws on his background in business, government and the military with expertise in sales and marketing, and senior management development. He has managed entrepreneurial start-up ventures, including medical device companies, high technology, software manufacturers, and business consulting companies.
For additional information on Management Training of DC, LLC call or email Jack Yoest or visit www.Yoest.com
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Additional information: We recognize that the imperative today for managers and leaders at all levels of the organization is to be in control of events. Simply stated, if you are not controlling events, then events will be controlling you. This can often seem a “mission improbable” when one factors in daily realities such as confusing or conflicting priorities, a chronic shortage of resources, decisions having to be made on partial or incomplete information, the “urgent” crowding out the “important”, etc.
We provide training uniquely targeted to those in the organization who are valued as much, if not more, for
(1) their professional judgments, and
(2) their influence in getting those judgments adopted and acted upon in a timely manner by key stakeholders inside and outside the organization.
These skills are essential prerequisites to mastering the “art of the possible in impossible situations” – that is, favorably influencing if not controlling events.
And the pitch:
Let us help you achieve your goals!
You will find that our philosophy, Managing Management Time™, will:
• Complement the individual competencies of your staff members with a people-centered strategy,
• Developing self-reliant members of interdependent teams
• Which can be implemented t all levels of your organization.
Military Precision,
Business Sense,
Timeless Truth
28 June 2007
How to Manage a Sales Call
There is no greater challenge than for the manager-mentor to keep his mouth shut — during a sales call.
Or may be anytime. Especially for Your Business Blogger.
Recently I worked with a client selling to a significant account. Before we entered the customer’s office, I reminded my client-sales guy of my role,
A) We would strategize before the sales interview.
B) Your Business Blogger would be (nearly) silent during. And,
C) We would critique after.
That silent part in the middle is always the hardest…
One of the first lessons in sales management I learned was in selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door in the early 70’s:
Only one person does the talking.
Any others with the sales representative should observe and assess customer response; the second or third person on the sales team does not add to the chatter.
About the only utterance the observer should say during the sales call is a request to capture the pearls of wisdom from the customer: request permission to take notes. Simply, “Can I write that down? Or, “Let me make a note of that…” In 30 years, no one has forbidden me down to write down their brilliant thoughts.
Before the sales call, my client-sales pro talked about what he wanted to walk out with — what would be success and what would be merely process, and what we could take to the bank.
We also talked about what “monkeys” might be in the mix — the next assignments, the next steps.
I would be careful in collecting the monkeys — all too often sales reps do far too much free consulting and give goodies to prospective clients. I recommend that the favors be lavished after the sale is consummated.
After the visit we reviewed in the car ride to the airport. In this example, we were calling on the president who was a current customer.
1) The customer was delighted with the service.
2) The president would purchase the service for other branches inside his division. And,
3) The customer would provide other referrals.
My client-salesman was also aware of the continued buying signals signifying happiness, as when the customer personally took us on an extensive plant tour.
The client did everything right. My only recommendation would have been to get names and numbers of the referrals.
Then I’d ask the president to call one of his friends and recommend us. To get the customer active in our referral base.
A most minor point for improvement. But I had to come up with something…or the client wouldn’t need me anymore.
Come to think of it, maybe he really doesn’t.
21 June 2007
What is the best tactic to get a referral?
For years, Your Business Blogger has advised lawyers and regular human clients that,
If you want a referral,
Give a referral.
The best marketing method to get new business is by word of mouth from trusted friends or third parties.
The Washington Post recently ran an article about the referring phenomenon in the world of closed circuit judges and lawyers in the old-boy eyre of legal eagles.
Carrie Johnson, Washington Post Staff Writer, interviewed Bob Bennett in Their Own Defense: D.C.’s Clubby Attorneys Keep Work in the Flock.
She quotes Bennett,
“There is sort of this old-boy-and-girl network of old U.S. attorneys, and I must say I tend to think of them for business,” said Bennett, a former assistant prosecutor whose closest colleague, Carl Rauh, ran the U.S. attorney’s office in 1979.
So what’s one referral worth? Carrie continues,
Such recommendations can be worth tens of thousands of dollars or more. Top practitioners such as Bennett bill from $850 to $1,000 an hour. Michael Levy, who worked for Bennett early in his career, parlayed a recommendation from his former boss into the task of advising scores of former Enron employees as witnesses in the long-running probe of the Houston energy trader. When it became clear that the government would try to charge some of them with crimes, Levy in turn referred some of them to other lawyers.
This is the ultimate warm-body networking. But it also works for mere mortals.
After clients learn the First Rule of Referrals (Give one). Clients ask two more questions:
How many referrals I gotta give out? And,
How do I break into the old-boy referral gravy train?
The key matrix for many is how many do I give before I get. Yes, Yes, it’s better to give than to receive and all that but frustrated networkers bitterly complain that all they seem to do is output with no input.
And they would be right.
Your Business Blogger has anecdotal evidence that the ratio of give to get is 10:1. Yep, ten referrals gets the connector 1, one, referral in return.
As ungenerous as this ratio appears to be, it might well have Biblical proportions. In the New Testament, Luke chapter 17, Alert Readers will remember the miracle where Jesus healed 10 lepers.
Alert Readers will also remember that only one healed leper returned to thank The Christ. (I would suppose that this would be the only “referral” the Son of God would appreciate…)
So how do lost souls and Samaritans get appreciated and noticed by referral sources?
With an investment of Time, Talent and Treasure.
Time. Volunteering is what every RainMaker should be doing anyway. The fastest way to get invited to sit on a Board of Directors of your local non-profit is to volunteer to be a fund raiser. Hard work, but gets the concerned citizen at the table.
Talent. Attend or create social events. Carrie Johnson, at The Post reports,
Another batch of lawyers … has for more than a dozen years made an annual ski pilgrimage to Aspen, Colo., a social event that turns to business talk on the lifts. Former Treasury official Robert Altman, … makes the journey to what’s known as “the boys’ ski trip,” as well.
“I think it’s more social, frankly, although without question, a substantial part of the conversation over dinner or on the ski lift is going to be about cases,” said lawyer Hank Schuelke, a charter member of the traveling party, … “I bet you every year there are referrals that arise.”
Treasure. Sponsor activities at local fund raising events. Yes, you would be advertising your company, but being a do-gooder is helpful in a civil society. And you might get your calls returned. For doing the right thing.
And this creates trust.
Nobel laureate Milton Friedman has said that a cultural prerequisite of capitalism is the holding of truthfulness as a common virtue. Good referring networks are a part of this equation. When you can trust, says Friedman, “it cut[s] down transaction costs.”
Remember only one in ten lepers returned to Jesus to thank and worship. This was how the Creator of the world was dis’ed for doing good.
You, Gentle Networker, will not be treated much better.
But go now, and give 10 referrals. The one that comes back will be worth the work.