Don’t keep your sales and marketing functions separate
When you are focused on increasing your revenue, it is absolutely essential that your sales team works closely with your marketing people. Organizing a business is hard, especially as you scale – as I said to Karen Rands recently on her Compassionate Capitalist podcast. It’s easy to separate departments and…
Aim for a consistent, ethical, and accurate brand experience
One area that can create conflict between marketing people and sales teams is branding. This is an area that can cause some challenges. Traditionally, large-scale marketing was wholly associated with brand development and maintaining a consistent brand standard. When you are a salesperson, though, every single interaction with potential customers…
You Need Sales, Not a ‘VP of’ – So Wait to Build Your In-house Team
If I could offer one piece of advice to founders, it’s this: Don’t hire your own sales team until you hit about $5 million in sales. Until that point, it’s not affordable. (Remember, we work with B2B services firms, so that context matters with this advice.) I’m constantly surprised when…
How to Create Packages That Grow Your Revenue
Creating packages of the services you offer to clients is one of the most valuable actions you can take to scale your business. It is also, however, one of the most daunting and time-consuming processes you can undertake. You need to gather your team, everyone who is involved in what…
Stop Customizing Deals and Start Selling Packages
Shorten, simplify, and speed up your selling process by creating and naming packages of your services. Many of our clients worry about pulling together the services they offer into packages. They fear they will no longer be treating every client as unique and that potential buyers might be deterred as…
What I’ve Learned in 2020: Take it One Day at a Time, Work on Your Self-Awareness… and Stop Doom-Scrolling!
This year has, for obvious reasons, been an extraordinarily challenging year. One thing we’ve all learned is that you simply can’t know what’s coming next. Maybe we all deluded ourselves into thinking we could predict the future. But everybody’s answer in 2015 to the question “Where will you be in…
My top tip for entrepreneurs: Don’t start by starting a startup!
The best advice I can give anyone wanting to run a startup is: Do something else first. Specifically, spend as long as you can stand it working for other people. I understand that you have an itch, a belief that you have a great idea that can make for a…
How to Succeed in Complex Solutions Sales
Complex solution sales don’t need to be complex. We’ll help you see the forest for the trees, break your selling process down into its component parts, and make it scalable and repeatable. Be Glad: Your Solution is Not as Unique as You Think Many businesses with complex solutions spend months…