By Nicola Cook, CEO of Company Shortcuts
To some of my clients, especially those in the Scale-up phase of their business journey I must sound like a broken record, as I’m forever repeating this phrase; Sales is a culture, NOT a department.
I can’t even claim ownership over this little gem of a phrase, as I first heard it spout from the mouth of my good friend, once business partner and serial entrepreneur Lara Morgan, and it’s so true.
How many growing businesses attempt to solve their sales growth headaches, by implementing an expensive, often siloed Business Development Manager, or a team of Sales Reps, Account Managers and the like – only to realise six months down the line that they’ve burnt through all their cash, built a ginormous pipeline of potential deals – none of which have closed and find themselves having to make that person (or persons) redundant, and once again find themselves staring at the wall, wondering how it all went wrong.
I’m not saying that in order to scale your Sales Engine you won’t need to employ skilled people and deploy them within your sales process – BUT what I am saying is that assuming that plan alone is the route to solving your sales growth headaches is a MASSIVE mistake.
The one differentiator in businesses that have successfully scaled beyond their initial start-up spurt – they have successfully built a Sales Growth Culture.
As Peter Drucker famously said, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast.’
Ask yourself, does everyone in your business;
–Understand the quantifiable value of a customer?
–Understand what an ideal opportunity looks like, regardless of their role. They could be a person in warehousing, admin, marketing, purchasing, or customer services, it wouldn’t matter, even if they never enter into a direct customer dialogue, they still know that customer wants, needs and how your company promise to fulfil that need
–Know what to do if they bump up against an ideal opportunity (especially outside of work)
–Appreciate that the customer pays their wages.
–Delight in (and are rewarded for) activities that drive growth (and remember profit growth can come as much from cost saving and increased productivity than just focusing on growing the topline)
–Prioritise profit generating activities first If you answered ‘yes’ to all of the above, then congratulations you clearly have ‘sales’ embedded within the beating heart of your organisation. If not, then here’s some ideas to help you build that sales growth culture:
–Share the numbers (including profit) with the wider team. Obviously, you may need to clump together some numbers to ensure privacy of salaries etc. or show only high-level figures, but show everyone the true bottom line impact on a monthly basis.
–Link achieving growth to some meaningful individual and team rewards. How will they be rewarded (profit share, additional days holiday, increased personal and team benefits) when the business collectively succeeds. Let them decide from a pick and mix list or a democratic process, then ensure you follow through.
–Ensure everyone’s individual Key Objectives include measurable activities (not just outcomes) that drive increased growth and profit. Hold accountable on a regular basis ——Introduce regular ‘Lunch and Learn’ sessions that share best practise, brainstorm ideas, and actively seek ways to improve your Customer Experience. Make this a team responsibility to own and deliver. Record the sessions, have them transcribed and add these materials to your Company Training Manual and Induction process for new starters.
–Introduce a Learning Library of resources (videos, books, podcasts) and actively encourage individuals to invest in their own growth and personal development, both inside and outside their role responsibilities.
–Ask everyone to write up a 1-page summary of every learning event they attend. Be that a networking event with an interesting speaker, a book or article they’ve read, or a podcast they’ve listened to, and ask them to make three or four recommendations as to how your company could adopt this learning and improve. Build it into your Lunch and Learn sessions to feedback to the wider team.
–Introduce as part of your salary index a competency framework that requires someone to demonstrate how they coached and taught a particular skill or area of knowledge to another team member in order for them to be marked at the highest level of competency for that particular skill.
Focus on building a Culture of Sales, rather than attempting to isolate your sales growth issues to one particular hire, person or team, and you will be paid back ten-fold for your efforts.
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