My father used to tell me about incivility in marriage – when you stop being nice to each other that is when your marriage goes downhill. Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a lot of incivility creeping into business, and I certainly think the “marriage” between clients and vendors has been going downhill.

Since when do you not offer a vendor a glass of water or a bite of anything in a meeting that lasts over 2 hours – really? Does that seem nice? Recently, I was shown the vending machine to get myself a soda – not that I mind coughing up $1.30, but these are clients that are making billions of dollars.

When clients come to our headquarters, they are offered snacks, drinks – things to make guests feel welcome and comfortable – it’s what your mother taught you to do, for cryin’ out loud. And we are not making billions here – perhaps if we skimped on civility, we could – but it just don’t seem worth it…or nice. Ask your mom.

It is a LOT harder to land a project these days. Once you have gone through the RFI, the RFP, the on-site pitch, the “deep dives” into the nether worlds of your offering – then the audits, the discussions, the follow up teleconferences, the endless questions – all done with a bright cheery smile and a “it’s no problem!” attitude.

But where does that end? When is it OK to say “no” – “enough” and “decide already” without being viewed as impatient? I guess what bothers me is that the client probably already knows if they want to work with you, they just have to jump through hoops themselves to get there.

There has to be a better way to do evaluative periods with vendors that don’t drive us all crazy, waste time and money. We want to give the client what they need to make a well-informed decision, but they need to be respectful of our time as well.

Can’t we all just figure this one out? Thoughts?

Main Entry: un·der·dog
Pronunciation: \ˈən-dər-ˌdȯg\
Function: noun
Date: 1859
1 : a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest

There are a LOT of great advantages to being the underdog – everyone cheers for you, you really have nothing to lose, because if you actually win, people are delighted. But what is the underdog KEEPS winning? At what point do they become the UN-Underdog? And who do people cheer for then? That’s right – the new guy.

I kind of dig being the underdog, because the love you get is amazing – but I see the future and we’ll have to just deal with the fact that we ain’t that anymore. And we’ll just have to get used to the idea of being the winners…guess it is a burden we’ll have to bear.

I had an amazing experience last Friday at the CBI “Next Generation Rx Sampling Strategies” conference. Michael DePalma (Senior Director at Healthbridge) and I sat down the night before we were to give our 8:15 a.m. speech on “360 Degrees of Sampling”. We had the unsettling realization that our speech was not that groundbreaking and we were even using many of the same statistics others had presented the previous day. Most people would have panicked, stayed up late and re-written it. We dumped the whole presentation and decided to take a different path. We KNOW the hot topics, the taboo topics and the have a pretty good view of the future of sampling, so we decided to lead the audience in a spirited discussion on those topics, offering everyone in attendance an interactive learning forum. That was the plan, anyway. So, we created 3 slides and went to have dinner with colleagues.

When I woke up at 6:45 a.m., I realized that this presentation would either soar with the eagles or drop from the sky like a wounded buzzard – it was about 50/50. Fortunately, both Mike and I are strong speakers and good on our feet – it went beautifully, the audience was really engaged, we ended up having a completely different conversation – and we had a blast.

I give great credit to Mike – who gamely went along with my idea and was the catalyst that made it work. Thanks, Mike!!

I always heard about how life (if you are indeed lucky) will offer up a few “brass rings” and if you are smart enough and in the right place at the right time, the brass ring will be yours. In business, it seems, that you don’t get a whole lot of shots at the brass ring – it only gets offered every once in a while (you might get a few iron rings!).

To get the brass ring, not only do conditions have to be just right, something else is needed- you have to be right there and ready at the time the brass ring appears. The brass ring is a special reward for perfect conditions. The person lucky enough to grab the brass ring will receive a free ride on the pharma-go-round – and capture more clients than they know what to do with and live happily ever after.

Lately I’ve gotten calls, emails, and information that tells me that conditions are just right to finally grab the brass ring. And keep it.

For years we all sold at the brand level – you wanted a program done – the money was in the brands. Then there was a seismic shift – procurement came into play (actually, that worked pretty well for us) and programs were done on a franchise or corporate level (ok, that worked out for us also).

Truthfully, the money was always in the brands – we just had to deal with a lot of other players and it took a LOT longer to get things done, especially with 10 brands being coordinated. But now all I hear is “it gets done at the brand level – we have to sell to the brands”.  I’m good with that – hopefully having less people involved in the decision will get innovative things launched before hell freezes over.

Works for us.

There is way too much that can go wrong in a small business. Some people make it harder on themselves by stacking the deck against themselves. As a small business owner, I have to say I love to watch other business owners at work – some I feel great admiration for and seek to emulate – others…not so much.

Last night on Kitchen Nightmares, a show in which chef Gordon Ramsay helps failing restaurants, it was unbelievable how utterly clueless these owners were about why their business was failing. As an outsider, it is far easier to see the forest for the trees:
1. The place was called “Flamangos” – get it Florida+Mangoes
2. They had 50 things on the menu
3. The chef of 1 month was saddled with trying to execute 50 different dishes
4. The customers hated the food
5. The owners mistreated their staff and customers

Truly, the only thing cooking at this place was the pot of misery the owners were making and serving up in big bowls. It seemed the biggest issue was NOT wanting to change – despite the fact that they were bleeding money with no end in sight.

To Chef Ramsay’s credit, he jumped in and despite the loud objections from the people he was trying to help, he completely resurrected the restaurant from the ground up – you could see the staff jump on board, eager to follow a positive leader, the customers followed and last to get on the clue train were the owners, who finally realized that change is a good thing and it was coming whether or not they wanted it.

It took just one person to stand up and confront the bunch to turn a seriously failing business. So, take a look at your business today – are you the changer, the leader or are you the clinger, the one who fears change and what are you going to do – who are you going to be, starting TODAY?

I’m not the best in the world with sports analogies, but having worked with guys for as long as I have (and women who love sports!) I am getting much better at it. Here is my analogy though:

While I love to swing for the fences, base hits are really satisfying and can keep you motivated. We all try to go for the big deals with big pharmcos – probably so we can brag about it, quite frankly. But really huge deals are a) tough to land b) far and few in between c) take forever to negotiate and last, but not least d) usually a pain in the ass once you have them – NOT that I am knocking them – please don’t be confused!!

I’m learning to embrace the small wins, the base hits, hell, even the walks. And it all keeps the business moving forward, until you can bring in the whoppers…and commence to bragging.

It’s not often that I am behind the tech curve, and even worse, my PARENTS were on board before me. Approximately 800,000 people had procured a Kindle before I clued in.  My parents bought both my husband and I Kindles for Christmas – I left mine in the box for at least 2 weeks.  My husband locked himself in the bathroom and for all I know he is still in there, reading away.

I picked up the Kindle one evening recently and I am totally hooked.  I am an avid reader – I adore the library (although I suspect I have ponied up at least $1 million in late fees), but this is unbelievable.  I have been reading more than ever – I just downloaded 3 more books – it took 30 seconds!  I can carry 15 books with me in a completely portable system.  The WhisperNet wireless connection is always (or seems to be) always available, no matter where I am.

So, I was reading during lunch and I started thinking of all kinds of ideas for the Kindle – it has completely inspired me!

Thanks Mom and Dad – AWESOME gift!!

I’ve been a leader for a long time and I’ve been a manager for a long time. I think I am a strong leader; I think I am an OK manager – there is always room for improvement in all arenas, of course.

Somehow I have assumed that by being a strong leader that I am by rote being a good manager. Au contraire mon frere, “being a good manager isn’t about what YOU want to do; it’s about your team,” according to Beth Banks Cohn, a leadership development coach.

So, one of my goals for 2010 is to find out where my TEAM wants to go, what each of THEIR goals are and then I plan to bust my ass to help make those dreams come true. If everyone on the team is achieving their dreams and we are all on the same page as far as where we are headed as a group – how could we NOT absolutely rock the world?

My end of the year thoughts…

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all!!