Aloha!

I loved the e-newsletter topic Tom (thank you!) suggested!  Very simply, How to Deal with the Impossible?  He goes on to suggest impossible goals like “…budgets, requests, bosses, direct reports, customers, questions, workloads, meetings, negotiations, cultures and threats to values.”

With my goal of limiting these missives 600 words or less (inconceivable!) methinks this will require a “workaround”:

The single best way to navigate impossible (no matter the form it takes) is to SELL significantly more!  Let me offer a couple of friendly “reminders” with my apologies in advance for preaching (again) to most of you who know this far better.

#1.  Too many spend too much time selling to existing customers!

Now, I’m all for retention.  Doing what is necessary to ensure our best customers don’t churn out is a must.  Yet, please focus those efforts on the largest.  Identify the 20% who generate 80% of your revenue (or thereabouts) and keep them happy!

#2.   This will free up time, so create a plan to prospect systematically.  In addition to finding businesses who “look like” those best current customers, discipline yourself to “find” businesses you traditionally haven’t approached.  With everyone offering new and different solutions, shouldn’t we therefore be approaching a new breed of prospects?

Related point – there’s a finite number of times you can approach an existing customer and essentially say, “Would you like fries with that quarter-pounder?  At some point (NOW?) you will be perceived as peddling products, not offering solutions.  This will not serve you well.

A good operator (and friend) instituted what he calls “3 X 9’s” – sales executives in this mid-sized newspaper approached THREE prospects by 9 o’clock every day.  In time it became a part of their DNA, and he attributed the growth (what a word!) they experienced to this initiative.

#3.  MOONSHOTS.  It’s worth swinging for the fences now and then.  The excruciatingly painful and relentless revenue decline will NOT be reversed (or stabilized) by adding one more special section, another BOGO promotion, legislation or even a huge benefactor.  I’m confident we know this!  For reasons that remain a mystery (Inertia?  Fear?  Heard mentality?  Leadership?) we have been unable to muster the energy or find a MOONSHOT to capture our imagination and inspire us.  Where is that Big Hairy Audacious Goal?  Finding it (them?) to excite and delight our efforts is a timely and worthy goal.

BEGIN NOW!

My bet is there ARE one or two amazing efforts that meaningfully increase revenue or galvanize an audience to take some heroic action, so please pass them along. 

All for now.  Here’s hoping spring has sprung and days are warming nicely – we’ll find you next month!