JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Environmental risk analyst Dr Anthony Turton has vehemently denied claims by independent environmental organisation the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE) that tailings extractor Mintails has not complied with the terms of its water-use licence (WUL) and other environmental requirements to the extent that makes it criminally culpable.
FSE CEO Mariette Liefferink said in a statement last week that the non government organisation (NGO) was "compelled to lay criminal charges against Mintails and to report the matter to the Office of the Public Protector", following what she claimed was environmental noncompliance at the miner's Witwatersrand operations, west of Johannesburg.
In a telephonic conversation with Mining Weekly Online on Monday, Lieferink confirmed that the FSE would officially lay charges against Mintails at the Mogale City Police Station on Tuesday and was scheduled to meet with a Public Protector representative on June 4 to address the FSE's claims of noncompliance by Mintails and other miners in the area. Among the documents cited by Lieferink as supporting these claims was an external WUL audit report that had been compiled by independent consultant Turton in March, which Liefferink said had revealed several areas of noncompliance.
The FSE also referenced two directives issued to Mintails by the Department of Minerals Resources (DMR) and the Department of Water Affairs (DWA) in December and January respectively, the first of which confirmed a recurrence of pollution owing to mining activities, while the latter, among others, directed the mine to "clean up spillages of slimes along the pipeline route".
Turton, however, strongly rejected the FSE's allegations of criminal culpability, telling Mining Weekly Online in an email that, while his audit had revealed some issues of noncompliance, these were largely procedural, indicating that administrative "problems", such as missing a deadline, not titling a report correctly, or the company not being aware of certain requirements, had prevented compliance. "More importantly, there are many areas of noncompliance that are underpinned by grey areas of uncertainty.
These mostly relate to the integration of three pieces of legislation, the Mining and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA), the National Environmental Management Act (Nema) and the National Water Act, none of which speak to each other," he commented. According to Turton, this was "comprehensively" dealt with in the external audit report , which offered the company a set of recommendations in this regard.
The areas of "major" noncompliance listed in the audit report included the missing of a deadline for the completion of an internal audit; the failure to appoint an external auditor; the lack of flow metering in one of the systems; a geotechnical report on the West Wits Pit; the lack of a formal runoff management plant for Lancaster dam; inadequate access control and safety notices; and the absence of a formal rehabilitation plan for the entire Lancaster dam area. Turton added that the WUL was largely an "aspirational document", in that it created a framework for a future in which water resource management was improved over time. "The WUL gives you rights, but also stipulates responsibilities, many of which have to be phased in over time.
The latter is the operative word – it has to be 'phased in' because it is a framework document," he argued. Turton further noted that Mintails had prioritised full legal compliance as "the single most important issue" currently facing executive management, adding that it had used the recommendations made in the audit report to inform the terms of reference for the internal management team tasked with legal compliance.
The FSE claimed in a document that Turton's March report had revealed the lack of a formal runoff plan for the Lancaster dam, uncertainty around the contamination of groundwater, the lack of a mine closure plan that was harmonised with the integrated water and waste management plan and rehabilitation strategy, the non identification of an alternative water supply and the lack of a comprehensive rehabilitation plan for the West Wits pit. Responding to these items, Turton explained that the issues identified in his report were intended to provide a baseline against which the next monitoring and evaluation component of the WUL requirements would be measured by both the DWA and Mintails management. "It is, thus, an accurate roadmap of what still needs to be done to meet the final aspirational status of the WUL: improved water resource management through an integrated approach that embraces the Nema and MPRDA over [a reasonable] time," he said, adding that all the issues of concern listed in his March audit had been given priority and were in various stages of progress.
According to Turton, the biggest progress had been in the Lancaster dam management plan, which was now in an "advanced" stage of engineering design and costing. This, he said, integrated "many different aspects" called for in the WUL, including, but not limited to, the runoff management plan. "There is also considerable progress that has been made on the development of an integrated pipeline management strategy, with a presentation of this to the regulator likely to be ready by the end of June.
This embraces current hazard and operability risk assessment methodologies and the development of a protocol that proceduralises the response to, and reporting of, any pipeline incident," he commented. The environmental analyst added that what was considered a "reasonable" timeframe for compliance was determined by the regulator and the licensee. "This is the essence of the matter.
The FSE has usurped the role of the DWA, [Mintails] executive management and other regulatory authorities to determine what it thinks is reasonable, which is absurd," Turton commented. He said he welcomed engagement with the South African Police Service and the Public Protector should they decide to investigate these charges, as there was "nothing to hide" and "certainly no credible evidence of criminal intent or gross negligence".
Lieferink, however, remains steadfast in her assertions, telling Mining Weekly Online that, as the head of an NGO mandated to protect the environment, she had a moral, social and legal obligation to disclose environmental concerns to the public, which were the "recipients of the pollution". "The National Development Plan encourages an active citizenry, which is what we are doing. We are not taking over the role of the regulator, but we are the eyes and the ears of the people and observe what is happening on the ground.
"We would be noncompliant with our own constitution if we did not whistleblow against environmental incidents," Lieferink held.
Summary of water quantity and quality challenges within the Vaal River system grounded upon the information which was presented by the Department of Water and Sanitation's Directorate: National water resource planning to the strategy steering Committee (SSC) for the continuation of the integrated Vaal River system. Reconciliation Strategy Guide – PHASE 2 attached for donwload.
THE FSE PRESENTED ON INVITATION TO THE SOUTH AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISION ON THE POLLUTION OF THE VAAL. ATTACHED ARE THE PRESENTATIONS.
SUMMARY OF WATER RELATED CHALLENGES IN SOUTH AFRICA 2018 INTRODUCTION This summary was compiled by the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE) grounded upon its involvement as member of the various organs of state's project steering committees, study steering committees, expert steering committees, advisory committees, task teams, forums, etc. since and prior to its inauguration in 2007.
WATER ISSUES: Continuation of the Integrated Vaal River System Reconciliation Strategy Study (PHASE 2). The FSE is a member of the Strategy Steering Committee and actively participated in the meeting on the 27th of February, 2018.
WRITTEN SUBMISSION ON THE DRAFT 2.6: NATIONAL WATER AND SANITATION MASTER PLAN (NW&SMP) In this document, the Federation for a Sustainable Environment ("FSE") submits comments on the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan, draft 2.6 (the "draft plan"). THE FSE: The FSE is a federation of community based civil society organisations committed to the realisation of the constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being, and to having the environment sustainably managed and protected for future generations. Their mission is specifically focussed on addressing the adverse impacts of mining and industrial activities on the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities who live and work near South Africa's mines and industries. In accordance with the above-mentioned mission, the FSE's comments are limited to matters pertaining to the mining industry. The FSE's comments will be substantiated by real examples within the scope of the FSE's experience and our active participation in a significant number of environmental impacts assessments, environmental management programme reports, water use license applications, environmental authorisations, steering committees, forums, task teams, teams of experts, academic research groups, boards, etc. over a period of 15 (fifteen years).  Kindly note that the Legal Resources Centre assisted with this publication.
The following preliminary comments on the National Water and Sanitation Master Plan (NW&SMP) are submitted on behalf of the Federation for Sustainable Environment (FSE). The FSE is a federation of community based civil society organisations committed to the realisation of the constitutional right to an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being, and to having the environment sustainably managed and protected for future generations. Their mission is specifically focussed on addressing the adverse impacts of mining and industrial activities on the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable and disadvantaged communities who live and work near South Africa's mines and industries. In accordance with the above-mentioned mission, the FSE's comments are limited to matters pertaining to the mining industry. The FSE's comments will be substantiated by real examples within the scope of the FSE's experience and our active participation in a significant number of environmental impacts assessments, environmental management programme reports, water use license applications, environmental authorisations, steering committees, forums, task teams, teams of experts, academic research groups, boards, etc. over a period of 15 (fifteen years). The FSE, with the support and representation of the Legal Resource Centre (LRC), is currently in the process of preparing additional comments on the NW&SMP. In view of the aforesaid, we respectfully request allowance to refine and augment our preliminary comments.
THE POTENTIAL to create 100 climate jobs and to help : bring a "dead river system" back to life -that's the rationale behind a proposed pilot project to heal one of Gauteng's most heavily polluted river systems, the Tweelopiespruit, which has been contaminated by more than a century of mining.
SOUTH Africans have to "change their mindsets" that they can't drink acid mine drainage (AMD).
Eastern Basin acid water plant is "sledgehammer"
The Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) has used a "sledgehammer" for its R1bn treatment plant for acid mine drainage (AMD) on the Eastern mining basin that could ultimately create more toxic water. This is the view of water strategy and consulting mining hydrologist Kym Morton, who believes government is "wasting money" by pumping large volumes of water and adding lime that makes it alkaline but still toxic and hazardous.
Focus on preventing illness rather than incurring the expense of treatment.
In the Midvaal suburb where Sipho Mosai lives, the gardens are lush and green because the sprinklers run all day. There's little sense of alarm at the fast-declining water levels in the Vaal water system after which the suburb is named.
The Federation for a Sustainable Environment has objected to the Water Use Licence granted to Sedibelo Platinum Mine within the Moses Kotane Local Municipality, North West Province. An extract from the objection follows, and the full document is available to download.
In response to the country's need to take an improved integrated approach to Water Quality Management, the Department of Water and Sanitation has recently initiated a project to revise its current Water Quality Management (WQM) Policies and Strategies.
The Department of Water and Sanitation's existing treatment programme involving pumping acid mine drainage out of the Witwatersrand basin and then partially treating the water by neutralising it will not assist in alleviating the challenge in the long term, says the Federation for a Sustainable Environment (FSE) CEO Mariette Liefferink.
Mariette Lierfferink, CEO of the Federation for a Sustainable Environment states that while the Department of Water and Sanitation alleges that the Acid Mine Drainage situation is no longer a reason for concern, the investigation report by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) adduces evidence to the contrary.
'Fracking threatens our water resources': This was the topic in the third of WWF and SAfm's Decisive Debate series.
As Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa unveiled a new multi-million rand acid mine drainage treatment plant yesterday, a few kilometres away of a torrent of untreated toxic water was gushing uncontrollably into an already blighted river system.
Pinky Phosa, LUR vir ekonomiese ontwikkeling, omgewingsake en toerisme, is gister wyd geloof vir die feit dat sy "twee water¬fabrieke" in Mpumalanga tot bewaringsgebiede geproklameer het.Die een is by Wakkerstroom en die ander by Chrissiesmeer.
Further charges are being laid against AngloGold Ashanti for a spill that resulted in uranium-laden water going into a tributary of the Vaal River.
Disclaimer: This site features articles written by journalists who have contacted the FSE for information and input. The FSE is not responsible for the content of the final published article, or the accuracy of the information contained. The articles remain the copyright of the original authors and/or publishers. If you reproduce the article you must have the permission of the original author/publisher.


Allium bisceptrum is used sometimes as food flavoring as their leaves may be very strong and odorous. Natives pray before picking the leaves of this plant. Many animals in the region, including elk, black bears and prairie dogs eat the bulbs of the wild onions.
Allium bisceptrum is found in forests dominated by yellow pine, red fir, and lodgepole pine, and wetland-riparian habitats in California. The twincrest onion thrives near streambanks and meadows. It is also likely to occur in wetlands.
↑ "Allium bisceptrum var. bisceptrum - twin crest onion, twincrest onion". California Native Plant Link Exchange. Retrieved May 21, 2011.
↑ "Allium bisceptrum S.Watson var. bisceptrum". Calflora. Retrieved May 21, 2011.
↑ "Profile for Allium bisceptrum S.Watson var. bisceptrum (twincrest onion)". PLANTS Database. USDA, NRCS. Retrieved May 21, 2011.
1 2 "Twincrest Onion (Bisceptrum)". Gardenguides.com. Retrieved May 21, 2011.


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Millions of people are infected with a virus across over 200 countries and territories around the world and it was caused by a cover-up in one country.
The Chinese Communist Party deliberately covered-up the truth, which led to the outbreak of the global pandemic – therefore, we refer to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) as "The CCP virus"
Let's start with Wall Street. The CCP virus began to spread in New York in early March, yet Wall Street did not shut down. Even into April, some JP Morgan Chase traders in New York were required to work despite the pandemic, and despite an outbreak at their offices.
One manager director on the fifth floor developed symptoms on March 9th, and subsequently tested positive. In the following three weeks, about 20 employees were infected with the CCP virus, and sixty five others were quarantined.
JP Morgan Chase is an "old friend" of the CCP. In 1973, Chase Manhattan was the first American Bank to act as an agent of the Bank of China in the United States, six years before the two countries established formal diplomatic relations. Led by JP Morgan Chase, Wall Street has channeled huge amounts of money to the CCP over the past 40 years.
JP Morgan Chase launched the "Sons and Daughters" hiring program in 2006, hiring about 100 children of powerful Chinese officials to help the bank win billions in business contracts with China, which resulted in the bank gaining $100 million in business profit.
JP Morgan Chase later admitted the Sons and Daughters Program violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), and it paid more than $260 million dollars in settlements to avoid further investigation and prosecution.
Curtis Ellis, policy director, America First Policies; "The large Wall Street banks and other large American-in-name-only companies, were more interested in making as much money as they could by trading with a mortal enemy, then in abiding by American laws and American standards and upholding American values. I'm sure if you dug around and looked around, you'd find that JP Morgan wasn't alone in that kind of practice."
Through the exchange of benefits Western companies in China get special treatment from the parents of the second generation of Reds (party officials). In return, they are plainly using their power for money.
Heng He, a Chinese crime analyst, is quoted as saying; "Western values have had little influence on the CCP while many Westerners have learned the values and bad behaviours of the CCP."
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is the chairman of a powerful lobby; Business Round-table. Dimon strongly opposed increasing tariffs on Chinese products in 2018 when the White House imposed measures amid the trade war. The measures were aimed at stopping the CCP's trade practices that undermined the global trade order.
"We should try to be friendlier, to understand their problems." said Dimon.
Dimon is not alone. The elites on Wall Street have frequently lobbied for Beijing in Washington over the past few decades.
In later years, pressure by Wall Street lobbyists influenced the decisions of presidents George Bush and Barack Obama to remove China from the list of currency manipulators. In August 2019, following an escalation in the Sino-U.S. trade war, the Trump administration re-designated the PRC a currency manipulator.
The Debate Over Tying Trade To Human Rights
In 1989 the Tiananmen Square democratic movement was blood-washed with tanks and machine guns by CCP troops. After the Tiananmen Massacre, the West imposed strict sanctions against the Chinese regime. Whether to make China's WTO 'most-favoured-nation' status conditional on human rights was repeatedly debated in Congress, but the U.S. granted China the status every year in the 1990's under the Clinton administration (1993-2001). Diane Feinstein was argued against tying China's most-favored-nation trading status to human rights improvements.
There was a view that if the West had better relations with China, a stronger, more self-confident China, it would be an international stakeholder. It was also thought that this would open up China, and if China was wealthier, it would move in the direction of democracy.
This is the method or reasoning that they used to overcome human rights advocates in Washington, and allow China to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
In 2000, Robert Rubin, then US Treasury secretary with a Wall Street background, facilitated the Clinton administration's support for the CCP to join the World Trade Organization. If Wall Street had gone with the general moral standard, the US should not have cooperated with a regime like the Chinese Communist Party.
For example, we all know that South Africa had an apartheid system, but under strong pressure from the American people, and American and Western companies withdrew their capital from South Africa.
This divestment actually led to the collapse of the apartheid regime, and resulted in true democracy in South Africa. Nowadays, American companies are obviously less concerned about the human rights issues in China. It's been a system of lower tariffs on a permanent basis rather than on an annual basis contingent on China making progress in human rights.
This decision will go down as the most consequential and the most dangerous mistake in history. This resulted in a transfer of wealth from the United States and from Western industrial democracies, to the communist tyranny.
In May 2000, Diane Feinstein lobbied for making permanent normal trading relations with China, a measure that ultimately passed, and helped pave the way for its entrance into the World Trade Organization, which Feinstein also supported. Diane Feinstein's connects with China are long, sordid, alarming, and go right to the top of the CCP, often having Chinese Premier Li Ping, known as the "Butcher of Beijing" for his role in the Tienanmen Square crackdown, over for Thanksgiving. Read the full story on Feinstein here.
After Wall Street helped China enter the WTO, big corporations started shifting production lines to China to take advantage of cheap labour, then they sold the goods back to the United States. This caused the US trade deficit with China to rapidly increase from $83 billion in 2001, to nearly $420 billion in 2018. Meanwhile the United States lost 3.7 million jobs; 74% of them were in manufacturing.
The West moved manufacturing, showed them how to manufacture, and gave them our best practices in their production plants. We helped them with their laboratories, so we've basically taught them all the ropes that we know from an economic perspective, but you have to understand from the Chinese Communist Party perspective, it's a case of "give us all this information, technology, and all this know-how, so we can learn how to unwind you and to weaken you."
Every major American industrial corporation outsourced and moved its industrial production to China, maybe not 100% of it, but a good piece of it. They saw replacing well-paid American labour with cheap Chinese labour boost their stock price. They were driven to do this by the Wall Street financiers. They squeezed American companies to move offshore as a way to boost share prices and to boost profitability, and this was Wall Street's direct culpability in our dependence on China, and the gutting of American manufacturing.
The CCP's exports have increased by about seven times, and its GDP has increased by more than four times since its entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). The CCP has also obtained the financial power to expand its global political influence.
As we know, many of these Chinese enterprises are actually foreign exchange earning-oriented enterprises that export to the United States, and Europe, including the United Kingdom.
The foreign exchange obtained by these exports is actually compulsorily purchased by Chinese state-owned banks. They then give the Chinese companies the same amount of RMB, and they keep the foreign currency in the hands of the Chinese government. Then the CCP uses this foreign exchange reserve as a tool for international exchanges that threat the United States, for example' to support Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.
Every time in good faith we have extended them an opportunity to join our trading organizations and to take part in world commerce, they then work against the West. They exploit the institutions that we put in place, they steal our technology, they extort our businesses who try to open up in China and have access to their markets, and at every turn they're working against us in undermining our way of government in our way of life.
China has not developed along the planned trajectory. World Press Freedom Indexes once again ranked China as one of the lowest in the world in 2019; 177 out of 180.
The CCP's Economic Trojan Horse
Wall Street helped the first Chinese company, state-owned Brilliance Auto, get listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October 1992, three years after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Soon companies from mainland China came to America one after another. As of February 25th 2019, there were over 150 Chinese companies listed on US exchanges with a total market capitalization of $1.2 trillion.
The top three are Alibaba, followed by two energy companies directly owned by the communist regime; Petro China and China Petroleum and Chemical. Remember, any Chinese company is completely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Companies are not owned by investors and run by board of directors in China, the CCP absolutely controls it. The larger the company, the more CCP "executives" are in management at that company.
As China grew more wealthy, and they started to develop their own indigenous companies, and own indigenous industries, they turned to the Wall Street investment banks like Goldman Sachs and others, to be listed on American stock exchanges. There was a problem there, in that these Chinese companies don't play by the same rules that American companies play by. They don't open their books. China does not allow US regulators to audit its company's books. The Chinese government claims these are state secrets and thus cannot be shared with the outside world. This exposes American investors to unprecedented risks.
in 2015, George Vlahos, an 84-year-old retired educator from Massachusetts, pleaded with Xi Jinping, who was about to visit the United States and asked him to "give a little hope" to investors in America who have suffered losses. Vlahos purchased Sino Clean-Energy stock, which was then delisted by NASDAQ due to filing delays for its quarterly report with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result Sino Clean-Energy's share price fell from a 2010 high of $10, to just 5 cents in 2015.
Vlahos, along with countless others lost entire life savings, as they believed these companies were regulated to the same standard as listed Western companies.
One particular member of Congress said the head of the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the Chinese version of the SEC, explained to U.S. congress members that Chinese companies don't need to be adhering to the same regulatory standards as US companies, because their books are "National secrets", and that every person and every audit within any Chinese SOE is a state secret, and therefore they can't be audited.
When a Wall Street investment bank advises a Chinese company for its public offering, the bank earns a 3%-7% underwriting fee on all funds raised. The bank is then responsible for conducting "due diligence investigations" into the financial records of these Chinese companies. However disasters happen frequently. Luckin Coffee, China's largest coffee chain, admitted on April 2nd, 2020, that 40% of its 2019 sales were fabricated. Luckin had been listed on NASDAQ for less than a year. The next day Luckin Coffee's share price fell by 80%, and investors suffered heavy losses. Underwriters of luckin include Morgan Stanley.
From 2011 to 2012, over 50 Chinese companies listed in the United States were suspended or delisted due to financial fraud or non-compliance with trading rules. It's quite common for Chinese companies to keep fake accounts, and most have two sets of accounting books. It's so common that all Western companies operating in China know about it.
If all listed companies lived under the same rule of law; 95% Chinese companies couldn't be listed in the U.S. Maybe 99%.
Wall Street companies, banks, the Big Four, and other management consulting companies were complicit in the run-up of the Chinese Communist Party.
Bankrolling The CCP
Many Wall Street investors' affinity with Beijing have become especially apparent following the start of the U.S.-China trade war in June 2018.
Wall Street has been pushing capital continuously into China's stock and bond markets in addition to helping Chinese companies get listed on the US stock exchanges.
The month that the U.S.-China trade war began, Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) officially included A shares of Chinese corporations in its "Emerging Market Index" at a 2.5 percent inclusion ratio. This means that 2.5 percent of MSCI's index consisted of Chinese A-share companies.
That September, FTSE Russell, the world's second-largest index company, announced that it would include A shares in its global stock index system and classify them as secondary emerging markets. According to statistics from securities companies, this move was theoretically expected to bring incremental capital of more than $500 billion to A shares.
Last April 1, Bloomberg announced the official inclusion of Chinese bonds in the Bloomberg Barclays Global Composite Index.
On February 28th, 2020 JP Morgan Chase included CCP government bonds into the JP Morgan GB-IEM global diversified index. According to Goldman Sachs' calculations, the inclusion could funnel three billion dollars in foreign capital into the Chinese bond market every month. A Bloomberg-Barclays index has started including domestic Chinese bonds, and some of Morgan Stanley Capital International's (MSCI) indexes continue to increase the weighting of Chinese domestic stocks.
These indexes are tracked by asset managers around the globe, who then seek to replicate the benchmark's holdings. This will draw hundreds of billions of dollars into Chinese financial markets.
We also know that the Chinese Communist government has constantly exerted pressure on MSCI to increase the weight of Chinese enterprises. The Chinese Communist Party uses this to create the illusion that China's economy is thriving. The illusion has been used in exchange for the legitimacy of its regime, and to attract more funds from other countries.
In other words; these index companies are unknowingly, passively, and even actively participating in the CCP's deception of the world.
One MSCI index includes 234 Chinese A-Share companies – companies listed on Chinese stock exchanges. The companies include Hikvision, which provides surveillance cameras for Xinjiang concentration camps. They build facial recognition software for a techno-totalitarian surveillance system that the Chinese Communist Party needs to maintain its grip on power, and which it's now exporting to other countries around the world. These are the kind of companies that American capital, American dollars are being fed into by Wall Street bankers.
Another company listed is state-owned Avic Shenyang Aircraft Company Limited, which manufactures fighter jets for the CCP military.
Meanwhile the CCP military regards the US military as its "number-one imaginary enemy", they call the US their enemy, and they say that they are at war with the United States and the West. These companies are completely owned by the Chinese Communist Party and what they stand for; oppression and human rights violations.
The management of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board has now decided to track the MSCI index. This means that a portion of the $600 billion managed by the organization will flow into Chinese stocks, providing funds to companies that endanger U.S. national security, and help the CCP suppress human rights.
The support from Wall Street for the CCP has obviously made it possible for the CCP to spread its ideas of communism, and spread the way it governs to the world, endangering humanity.
MSCI indexes also include the Chinese company; 'Tencent', which owns the social media giant 'WeChat'.
WeChat has long helped the CCP monitor dissidents. During the epidemic, several doctors in Wuhan were suppressed by the police after exposing the truth of the virus' spread on WeChat.
The CCP were lying from the beginning of the process; their cover-ups, they imprisoned scientists who dared speak the truth, they destroyed samples, they lied to the world through the WHO, and really allowed this thing to grow into something that in the end we can't control anymore, now we're just reacting to on a worldwide level.
America's political and economic elite once held the naive notion that helping China's economic development would eventually make the Chinese Communist Party change its pattern of behaviour. Has the nature of the CCP changed over the past 40 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States?
China has not become more democratic, nor has it become more peace-loving, and it has certainly not become more Western. It is deeply hostile to the United States, to Western values, and the values of Western civilization. The party members of the Communist Party ruling elite of China are highly nationalistic and they dream of a world in which the Chinese Communist Party's totalitarian power is extended on a global scale.
The CCP is the most brutal regime in the world. It has murdered over 65 million Chinese people under its various political campaigns, according to estimates in "The Black Book of Communism". This death toll exceeds the sum of both world wars. The causes of death included; political and religious cleansing, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution.
Beginning in the 1990's, the Chinese communist regime, with the help of Western funds, has transformed itself into an economic power and moved toward its dream of dominating the world. In the past few years thousands of Christian churches in China have been demolished, a mass number of Uyghurs (1-3 million) have been imprisoned in Xinjiang's concentration camps, and an independent international tribunal in London ruled that the Chinese Communist Party has for decades been running a large-scale organ transplant industry using organs harvested from prisoners of conscience; such as Falun Gong practitioners.
The level and severity of human rights violations by the CCP is at a truly demonic level, but yet again and again we have given them passes. The West is doing business with a regime that has more than a million prisoners of conscience locked up and as it is executing live organ harvesting on this population of political prisoners on a daily basis.
You have to understand that Chinese communism is extremely evil.
Extremely evil.
They have a horrific history of human rights violations, and then on top of that you have a strategy that is a war-founded, or a war-based strategy against the West. So if you understood that, then why would you ever want them part of a World Trade Organization?
The Chinese Communist Party has a saying; be careful raising a baby tiger, because one day it will grow up and eat you.
We have to realize that the Chinese Communist Party exists on a steady flow of U.S. dollars – its own currency is akin to toilet paper, can't be traded on international exchanges, it has no value. They survive and thrive on a constant influx of American dollars.
Where Ties to the CCP Are Strong the Virus Follows
An empty Times Square
Early outbreaks of the CCP virus outside China were most pronounced in countries with extensive economic or strategic relations with the PRC, such as South Korea, Italy, and Iran. Lured by trade benefits or caving in to Beijing's pressure, governments and officials in many regions have taken accommodating or even supportive stances on the Chinese regime.
Such attitudes likely fuelled acceptance of CCP propaganda regarding the virus, and made local authorities reluctant to take protective measures, increasing those countries' and regions' vulnerability during the critical first stages in the epidemic.
The CCP covered up the truth for approx 6 weeks from the beginning of the epidemic. As a result, about 5 million people left Wuhan before the city was locked down on January 23rd. About 60,000 of that 5 million went to 382 cities around the world. At least 834 ended up testing positive for the virus, resulting in the global disaster.
As of mid May, more than 1.3 million people have tested positive in the United States, and more than 79 ,000 people have died. The number of deaths caused by the CCP virus is several times greater than the total deaths of Pearl Harbour and 9/11 combined.
New York has become the hardest hit in the United States, with more than 350,000 confirmed cases and more than 26,000 deaths. The CCP virus has infected the entire world and the root cause is the infectious nature of the Chinese Communist Party itself. To be free from the virus, you need to be clear that the CCP itself is poisonous and reject it.
The Chinese government is not trustworthy, they're not our friends, and one could deem them to be our mortal enemy. I think Wall Street's view is going have to change.
The pandemic is really an awakening for everyone who was not familiar with the CCP of the past – they're now certainly familiar with the CCP of current day.
At the Federal Hall National Memorial in Manhattan, across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, the statue of President Washington stands. Over 200 years ago when President Washington took the oath of office there, he stated;
"That the foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality.
Since there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.
Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal Rules of Order and right which heaven itself has ordained."
For more than 200 years the United States has been regarded as a beacon and hope by people around the world seeking freedom. Wall Street not only represents it's short, narrow street, but is also synonymous with the U.S. capital market and world financial center. Wall Street has carried many American dreams since the Gilded Age. However, the limit of dreams is probably the starting point of greed.
The CCP virus pandemic has shut down everything in this magnificent and glorious World, and 95% of it could have been avoided.
C19CCPChinaUSAWall Street
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The House of Representatives today approved the Judicial Redress Act of 2015 (H.R. 1428) by voice vote. Introduced by Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-Mich.), the Judicial Redress Act of 2015 would strengthen partnerships with our allies and ensure continued law enforcement cooperation between the United States and Europe by giving covered foreign citizens the ability to seek judicial redress in U.S. courts to ensure that their privacy is protected.
The bipartisan legislation would extend certain privacy protection rights to citizens of European countries, as well as other allied nations, if the federal government willfully discloses information in violation of the Privacy Act. Under the Judicial Redress Act, citizens of designated countries would be extended the core benefits of the Privacy Act, which already applies to Americans, with regard to information shared with U.S. law enforcement authorities, including the ability to bring a lawsuit for the intentional or willful disclosure of personal information. Many countries already extend such protections to U.S. citizens.


post title: GST is on-line!|GST è on-line!|GST est on-line!
post parent title: GST is on-line!|GST è on-line!|GST est on-line!
post ancestor title: GST is on-line!|GST è on-line!|GST est on-line!
Today, 14th March 2011, GST is launching its website.
Completing this project has been demanding, yet interesting, and has involved the managers of the different functions in an effort to communicate a realistic and shared idea of the company.
In order to effectively communicate things to people we must, first of all, make an effort to be clear to ourselves. Therefore, this is a significant opportunity to weigh up the progress made, to date, and to assess the consistency between the strategies planned and the actions undertaken, as well as the relationships between the commercial and production aspects and the position the company has carved up for itself on the changing market.
This is especially true for a recently established undertaking, such as ours, in a phase of dynamic development. A company comprising both skilled professionals with a design and management background, in respect the construction of industrial plants of different types and in different regions worldwide, and new graduates motivated by the desire to prove their potential on the job and to build up and give shape to their professional profile.
We have broken down the introduction to our company along conventional lines: who we are, what we do, how we do it and who we do it for, based on a traditional business model, consisting of the company's internal and external resources and its organizational model, on the one hand, and the market, split up into sectors and customers, on the other hand, with our range of services and solutions at the centre.
We have noticed that, in the description of both our offering and our company, a number crops up regularly: the number three; so, we have adopted it as symbolically summarising our activities.
Hence, the three Rings in our new logo, which we have redesigned in connection with the launching of this website. The reason we have chosen three rings is to represent a number of things: the Chemical Bonds, which are the essence of the transformations that take place in the Processing Industry at the core of our operations; the Design Stages leading to the development of the finished product; the Partnerships, which are a fundamental strategy for a company looking to achieve quality through specific experiences; and, last but not least, the Value Chain, which represents the material and concept-based contributions that add on and build up the required product and its final value. But, above all, they represent the collaboration and commitment bond that is forged between ourselves and our customers, in view of the achievement of a common result.
There are three Drops: Oil&Gas (yellow), Life Sciences (blue) and Special Technologies (green), representing the conventional and innovatory market sectors we are currently engaged in and focusing on, and which have also inspired, in part, the graphics of our website.
Last but not least, there are three Offering Coordinates: Sectors, Disciplines and Services, which define and identify the single "Deliverables" constituting the basic output of our activities.
To better exemplify our field of action we have developed a graphical model called the "Service Pyramid", which provides a summary of the fields in which we operate, by quality and quantity.
You can view the overall result by browsing through our website pages, which we have created with the aim to ensure consistency, by combining a detailed overview of the range of services and solutions we offer with in-depth descriptions of the various milestones and phases of the project.
And now, welcome to our website and our company! We wish you all a pleasant browse.


text:
CyberSecurity Expert on Tap
markderijk
Sales Strategies for the new normal.
I started a new podcast to highlight small and medium-sized businesses. Often a lot of the media attention is focused on the large companies that end up getting all the promotion.
Instead of complaining, I wanted to do my bit and improve things myself.
So every week or so I will be interviewing a founder of such a firm.
This first episode I was joined by Steven Benson of Badger Maps (badgermapping.com)
He explains on how sales leaders can adapt in this new normal.
The podcast can be found at:
https://podcast.cybersecurityexpertontap.com/
Mark de Rijk
Hi people today we welcome Steven Benson to the show. Steven is the CEO of Badger Maps. Badger Maps helps field reps sell 20 to 25 per cent more. He also hosts "outside sales talk" the number one podcast for outside sales reps. Check the link in the show notes. In addition, he's the president of the Sales Hall of Fame and a LinkedIn learning instructor to boot. Thank you, Steven, for joining me today.
Steven Benson
Yeah, Mark, thanks for having me on. I'm glad to be here.
so, yeah, I was like, I found you on LinkedIn and I was like, this sounds really interesting. I was like, you know as a business helping people increase their sales, especially in these times, is really important. So it's like, I have to highlight you and then help, you know, not just highlight you, but also help people listening to this podcast to discover more and then help them move forward as well.
Yeah. So I just want to start to have some questions, a bit more about yourself. So tell me something more about yourself. Who is the person behind the entrepreneur running Badger maps?
Well, so I grew up in Chicago and, you know, I always wanted to start a business.
I started a couple of businesses when I was in grammar school. One of them was selling fireworks, which is a whole other story.
But, uh, but, I guess after college, I moved out to California to join the tech boom, ended up going to business school at Stanford. And then I took a sales path. So I worked in sales at IBM and a software company called Autonomy. And then I went to they got bought by HP. I went to Google and worked there for four years in sales. And I was running sales of their mapping API into the western US.
And that's kind of where Badger came from, was I understood the problems that field salespeople had. And then I was working with the Google Maps API and I was able to kind of see well, this API is now getting to a point where you could build cool software on it, on the mobile device, the mobile devices are getting this is back in 2011, right. The mobile devices were getting fast enough to run cool software, cool applications like this.
And the Internet was getting fast enough over the mobile networks to support that.
So I guess it was kind of the conjunction of those things caused me to be able to build this tool badger maps for field salespeople to help them build their routes, plan their days in the field, focus on the best customers, but basically join their calendar and their map and their customer information all into one application.
Yeah, that completely makes sense. That sounds like a great journey. And it's funny you mentioned Autonomy because at one point I myself, I worked for ArcSight, which got bought by HP as well.
Oh, OK. Yeah. Autonomy was the biggest I think the biggest European software company other than SAP because I think it was the biggest British software company at one point.
Yes, yeah. It was like it was all over the paper. So like now like look, we got our own Silicon Roundabout/Valley that, and it's like, well, it's a bit small, but of course, people were proud and like we have a big company yeah.
They sold it for ten billion dollars to HP. So it was a big deal.
Yes, yes, yes. Funny. Like, you know how small the world in the end is.
So how did you decide which career path to take?
And like when you were going high school, like what were your thoughts, like what you wanted to do or you still like and how it got like, you know, like some of the people go, like, I want to be a firefighter, pilot or were you pretty sure what you wanted to do?
No. I mean, when I was younger, I really didn't know. I knew I like to help people. I thought I might want to be a teacher when I was in high school. And I actually did end up I was a junior kindergarten teacher for a little while.
And that was kind of like an experimental job, I guess. But I really enjoyed that and I enjoy that type of work. In the end, I was kind of I think I was attracted to business and entrepreneurship just because it allows me to have such a broader impact on things. You know, like there are 5000 companies that use Badger and, it materially helps them be more effective with their field sales teams and sell more.
And that allows them to hire more people and create more jobs. And I just I feel like you can have an outsized impact if you create valuable pieces of software or I mean or any valuable service or solution that people are willing to pay for, usually they're paying for it because they're getting more out of it than they're paying.
And so, you know, if you're able to whatever the area is in, I mean, I think that business is just the scalability aspect of some businesses is just so cool to me. The way you can have such a big impact in the world.
I know, like completely you have an outsized impact because you can you know, it's not like, services where it's hard to say scale-up and replicate the same result with a product or like a SAAS offering, it's easier to help more people. And like you said, that if they are able to increase their sales, that means that they are able to employ more people.
They are able to then help more people, get products out, which means that the people that buy the products can then also improve their organization. So it's all cascading down. So, yeah, definitely that's where it's at.
And I think that's the magic, if you will, of the whole tech economy where maybe not everyone is aware how much, let's say prosperity generation or acceleration it's helping to create.
So, yeah, it's great to see that, you know, you realize that, as far as well, like about your personal background. Did I saw something about wrestling in high school?
Yeah. But yes you might have found that if you Googled me, yeah. So I was a state-qualifying wrestler in high school, but back then I weighed one hundred and seventy-one pounds, which is less than I weigh now. But yeah, that was always my sport. I enjoyed a lot of sports, but that was the one that I kind of was, I guess, more of a natural with and I learned a tremendous amount from it.
Um, you know, grit, which I think is so important for salespeople, so important for entrepreneurs.
You know, I think a lot of that can be I consider myself to be pretty gritty. And I think a lot of that is could be attributed to the things that I learned.
In high school wrestling, enduring pain and overcoming challenges and, getting my butt kicked around, learning, learning to lose, learning to learn to win and learning, getting learning to, you know, have a drive that that all that I think came, really started getting developed there.
Yeah, I know that makes sense.
Like, as I said to myself, like, you have to get past the no to get to the yes. That kind of thing and go for the no because then, you disqualify a potential customer. But it means that you then free yourself up to get a yes from a customer that you can help. so yeah, that's great.
So you already got into it a little bit before about Badger maps where, you know, you, you have an extensive background and you worked on Google Maps APIs. And it's funny like I was when you mentioned it, it was like thinking as well about delivery companies and how they optimize, you know, delivery. Where they go like, doing was it left turns or right turns only?
Mm-hmm. Yeah. UPS.
Yeah. UPS. And it's like immediately feeling like seeing that truck in front of me like and it makes sense with Badger maps because I, well what looks like you're also getting in metrics on stages of the customer and the potential, for my research I've done. Is that right?
Yeah, absolutely. So you know, whatever a company, whatever information or data a company has about their customers, we pull that into our environment where they can really make it actionable from planning your day in the field perspective.
So, you know, we connect with the CRM and then for the companies that have a CRM for companies that don't have one, we can just upload their data, but we generally connect with the CRM and pull in.
The CRM often contains a whole bunch of rich data that just isn't actionable for a field salesperson from the perspective of, OK, I have all this information, so what should I do for the next two weeks in terms of where should I go, who should I talk to?
So we make that data really useful to them in this map based and planning calendaring environment that they can easily kind of figure out what am I going to do for the next two weeks? Who are the most important customers for me to see? And then Badger will give will help them set those meetings to get the app in a way that makes sense for their time in the field. And then we help them with things like lead gen and juggling their schedules once they're out in the field and people are cancelling and changing things on them.
But we kind of help with all those different elements of field sales and basically save people a bunch of time and busywork.
Yeah. Like, I looked at it like really impressive because you simplify. So basically the field rep can focus on what they're good at, show up at the prospects and explain the value, so they can be more effective if you like. I said if you put them in front of a CRM to be like, yeah, that's great. But like, how can I figure it out, you know, like I don't want to like, manually put stuff in the sat nav and start driving around and finding out that actually I just drove past a prospect exactly further down my CRM that I didn't know about.
And now I potentially lost on a 10k deal because, uh, my competitor is in the area and actually scooped a deal from me. So, yeah, it makes absolute sense.
It absolutely. Yeah. It's just, you know, sales is a tough job, right? You're always strapped for time and if you had more of it, you could sell more do better be more successful.
And we're just you know our surveys are getting back and people are estimating that they save like eight hours a week between reduced time on the planning of their time spent in the field and then actually doing the driving and the going to the customers and then focusing on the best customers there, and eight hours a week is a ton, right?
It's like twenty per cent of your time. Exactly. Yeah. And that means that, like if you talk about somebody later, you might be like, hey, I have a family that eight hours may mean that, I can see my you know, kids train for the game or something, and that's how you have to think. So it's not just an impact for the company, but it's also a work-life balance.
Impact improvements. Absolutely.
Yeah. I mean, you know, we help you save time. What you do with it is up to you know,
Yeah, so I had some other questions around, so what do you think are the new challenges a sales leader needs to overcome in a bad economy that they might not have been thinking about before?
Yeah, I mean, you know, this is something I speak about a lot is what's going on in this recession, how is it affecting companies and how can we overcome the recession in our different industries and our different companies?
I think one of the first but to your question, the new challenges that leaders need to overcome in a bad economy are first desperate competitors doing desperate things.
So a lot of companies are really, really hurting right now and they're frankly willing to do things that they would not have done before, like discount their products really deeply, liquidate inventory just to make ends meet, give away, give things away like free consulting or payment terms or whatever that whatever value, whatever they'll give away valuable terms to in order to win deals that you would have been winning before or to steal your existing customers away from you.
And so that's the first major challenge that companies may be running into from a sales perspective that they weren't running into before.
The second challenge is coming up from your prospects and your customers.
So I think that a lot of salespeople are running into resistance that they weren't getting before. And that can be as simple as a customer not wanting to engage with you or not wanting to meet in person or , just saying brushing you off and saying there's no budget for this right now. But, someone didn't want to do something or evaluate a new product or service before.
And now they have a great excuse. And there's just there's so much resistance to spending money, you know, there are spending freezes that can come from the very top of organizations and procurement departments have been empowered, their procurement departments are getting a lot more aggressive and they're leveraging the down economy to get discounts from vendors and to get better terms from vendors and generally jam down vendors margins to keep their own boats floating.
So I think those are really the two major challenges is competitors and then challenges with prospects and customers.
Yeah, excellent points. Yeah, as I said, the discounting, it's a real thing. you also see the procurement departments that go like, well, I know you need the business. So, you know what if you do 50 perc ent discounts, then we might do business well before, you know, they might get away, would be like, hey, you know, like we want a 20 per cent discount.
They become more brazen in using the current economy as a way to say, hey, can we actually improve our margins, if you will, at the cost of our suppliers, that kind of thing. And that's you know, it's valid that they might want to do that.
But yeah, sometimes,
yeah, that's their job, right.
This goes over that over the top where to go like. Well, actually, long term that actually might damage vendor relationships because those vendors that forced the discount that hopefully also will remember, you know, and then if there's a shortage because you provide a unique quote product or service.
Yeah. Then come renewal time. And when the economy is restored again, that might come back to you. So yeah. We'll have to see how that goes.
Other than negotiation training. How can a sales manager react in a bad economy to the margins compressing?
Great question. So yeah. I mean first yeah I think negotiation training is something that every organization should be looking at right now for their sales teams just to help them deal with this pressure coming from customers around price.
But also, a sales manager or the person who's designing the sales plans for their team can react to this compression of margins by redesigning the sales plan. So if you're if you have a product with tightening margins or in general just need margins to be better defended in these tough times and your reps are currently comped on revenue, you can consider switching that compensation to comping them on profit margin.
And the reason you would do this is that if you imagine, your margins are 30 per cent and your reps are giving, your rep gives a 15 per cent discount on a deal, you actually need two deals like that to be worth as much as one deal was at full price from a profitability perspective,
But if you're if your plan is aligned with revenue, you know, that 15 per cent discount only cost them 15 per cent of their commission, but if their comp plan is aligned with profit, that 15 per cent discount just cost them half of their commission.
So if you give them a plan that aligns them with the profit line and so the revenue line, they will defend that margin much better.
Yes, yes. Because they'll go like it's not about the revenue, but if I don't maintain the margin, then I get stung as well. And, you know, I don't have this money for, let's say, the next holiday. Yeah. So it completely makes sense.
And in general, you always want to design comp plans to be aligned with the business and its needs and as it changes, you may want to look at changing the comp plan. And I'm not saying, change you're on target earning or the total amount that you're going to be paying your reps.
I'm just saying shift the plan to reward the reps that are generating the most profit.
Yes. Yeah, completely makes sense because it's easy to, you know, sign the deal if you will. But then if the margin is like two or three per cent it's like basically, you've been giving it away and that's not long term sustainable and especially not in this economy where if you're doing fewer deals, you want to maintain the margins. So, yeah, completely make sense. So I had another one where I was like, uh, what do you think sales leaders need to change in their behaviour in a time of crisis to keep revenue flowing?
Yeah, that's a great question, too. So sales leaders, I guess an economic crisis is probably the hardest time to be a sales leader.
The whole company is dependent on the revenue that your team produces to survive. And so sales leadership is never more important than in a time of crisis. Um, so I guess to your question, what do they have to change? I think now more than ever, leaders need to confront reality and be really action-oriented.
They need to be honest in their assessments of the challenges facing the organizations.
They need to embrace bad news. They need to ask hard questions and they need to keep a positive outlook.
And they need to have a very well thought out action plan.
And they have to be transparent with their team about what that actual plan is.
Managers need to be more responsive. They have to be more supportive of their sales teams, the sales reps. The team is probably scared. They're worried about losing their jobs. They're worried about how hard it's going to be to get another job. They're worried about their commission check evaporating.
The sales team was not paying their mortgage with their base rate. And as sales are down, you know, they're struggling with you know as their commissions are compressed. You know, times are tightening up. Right.
You can look to reassess the KPIs you're using to measure the sales team because sales cycles are longer now and the team is focused on, you want to keep the team focused and the things that they can really move the needle on and be responsive to the current situation, and historically, maybe you're looking at just revenue numbers and that's the way or profit numbers, those the two ways that sales teams are usually measured. But just because those are down doesn't mean the sales team is doing terribly.
They could be out there busting their butts. You want to start measuring other things, too, to kind of show progress, show the pipeline, get a better insight into what's going on. You know, how many qualified meetings are they having? How many proposals did they have?
And I'm not saying change the comp plan to comp them on proposals because then you'll just get a lot more proposals without necessarily a lot more sales. But it's worth measuring to make sure to get insights into who's putting in the effort and the time and who's it's a good indicator of who's going to be successful in the future.
Yeah, yeah. Because in the end, it's one of those things when they build relationships with those prospects and then when the economy recovers, that kind of thing, those prospects will remember that you know, you didn't try to push them for deals, they couldn't afford it if you will. But when they are able to do so, then they will remember you as an organization and be like you build a relationship with me and at that time and now I want to acknowledge you for that kind of thing.
So yeah, it's and then like you said, measuring effort, if you will, while yeah. It might be harder, you know, to get the deals in, but if you can measure how much effort they're putting in then that's metrics to, to say prove how hard your sales workforce is working. So yeah. That makes sense.
Absolutely. And sales leaders need to guide the team right now. The team needs to be coached.
I believe a sales leader should be asking themselves. Am I spending fifty per cent of my time coaching my reps? And if the answer is no, they should be spending more time.
It's so easy to go silent right now. It's so easy to, you know, slipping into the remote world, you know, and, instead, I think it's important to be getting in front of your reps and ask your reps questions and find out what they need to be successful. You need to figure out by putting your ear to the ground which reps are being successful and how are they doing, how are they experiencing that success with what type of customer profile?
What is the playbook they ran to get to have that to win that deal? And then once you find reps that are cracking the code of how to win in this time, you want to train the rest of your team. Perhaps with the help of that rep in enabling them to help help you coach the team, help replicate that success across the team. So if one guy figures out a play that works, the rest of the team learns about it.
Great sales leaders, they understand what's going on on the ground level, particularly during times of change, because that understanding is what allows them to steer the ship.
Yeah, and it gets to the point I wanted to address this like around communication in this crisis, you know, like what are your thoughts on how sales leader can be more effective? As I said, you already mentioned, coaching more, but also like language use and such as what do you suggest I sales leadership do?
Is this in terms of like what behaviour the sales leaders should have?
Yeah. It's more about communication like and how should they communicate not just only with the staff but also with the best organization like, how should they reshape their messaging?
Yeah, communication is so important in these times of crisis. You know, people's imagination, they can get the best of them.
Right. Particularly within large groups. Gossip of impending doom is so powerful, it travels so quickly and it can really lead to rash decisions and morale problems.
Sales leaders need to communicate right now with their team in a transparent, realistic and optimistic way, they need to give their team an action plan that will put their fears to rest and let them stay focused on selling, you know, people want safety and security.
And as a business leader, you're really responsible for the base layer of people's pyramid of needs, like the money they pay for food and their home, their health care, their long term financial security, and not to mention their enjoyment of life and their wants in life, not just their needs. Right.
So as a leader, your responsibility is to communicate with them clearly and truthfully about where are things at so that they can plan accordingly. And from a productivity perspective, if you don't communicate clearly and truthfully, they're going to spend all their time worrying about, you know, the worst things that can happen. Right.
The company is going to go under. I'm going to lose my job
Specifically, as a sales leader, you want to tell them the immediate term plan, the mid-term plan and the long term plan and other different scenarios for the different external factors. Right. So if it's a small recession, short term, we're going to do this mid-term. We're going to do this long term.
If it's prolonged, we'll do this and this. You need to make them feel comfortable that there's a steady hand on the wheel and that they can know what to expect. I think that. Having daily huddles with the team is really helpful, I think at the same having constant regular conversations at the same time every day is really helpful. And it brings the team together when they're working separately. A lot of people are working from home, obviously, and it's important to focus those meetings on the KPIs that that show activity and show success and help everyone see how everyone else is doing against their KPIs to keep morale high and keep things moving forward, to share success stories, to give each other support, guidance, help.
Yeah. And like, like you said before, like a lot like a sales rep I found a new tactic that starts working. Let's share that so we can help each other. And then, like you said, having daily meetings to not only, keep things tight, if you will, but also still keep, let's say, the team spirit going. I think that's really important. And then, like show leadership show the plan.
So people let's say you have trust in leadership that, you know, and they have a defined path of how they want to exit this current climate if you will.
So, yeah, I was wondering as well, which of course, you know, as it is with lots of remote work. How do you how is your experience of how customer relationships have changed in these times?
Yeah. I mean, customer relationships have absolutely changed. I think, you know, your customers are going through things that you're going through, your suppliers are going through. And I think the first and everyone's talking about this right now, but the first thing is to have top of mind is empathy and be empathetic for their situation. I guess the good news here is that everyone in the world has this big thing in common, right. With the virus and where the economy is at.
I mean, we're all kind of in the same ship together here. Right. But I think it is a harder time for relationship building. And I think it's a challenging time for customer relationships.
A lot of things become under strain and people feel maybe less trust now, less there's less customer loyalty as people are under pressure that you may notice sales cycles becoming longer as decisions, and in particular, the decision to open up the purse strings becomes more difficult. So we have to really work against that.
Right. And how do we do that? I think the first thing you can focus on doing is leveraging your sponsor, better. Leverage the person who is, you know, who wants to work with you in your target organization. And is kind of sponsoring the opportunity. You need them to be your eyes and your ears in a way. You've always needed this to be successful.
Right. Like leveraging your sponsor is like classic sales 101. Right, but especially if there's like a complex sale going on.
But I think now this is important more than ever before because your sponsor is really the only decision-maker, especially with how tight purse strings are right now. Maybe you can ask your sponsor before the meeting with their with the full team, try to do a pre-meeting with them. So sit down with them and talk about what are the objections that are going to come up from the other people? Who else are there? Who are you, the people around the table on the zoom meeting?
Because I can't see them. I don't know them.
Who are the decision-makers? Who are the influencers? What are their objections?
And how can we bring together bring up those objections so that we can discuss them and overcome them throughout this meeting and help them facilitate the discussion in that way? I think. Yeah, your relationship with your sponsors is more important now than ever because you don't have that face to face situation. You can't read people's body language. You lose some of that natural chitchat that builds rapport and gets business done.
You may not get the relationship in place. You don't' have the opportunity to with every decision-maker in a way that you could in person. If you are, we're all going out for steaks and drinks after, at some point, you could really connect. Right now, you need your sponsor to follow up with these decision-makers that you don't have a relationship with these influencers and get genuine feedback on your behalf. And then you work with your sponsor to move that deal towards closure.
You know, building rapport is just harder remotely and sales feels harder right now than it does normally for whether you're an entrepreneur or a business leader or managing a team. Things just feel harder and the reason they feel harder is that they are harder.
And, you know, it's the goal, I think, now should be to tee up as many opportunities and leads that we can and move these as many sales cycles forward as we can until we can get things, you know, get the economy back on the rails and get back, get back in the field and get with our customers and get things done.
Yeah. And I was wondering as well in that aspect, if you were seeing a lot more use of like video and I'm not talking about like, you know, like Zoom obviously everybody's been in too many Zoom meetings, but, you know, like using, let's say, asynchronous video, like, you know, video messages if you've been seeing that, as well as an uptake in that to help build trust?
Yeah, yeah. I think I have seen an uptick in the Vidyards of the world. And I forget there's a couple of those companies that allow you to leave a video message or communicate, midway through this sales cycle with the decision-makers in video instead of just email, which can really help, especially if you're trying to show something. I think, you know, that's worth checking out. Yeah.
Because it was like, having conversations I had just like so many people, like, OK, we've been using this kind of technology because we're not getting face to face time, because even with organizations going like now back to the office, you know, not everyone is ready to bring back guests yet. So yeah. And there was a lot of use of that. And I think it's over a longer time.
It might help because, you know, it's one of those things where if you are not able to, let's say, go to clients because you're at the end of your routing Badger map, if you will, at the other side of the state, then, they'll be like, hey, like I got this question. Let me just respond to that with a video. And I've seen people use that. So it was like, interesting to know that.
Yeah, I think I think it's a really powerful tool. And another thing that's worth thinking about harder right now is social selling. I think that's a great way to build relationships and kind of keep in touch with people in mass is social selling. And this is obviously a topic big enough for a book, obviously. But social selling is, you know, like so on my podcast, I've had four, five experts in social selling on in the last three or four months because I think that this is a really important time for us to look at social selling and see how we can leverage social media in these times.
See the podcast Outside Sales Talk.
I've had a bunch of these guys on and it's some of their tactics and the things they do, on like LinkedIn or Instagram or, you know, they are really there are some clever things you can do to generate new leads and also to keep in touch and to deepen relationships with existing customers and prospects, uh, with social media. It's really worth checking out with some of these best practices. But and I would recommend you don't I wouldn't put it on every sales rep in your organization to go figure out how to do social media.
Right. I would make it a project and have one person. I mean, like each one of these people that I've had on my show have like two books out about social selling and all the tricks and tips. This is so much information. And, you know, I try to pull the information out of them as quickly as possible.
But like you still, you can never have your reps try to figure this out on their own. What I would do is I would appoint someone on the team to be kind of the social media guru. You can probably imagine someone who'd be good at that, have them do the research, have them listen to my podcast or read these guys books and, you know, have them figure out, OK, here are the twenty things that we should have every one of our sales reps do on social media.
Every two weeks we're going to create the marketing team is going to create a great piece of content that for the reps specifically to share out with their entire networks over LinkedIn and social media so that, you know because that's going to cause the reps aren't going to don't have time to write that great piece of content. And the reps don't have time to figure out how to use social media. Right. But you can kind of give them instructions because a lot of the stuff is pretty simple, right?
It's pretty straightforward. So give them here. Here's the list of 20 things. Everyone spent 40 minutes doing it to your profile, and every two weeks, we're going to send you this piece, a piece of great content that's really great to share. It could be a video, could be an article, it could be whatever, but a great piece of content for our customers, for you to share out with your networks. And that's going to build relationships and help us generate some new leads.
So definitely look into that.
Yeah, because let's be honest, in these times of social media, if you don't show up, then, you know, people will assume, like, OK, are you actually serious? And then over time, of course, that the more sustained your presence is, it starts generating inbound leads as well, which is the best way, of course, to scale up, if you will, where you know, if you not only have outbound sales, but you have inbound leads coming where people are already sold on what you offer, which is how to do it.
And then, you know, seeing what the potential client's post and, you know, building up a profile the way I'm like, OK, how can we help these potential clients? So when you do have the conversation, you already know what their pain points are.
And so you can address them and help them be like, OK, hey, if you think I can help you reduce your, let's say, customer churn by 10 per cent by doing X and Y, and effectively we can do that with two per cent of the cost, effectively eight per cent profit for you. So yeah, those are things that are really helping. And even for a small business that is really helpful because it's more, say, authentic as well to show up and then show how passionate you are about helping people improve, but also show the person behind the product, the service, and like show the passion of how you want to help other people.
So, yeah, I think that it's very important that people that are starting a company that are not doing social yet, as you said, they really have to. Yeah, I'm not saying like do massive campaigns, but you have to start showing.
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, another thing to think about now that I'm on this topic, I think you can also think about changing your messaging.
So I think a lot of companies, if you go to their website, the messaging at the top of the page says we'll help you do X, Y, Z better. Yes. Or faster or cheaper or whatever. But I think a lot of people have what I would call good economy messaging.
And I think in a bad economy, we need to change our messaging. Just tweak it a little bit. And this is what your reps are saying. This is, what your marketing team is saying. This is what's at the top of your Web page. You need to have it say we will help you do more with less because everyone out there is trying has less to work with and needs to do a little bit more.
And so then it's your sales team's job to show your prospects how much in terms of dollars that you'll help them do more with less could be less money, could be less manpower, could be fewer resources.
We just did and I didn't make this idea up. I mean, I read this somewhere, but I found it to be really helpful. I did it with my marketing and sales teams recently. I went through this exercise. And because our messaging effectively was we will help you sell 20 per cent more with your field sales team. And now we change our messaging to with Badger maps. Your outside sales team can generate the same revenue even though your team is 20 per cent smaller.
And there's a huge difference in those two messages, even though, I mean, they effectively say the same thing in the end.
Right. Like, you're going to do 20 per cent better. Right. But in one case, you know, one of these messages, the way it's been framed, is going to resonate way more with your customer base in a down economy.
So I would recommend taking a look at your messaging right at the top of your website and ask yourself, am I really empathizing with my really connecting with my customer's heads are at given that it's a down economy?
Yeah. What I did in the past was like, you know, like when you have a key team that you want to focus, like do more with less, I grab a whiteboard and like write it down like in the centre of like a mind map, if you will. And then we're like, OK, how can I incorporate this team in my messaging, that kind of thing. Because like I said, customers are trying to do more or less because they are forced to let people go or they have to keep people on furlough.
They can't bring them back yet, but yet they still have to maintain the same revenue. So, yeah, it completely makes sense to change messaging to deliver that, because if we're just talking about, like, you know x and y's, and people be like tuning out if you will. Well, right now they're just trying to survive and doing more or less.
Absolutely. I had some 3 more questions, really, that I want to address it also, thinking about the people listening that are want to start their own companies, like what are some things you wish people told you before you started your own company?
I wish I had understood how slow it was and how long it took and therefore how much money it takes.
It takes two years to get anywhere and takes three years to get real traction. And so many people, including myself, think they're going think they will be somewhere in six months. And really you'll be, from a financial perspective, nowhere in six months. So that's something I wish I understood better.
Yes. And then a completely makes sense. And then, like, market demand is one of the things like now, you know, a lot of people can fall for that trap, you know, I'm building my dream. And then they go like, oh, I actually don't have customers for it. So now my question is like, how did you validate market demand for Badger maps?
Like, what was your approach?
Yeah, I mean, I talked to hundreds of who I thought was our prospective buyer before we had the product built. And I would describe what we were going to build and I would ask them if that would be useful to them and would it be useful enough that they would be able to pay you fifty dollars a month per rep using the product to have it? And I think everyone needs to do that. You have to make sure this is something people are willing to pay, the amount you're going to be charging them to get the value that they're going to be getting from it.
And if they are enthusiastic, you like of course, I'd pay that. This is a way bigger. That's worth ten times more to me than what you're charging.
Then you have a business. Yes, yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. And it's good to reiterate, because a lot of people come to me, like, you know, just such a great idea. And like, I just write it down and, you know, people just come to me and buy my product or service. So it's good to validate then, you know, completely like non-business related, if you will. If you had a magic wand, what you what would you want to happen?
If I had a magic wand, I would generate eight billion shots for people to get rid of COVID right now.
That's what I would do. I mean, in terms of my business, I would wish that everyone who was in a field sales role knew what we do and understood the problems that we solved because it's our hardest thing.
My hardest thing is letting people know that this exists, because I know it's a problem that, you know, 80 per cent of field salespeople have and are the challenges that they just are doing it by hand every day. And they don't know that it's been kind of solved. It's like they're all using abacuses. And I've got to I've got Excel and I'm like, here, use Excel.
And they're like, oh, Excel, how long has Excel existed? This thing is awesome. I've been doing it on this abacus over here. It takes forever.
Yeah, that's what that's my magic wand. Yes.
Yes. And I can imagine that because yeah. As I said, you know, you think of like what the impact is that you can create for them and it's like you're working like that. But why don't you like or realize yourself, that kind of thing? But yeah, sometimes, yeah, it's, it requires some additional education. And I think, you know like you run the podcast yourself, it, it helps people discover new ways of doing things.
And I think that will be so instrumental for, you know, in the recovery trajectory where then field sales can go out and then help not only their own organization, but help other organizations improve by, you know, selling products to those organizations, which is really what we need. And then we can help towns and cities and then thrive again, which is really what we need. Because, let's be honest, at this point, lots of people are suffering.
The quicker we can climb out of this the better we are all off, let's be honest.
Yeah, absolutely. I want to thank you for your time. It was a pleasure interviewing you. I hope it was a pleasure for you as well.
Thanks for having me. I hope everyone enjoys it. And, if anyone listening is in field sales, feel free to check out Badger and mention to the sales rep you talk to you that you heard me on this podcast and they'll give you two months free of just try the product out and make sure it works for you.
So see if you can give me a shout out for, like the podcast and for the URL and how people can reach you.
Yeah, so to reach Badger, it's just badgermapping.com and you can request a meeting on there, too. If you're looking for me, I'm on, the best way to reach me is probably LinkedIn. Just Google Steve Benson, Badger Maps on LinkedIn and you'll find me really easy.
If you're an outside sales and you're interested in a podcast for outside salespeople, the outside sales talk is really, it's a podcast specifically for outside salespeople. So it's a pretty useful resource.
Yeah, it's great. Yeah. As I said, you know, like, let's be honest, I feel like I can use education and it sounds really useful because again, you know, having more skills will help us recover quickly. And that's all where, you know, we're working towards, of course.
Thank you for your time again. And, and for all the listeners, I'll talk to you next episode.
All right. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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