Revenue Journal®

In the beginning, the entrepreneur starts a company, and does all the selling himself. Then, as the business grows, he hires a salesperson, then a few more salespeople. This goes on for a couple of years, then he hires even more salespeople and a sales manager.

As this progression occurs, this entrepreneur, now the CEO, makes selling mistakes. All CEOs make these mistakes, even if their background was in sales before they started their company, or before they joined the corporation. There aren't many companies run by salespeople; in my experience, CEOs usually come from engineering, finance, or operations. But even the sales-background guys and gals make these same mistakes. Avoiding these seven mistakes can save you a lot of grief.

Here they are. I'll be stating each mistake as a belief, because it is the belief that gets the CEO in trouble. These beliefs are actually dangerous myths, myths that cost companies millions or billions of dollars every year.

When your market changes, your company must change with it. This seems so obvious - when you're an outsider looking into someone else's company. You can plainly see that buyers have changed what they are doing, and conditions have changed, but the people inside the company are behaving the way they have always behaved, as if nothing had changed.

When you're inside one of those companies, you can tell that something is different. You get hints. But it is so much easier to continue doing what you've always done. You would rather ignore the changes you sense, than admit they are happening - and deal with the changes you know will you have to make.

New players will come into the market, while the market is in its new state, and think, Ah, so this is how it is. OK, I will behave accordingly. They don't have to change their current behavior or infrastructure. They will simply start doing what makes sense.

The leaders of the companies-in-denial either wake up and take action at this stage, or continue to sleepwalk. I don't have to tell you what happens to the sleepwalkers. They walk right off a cliff, never to be heard from again.

I am currently working with a couple of clients whose sales are being affected by current economic events. One client is in the luxury travel business and another is in the recreational boating business. In the former situation, high gas prices, higher food prices, and the fall of the dollar against the Euro are causing their customers to pull back on their buying decisions. In the latter situation, high gas prices and a concern about the economy are causing their customers to put off their next recreational boat purchase.

Of course, they're not the only ones feeling the pinch right now. If you are too, here's a recessionary rallying cry for you:

If you want more sales, get serious.

Serious about what?

Those persona articles I wrote recently (here and here), created a bit of a stir out there in BlogLand. Adele Revella from Pragmatic Marketing mentioned my concerns about personas and then went on to describe how those problems could be addressed, including not talking to salespeople about personas, but by relating stories about real buyers. Good advice.

Pragmatic marketing also blogged about my persona blog, with a piece about how people find numerous ways to avoid visiting clients.

Brian Eisenberg quoted Adele's quote, then also went on to talk about how to solve persona problems, using a 4-question survey that will help put flesh on the bones of your personas.

Email has become the message medium of our age. Just as we learned how to address and stamp an envelope, just as we learned how to fill out a FedEx form, we are now - still - learning how to use email effectively to run our businesses, and to buy and sell products and services.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time this week talking about how frustrating it is when someone doesn't do what I'm about to recommend. Suffice it to say that stream-of-consciousness, flaky subject lines don't help you manage your business or increase your revenues.

What is really happening - and we all know this, because we are experiencing it every day - is all activities, and all communication about activities, happen via email. It's become the central communication tool for all projects.

Salespeople (or, I should say, order takers) who are used to taking calls all day are still having a hard time adjusting to the email-driven business world we live in now. The same is true of many small business owners.

The phone is no longer the "instrument of choice" for today's busy buyers. Their preferred way of contacting companies when they are interested in a product or service is via email. And yet, too many salespeople and entrepreneurs are still treating email as an intrusion into their busy day. Because they get so much email and spam, and because they don't want to spend all day typing notes to people, they just aren't giving incoming email buyers the attention that they deserve.

If your salespeople are struggling with, or ignoring, this issue, it helps for them to see the email scenario from the buyer's point of view. It will help them understand how just a few minutes spent responding can make the difference between closing a sale or losing a customer for life. Let's look at this from the perspective of a customer we'll call Jane.

There's a joke - you've probably heard one of the many versions of it - that I think of as the "demo" joke. My favorite version is the one starring Bill Gates:

Bill Gates died and found himself standing in front of St. Peter, who was sizing him up.

"Well, Bill, I'm not sure whether to send you to Heaven or Hell. After all, you helped society enormously by putting a computer in almost every home in America, and you gave away a lot of money. But, you also created that evil Windows program. It's a close call, so I'm going to do something I've never done before: I'm going to let you decide where you want to go."

Bill replied, "What's the difference between the two?"

St. Peter said, "Well, I'm willing to let you visit both places briefly, then you will have to decide."

"Fine, but where do you think I should I go first?"

"I leave that up to you."

"Okay, what the Hell," said Bill. "Let's try down below first."

"Fast, right, cheap. Pick two."

Print shop owners used to like to post this little truism near the front desk of their shops. There's a lot of wisdom on those five words. If you do it too fast, it's likely to be wrong. If you take too much time obsessing over details, it isn't going to be fast. And if you get it cheap, you might also get it fast, but it probably won't be right.

The problem is, today's customers assume that they can get "all three" if they just look hard enough. Google has given them a virtual, endless, global shopping mall. If one vendor can't give them all three, they'll just keep looking. Click. Click. Click.

A depression is one of the worst things that can happen to the economy - it affects just about everyone, in every industry, in every country. Recessions, on the other hand, tend to hit a particular group of industries the hardest, with lesser "ripple effects" on others.

What's happening now, as everyone knows, is that lending institutions have stopped lending with wild abandon. The first people to be effected by this are those in the real estate business - real estate agents, lawyers, title companies, and all the others who gain income from real estate activity. Their income - and their spending - decreases. Many decide to leave the business. There is a personnel shift from the real estate industry to other industries, where the money is still flowing. Until they are securely ensconced in their new positions, and have recovered financially, they are still cautious about their spending.

Recessions affect other industries, too, because of the recessionary drumbeat. The news media is always prowling around looking for the latest disaster. As you know, right now they're writing stories about the "subprime lending crisis," profiling people who have been affected. This steady diet of bad economic news affects everyone. Anyone who views their house as their main economic security will be more cautious about their spending. They will take longer to make decisions. They will want more information before making a commitment. They will more carefully compare one option against another, and will be more likely to postpone major spending decisions.

Consumer spending will slow, and so will business-to-business spending. People who run businesses are consumers themselves, and they follow economic news closely. They become more cautious about their spending, too. Their employees see the boss pulling back, and they tell their families, "Things are getting tight at work. Better wait on buying that new car."

This classic, recessionary mass psychology will affect your own outlook, the outlook of your employees, and your revenue stream.

So why am I saying that recessions can be good for you? Because they provide a unique opportunity for improvement.

When someone in business says, "He's a micromanager," it's not a compliment. They say, "He's a control freak," "he doesn't empower people," and "he's obsessed with details." The common wisdom is that micromanagers are not anywhere near as successful as...

It doesn't matter what type of business you run. It doesn't matter how small or large your business is. It doesn't matter what you used to do, before you became the leader of your company. What matters - the only thing that really matters, day after day, year after year - is how well you manage yourself.

Why is it so important? Because true leaders - the kind that other people actually want to follow - have mastered self-management. They instill confidence. They are calm, reasonable, and wise. They can consistently be depended upon to do the right thing. They don't fly off the handle at the smallest thing - or anything, for that matter. They don't obsess about one aspect of their business at the expense of other, just-as-important aspects.

Every company has a tempo. What do I mean by tempo? It's the amount of time you think you have - to get something done or resolved. It's the heartbeat of your business. It's the tick-tick-tick of your corporate clock.

Your tempo is tied directly to two aspects of your business: How quickly your technology is changing, and how competitive your market is.

Tempo and revenue are joined at the hip. Here are the situations where the tempo/revenue connection becomes critical:

"That does it. I've had it."

That declaration is provoked by someone "stepping over the line." They've "gone too far." It's "too difficult."

All of us - low functioning and high functioning - have these lines, drawn over many years of interacting with others. I have an autistic brother, who is considered "low functioning," because he has no concept of the danger of traffic, the need for money, or the need to work. I could point to all sorts of areas where Michael is higher functioning than many "normal" people, and he has shown me more than you can imagine about human behavior, but that's not the subject of this article.

What is important here is that one of Michael's low-functioning traits is his inability to ignore or move beyond his demarcation lines.

When you run a business - no matter how large or small it is - you have a certain amount of energy available to apply to the long list of things you must get done. How you apply that energy will determine how successful you are.

I have been watching companies invest that energy for years. One conclusion I came to early on was that management fads were very distracting and expensive. They seldom, if ever, result in tangible, positive results.

The problem with marketing and sales is that they are the functions inside companies most likely to be driven more by emotions and anecdotal "evidence" than they are by facts. The result is never as profitable as it could be.

If salespeople dominate decisions, without the benefit of qualitative customer research and buying process analysis, the atmosphere is always dominated by fear of losing the next sale, and activity is always frantic.

The salesperson will send an email to the marketing person: "I just closed this sale. I sent this fax to them, and they read it while we were talking to each other, and the person loved this fax. We need an email and landing page that uses this copy!!!" The marketing person will comply. The salesperson will then talk to another customer, who will react positively to something else, and the salesperson will send another email to the marketing person, demanding another email and landing page.

As you probably already know, the most important aspect of time management is deciding where you will spend your attention.

It's difficult to practice good attention allocation because anyone with a need can interrupt you at any time, using a variety of methods to access you and hijack your attention.

One of the most famous, and still-relevant self-management tools is Stephen Covey's four-quadrant matrix for importance and urgency ("important/not important, urgent/not urgent").

We all know we spend far too much time on the urgent/not important tasks; and, if we are totally honest with ourselves, we also spend too much time in the "not important/not urgent" category.

Why?

If you own or run a company, you're passionate. Certain things matter to you. Every day, in every interaction, your passion determines how you manage yourself and those who work for you - employees and vendors.

Your passion is a powerful force. If you manage it correctly, you will:

• Make the right decisions about what is important and what is not
  
• Allocate the right amount of energy to the important things
  
• Convey the right messages to employees and vendors about what matters
  
• Create and run a balanced company
  

What do I mean by a "balanced company"?

There are countless articles and books on what you should do as you attempt to grow your business. But very little advice focuses on the aspect of your daily business life that has the most effect on your company's success: your character.

For good or ill, your character affects everything you do every day. It affects every decision you make - or fail to make. It determines how your employees perceive your ability to lead the company - and their enthusiasm or discouragement. It affects how much your customers trust you and how much your competitors fear you - or not.

As we go through life, we develop habits of character.

Here are some of the most common barriers to revenue that we encounter as we help our clients. Are you making one of these mistakes?

Your company name doesn't tell them what you sell. We call our company Zhivago Marketing Partners for this very reason. It would have been just as easy to call it Zhivago & Company or something similar - but that would not have answered the first, most basic question: "What does this company sell?"

If you're just starting out, make sure your name clearly indicates the type of product you sell.

If you've already invested too much in your non-specific name to change it now, then add a tagline to your logo that says what you sell. Keep it short - no more than five words. Tell them what you sell, using the words people would use to find you.

Many people use the stress of deadlines and heavy workloads to push themselves to get as much done as possible. But it's also a good way to drive yourself crazy - creating stress for no good reason.

If you want to get more done without driving yourself nuts, you really need to just focus on four key steps:

1. Decide how you're going to behave

2. Decide what you're going to do

3. Get organized

4. Get it done
   

Let's look at them one at a time.

The longer you head up a company, the more it becomes like a private club. You go to work, and are immediately swarmed by messages, issues, meetings, random hallway and instant messaging conversations - all from members of your own club.

Everyone in the club knows everyone else, everyone knows who the facilitators are - and who are the obstructionists. They know the helpful ones and the spoiled brats. You spend your entire day interacting with everyone in the club, people who make you feel good about yourself, your company, how well your people are doing - and how happy your customers are.

Here's the danger: After a while, it gets harder and harder for anyone outside the club to get what they need from anyone inside the club. Your days are consumed by your interactions with each other.

We are surrounded by an endless din and clatter of information, in the form of warnings, predictions, stories, statistics, news, and advice.

The longer I'm in business, the more I'm convinced that nothing "out there" matters as much as what is going on in your customers' heads, your own head, and the processes that you create to help your customers do business with you. Everything else - politics, natural disasters, man-made disasters, new inventions, stock markets, and the daily news - is hardly worth your time.

I heard someone say recently that you should spend 80% of your time on the top three most important things in your life. The sad fact is, it's incredibly easy to get sucked into spending 80% of our time on the least important things in our lives, which is why Stephen Covey's 7 Habits book continues to be a best-seller.

As a CEO or entrepreneur, customers should be on your "top three things" list, because if you have no customers, you have no revenue. If you have no revenue, you really don't have a sustainable business. So the first order of any business is to understand what customers are thinking and doing.

In reality, how much time do you actually spend, every day, focused intently on your customers?

Every CEO and entrepreneur has a need for both graphic and website designers. Too bad there are so few good ones out there.

Sure, there are people who say they are designers. And they do, in fact, churn out work for clients. But I'd estimate that only one out of 200 actually know how to solve design problems, have truly satisfied clients, and consistently turn out good, solid work.

What's the problem? It goes back to something a CEO once said to me, about ten years ago. "No one is teaching kids how to think." He was right. Being a good designer means you follow a well-tested process. You gather all the input you need, you prioritize it and analyze it, and then you come up with solutions that meet the requirements.

There will be tradeoffs; the design process always involves a delicate balance between all of the various goals, resources, form, and function. But the best designers do a masterful job of meeting all the requirements while creating something pleasing and functional.

Instead of learning how to make these tradeoffs, young designers are taught to imitate established designers or to follow their own creative whim. It is easier to teach someone to imitate or to do whatever he/she wants than it is to actually teach the student to think - or be of service.

The result is always something inappropriate for the client. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs and CEOs are frustrated with the designs that come back to them, after they think they've provided the information the designer needed.

Whenever you read an article about a merger and acquisition, it's usually a lightly edited version of the official press release. What you don't read about are the bloody backstage battles that took place as the stakeholders maneuvered, and manipulated the detailed terms of the deal. Nor do you read about the mess after the deal.

Usually there's a big dog and a small dog, whether the parties involved admit it or not. The small dog is hoping to line his pockets, and the big dog is hoping to pick those same pockets.

After the deal is signed, the revenues that were roaring along at the small dog company often come to a screeching halt.

Looking for higher revenues this year? Pay attention to your projects and processes - Part 2

As I mentioned last week, successful companies are characterized by a series of successful projects.

There are other activities, however, that happen every day, which are not as "visible" as projects are. These activities are "processes" that take place as people work on projects, produce products or information, or carry on day-to-day administration such as accounting, IT, marketing, sales and order fulfillment.

If I were to do a "revenue growth audit" of your company, chances are you would get low marks for your processes. Inefficient processes would be inhibiting your ability to service customers and run an efficient operation.

How can I be so sure about that? Because process-centric companies are very, very rare.

As the leader of your company, what you decide to do is what gets done. At least, that's how it should happen. What you have control over (to a degree) are your own decisions, your own actions, and the management of your employees. You have some influence with your business partners. You have no direct control over your customers.

Of course, without customers, you wouldn't have a business - no revenue, no employees, no partners. The people most important to your business are your customers.

Whom do you spend the most time with? Employees.

It doesn't matter what size your company is. I guarantee, at this moment, that your "comfort zone" is keeping your company from getting bigger.

What is your comfort zone? It's what you do best, and what you typically turn to first, when it's time to "do the next thing."

Here are some one-person-shop comfort-zone examples:

Well, it's that time again. Elections. Always causes a bit of a dip in productivity, and a slowdown of the buying process, while everyone waits to see how the election will turn out.

Welcome to Distraction City.

In our news-dominated culture, distractions interrupt buying patterns. The larger the distraction, the larger the interruption. I tend to think of these periods as distraction-driven mini-dips. If there are a number of them in succession - especially those involving armed conflict or a terrorist attack - the dips can turn into a recession.

During these distraction-driven mini-dips, it's more difficult to generate revenue. Everyone still goes to work, meetings are still held, contracts are still signed, but if you're on the selling side, it always feels like the world is sliding sideways. As you attempt to finalize a contract, it's like talking to someone who is talking to someone else on a cell phone. Or who is pretending to be paying attention to you while simultaneously watching a movie. Sure, they will answer your questions, but they're not "all there." People are no where near as adept at multi-tasking as they think they are, especially if they have an emotional stake in the other task.

It's not just the buyers who are distracted. Sellers are distracted, too.

Major opportunity for you

As I help CEOs increase their revenues, I often find that they are not aware how inefficient their companies are, from the point of view of their buyers and business partners. They don't realize how much their own systems are broken - and how much those broken systems reduce their sales.

Why is this? Because CEOs depend too much on their employees for information. When I interview their buyers and business partners, the picture painted by those interviews is completely different than the picture painted by the employees.

It's not that the employees are being deceptive. It's that they assume that the CEO is aware of the problems, and is not going to change them. They try to make the best of their situation, devising workarounds for some of the inefficiencies, and just accepting others. They are also insulated from the effect that pitiful processes have on buyers and business partners. Sure, they hear the complaints, but they aren't aware of anything they can do about them.

One of the biggest barriers to your company's revenue growth is the battle that goes on every single day between marketers and salespeople. Each has legitimate grievances. Each group pays lip service to getting along - especially in your presence - but they really don't respect each other and they usually work at cross-purposes to each other. The smallest and the largest companies have this problem.

There is a solution, however. And if you implement it, the squabbling will cease. The two groups will begin working toward the same goal. And, your customers will respond positively to your coordinated, customer-centric efforts. Your revenues will go up.

In this three-part series, we will reveal what is happening when you're not in the room - and in doing so, help you recognize the problem. We will tell the salesperson's side of the story first,and in the second part, the marketer's story. Both stories are based on personal experience. I can do this because I spent many years as a salesperson (dog), became a marketer (cat), and now help CEOs improve the effectiveness of both types of people. This gives me the freedom and perspective to speak the truth about cats and dogs - and, more importantly for you, to describe a solution that works.

In the third article, we'll describe the solution and how you can put it to work.

This is part number two of a three-part article.
In Part 1, we told the dog's tale - the frustrations experienced by a salesperson who wanted to sell more, but never seemed to be able to get the necessary selling tools from marketing (the cats). This week, we look at the problem from the cat's perspective.

Marketing: Cool cats get cranky
As the head of marketing for a succession of companies in Silicon Valley, I worked hard to give salespeople what they needed. I made sure they had tools for every stage of the selling process. I enjoyed the work, but felt I could do more good for more salespeople if I worked in an agency. After working in a couple of agencies, I decided to go off on my own. My husband and I opened a tech marketing agency. It was April Fool's Day, 1979.

This is part number three of a three-part article.
First we told the salesperson's sad tale, then looked at marketing and selling from the marketer's perspective. This week, we provide a step-by-step solution. If you actually do this, your dogs and cats will finally find common ground and start working together to increase your sales.

How to stop the squabbling and supercharge your sales
The secret to getting your salespeople and marketing people to work together is to stop the interdepartmental, political arguments about the selling process and start focusing everyone's attention on the customer's buying process. This is the only way to stop the political tug-of-war.

Here's how you do it.

EVA is a system that lets salespeople (or anyone else, for that matter) use their cell phones to call in after a meeting with a client and get all sorts of things done. They simply call a number, give commands (such as "create an email"), and start talking. Their voice is recorded, and later listened to by a human being, who enters the data into a sales automation or CRM system.

Salespeople can set up appointments, say what happened in the meeting--including next steps--and provide information for their expense reports. They can also instruct the data entry person to send an email to the person they just visited, as they are leaving the prospect's parking lot.