Are your Capable of Growth?

Is your company capable of organic growth?  According to an IBM Business Consulting Survey, 80% of the CEO’s surveyed indentified growth as their number one priority, however 90% of those CEO’s believe their companies are not capable of growth because they are neither responsive to the changing conditions nor nimble enough to pursue new markets.

When our US manufacturers were threatened by a low cost global workforce, we reengineered our operations and became more efficient or more capable to compete.  If we want to increase our growth capability perhaps we need to reengineer how we sell and market!

As an example, let’s look at a company who is leading the new age marketing – Google.  Can you remember where you first heard about Google?  Did you get a direct mail from Google?  Did a telemarketer call you at dinner time to tell you about the advantages of Google?  How about a national ad campaign during the Super Bowl?  No, it grew very quickly through the internet’s version of word of mouth, called viral marketing.  I heard about Google at a seminar from the speaker, who suggested that we try this new search engine because it was intuitive to your questions and very fast.  Let me rephrase – it saves time and thinks like the customer!   

That’s Google - So what is a small to mid-sized company to do?  Rethink the way that you go to market.  If you are using the same methods (direct mail, ads, cold calls, etc) you are not being innovative enough to stand out from the crowd like Google! In other words, you are not capable of growth.

The old school sales and marketing would come in and ask: What differentiates your product or service from the competition?  Who are the decision makers (usually the one signing your quote – not the users)? What do they need to know about our product or service (Feature and Benefits)?  These are all great questions and need to be reviewed during the sales process.  However, the problem with all these questions is that they are all reactive to a sale not proactive toward growth. 

With all the money spent on sales management, sales training firms and sales books; our salesforce is well prepared to competitively close deals.  Where we fail is when we take that same salesforce with the same sales process to market to new customers! 

Salesfarce: Sales and marketing are one in the same!  BIG MISTAKE! They are two different disciplines that need to be tightly integrated but not always by the same person or skillset.  Until you realize this you will not have the capability of growth.   Marketing needs it’s own process to collect and analyze intellectual data in order to create a reputation in the market that generates leads for the salesforce. This allows you to keep your salesforce selling – focused on top prospects but armed with market material and data that reflect the needs of the customer not product gibberish.