6 Aspects of Business Part 3
Business Lift
In Effectiveness, Human Resources, Leadership, Sales Posted October 09, 2015
This is Part 3 in this series…
4. Sales
Keep your sales team separate from your marketing team. Sales is really the ‘end game’. It’s what all the marketing is to drive toward, but it’s different. Concentrate on making your sales system the best it can be, and then make that your new ‘standard.’ Test and measure what is working and what can be improved, constantly looking for ways to improve the ‘standard’ system. Your sales team must learn sales techniques and continue to commit to learning better ways to help people buy. The sales team must focus on building trust and solving problems – not “flogging” products.
You must design a sales system and process that others can replicate – that allows you to scale the business. Please, never confuse Marketing with Sales. Marketing is getting people to know you, trust you, and buy from you. Sales is doing whatever marketing didn’t achieve and finishing the job.
A good sales process will include…
-How to handle the new inquiry
-How to record the new inquiry
-How to follow up until they buy or opt out – What are the steps?
-How to close
It will also include what resources are required for each step, such as check-lists, templates, standard emails etc.
5. Systems
Your systems are what allow you to scale the business and give great, consistent and predictable results.
My client Stuart shared a great acronym to remember using the word SYSTEM, being…
Save
Yourself
Some
Time
Energy &
Money
A business is only as good as the sum of its parts, which means you can’t afford to have weak parts. Consider the following systems for your business…
Finance: – Including: Profit and Loss, Budget vs Actual, tax management (including having a separate bank account to hold tax funds), receipting, order forms, KPIs on sales and tracking systems
Administration: – Including: New inquiries, mail in and out, phone inquiries/scripting, database management, stock and inventory ordering and etc. Sales: – Including: New inquiries/number of leads, conversion rates, average sales value, follow up systems, renewal rates and etc.
Marketing: – Including: Website maintenance/updating, how often it’s done, who to, what’s included, testing and measuring systems, ratios including cost per lead, cost per sale and etc.
Human Resources: – Including: Induction processes, periodic reviews, eliciting innovation and etc.
Delivery: – Including: What to deliver, how it is delivered, time-frames (are they being met?) and etc.
6. People
For most businesses, people are its biggest and most important ‘asset.’ It is also the source of potentially the most frustration and one of the hardest areas to master.
According to the book The E-Myth: “Successful recruiting is a form of marketing and lead generation because finding the right people for your business is like finding the right customers—you have to know who you’re looking for, where they are, what attracts them and how to reach them.”
People management is on our list. This is due to the fact that unless you have the other pieces in place, no one will want to join you, or if they do, they won’t stay.
It is really important to employ people into specific job roles and functions. Many small businesses employ staff due to convenience… “I had a job available and my sister-in-law’s aunty seemed like a nice person”. Most often, this doesn’t work. It is far more effective to employ people based on specific, required skill sets. Employ them to specific duties and functions and then keep them accountable to these functions and duties at their periodical reviews. I recommend that reviews occur 3 times per year and are not salary- or income-related.
As the leader in your business, you can’t make decisions regarding your business that accommodate all the people on your team. Businesses need one decision maker. They may consult their team, but the decision sits with them – good or bad. The order of importance is deliberate. Systems must come before people because your business needs people who can use systems and understand their purpose and benefit. Business growth happens through scalability. Scalability comes from systems. People management is tough. It’s not friendship, it’s not a dictatorship, and it’s often not even collaboration! Most certainly, it is not bullying. My preferred method of people management is based on a servant’s heart. It starts with servant leadership, which then permeates its way to your team, understanding that to get what they want, they need to serve well. If everyone in the business takes on this belief, miracles happen.
A great resource is a little book called The One Minute Manager. It’s a short but powerful book about how to manage people well. Start working on The 6 Aspects of Business today and before long, you’ll be blown away by the results.