Thoughts On Accelerating Revenue in a Down Economy

Part 3

We’ve allowed the marketing folks to take over the web and celebrate a growing number of “hits”. What we really need is customers, the rest are window shopping. So we invest solely in getting higher visibility so we won’t be just one of several million matches. Its money poorly spent. Visibility doesn’t generate customers in and of itself!

And there are a host of those “tactical” pains organizations inflict on themselves that present clear and present dangers to their very viability. They often seem to include:

• Goals and objectives that are out of sync with job descriptions and expectations
• Compensation plans that don’t reflect the will of the organizations executive leadership
• Management who believes it is their prerogative to manipulate sales compensation plans, changing quotas, territories and commission schedules mid-stream
• Sales automation/CRM systems installed to provide better management reporting with sales productivity as a by product
• Few understand the complicated nature of channels and how to avoid conflict. How to motivate organizations they don’t own, yet many businesses just can’t grow organically fast enough. Effective committed channels are a necessity

So what can companies to do today?

• We must learn that “hiring for a season” is a reality. We must recognize that a significant percentage of employees will move on within a few years or less. Call it out confront it, embrace it by designing job descriptions accordingly, eliminating confusion and contention. It’ll require a bit more thought and planning, but it’ll be worth it.
• Dedicate ourselves to serving our employees and to making them successful, rather than managing them; leading them rather than directing them
• Embrace technology. Many managers are digital immigrants leading digital natives. We resist it and demean technology with comments like “I’ll never text” somehow seeming to be proud of not embracing this pervasive technology. We must immerse ourselves in it, admit our fears and frustrations, and join the ranks of the generation who takes all this technology as a matter of fact and can’t understand why we all don’t.
• When we implement systems we must think first of the impact on the employee. Too many implement a Sales Force Automation solution as a way to gain insight into the sales funnel. It becomes another time consuming report to worry about rather than a tool for increased productivity. Wouldn’t it be better to support sales by implementing a CRM to make the sales people more productive, and have management reports as a byproduct? It’s the only way they will embrace it. The result will be higher productivity and the data will be accurate and timely.
• Understand that each person will respond to different management styles. Recognize the issues that are unique to each person and the generational differences that exist.
• Hire scientifically. Success at a previous company is no guarantee of success with the next. It can no longer be acceptable to give an employee 9 months or longer to see if they will succeed. That can be as much as 1/3 of their tenure. They must be positioned to contribute much quicker and with a much higher degree of confidence in their success.
• Build support tools such the company web site that personalize the web experience, allowing the inquirer to truly understand how our products and services can met his unique needs, and build it a way that leaves a thumbprint behind so we can turn more and more into customers. It’s not the number of web hits that counts, it the number of customers that are generated!
• Have a mission that is meaningful. Measure ideas against it, reward innovation, and create opportunities that demand transformation.

These issues can often be masked during a robust economy when selling is easier. A soft economy can be the time these issues will surface with the adverse impact from them more evident, but it’s also the best time to gain market share. It’ll take a non-traditional approach, but

• embracing a win/win mentality as a core culture;
• having a servants heart for employees success;
• recognizing that each person is unique and will not necessarily conform to a pre-defined set of processes and expectations; accepting that each employee really wants to make decisions that serve the company well;
• and transparently accepting effort and failure

Will all serve us well as we work to control our own destiny and build a successful company, even in the face of an unsupportive economy!