Finding the Green Grass of Success

BY Mike Foti

It's the never ending human quest. The search for greener pastures. Business owners, managers, and sales representatives alike have looked high and low for fresher (and might I say, more profitable) fields of growth. If you're on the front-lines of "business development" (today's fancy term for sales) or if you have profit and loss responsibility (you're the one who takes the heat if the numbers don't work) your challenge is twofold: First, finding the key segments, customers and markets to make your bottom line sing, and second, honing the ability to deliver what your customer needs. Do you need help finding and leveraging opportunities? If so, consider the 3 S's of success:

• Seeing Green
• Student of Your Game
• Selling by Feeling, Thinking, and Doing

Seeing Green

Q: I know I should be seeing green, but it has become impossible because I'm bleeding red. How can I get things to improve?
A: Stop focusing on the "red" (your business or revenue losses) or the "green" (your current paycheck), at least temporarily. Your first action: step back, check your eyesight, expand your view, and refocus to start producing. How?

• Consider the Great Inquisition - A kid's strategy for success - Why, why, why? Ever been peppered with a seemingly endless barrage of questions from a kid? Turning the red flow into green grass begins with asking the right questions and being open to really hearing the answers. Why did they buy from someone else? What kind of problems does the customer have in their business and industry? What bugs them? Your "green" comes from solving their problems, not selling your stuff!
• Throw out your rose-colored glasses - Sometimes reality is painful. Have you ever seen a delusional, near-bankrupt business owner still waiting for their product to "take off?" Get other perspectives on your business or territory from employees, industry experts, and just "plain talking" people who tell it like it is. Listen with an open mind.
• Focus on the right segments - Going in too many directions is like a juggler with too many balls. Break the business down by customers, market or product segments, demographics - whatever is relevant for your business. Evaluate sales, growth prospects, resources allocated (i.e. inventory, capital equipment, people) and contribution margin (this is gross margin minus variable costs that can be applied to this segment). Then determine whether to spend your time (a) fixing it, (b) growing it, or (c) blowing it up!
• Think "Buzz Lightyear": Identify your target and inspire to "infinity and beyond!" - What is the main objective or rallying point for your business? Is it customer service, cost effective design, adding value to your customer's through convenience etc.? Identify your uniqueness and communicate, communicate, communicate both inside and outside the business. Make sure your main objective can be incorporated into everyone's work.

Student of Your Game

Q: Everything I'm doing just isn't producing like it used to. What can I do now?
A: It's time to determine what's changed. Learn "new tricks." Get new knowledge to lead to new actions, generating exceptional results. You need to reflect, project, and connect.

• Reflect on what you know - Satchel Paige (a famous pitcher for the Cleveland Indians in the 1940's) once said, "It ain't what you know that is the problem. It's what you know that just ain't so." Your "game" has changed. What does it take to be successful right now? What do customers want (or should I say - what do customers demand)? What implications do these answers have on your need to learn? What skills, knowledge, and approaches separate today's winners from the competition?
• Project a Plan - You'll need to be strategic with your time learning new tricks of your trade. Identify someone currently achieving "next level results." Ask them who they are learning from, what they are reading, what seminars they are attending. Develop (in writing) your own formalized learning plan and project it to others. Strategize specific ways you can position yourself as the "go-to" expert in your field of play. You'll find "experts" get paid more than "commodities."
• Connect learning with people, actions, and results - A plan and knowledge are useless without results! Quantify what exceptional results will look like. How will you measure your progress (today, this week, this month etc.)? Find a no-nonsense mentor to hold your feet to the fire. Stick your neck out with new approaches while simultaneously reflecting on what's working and what is not.

Selling by Feeling, Thinking, and Doing

Q: I'm just not seeing the closing rates and sales volumes I'm expecting. What can I do?
A: Look around: Do staff members really believe in what they are selling, have they strategized the right approach, and are they doggedly determined to deliver service? If not, here's how.

• Can you hear "I feel good!" by James Brown - Winning builds on winning. To win you need believers. Do your sales reps believe in your value proposition or is all the focus on "the competition?" If this is a problem get key people together and address it head on. Break down your offerings vs. the competition. How do you really stack up? What needs to be improved? Where do you already excel that can be leveraged? For that "feel-good" performance let your salespeople know how critical they are to your success!
• Conduct a strategy fire drill - Get your sales and marketing people together for drills (no, I don't mean calisthenics here!). Have them present in 15 minutes or less their current sales and marketing approaches, how they are measuring and grading performance right now, what's working and what is not. Have them describe their new plan and critique and encourage in an open forum.
• Service first, Dollars follow - Are you looking to be of service first or make the sale first? Customers want you to take care of their needs, their problems, their wants. They want to see your determination to get results and reduce their pains. You show your commitment through follow through, follow up, and listening. Consider surveying your customers to grade your service performance. Get their ideas on how you could create an exceptional buying experience.
• Like Avis Rent-A-Car, "Do You Work Harder?" - Look into your competitor's parking at sunrise and sunset. Who is trying harder - you or your competition? No one can argue with balance or working smart, but good old-fashioned effort is still a critical component of winning performance.

Conclusion

The green grass of success is available to everyone, but it requires getting out of your own house. Ask questions, learn from customers, define reality, and then focus your actions. Become a student of your game - reflecting on what you know, planning what you need to know, and measuring results. Seeing and studying are good, but there still is no substitute for getting out there and doing it! Become personally "sold" on your products and your approach. Then, consistently out-service and out-hustle the rest.

If you would like to have Mike speak to your group consider the following programs:
"Increasing Flow and Igniting Fire" - Winning Advice for a Tough Economy
"Leading for Entrepreneurial Success"
"Design/ Build Leadership - End of the Winner Takes All"
"Seeing the Forest from the Trees"

If you want to get Mike's insights on this topic in one on one sessions click here.

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Mike Foti is Chief Executive Officer of Cleveland Glass Block (a Northcoast 99 recipient for best employers in Northeast Ohio and a Community Pillar Award winner for community service) and President of Leadership Builders. Mike is a national speaker, writer, and consultant who helps individuals and companies get results through people. To ask Mike how he might help you, or to receive his free tips and leadership articles, call 216-531-6085 or visit his web site at www.leadershipbuilders.com.