In speaking with some business owners this weekend I heard a lot of whining about why their businesses are flat or dropping. The first thing these owners choose to do is look for validation from me about “the economy.” This one amazes me. Now I’m not economist and can stand here today and tell you that I received a VERY generous B- in my MBA economics courses. However, I will tell you this; your business sucks because you suck, not the economy. In my experience with small IT companies, I can assure you that there has never been a correlation between growth and profitability and whatever economic conditions you think exist.
Let’s look deeper. Your clients and those who SHOULD be your clients need your services. They are buying IT services from someone. Why not you? Because you flat out refuse to transform into a sales driven organization. You appear to want your phone to ring and for people to hand you projects and contracts with the least amount of effort possible. When your current clients stop buying you run to another industry event and look for other loser companies to validate your half baked economic theories about the economy.
Remembering that I am no kind of economist let me leave this thought with you. What you hear in the news, what you read online, and what your fellow owners are winging about it called Macroeconomics. That is the top down method of evaluating our economy. On the other side there is Microeconomics, more of bottom up view of the economy. The two are deeply intertwined. YOU (yes you, the guy wasting time reading my blog instead of selling) can impact the MACRO by living deep in the MICRO. How do you make decisions about allocating resources in your personal and business life. How are you selling your goods and services? How are you choosing to employ folks? How are you investing in your company? Those are MICRO economic issues that you need to be addressing every day, not drawing out a ridiculous theory about how the stock market fluctuations have you up at night.
Let’s take it to the streets:
1. I wish I had a dollar for every person who pitches me on the idea of a contract sales person, outsourcing cold calling, or commission only sales person. STOP thinking this way…You will have my full attention if you talk to me about how to outsource your IT staff and have the techs work on a contract level so you can afford a professional sales staff. I know you have limited payroll dollars but lets flip the script on where to allocate them. Techs are out there in huge numbers, great sales people are not. Makes sense to me on how to allocate my salary dollars.
2. When you do decide to hire a sales person, please please please don’t be the classic jack ass how says “should I hire a hot chick?” Now I realize you might just be joking, but the fact is, you believe there is value in that theory somewhere. Guess what, there’s not. What you also reveal when you talk that way to me or to your peers, or god forbid, your staff is that you are an idiot. That you still have no concept of what sales people do and what is expected of them. If that thought enters your mind go immediately to Amazon.com and pick up any sales book you wish and start reading. You’ll see real quick that selling has so much to do with personality, curiosity, and motivation and has nothing to do with being hot.
3. Consider, like my man Brian Miller, owner of FusionTek in Seattle, building a sales organization from the top down. Brian is by far one of the most intelligent and driven individuals I’m fortunate to work with, but he is also an absolute wreck when it comes to relating to sales people on a day to day. It took a lot of work on his part to realize that sales management just was not going to happen for him. Brian is great with money, excellent saver, very frugal, and has a plan for growing his business. Brian made the decision to hire a sales manager and work with him to grow the organization. It is costing him a great deal of money but it is an investment that he is willing to make because he, unlike YOU, is committed to growing his business. Know your limitations. Know what you can realistically accomplish. If you know you’ll never love managing and growing a sales team; figure out how you will get there.
Ok….sooo let’s recap:
1. It’s not the economy, it’s you
2. Hot sales chicks mean nothing
3. If you can’t build the sales organization then stop wasting money on new RMM tools and data centers and invest in a sales manager led strategy.
I love getting your emails but post in the comments it’s much more entertaining. Plus you can throw your URL in there and maybe get a little PR.
Josh Peterson
Thanks Josh for this slap in the face. I’m still building out my business and it’s great to get some upfront information on the sales side of the business which is not my strong suit. Building a team from the top down certainly would be a large investment but now you have me at least considering it.
We’re definitely in the “it will come to us” camp. No sales efforts being made. We’re “happy” with the business that stumbles upon us.
We’ve tried several things over the years. The hot sales chick. The sales manager. The techie sales guy. None work, but the hurdle is getting the problem properly addressed. The problem has been identified, but how do change the owner of the company. There’s no long term commitment to a sales position. If there aren’t super-profitable results in 3 months, the sales guy gets axed. If the owner would let go, we could grow. Can you change someone that doesn’t see their own faults?
What do I do if I’m not the owner and see this as a problem within our organization? What do you recommend doing to help open up the owner’s eyes to making the proper investments in the sales team.
Abe,
Thanks for your comments and question. Here’s my dilemma; I want to cuss you out for asking such a dumb question but you’re so nice in your comments, I have a hard time doing that so I’ll try to be nice. ABE YOU KNOW THE ANSWER!! THE BOSS MAN AIN’T CHANGIN’! No matter how much you want him to, no matter how much you tell him, educate him, advise him, he ain’t gonna change. Now, you’re probably asking yourself Abe, “but Josh, why?” Because he knows something you don’t know which is how to build a business, take on the stress of taxes, payroll, lines of credit, personal guarantees, lawsuits, and lame employees making him feel like an idiot. Abe, you have no skin in the game. You have none of the risk that he has sooooo….stop trying to get him to see his faults and open his eyes. It isn’t going to happen.
You must be in some sort of managerial role in the organization or you wouldn’t be thinking about these topics. So I’ll give you my advice. Two options. Option 1, put some skin in the game and offer to make a cash investment in the business with the sole purpose of building a sales force. Option 2, quit stressing out about this, look at your job as a paid internship on how to run an IT company. When you think you’ve learned all you can….quit, start your own company, feel the boss man’s pain and see if you can do it better.
JP
Bryce,
It’s definitely not for the faint of heart. If you go that route you will definitely be a 1% in this industry and will OWN your market if you do it right. From LA to Sydney to New York City, to East Pitchfork, Nebraska there is no one doing what you’re considering. I wish you the best and hope you kill it! Keep us updated.
Actually, I do have “skin in the game”. I have been given a percentage of payout when the time comes to sell the company. It’s small, but would be significant to me.
So, I do have the desire for the company to grow and to have input in to the decisions. It’s just frustrating that the input isn’t taken seriously.
But, to your point, yes, I know he’s not changing. It’s a shame really. The owner would make more cash if he’d stop doing what he thinks is right. If he went on vacation for a year, he’d come back to a much better organization. And that’s not my frustration speaking. There are others with partial ownership and we’re all in agreement of the big picture. Unfortunately, we don’t make up 51%!
Yes, it sounds to me as if it’s time to move on. And I’ve known that. Thanks for slapping me around.