HOW TO SELL WITHOUT SELLING - The Mckinsey Way - Lucas Carnaúba de Oliveira

HOW TO  SELL WITHOUT  SELLING

Lucas Carnaúba de Oliveira

Business problems are like mice. They go unnoticed until they start nibbling your cheese. Just building a better mouse­ trap will not make the world beat a path to your door. Peo­ple who don’t have mice won’t be interested—until the mice show up; then they need to know you have the mousetrap.
This might sound like the musings of a Zen monk (or per­haps a management consultant from California).

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But some­ times the right way to sell your product or service is not to barge into your customer’s home with a bunch of free sam­ples. Just be there, at the right time, and make sure the right people know who you are.


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DON’T ACCEPT “I HAVE NO IDEA” - The Mckinsey Way

DON’T ACCEPT “I HAVE NO IDEA”  - The Mckinsey Way

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People always have an idea if you probe just a bit. Ask a few pointed questions—you’ll be amazed at what they know.  Combine that with some educated guessing, and you can be  well along the road to the solution.

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JUST SAY, “I DON’T KNOW” - The Mckinsey Way

JUST SAY, “I DON’T KNOW”

The Firm pounds the concept of professional integrity into its associates from their first day on the job, and rightly so. One important aspect of professional integrity is honesty—with
your clients, your team members, and yourself. Honesty includes recognizing when you haven’t got a clue. Admitting that is a lot less costly than bluffing.

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LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE - Same book

THE ELEVATOR TEST

Know your solution (or your product or business) so thor­oughly that you can explain it clearly and precisely to your client (or customer or investor) in 30 seconds. If you can do that, then you understand what you’re doing well enough to sell your solution.

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PLUCK THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT
Sometimes in the middle of the problem-solving process, opportunities arise to get an easy win, to make immediate improvements, even before the overall problem has been solved. Seize those opportunities! They create little victories for you and your team. They boost morale and give you added credibility by showing anybody who may be watch­ ing that you’re on the ball and mean business.

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HIT SINGLES
You can’t do everything, so don’t try. Just do what you’re supposed to do and get it right. It’s much better to get to first base consistently than to try to hit a home run—and strike out 9 times out of 10


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LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE
Every now and then, take a mental step back from whatever you’re doing. Ask yourself some basic questions: How does what you’re doing solve the problem? How does it advance your thinking? Is it the most important thing you could be doing right now? If it’s not helping, why are you doing it?

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80/20 AND OTHER RULES TO LIVE BY - The Mckinsey Way

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SOME PROBLEMS YOU JUST CAN’T SOLVE . . . SOLVE THEM ANYWAY
Eventually, you will run into a brick wall that is tougher than your head. Don’t keep pounding; it has no effect on the wall and does your head no good.

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80/20 AND OTHER RULES TO LIVE BY

This chapter contains a number of rules that McKinsey con­sultants have found useful when trying to solve problems.  They are difficult to classify. Call them my “Other Issues.”

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80/20

The 80/20 rule is one of the great truths of management con­sulting and, by extension, of business. You will see it wher­ever you look: 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your sales force; 20 percent of a secretary’s job will take up 80 percent of her time; 20 percent of the population
controls 80 percent of the wealth. It doesn’t always work (sometimes the bread falls butter-side up), but if you keep your eyes peeled for examples of 80/20 in your business, you will come up with ways to improve it.

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DON’T BOIL THE OCEAN

Work smarter, not harder. There’s a lot of data out there relating to your problem, and a lot of analyses you could do. Ignore most of them.

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FIND THE KEY DRIVERS

Many factors affect your business. Focus on the most impor­tant ones—the key drivers.

DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL (PART 1) - The Mckinsey Way

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DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL (PART 1)
Most business problems resemble each other more than they differ. This means that with a small number of problem-solving techniques, you can answer a broad range of questions.
These techniques may be somewhere in your organization, either written down or in the heads of your fellow employees.If not, use your experience to develop your own tool kit.

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. . . BUT EVERY CLIENT IS UNIQUE (NO COOKIE-CUTTER SOLUTIONS)
That there are many similarities between business problems does not mean that similar problems have similar solutions. You have to validate your initial hypothesis (or your gut) with fact-based analysis. This will put you in a much better position to get your ideas accepted.


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DON’T MAKE THE FACTS FIT YOUR SOLUTION
Avoid the temptation to view your initial hypothesis as the answer and the problem-solving process as an exercise in proving the IH. Keep an open and flexible mind. Don’t let a strong initial hypothesis become an excuse for men­tal inflexibility.

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MAKE SURE YOUR SOLUTION FITS YOUR CLIENT 

The most brilliant solution, backed up by libraries of data and promising billions in extra profits, is useless if your client or business can’t implement it. Know your client. Know the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities—what management can and cannot do. Tailor your solutions with these factors in mind.

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SOMETIMES YOU  HAVE TO  LET THE  SOLUTION COME TO YOU 

The McKinsey rules of problem solving, like all rules, have their exceptions. You will not be able to form an initial hypothesis every time. Sometimes, the client will not know what the problem is, just that there is a problem. Other times, the scope of your project will be so large—or so vague—that starting with an IH will be worthless. Still other times, you will be breaking new ground and nothing in your experience will point to a solution. Don’t panic! If you get your facts together and do your analyses, the solution will come to you.

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TESTING THE INITIAL HYPOTHESIS - The Mckinsey Way

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Before you take your problem-solving map out on the road, you want (forgive the mixed metaphor) to kick the tires on it. Test it. Is it the best possible hypothesis you could devise, given what
you know about the industry and your client or company? Have you thought about all the issues? Have you considered all the drivers of the problem? Are all your recommendations actionable
and provable?

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(...)


DEVELOPING AN APPROACH

Just knowing the essence of the McKinsey problem-solving process does not mean you can now go forth and conquer the business world by being fact-based, structured, and  hypothesis-driven. No two business problems are identical;
you must figure out how to approach each problem in order to devise the best solution for it.
In this chapter, I will explain how McKinsey-ites approach business problems and apply the McKinsey problem-solving process to maximum effect.

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THE PROBLEM IS NOT ALWAYS THE PROBLEM
Sometimes a business problem will land on your desk and you will be told to solve it. Fair enough. But before you go rushing off in any particular direction, make sure you’re solv­ing the right problem—it may not be the one you were given

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