You are welcome to submit articles of interest to the newsletter. We may or may not publish them. Email your articles to media@cheshiregroup.com. Either embed them in an email or attach a Microsoft Word file, but in all cases please sign your email with your full name so that we can be sure who has sent us the information.
    We hope that you are continuing to enjoy The Better Mousetrap Online Newsletter. Many of the articles in this newsletter come from our book, Morsels from THE BETTER MOUSETRAP. Just click here to order your copy. Or visit our website at www.cheshiregroup.com. so that you can learn more about The Cheshire Group and see samples of our work.
   

PARALLEL OR PIPELINE?
Which Kind Of Processor Are You Running?.

The guy's face was practically screwed into his computer screen. He'd been working on a spreadsheet since before lunch; it was now 3pm, and he didn't hear the co-worker enter the cubicle, sit down or even rustle the papers. When the computer wizard did come up for air a few minutes later he was surprised to see he had a visitor.
    "That's okay," the co-worker waved away the apology. "I get lost in my work too. My wife says I'm a pipeline processor. Most guys are, she claims. According to her, however, most women are parallel."
    Pipeline processing types take on one job at a time and work each one thoroughly until it is finished. Then they turn to the next task.
    Parallel processing types are busy with several things at once.
   Women are trained from childhood to take in stimuli from a number of quarters even while they are trying to concentrate on a specific task. When a woman has a child, these senses sharpen considerably. Every child who believes his mother has eyes in the back of her head is actually just acknowledging her parallel processing abilities.
   According to Hal Lancaster who comments on career management for The Wall Street Journal, the young generation in business has strong parallel processing skills. The twitch generation, as they're called, read their e-mail during meetings and fidget in their cubicles if they are restrained too long.
   Older managers are counseled to load up twitch-speed workers with a number of tasks and to forget concentrating on one things at a time.
   "Give them more to do," goes the advice. "They can handle it."
   This is the generation that did homework in the blue light from the TV screens. Rock music seeps directly into their ears from their iPods when they are training for sports or working on strategic problems.
   Everyone has a work style, but everyone doesn't work at the same pace. If you are responsible for assigning tasks, pay attention to the rhythms of the people who must answer to you. Which folks can you load up with assignments and which ones overheat, panic and stall if they are overloaded?
   Would it be helpful to sort your team into pipeline and parallel processor categories? But before you judge one work style as superior to the other, but sure to evaluate the final output of each individual on your team. Productivity is the telling value. How the worker achieves it is simply a matter of personal style.

ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, BUT...
Don't Always Be Tellin' It.

When Ross Perot left IBM in 1962 to start his own company—Electronic Data Systems— the world got its first glimpse of his now famous, but effective, chutzpah.
   Ross took a small office in a very big, new office building in downtown Dallas. The building was a sleek, modern job with one shiny, blank side. Perot asked the building management if he could put a sign on that wall. Since he was the only tenant to make such a request, the management said sure.
   So Ross Perot erected a sign—a big one. "Electronic Data Systems," it said, "World Headquarters."
  "Who or what is Electronic Data Systems?" the startled people of Dallas wondered. The Dallas business community was even more curious. So was a writer for The Wall Street Journal who nosed around and found out about Perot, his new company, and the brilliant promotional hype of the 'World Headquarters' sign. The next day the story appeared and Ross Perot got an invaluable article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal—a spot which many highly paid PR pros who have sacrificed their BMWs to gain.
   Of course we know the rest of the story—how Perot mad a futile attempt to rescue the American hostages in Teheran, his sale of EDS to General Motors and how he went on to promote himself into fame (or at least notoriety) as a political figure.
   Perot must have known the old chicken verse: "The codfish lays a thousand eggs; the humble hen lays one. The codfish never cackles to show what she has done. And so we scorn the codfish, while the humble hen we prize which only goes to show you that it pays to advertise."

SIGNS OF OUR TIMES.
From The Advertising Department of the University of Texas.

SHUT UP, LISTEN AND SELL.
On Being A Successful Salesperson.

"Contrary to popular belief, to be a successful salesperson, it doesn't matter how much you know about your product or service. It also doesn't matter how much of an industry expert you are. It doesn't even matter how great your mother thinks you are. The only thing that matters to be successful in selling is your ability to shut up and listen."
   That's the advice of Mark Hunter, a recognized professional sales training/motivational speaker based in Omaha, Nebraska, in an article in Business to Business magazine this month.
   He goes on to say that asking short questions of the customer usually results in long answers. And that your presentation should be restricted to a maximum of 20 seconds at a time without asking a question. The questions you ask should be restricted to the comments that you had previously made. In this way you are insuring that the customer understood what you had to say.
   Your goal is to speak no more than 20% of the time. To make sure that this happens plan your questions ahead of time. Therefore if you are expecting to make a 20-minute presentation you should have 40 questions prepared.
   Hunter suggests that you should also make half your questions be ones that "help the customer feel the pain they have." For example if you are selling computer backup systems you might ask, "Can you explain what happens when data are lost?" The customer is forced to face the risks that they face and that no matter the response some good follow-up questions will surface.
   Hunter's final advice is that "by adhering to these guidelines you will be able to see dramatic results in the number of sales you are able to close. So shut up and sell."