Who's Priorities Are You Working Towards?

If you are a sales leader, do you drive your sales people to solve your organisation's customers' problems, or do you drive them to solve your own problems or revenue or margin?

Many sales leaders I have worked for have been driven by spreadsheets.  Some have been deeply insecure, and craved recognition from their leaders.  This internal focus on their own needs has caused them to hit ceilings in their own performance, and in the performance of their teams.

I have contended for years that sales achievement (in terms of revenue or margin depending on your measurement criteria) are not a measure of success.  Rather they are a product of success.  Not all revenue is good revenue, and the cost of the business may outweigh the benefits.

What if you are in a business where the top line is great.  Customers buy your offering and are pleased with it, but you are not making enough money to pay the bills?  What if you get orders, but no loyalty and as a consequence you begin to lose business as word of mouth travels and it spreads that you talk a good game, but that's about it?

Or, what if you get your sales people to 'perform' and deliver their number but the despise you and can't wait for a better offer?  With a competitor.  Where they can hurt your revenue.

Getting the numbers in the door will happen if you focus on your customers.  I believe you need to establish 3 things to keep you focused on what's important to the person who ultimately pays you, your clients.  Is what you are offering going to help them with:

1. Their organisation's priorities?
2. Their manager's priorities?
3. Their own professional priorities?

If you can't draw a direct line from what you are offering to these 3 things, you could be at risk of coming across as a peddler of snake oil, focused only on what you need from the deal.

Develop customer centricity and you will be better at qualifying, proposing and closing.

And you will more often than not exceed your sales targets.

Cheers!

Digital Business Isn't Just Digitization

As I talk to people about digital business it is clear many are struggling at the first hurdle.  Most often they simply can't define 'digital'.  As a result they default to a position that it is synonymous with 'web' or 'e-commerce'.  While these may (or may not) be elements of your digital future, they are not, on their own, what you're grappling with.

Digital business is about looking at business through a whole new lens. It doesn't accept today's way  of doing things as satisfactory. It doesn't simply automate today's processes, but rather renders many of them obsolete while creating new business models and operating environments.  It challenges all that has gone before by challenging the very core of your organisation's belief's and assumptions.

The computerised automation of otherwise analogue processes is best likened to 'digital industrialisation'. As  with the advent  of production lines, all digital industrialisation does is 'standardise' the process, hopefully with some efficiency gain.

This kind of automation is based on the notion of scientific management, espoused by Frederick Taylor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Taylor was all about time and motion studies, finding the best way to do something, then having all workers do it this 'standardised' way.  He believed that the lower skilled and less educated workforce was incapable of planning work so he created the division of labour, and the separation of the planning (management) and execution (workers) functions.

This is not the world we operate in today. Instead we have a highly educated workforce that is driven by much more than just having 'a job at the mill for the next 40 years'.  Our organisations' customers and employees want innovation and flexibility like no other generation before. 

How digital impacts your business may not be known yet, but there are 2 things you must not do:

1. Don't think for a moment that automation is all you need to do;
2. Don't pretend change isn’t coming. 

Planning for the future based on what you know and see today will only set you up for failure.

After all, it was only 1977 when Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (since acquired by Compaq, who in turn were purchased by HP) famously said,  "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

Who Do I Most Admire?

I started this post ages ago.  Ages and ages ago.  It is one of those topics that can be heavily influenced by current circumstances - did the fireman just saved my Nana or the teacher look out for my precious when they were having a rough day?

A better question to ask, rather than 'who do I most admire', is probably 'what do I most admire?'  And by 'what' I mean what characteristics? What traits? What are the character attributes that I see in others that most inspire me?

I've blogged before about core values, and it is very much related.  Our behaviour always shows ourselves, and others, what we value.  

What characteristics have you observed in others that you admire?  Commitment?  Dedication? Altruism? Courage? Generosity? Patience? Passion....?