Aussie Rules

Art Sobczak

(Episode 430; 19 minutes 40) Actually there’re six tips for successful cold calling in today’s BTalk. The first one is not to call it cold calling. Art Sobczak, President of Business by Phone Inc, says smart calling is the way to go. It implies that you’ve thought about each conversation rather than blindly working your way through the phone book.

Art’s new book, Smart Calling: Eliminate the Fear, Failure and Rejection From Cold Calling, will be released at the end of March. He gives us a taste of the advice from the book with five tips that will lead to more successful business prospecting over the phone.

In the podcast Art also gives an example of a bad sales pitch and how, by following the five tips, your approach to a prospective customer can provide a more beneficial outcome.

Fran Brosan

(Episode 429; 15 minutes 08) Consumer marketing is all about developing an emotive response from the prospective customer, so the decision to buy is based as much on a feel-good factor as it is about the functionality and differentiation of your product.

In the business space the decision to buy generally involves a lot more money and a wider range of people. Surely that means the decisions made are made on far more rational grounds. No room for touchy-feely stuff here!

Well, that might be right to an extent but, as Fran Brosan from UK marketing agency Omobono points out, the decision to buy or continue to buy is based on relationships. The B2B marketer plays a crucial role influencing how these relationships are developed.

Hear Fran’s views on the difference between B2B and B2C marketing in today’s BTalk podcast. Add your views on the differences in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

Fran is also a regular contributor to the blog at B2B Marketing Online, which is where I came across her.

Naomi Simson

(Episode 428; 12 minutes 40) Just how do you come up with those innovative ideas that will make a difference to your business? Naomi Simson is someone who knows innovation well. She left corporate life to start Red Balloon, an online gift retailer selling experiences to customers. It was a great idea that’s worked well, but could Naomi return to a big company and inject the same innovative thinking?

On today’s BTalk I talk to Naomi about her thoughts on where innovation comes from and how businesses need to structure themselves to help those ideas to flourish.

You might also enjoy these related BTalk podcasts:

• Does Your Company Have Hot Spots? | BTalk Australia
• Does Your Business Have the DNA for Creativity? | BTalk Australia
• An Engaged Employee is a Productive One | BTalk Australia
• Go It Alone and Escape Corporate Life | BTalk Australia

Marc de Cure

(Episode 427; 19 minutes 15) This week Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan launched the 2010 Intergenerational Report, which some scary figures on the economy for 2050. The ratio of old people to those of working age will have doubled and the economy’s growth will have slowed substantially.

Part of the answer we’re told is in having older people working longer. The government has announced a $43 million training push for retirees, but it’s a small measure for a big problem.

On today’s BTalk I talk to Marc de Cure — who chairs the Leaders’ Forum at the Australian Institute for Population Ageing Research. He says it’s a big issue that needs to be addressed by business, government and individuals.

But will we find the answer in time? Japan didn’t. Europe is suffering the same fate. Will Australia be any different?

Do you have any answers? Add your thoughts in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

Tony Cherbak

(Episode 426; 10 minutes 46) Have you noticed that there’s fewer accountants these days? Where have they all gone? Companies cut hard in the finance department during the economic downturn, which means there’s a lot of finance people out of work. Many of those who are left are overworked and overstressed.

Now the economic outlook is more positive companies are ready to take on more finance people, particularly to help with project work. For some accountants this might be the opportunity to switch from an in-house job to a career as a contractor. If you’re an accountant now is the time to come out of hiding and make the most of the opportunity.

Although working on temporary assignments sounds like a fundamental attitudinal shift for a profession that I would have thought prefers the security of a permanent job. But, as Tony Cherbak, President and COO at Resources Global Professionals, remind us in today’s BTalk, there’s no such thing as a permanent job anymore.

So if you’ve got a career in corporate accounting, now might be the opportunity to make a change.

Less earning potential?

(Episode 425; 6 minutes 13) Is there a relationship between your hair colour and how much you earn? Dr Geni Dechter, an economics lecturer at the Australian School of Business, studied the effect of physical appearance on earnings while she was worked at Rochester University in the United States.

Geni, who is a brunette, found that hair colour could impact wages by as much as 9 percent. It seems the notion of the dumb blonde was prevalent in the US at the time of the study. It’s covered in her recent paper “Physical Appearance and Earnings: the role of hair colour”.

The study was based on research in the US. I wonder if the same would apply in Australia today. Tell us your experiences in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

You might also find this paper interesting from Daniel Hamermesh at the University of Texas: “Dress for success – does primping pay?”

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Anil Makhija, Ohio State University

(Episode 424; 9 minutes 20) A word of warning - if your CEO is steam rolling a highly leveraged approach to business it might be as much to do with his/her personal traits as it is to do with sound business thinking.

On BTalk today I talk to Anil Makhija from the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. Anil has co-authored a report “What Does CEOs’ Personal Leverage Tell Us About Corporate Leverage?”

Their conclusion is that there is a strong relationship between personal and business leverage decisions. Is this a warning to companies that their corporate governance is too weak and key decisions are being made unilaterally by the CEO.

Rodney Gray

(Episode 423; 15 minutes 46) We all know that you should be keeping your employees informed, but is it really worth the effort of measuring how well it’s working? Can’t you just follow whatever is the best practice approach for disseminating information and it’s up to your staff whether they read it or not?

Perhaps there’s a bit more to it than that. Rodney Gray from Employee Communications and Surveys says the notion of just “sending out stuff” is not very effective. Done well internal communications should be driving productivity and increasing sales.

In that case it almost certainly is worth a bit of analysis, but what precisely, and how do you do it? Find out in today’s edition of BTalk.

Peter Swan

(Episode 422; 17 minutes 21) This week we heard of the US government’s plan to ban proprietary trading by retail banks and moves to limit the size of banks. It’s a move to protect customers and taxpayers from unnecessary risk.

On today’s BTalk Peter Swan talks about the irony of Barack Obama’s apparent focus on bank customers when his bail-outs have been in the interest of banking shareholders. He should have let them go to the wall is Swan’s view. The result is a sector prepared to take high risk with the assumption that taxpayers will bail them out in times of trouble. Well, it’s happened before!

Prof. Peter Swan, from the Australian School of Business, says the Obama proposal is poorly thought out populism that will have do nothing to reduce risk taking by the banks, but it will hit liquidity. He also questions why he is taking aim at deposit-taking institutions when there’s no evidence of retail bank collapses caused by trading with customer funds.

Hear Peter Swan’s views in today’s podcast. Click on the play button on the player at the top of this post.

Carmen Reinhart

(Episode 421; 17 minutes 15) Some forecasters and politicians would like us to believe that we will rebound out of the global financial crisis with a period of high economic growth. Others say that’s unrealistic when high government debt will have to be met with higher taxes that will only inhibit growth.

So can an economy grow an economy with high government debt? The answer seems to be to a point. Carmen Reinhart (University of Maryland) and Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) have studied the relationship between growth and data for their paper “Growth in a Time of Debt”. Based on a mass of government data from around the world they have concluded that debt has little impact on growth so long as it stays below 90% of GDP.

Does that mean countries can keep spending to buy their way out of recession? Hear what Carmen Reinhart has to say in today’s edition of BTalk.

Read the latest draft of the paper here.