yes, I know that this is not blindness related, but I cannot resist an
opportunity to demonstrate that disability need not be an insurmountable
obstacle to achieving business and personal success.  

kelly 

from the Wall Street Journal 
   
   March 26, 1999
   
   
Bob Schmonsees Has
A Tool for Better Sales

   "WE'VE NEVER done it that way before." In these hypercompetitive
   times, it's hard to believe people utter such words. Yet Bob
   Schmonsees of Falls Church, Va., hears that excuse with maddening
   frequency.
   
   The Front Lines His small software firm, WisdomWare Inc., has
   developed a slick tool that makes salespeople better informed and more
   efficient. But it requires them -- and their bosses -- to do things
   just a little bit differently, and the wall of resistance looms high.
   "The good news is we've got something that's truly visionary," he
   says. "That's also the bad news."
   
   But Mr. Schmonsees, 51 years old, as you'll soon see, has plenty of
   experience scaling huge obstacles. And although his story is intensely
   personal, it holds lessons for anyone facing an uphill climb in
   business.
   
   As a high-tech sales manager in the 1970s, Mr. Schmonsees made a
   priority of protecting salespeople from the endless white papers,
   binders and other epistles churned out by marketing types. Each
   quarter, he condensed a mountain of documents into a pocket-size
   booklet that crisply summarized what a sales rep needed to know about
   the product, the market and the competition.
   
   Then came disaster. A contender in mixed-doubles tennis and a former
   football star, Mr. Schmonsees was standing near a ski lift when an
   out-of-control skier rammed him. His legs were paralyzed. He would
   spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
   
   Fortunately, he discovered a formula for his different world: Figure
   out the new rules for any activity, then take as many small steps as
   necessary to master those rules. After learning the physics of a
   tennis swing on wheels and the geometry of playing a second bounce
   (standard rules), he became the world's top wheelchair player over age
   40.
   
   NO NUMBER of steps, however, could change the behavior of others. The
   sudden wariness of his former colleagues drove him from the company he
   loved. Then came many crushing job rejections. But after landing in a
   junior supervisory position in software sales, he climbed to top
   marketing management. Later, switching to software vendor Legent
   Corp., he became global sales chief. "Finally, I was back to where I
   should have been," he says, though once again it had taken many small
   steps.
   
   As always, he worked to keep his sales staff informed but not
   inundated. This was a losing battle by the 1990s, with electronic
   libraries of marketing material growing like digital kudzu. Pondering
   this problem one day in the shower, he thought back to those little
   leatherbound digests he used to hand out.
   
                                                           [illustration]
                                                           Bob Schmonsees
                                                                         
   Why not put something like that online? Even more important, why not
   enable every piece of information to link with any other piece? That
   way, salespeople could assemble just the right combination of facts
   necessary for the task of the moment.
   
   Moving forward with an engineering team, Mr. Schmonsees created the
   interactive equivalent of Cliffs Notes. While planning a call, a sales
   rep makes a few menu choices to identify the customer, the product and
   the like. One click creates the most up-to-date qualifying questions,
   another reveals how the competition stacks up, another reports the
   most common objections, still another suggests an "elevator speech"
   for precisely those circumstances. Though only a few concise sentences
   pop on the screen, detailed reports are just a click away.
   
   Mr. Schmonsees left Legent in late 1995. But in his own effort at
   selling the new product, he ran smack into a powerful objection.
   
   The issue wasn't training; that takes five minutes. Nor was it
   compatibility; WisdomWare works seamlessly with other front-office
   software. Neither has any customer winced at the price of $500 and up
   per user.
   
   The problem was culture. WisdomWare requires marketing managers to
   write snappy summaries in addition to (or instead of) their beloved
   white papers. "We've never done it that way!" came the reply. "When
   this becomes part of your culture, it's a real competitive advantage,"
   says Dan Gillis, president of SAGA Software, which embraces
   WisdomWare. "But it takes a real commitment."
   
   THE CULTURE of the field force is another hurdle. Users love the
   encapsulated, up-to-date information that comes to the screen. But
   WisdomWare depends on those same users to provide intelligence from
   the field: what the competition is up to, for instance, and which
   pitches are getting the best and worst results. Sharing information?
   "We've never had to do that before!" came the cry.
   
   Platinum Technology, for one, equipped its sales force of 1,000 with
   WisdomWare in January. And although efficiencies are already evident,
   too few salespeople are giving back information. Platinum's Glenn
   Shimkus is now searching for ways to reward contributors. "We have to
   change the culture so that power and rewards come from sharing
   information, not from hoarding it," he says.
   
   With 20 employees, Mr. Schmonsees is grinding out orders one at a
   time, counting 10 customers to date. And despite the slow takeoff, the
   company's venture-capital backers are about to step up for another
   round. Eventually, the product will run on a hand-held, wireless
   device that sales reps will consult on their way into sales calls-then
   use to submit feedback on their way out.
   
   Mr. Schmonsees concedes that the business, for now, is behind his
   expectations. "It's going to take some time to change the world," he
   says. But as a metaphor for business, his personal life encourages
   him. "I take pride in taking a lot of little steps toward a long-term
   vision," he says.

   Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


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