Entrepreneurs: Killing Sales
by Miki Saxon
Over the years, certain posts I’ve written I seem to require reposting, because the subject keeps coming up; not investing management time in your self-starters is one of them.
Self-starter Does Not Mean Self-managed
When your company is new just how flat can the organization be? How well do “self-starters” manage themselves? These are crucial questions for startups and small businesses since how they are addressed can make or damage your company.
One of the first important outside hires made when a company is ready to grow is in sales. Today, founders are often technical with a biz type who handles sales and marketing. Unfortunately, technical people often have a tendency to think that non-tech jobs are no big deal, especially in sales and marketing.
They believe that hiring salespeople is no big deal—that as long as they have a good track record in their previous sales position and understand the product they can manage themselves.
If this sounds off base to you, you’re right, it’s not that simple. To use a real-life example, I had a client who thought that way.
Previous to hiring me this CEO hired a salesman, we’ll call him ‘Jack’, with a fantastic sales record selling to the same market.
The CEO personally taught Jack the product line and explained what the company was working to accomplish and then pretty much gave him free reign.
In the year Jack was with them he sold only two accounts, spent a good deal of his time on marketing and managed one large client.
In that year Jack’s commissions totaled only $15K.
When he left he went to work in a field completely unrelated to anything he’d sold before and in a market about which he knew nothing. In his first year at the new company he earned over 125K in commissions.
What was the difference? Management.
Based on his track record both the CEO and Jack assumed that he could manage himself. However, Jack didn’t have, and didn’t create for himself, the structure, accountability, etc., necessary to be successful.
When Jack left he admitted that although he had no knowledge or training in marketing, he spent substantially more time than he should have on it — but he had no choice.
After the CEO and I had fully analyzed what happened he concluded that the failure was 80-20, with the 80% his responsibility.
Hind sight is 20/20, and my client believes that if he had taken the time to do what was needed instead of expecting Jack to completely manage himself, that he would still be with the company and doing a spectacular job.
So remember when you hire that “self-starter” does not mean self-managed. Even the best will need direction, structure, and accountability in order to perform brilliantly.
Beyond that, tomorrow I’ll be sharing information Friday on the biggest sales error made by many startups and small companies.
Join me tomorrow to learn about the other major sales error made by many startups and small companies.
Image credit: iamwahid
