We need better, bigger clients. We need to sell more, for more
Sales is a station on an assembly line. If you want to make changes, such as client profile or margin, the entire system needs to be re-engineered. The company that charges 300% more is fundamentally different than the low cost provider. Here we are going to discuss the modifications needed.
Within a startup there is very little insulation between processes and people. It is all intertwined. We need to pry them apart, this will reduce fragility and give the company more resiliency. We can tamper with a system, and if needed, restore equilibrium to processes but we can’t easily do that with people. The alterations we want to make are not cosmetic or simply a marketing brochure with a new color scheme. This is a cultural shift.
In the early days, many people have proximity to the CEO. The radius is too wide. The startup gets burdened with staffers competing for the allocation of scarce resources, hoarding personal, extravagant entitlements. The execs and staffers that get a company to lift off are seldom the same ones that keep it in orbit. This is the difference between building something and profitably operating it.
Everything that a company is, cascades from the CEO. There are life-cycles of a company and the first to jump the chasm from one cycle to the other must be the CEO. You would like to change the culture of the company but leave yourself intact. You can’t
This is a long essay that I have divided up into its component pieces:
- The Cultural Shift
- Define It or the Prospect Will
- Exploiting the First Mover Advantage
- Reverse Engineering a 300% Price Increase
- Each Sales Office is a Franchise
- Why Good Salespeople Fail
- Why The CEO Should Not Be Selling
- Intimacy is a Premium
- Breeding Your Competitors
- SDR’s. Million Dollar Solution. Hundred Dollar Problem