One of the things I truly love is repairing broken things. Often when my wife needs to blow off steam, she’ll preface her comments with, “I don’t need you to fix it, I just need you to listen,” because she knows I will tackle anything for a solution!
Every week, dealers fire off questions that are absolutely the reverse of my wife’s request. They want me to fix it, and want brilliance and great answers. A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend who owns an office technology business, as he walked up to the restaurant table I asked him, “How’s it going?” He replied, “Charles, where do you find real talent?” I asked him, “What do you mean?” He said, “I’ve been hiring college graduates because I can’t afford experienced sales people, where do you find real talent, Charles!” He used my first name twice in like ten seconds so I knew he was serious. I jumped right into my sales process and asked a probing question, “How are your college graduates working out for you?” He said, “Not good, I don’t think a single one of them has ever been told NO and when they’re rejected they crash and burn!” He said, “I need you to tell me where do I find real talent and what I am doing wrong!”
I continued with my probing, “What percentage of your team is actually hitting quota?” He asked, “Consistently?” I said, “Yes!” He replied, “One maybe, others do hit quota, but only one consistently!” I asked him, “Why do you think most of your reps are failing?” He said, “That’s a question I’m counting on YOU to answer!”
The question, “What am I doing wrong?” has got to be the most popular question I’m asked. Even though I face that question constantly, it’s always asked regarding a thousand different issues from a thousand different points of view. When I hear that question, it’s like an alarm going off as it almost always means that “business as usual” is running the business. Do you get my drift? In today’s business climate, you can’t run your business the old-school way. As fast information is coming and how quickly technology changes, there is no way you can run your business with a “business as usual” mentality!
His question isn’t really where do you find good sales people, because they’re out there. A better question might be, “What can I possibly do to attract, afford and execute a successful sales organization?” When I probed further, I found out that the most consistent sales rep had been around so long that he’d sucked up all of the lease renewals and had enough to make quota each month. Can we say, “Farmer?”
Honestly, it’s easier to tell someone what they’re doing wrong when you’re looking from the outside in and you’re not emotionally attached to the situation. Why didn’t he say, “I’ve had 20 come and gone sales reps in the last year and most of them were college graduates?” Why didn’t he come to the conclusion that spending 200k on reps who were gone or failing was exposing a flaw in his methodology? He’s too close to the business and is letting business as usual run unchecked!
CONSULT WITH SOMEONE FROM OUTSIDE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHO KNOWS WHAT THEY’RE DOING, TO ASSESS YOUR FAILURE POINTS! Sometimes it’s the person that created the mess who simply doesn’t have the ability to fix the mess. If you have everything invested in your business, like your emotions, your pride and your habits, most likely the business is the way it is because you made it that way.
Usually when someone asks, “What am I doing wrong?” there are three significant contributors causing the overwhelming situation: their comfort level, accountability, and failure to change.
One of the most popular obstacles I face is the comfort level of a business owner. They have long passed the 12-hour days and the blood, sweat, and tears they once gave to build their business. Not many things disturb their quality of life objectives. The problem is that technology, competition, and the overall speed of business today don’t care about their quality of life. The “quality of life syndrome” affects everyone in the business and can kill a business’ ability to implement necessary and timely improvements due to the lack of responsiveness. That kills morale!
The second thing is accountability; this is where everyone brings up the sales reps being accountable to the business. But I consider the owner’s accountability as paramount. The owner should be accountable to everyone they employ for the success of his or her business. That means, they’re the thought leader and should be on top of their game as to how their business finds success.
MORE THAN ANYTHING this is the most popular business illness I find and it’s deep down in the bones. Simple medicine doesn’t cure it. My father used to say, “Your habits will bear you out,” and that is so true. If you’ve moved from the fast lane to the quality of life lane, everyone in your company will act accordingly. You are accountable to lead them and make appropriate timely decisions.
If you have a slow to act, non-responsive owner at the top, you most likely will have significant turnover and the lack of accountability is probably already present throughout the organization. Like the U.S. Marines always say, “Improvise, adapt and overcome!” there is great business value in that phrase.
I would never tell you that achieving a great quality of life is wrong or even a bad idea. I would tell you that if you are the captain of your ship, you are responsible for all of your shipmates. They trust you to navigate correctly and to keep the ship off of the rocks. So be the captain and be accountable to your team.
What was my friend doing wrong? Was hiring college graduates in itself, wrong?
No, but hiring the wrong college graduate would be. The part that I didn’t mention was that he also has reached that quality of life stage and the business is almost an interruption. He’s tired, tired of being the competitive engine for his ship, and the college graduates he’s been hiring were easy to find, eager to nail their first job and were ready to come to work the next day. But there are so many things out of alignment in his business that the college graduates are really the least of his worries. He is still running an old-school hardware shop with one manager over 12 reps, which isn’t really driving any accountability. They haven’t identified their path to the future and they have no idea who their best target is. They tout that they’re a “technology provider” and sell managed services on their website but have yet to share a value proposition with the reps. The sales compensation is confusing and they’re pushing MPS but only really pay on hardware. There’s no marketing going on and the sales reps that are making quota are living in the renewal world. Eight of his sales slots are revolving doors and most stay on the payroll for 11 months. No wonder you’re tired! I meant, he’s tired!
