An Ode to Andy Rooney.....Organizational Growth

One of my favorite news correspondents and satirists was the late Andy Rooney. If you ever watched the television show 60 Minutes which comes on at 7pm ET on Sunday evenings, it always concluded with five minutes from Andy Rooney who always asked the question, "Is is me or does........". Watching those bushy eye brows and him sitting behind that big wooden desk that he built himself immediately drew my attention to his wit and charm, as well as how he distilled everyday issues in his own imitable style! So, as a tribute to one of my statirist heroes, I want to ask the question, Is it me, or do organizations tend to shy way from proactive plannning for their growth because they are too ingrained in their every day tasks, or it is too difficult to think about? Many organizations will tell you that they do forward planning and that they have dashboards to monitor their growth, but do they really? Here's some food for thought:

Dashboards: Most organizations monitor their everyday business activities by distilling past activities; why, of course that is the accepted paradigm for forecasting future activity. BUT, what if you really haven't thought about what your true and achievable desired state is? Hmmmm, now we might have a dilemma....and have we set up certain check points so as to trigger proactive actions and investments based on that forward thinking? I'm not here to judge; rather, just to have you ask that reflective question....

Stages of growth: Have you ever thought about the fact that different approaches are required for organizations at different levels of development. If you are a start-up business, your approach to client acquisition, sales, distribution et al may be very different than if you are in a growth mode, and then again very different if you attain a market leadership role. Mercenary tactics lead to defined and managable sales processes which lead to sustainability tactics......obviously there is much depth to this discussion, but suffice it to say that organizations that do not think about this ahead of time set themeselves up to cross that chasm (remember that book "Crossing the Chasm") with no way of easily getting there....Think about it, won't you?

Much of this discussion is rooted in the need to conciously think about these things before the event arrives so that your organization is poised to execute rather than begin to think about it as you stare at the precipice of the chasm.....it's not easy and requires an ability to leverage best practices that are out there from people who have gone down that road. These are the type of customers and relationships that I enjoy dealing with because they are forward thinkers who get it! Best practices don't just appear-rather, they are built over a period of time and amassed from the experiences themselves-that is why dealing with forward thinking organizations allows for the continual evolution of these best practices (If someone tells you they have all the best parctices already, I might question that). My forward thinking clients get this! and, they tend to help evolve these best prctices that they get to leverage as well-isn't that cool (my age is showing a bit with that remark :-)). This leads me to thinking about my next little blog that will be about raising our awareness from the unconcious mindset to the concious. Won't you join me for the next five minutes with Jerry (thanks Andy for all your wit, wisdom and charm over the years and allowing me to leverage your inquisitive outlook)......

A New Year for Organizational Introspection

Well, here we are beginning a new year as we do every year. Individuals make all these resolutions (mine always include stopping smoking and losing weight-maybe one year it will happen!), and organizations tend to do the same with an onset of annual planning meetings, new budgets, new hopes and new sales forecasts. Having managed these processes for many years it was always a bit humorous how many of my sales team always projected banner years, only to find that many of the opportunities were not fully vetted nor at the prescribed stages identified! How do owners, senior executives, et al manage through this morass of over bloated expectations and projections? Many have adopted the rule of 50% (whatever is forecatsed, knock it down by 50% and maybe they will be in the ballpark). Others make a firm resolution that this year they will put in place one of the fancy and elaborate sales training methodologies (good news for all those trainers, especially the ones requiring a Phd to thoroughly understand and even try to deploy). Whatever happened to the simple method of developing a true opportunity and just going from step to step in a dilligent and cogent manner to realize the sale!

The organizations that appear to do very well with their sales forecasting and their success have a tightly defined set of steps and requirements for moving from one to another. With the onset of salesforce.com (who wouldn't want to use that tool), these steps are very tailorable to individual organizations and supply chains resulting in reasonable forecasts and understanding of next steps. Having worked with some of these types of organizations, the big issue appears to be defining where to start and how to define each of the steps and their respective markers to move to the next step. This doesn't just happen and requires a level of dilligence typically by someone outside the organization so as to avoid the unnecessary baggage and biases inherent in their current thinking. This is where I'd spend my time and money as opposed to those fancy, elongated and intricate sales methodologies. Why? Because a truly good sales executive knows that a sales process is merely moving from one meeting to another getting the "right" questions and issues answered/addressed; while dealing with the right decision makers and influencers, and not the pretenders; and tailoring the number of those interactions to the least common denomnator resulting in the close!

So, what is your process? What constitutes moving from one phase to another? How confident in the sale have you become when you reach each step? That's where I'd spend my money for some help! Next up: What stage of growth is your organization and what is your plan to accomodate it?