The Complex System: Story of an Entrepreneur

Give Me Client not Customers

Who wants a customer when you can have a client? Well, when you think about the these definitions of the two, you’ll probably see what I’m thinking. BTW, I recently got this from Jay Abraham and it just stuck.

“A customer is someone who buys a product or service from someone else. A client is someone who is under the care, guidance and protection of an expert in a particular field.”

For us, it’s a no brainer. We want clients not customers. And more importantly, we want to develop a culture of people that are empowered to service our clients. When we become experts in our field, it’s natural to care for, guide and protect the people we are servicing.

It’s easy to slip into the habit of having and getting customers. Frankly, it’s less work in less time with fewer resources. But when we do this, everyone loses. But, when we take time to hone our expertise, we get satisfied and passionate clients… and that’s good for everyone.

So maybe the statement isn’t; who wants a customer when you can have a client; but rather, who wants to be a customer when you can be a client.

Client Success; It’s an Inside Job

At the core, our mission is client success. Fundamentally, we want our clients to be more successful with us as a partner than without. But I think there is a big difference between having the goal of client success and actually delivering on that promise.

For us it’s about “being” client success; and to do that, we must transform our company from the inside out. We need to “be” employee success, team success, department success and company success before we help our clients be successful. Of course, we want to grow revenues and scale the business, but to some extent I think those things are the positive byproducts of success from within.

Ok, so how is this goal achieved? We’ll it starts with me, but that only goes so far. I can encourage others, that’s good too, but the real momentum occurs when others start encouraging others. Aaron Ross calls it the “drum beat”; it’s the impetus that naturally occurs when people are charging towards a common goal, especially when people are “being” not “saying” that goal. That’s the key; get your company to “be” your vision and they’ll just naturally pass it on to your clients. Maybe that’s why great companies don’t always have the best products; if you look close, I bet they have the best people.

Solution Selling, Good; Selling Success, Better

We’ve made great progress on the transformation of our sales organization in the past few weeks. There have been some fundamental changes occurring in the way that we approach sales. I think it started when we clarified our corporate vision and presented the idea of making leads more valuable. With this in mind, we came up with the idea of selling to success. For us, ensuring client success is at the core of our mission. If we aren’t doing this from day one, we aren’t doing our job.

Selling to success is in direct contrast to the old ideal, ABC (always be closing). I don’t know if this concept works anymore; at least I know it doesn’t work for us. It’s not about getting a deal. It’s not even about getting a demo. It’s about helping our clients succeed and if that goal is achieved by selling our software solution, then great, let me show you the software. If that goal is achieved some other way, let me point you in the right direction.

We have to buy into that concept from the heart. We have to believe it “from balls to bone” (great quote from The Matrix, others quotes to follow in future posts). And if we do this, that means we can’t be focused on the money, we need to be focused on the fit.

We’re even going so far as to modify our numbers board to show pipeline, rather than sales. Sales pipeline is the total amount of potential deals that may one day close, but is made up of ONLY prospects that are a fit and that would succeed from the use of our software. Selling to success means filling the pipeline with winners. A pipeline filled with winners translates to a client base that is succeeding.

How Does the Matrix Apply to Business?

Like any good tech entrepreneur, I was forever changed by The Matrix. There are many memorable quotes from that movie of course; but in particular, I love this one.

"No one’s ever done this before." "That’s why it’s going to work"

The reason I like this one so much is because it demonstrates the whole risk/reward principle. The more risk you take, the larger the reward. So, if you do something nobody has ever done, well that’s the ultimate risk; presumably, the ultimate reward awaits.

For me, when I think about the challenges ahead, this quote inspires me. The truth is that people have paved the road that I’m traveling before. Growing a business, raising venture financing, assembling a remarkable and getting a win; that’s been done. But to me, it’s brand new. To me, it’s never been done. And to me, that’s why it’s going to work.

Aaron Ross Catch-up

Aaron Ross and his new BlackBox team are helping us build some process and jump start our sales machine. He started working with us full-time and in one week we’re seeing serious results; and in particular, my sales team has the eye of the tiger back.

I realized I got a bit behind on my mandatory reading (sorry Aaron); just banged through a backlog of AR posts. Good stuff of course, but I love this, I’m sure to try it with the next cold caller:

Especially having been in sales, whenever someone tries to "close" me or uses a sales process that is obviously forced or inauthentic, I always feel like telling them "Wait, John - I'm getting a phone call. Hey, it's 1995 calling, they want their sales technique back."

Thanks Aaron!

I’ve been spending a lot of time (sadly at home, apologies to my wife) thinking about key metrics. Aaron’s points on not going overboard on metrics are right on. It’s so easy to have metrics coming out of your ears; I’ve succumbed to desire to put too many metrics in our software. We recently had the first of many future client roundtables at Leads360 and I learned quite a bit, in particular about the metrics that are most important to many of our clients and how they want them presented to them (that’s another post of course).

The high school adage barked at me many times; keep it simple stupid, holds true again.

Always a Product Guy

Sometimes I can’t shut off the product side of my mind. At AdTech this past week I found myself in some pretty heated conversations with some very interesting tech companies. In particular I spent a while at the BuzzLogic booth. I was intrigued by the technology and the concept, but of course I couldn’t help thinking about how I could improve the solution.

I think I may have irritated the rep that was showing me the product at first, but I’m a product guy and I like to take good things and make them great. I’m not sure if she took my ideas to the rest of the team, but we’ll see. I did have some great ideas…

Stepping Up My Game, Win or Lose, it Works

Of my core organizing principles, good and bad, the one that provides me with some of the best results is my inherent desire to step up my game. What I mean is that I look at every situation as an opportunity to become better. When I get wins, I’m ready for the next challenge. When I fail, I look to see what I can learn and how I can apply that to another situation. There is no finish line for me because not matter what I achieve, I’m on to the next best thing; I’m on to whatever is next that will help me step up my game.

I’ve found this to be the case in all areas of my life (professional, personal, family, etc.). In many cases, this is a great quality because I’m driven to be a better boss, a better husband, a better son, a better friend, etc. In other cases it can be a bit of a weight because I’m rarely satisfied, and often not for long. Plus I sometimes expect others to have the same quality and when they don’t push themselves to be better, I get frustrated. And a caveat to that point, God knows I’ve got a lot of “stepping up” to do, and I don’t always do it with grace. The key for me is that I’m willing to see the opportunity, not matter how painful it may be or how bad it makes me look. If there is an opportunity to step it up, I’m up for it.

Of course, not everyone has this. There are many strengths that others have that I don’t, and that’s great. But I think when it comes to business; this is a pretty valuable asset in terms of personality traits.

Lately, I've been focusing much time and energy on hiring and team building; I’ve been working hard to improve my interview and recruiting skills (believe me, there is a lot of room for improvement). I’ve started making progress and I’m pushing people to present their strengths rather than their experience; and I’m looking for people that have that organizing principle that drives them to be better.