The Complex System: Story of an Entrepreneur

Build on Strengths, not Weaknesses

I’m a pupil of Marcus Buckingham’s strategies, but like most humans, I fall into habit more than I’d like. One such habit is trying to fix people; I find myself pushing people to improve on their weaknesses rather than building on their strengths. I noticed that I had been doing this among my sales team.

All week I had been pushing these guys to follow-up on leads that were not ready to close for one reason or another. In several cases, these leads required a lot of hard work and time to get them ready to buy. One of my guys said, “I know you want me to convert these leads; what’s frustrating is that I can, but I am wasting a lot of time trying to track down the right person, or find out why they haven’t used our free trial.”

I didn’t realize it then, but he’s right; my sales team is proficient at converting prospects who are willing and able to be sold. And, they are not only minimally interested in qualifying leads, but more importantly, they suck at it. So why shouldn’t I focus their attention on what they like to do and what they do best; selling. In fact, as Laura Ramos talks about in her research on Lead Management, it’s a function of marketing to get the right leads to sales and sales to work on those leads that have the highest likelihood of closing. 

Funny; we sell lead management software too.

Notes to Laura Ramos @ Forrester RE: Improving B2B Lead Management

I recently read a great research paper on B2B lead management best practices by Laura Ramos at Forrester. I composed a letter to Laura regarding my thoughts on the subject and in particular the similarities between her research and Leads360’s philosophy on the topic.

You can read my letter on our Leads360 blog at: http://leads360.blogspot.com/2007/04/notes-to-laura-ramos-forrester-on.html

Travel Tile Puzzle

Do you know those little cheap puzzles that have 10 little square tiles with numbers on them and there is 1 empty space? The objective is to get all the tiles in sequence by moving each tile one slot in any direction as long as the empty spot is there. You essentially end up moving tiles all over just to get another tile in the proper spot.  It’s very similar to a Rubik’s Cube. 

Ok, so lately I’ve felt like running this company is much like working that little puzzle. I can see what the end should look like, but I have to make dozens of little moves just to get one step closer. If I make this little change, then I can setup this process, and if I get buy-in from sales on this piece, then I can get pro services to develop this program. It’s like a huge chess game where every move plays into every other; and the further I can see, the more chess moves I can visualize, the more effective I am.

Act As If

Have you ever heard that? When things are tough its easy to shut down and tune out. My tendency is to do it; just as some of my guys do. But it’s what we do in the face of adversity that defines greatness. If a champion gave up when times got tough, would he really be a champion? Rather his greatness is emphasized by the actions he does when he is faced with difficult situation. In business, I think this is true, and its contagious (both ways). So when I tell my guys, act as if, it means that even when things are looking bleak, if you step up and meet the challenge with confidence, others will follow.

I believe that it’s in the uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory that the magic really happens. Unfortunately many people choose the familiar and safe choices and rarely have a chance to achieve greatness.

Get Small Wins Early

Matt Coffin, of LowerMyBills fame, preaches this strategy and it’s a good one. Especially when it comes to introducing new blood into your organization, it’s critical to set people up to get small wins early. This establishes trust and acceptance from all your other lieutenants that have put in their time. This is critical aspect of growth; a growing company will always need more talent, and the larger a company grows the more difficult it becomes to effectively integrate new talent. Makes sense; and I thought I understood it the first time Matt spoke to me about it. But I realize I had to learn the hard way why it makes sense.