Sustain for the Long Term
Over this year we have been covering the 10 steps to implement the DRIVE SALES culture into any organisation. Each letter in DRIVE SALES is a ‘holder’ to remind you of the key elements required to create a culture where everybody is focused on sales. When we talk about “sales”, of course, we are referring to the art of helping people get what they want and need. I see this as a “service” to the customer. You might remember that in our first couple of modules we talked about the secret of sales being not to sell; but to serve!
The final element in creating a Drive Sales Culture is to make sure that you have put in place the processes, systems and overall team mindsets that will sustain these positive changes. I have come across many organisations where people are wary of change and/or have change fatigue. This is often because the business owner has gone to yet another course or read another book, or arrived back from another conference with the next ‘latest-greatest’ idea that's going to be the silver bullet required to get the vision faster. The term I have coined for this is the “shiny-thing” syndrome, because much like a magpie will go looking for shiny things that they put in their nest, which in all reality have no actual practical use, some leaders collect ideas and shortcuts. This exhausts the team as they attempt to keep up with ideas and methods that have worked for other people but often fail in application as the depth of learning processes and systems is lost in the shine of the obvious actions.
My favourite famous example of this comes from Jim Collins. After his excellent book, “Good to Great” many organisations latched onto the fact that great businesses share their core values. This single piece of information has kept consultants busy for decades and resulted in companies slapping up “values” on every available wall, thinking that this is going to bring the necessary change to help them achieve the success they desire. As per my previous articles I call this “expensive wallpaper.”
Any implemented business system needs to focus on being sustainable. The DRIVE SALES culture approach, that we have tackled every week throughout this year, is designed to be robust, actionable and sustainable. My strong encouragement for you as you implement systems is to always keep them customer centric. With DRIVE SALES we started by deciding “who you are best set up to serve”, or in other words, who your ideal customer is. We end on a similar note, encouraging you to create a key account management plan and ensure it focuses your energies, efforts, resources proportionately across your clients. Ensure that your best customers get the best of you.
If you have not put in place a customer-centric plan when could you do that? The sooner the better because all sales must start with the customer in mind.
