The Entrepreneur's Mentor

Making Your Organization a Sales Organization

Every business sells a product or service, hopefully one that is desired by the buying public. How they sell varies from industry to industry, profession to profession and business to business.But in order to achieve long term success, businesses must become sales driven. They must recognize that their sole purpose is to satisfy customer needs and desires on an ongoing, continuous, time after time basis. How do they achieve that purpose?

In theory, it is not hard at all. In practice, it takes focus and determination and strength of character and convictions. The first step is to have a clear vision of what you want to be as a business, what you want to achieve. As part of this an owner must clearly and consistently communicate that vision to the employees. Owners have to paint a clear picture of a believable future. And the future must be one that employees desire and believe in.

Part of what creates that belief is the values of the organization. They are the road the owner chooses, the path to completion of the vision. They say as much about what the organization stands for as anything else. And they are a major part of the brand. The values tell the employees, the vendors, the suppliers, the customers and the public where the organization's head and heart reside.

Do we want to achieve our success by trashing the competition, cheating our suppliers and scamming our customers? Or do we want to treat everyone with dignity, respect, honesty and fairness? Do we love nature and want to do what we can to preserve our environment or do we not care?  Our values as an organization speak to things like that.

Having great, strong values is very important but it does not end there. An organization must consistently exhibit behaviors consistent with those values. This means from the top down, not once in a while but every day. Employees look at their leaders and either believe or disbelieve in the values of the organization by the behaviors of the leaders. They must "walk the walk."

If the leaders model the right behaviors, employees will believe. And then they will be engaged. They will take pride in what they do and what the company does. They will be enthusiastic and they will be great representatives of the company in dealing with customers, suppliers and the public. They will be part of the company's brand, a very positive part.

Engaged employees lead to loyal customers. There is significant data to back this up. And to go one step further, they lead to more positive financial results.

So, step one in becoming a true sales organization is not to hire that "monster" salesperson. It is to build the foundation within your organization that makes good people believe in you and your company and want to work for you and serve your customers.

You can start that process today and begin paving the way for change.

Too Much at Once

Wow. Who would have thought six months ago that President Obama would be evoking such strong negative feeling for trying to solve the country's major problems?

But look at how he has done it. He has attacked many large problems at once. He has not provided the American people (his stakeholders) with clarity. He has not built consensus around his sense of urgency. He has used his political capital (i.e his authority) to push through what he wanted.  He left us behind and what lingers is a sense of a huge amount of debt, and instead of hopefulness, fear.

This is not a comment on whether he made the right moves or the wrong moves. It is more a look at what was wrong with his methodology. In a corporate setting, bringing about change is recognized as a process that takes time. There has to be buy in on a few levels. There has to be a carrot and a stick, rewards and accountability. There must be clear communication and there must be a vision of a believable positive future. Confusion cannot be allowed to reign- clarity is a must.

Well, who is clear on TARP? On the stimulus? On the healthcare reform plan?  Obviously, not enough people. How can we be so against fixing a system that doesn't work? It is because Obama doesn't own the conversation- he let opponents fashion the communication. Rumors, negativity, outright lies and a total lack of clarity prevail. All of this is on top of a prevailing environment of fear at the huge deficits we have incurred already.

He may be doing everything right while he is communicating it and executing it all wrong.

Stop for a minute and think about instances in your business when you have been positive what you are doing is right and you haven't bothered to be thoughtful in the way you present it to others.

There are proven, successful ways to implement change. Take the time to do it right and do it well and your chances for success are multiplied. many times. Try to push it through just because you are the boss and have the authority to do so, and you will be dragging your team along unwillingly and the effort will wear you out and end up giving you a less than satisfactory result.

Multiple change initiatives pushed in the same timeframe are almost impossible to sustain unless your team is primed for them, incentivized and motivated. Typically, doing too much at once is a prescription for failure. It dilutes the focus on any one thing, making everything equally important or unimportant and therefore leaving no prioritization.

Do one thing. Do it right and do it well- embed it in your culture and then move on to the next initiative.  Too much at once will be lost on everyone.