Archive for April 25th, 2009
Get Out of the Way of Your Own Sales Success
This week I have been doing some consulting with an east coast firm trying to help them out of a death spiral brought on by a perfect storm-like set of circumstances.
Reviewing the company data, this company built a high quality sales force that frankly I would love to have working for me. This company has amazing reference stories and some raving fans as customers that are more than happy to share their stories on the company’s behalf. While not a major household brand, this company has been involved in building some major sales initiatives and major technology deployments for some instantly recognizable brands.
So what happened?
This company lost some of its swagger and part of its identity over the past year as the economic downturn forced some key clients to close. Some projects lost funding, some account losses were a surprise, and everything negatively impacted cash flow. Compounding the issues are a handful of slow and no-pay accounts that are eating up cash reserves.
But none of those issues were the big problem, only symptoms leading to the problem they have today.
The real underlying problem is that the events that occurred put management in unfamiliar territory, second guessing every decision to the point of making no definitive decisions, and the lack of decisions degraded the situation into one of chaos.
There is nothing wrong with the fundamentals of the business that their existing sales team and customer base cannot help them work through, but they have to make the decision to move forward.
The company reached a point where it could not get out of its own way.
The more I thought about this company and their problem, the more I thought that there was a message here worth sharing with all of you.
When things go wrong we can get caught up in self-analysis that leads to paralysis, trying to figure out what we did wrong or what went wrong with the business model that shook the very foundations of the company.
Stop looking at the storm surrounding you and start looking at the vehicle that is going to get you out of it.
If you find a hole in your boat, fix the hole, don’t sink while trying to figure out how to build a whole new boat while at sea, in a storm. Have some faith in what you have built, have faith in the preparation you have put in, and in the proven processes that you have in place.
Assess problems for what they are, not the horrors that they might become.
Focus on your training. Focus on your experience. Focus on what’s right about what you are doing. I meet so many amazing people running great little companies that have taken for granted how talented they really are.
Are the times real scary for some? Yes. Are these challenges going to kill you? Only if you let them.
Inspire your team and stay focused. Don’t let a short term crisis force you to take your eye off your objectives. Set the vision. Choose a course of action, then do something really crazy like actually taking that course of action and begin building the momentum you will need to overcome every set of obstacles between you and your objectives.
A related story about Thomas Edison¹
1914 could have been called a difficult year for Thomas Edison.
With the onset of World War One, Edison found himself in danger of being compelled to close his phonograph record factory. Edison needed carbolic acid to make the records, and was the largest user of carbolic acid in the United States. Edison’s primary supply was imported from England and Germany, and both countries had placed an embargo on carbolic acid because it was in great demand for making explosives.
With no other sufficient supply available, Edison was faced with one of two choices. Close the factory or invent something that could solve the problem.
Edison chose the latter and invented an alternative method for making carbolic acid synthetically and put crews to work twenty four hours a day to build a carbolic acid production facility. By the eighteenth day the factory was producing carbolic acid, within four weeks it was turning out a ton of it per day.
Crisis averted, but the year was not yet over.
On December 9, 1914, a sixty-seven year old Edison watched as fire fighters fought a blaze that destroyed Edison Industries with a total loss exceeding $2 million and most of Edison’s life’s work. Edison was only insured for $238 because the buildings were constructed of concrete and at the time were thought fireproof.
Charles Edison, former Governor of New Jersey, tells of his concern as he looked for his father during the blaze. “My heart ached for him, no longer a young man, everything being destroyed.” Then he says, “My father spotted me and he called out, ‘Charles, Charles, run get your mother. She will never see anything as beautiful as this fire as long as she lives.”
The next morning, Edison surveyed his charred dreams and crushed hopes. As he stood amid the disaster, Edison was quoted as saying, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start anew.”
Edison followed up that statement with a decision to move forward, and a vision of what needed to be done. Three weeks after the fire Edison Industries was manufacturing phonographs. By December 31st of the following year, 1915, Edison had sold 95,889 phonographs on his way to what would become 845,228 phonographs sold and over 48,000,000 records.²
1.Thomas Edison story from Van Ekeren, Glenn The Speaker’s Sourcebook. New Jersey. Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1988.
2. Edison Industries sales figures from Meadowcroft, W.H. “Quantity of Disc Phonographs and Disc Records Sold.”
Radio-Phonograph Division Accounting Department Report (April 9, 1929) reprinted in The Edison Discography (1926-1929) available from Mainspringpress.com.
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“The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.”
“The man who makes no mistake does not usually make anything.”
“Lead, follow, or get out of the way”
Image courtesy of jonwashburn.com
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