growth – Nathan Schock

I was speaking virtually to a group of salespeople recently and you could see their demeanor change as they came to this realization.

Like most companies, theirs looked to hire extroverts – the “High I’s” on the DISC assessment – that would be comfortable talking to new people. This can be a great strategy, but it comes with a potential problem.

That is, the people who like to talk to other people are usually the same people who really, really want everyone to like them.

In modern business, there is no shortage of people vying for our attention. We have bosses and co-workers, customers and suppliers, and so much more.

They’re calling us, leaving voicemails, sending text messages, tweets and direct messages, pings and dings on any number of social media platforms (that all of these salespeople are told they need to be on, right?).

Those who have a need to be liked feel a need to constantly reply to anyone and everyone who asks for a piece of their time. Because each individual response makes someone happy – thus making the responder happy.

But for salespeople, like the ones I was speaking to, there is one group of people who are not asking for their attention – prospects.

That’s when the salesperson said, “The only people who don’t want to hear from me are the people I’m paid to talk to.”

That’s why time management is such a big deal for salespeople. But it’s more than the ability to manage time. It’s the ability to get yourself to do the stuff you know you need to do but don’t want to.

That’s why author Nir Eyal, says that a better term for time management is pain management.

So, how do you manage your pain? It’s a process of knowing your goals, determining the highest value tasks to help you reach those goals and the using your calendar to prioritize those tasks.

It’s that simple.

And that hard.

It’s one of the things we do all through our process of working with companies as they go through our 4D Transformation Method. We help them prioritize their time so that they can spend it on the things that make their highest value contribution to the company.

But we spend the most time on it when we’re documenting the sales process and helping their sales team prospect for new business.

You can learn more about that fourth and final step in our process by watching this video:

If you are an owner-operator who wants to improve the results of your service-based business, I might be able to help you. Just take this short assessment and book a strategy session with me.

I’d love to help you stop avoiding your prospects and growing from the inside out.

That was the question posed by the leadership of a highly successful business that I recently started consulting with.

They had recently come through a period of rapid growth.

And that growth exposed some missing systems. A few client engagements had gone off the rails. Salespeople were chasing the wrong deals.

And the leadership team was spending a lot of time putting out fires. We’ve all been there.

The fires started the way fires do. Not enough clarity. Lack of accountability. Poor communication brought on by different behavioral styles.

They were particularly disturbed by the misfires with clients. The business had exploded because of what they accomplished for their customers. They took pride in their customer experience.

It was in that context that the question surfaced, “Should we slow down?”

They wanted to know if a pause – to let systems and people catch up – was a good idea.

I understand where that question comes from. Many of the owner-operators I work with run back and forth between sales and fulfillment.

Revenue’s down? Go sell.

Sales growth hurts the customer experience? Jump into fulfillment.

Business starts to feel like a teeter-totter. In that environment, a slowdown can sound like a great idea.

In some circumstances, a pause may be necessary. But I don’t believe you have to stop growing to build your systems.

It’s what I call, ‘Growing from the inside out.’

It starts with the culture. That’s what I talked about last week in this video.

When a business is small, everyone can pick up the culture just by hanging around the leaders. That closeness disappears once the business starts rapidly expanding. That’s when maintaining culture requires a new level of intention.

After the culture, the next thing you must get right to grow from the inside out is the customer experience.

Again, when a business is small, and the owner-operator is highly involved with every customer, you can grow without defining every step of the fulfillment process.

But without that defined process, the customer experience will suffer once you grow beyond the leader’s capacity to be involved in every step.

Growth from the inside out requires a world-class customer experience. That’s what I talk about in this video:

What’s the experience like for those who do business with you? Find out by taking my customer experience assessment. At the end, you’ll be able to book a strategy session with me where we will discuss the results of your assessment and the biggest opportunities for improvement.

Your customer experience may be great today, but if that’s because you’re involved in every interaction, it will become a barrier to growth. Position your business for growth from the inside out by taking this assessment today.