91视频

If you run a professional services firm, or manufacture products to client specifications, I鈥檓 guessing you know what I mean when I say, 鈥渕anaging revenue is a challenge.鈥�

Isn鈥檛 鈥渃hallenge鈥� really just a nice way to say 鈥減ain in the butt?鈥�

The problem faced by most service providers is that their business models don鈥檛 scale well; adding more clients usually means adding more staff. And, as you know, adding more people means adding more direct expenses (salaries, benefits) as well as many indirect expenses (training, mistakes, cultural disruption).

We call this聽the 鈥淪ell-Do Trap.鈥�

A perfect snare, in four steps

Several years ago, I coined the term 鈥淪ell-Do鈥� as a quick way to describe businesses whose owners were responsible for delivering the work (they 鈥渟ell鈥� the work, then 鈥渄o鈥� the work).

• Stage 1: sales-fueled growth.聽In the first phase, growth is fueled by a focused sales effort. For small businesses, this typically means the owner is out hustling up new work and generating opportunities. It鈥檚 time-consuming, but as the volume of work increases, things feel good.
• Stage 2: too busy.聽Right about the time the owner thinks he or she has it all figured out, signs of trouble begin to emerge. Expenses creep up. Employees lose efficiency and focus as 40 hours turn into 50 and 60. The owner spends more and more of his or her precious time managing projects and exhausted employees.
• Stage 3: hiring. Adding new blood brings some relief to the beleaguered staff, but also creates challenges because they need to be brought up to speed. Internal priorities continue to be placed on the back burner, and the owner must juggle team leadership, client happiness and delivery of product. From a business-development standpoint, marketing and sales crawl to a halt.
• Stage 4: the crash.聽Expenses are now at their highest, and because the owner was so preoccupied in stages 2 and 3, he or she hasn鈥檛 had time to generate new business. Profits come crashing back down, and over several months there is slow growth or none at all. Jumping back into 鈥渟ales mode,鈥� the owner pushes hard to create new work 鈥� except it鈥檚 even harder this time around, because operating expenses are higher than ever.

How to 鈥楬oudini鈥� the Sell-Do Trap

To overcome the Sell-Do Trap, I鈥檝e developed a few key strategies to help owners escape the frustration and financial pitfalls associated with selling/doing:

1. Delegate like your life depends on it:聽Structure your team so that your pipeline is filled by someone not responsible for doing the work. If you鈥檙e unable to extract yourself from the sales process (since owners can sell better than most聽salespeople), look for ways to delegate the delivery of your services or products.
2. Systematize your sales process: If you do bring in sales support, segment your sales process so that everyone involved can play to their strengths. That may mean recruiting a natural networker to rustle up the opportunities, while you focus on closing the deal.
3. Create a sales and marketing infrastructure: In addition to bringing in team support, implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to standardize and track your funnel metrics. This will help you more accurately forecast sales and marketing needs.
4. Market consistently, not sporadically:聽Many businesses consider marketing when revenues drop; typically, this is too little, too late. Instead, owners should look at marketing as an ongoing lead-generation process, rather than a fire to be put out.
5. Restructure your offering: Look for ways to provide services that can be offered as on ongoing revenue stream. If you can build a service that your buyer can engage repeatedly and easily, you can reduce your sales investment.
6. Transform services into products: Ask yourself, 鈥淎re there certain services that can be branded and sold over and over again, with little customization?鈥� If so, give these new 鈥減roducts鈥� a name, and sell them at a fixed rate.

Many business owners are stuck in a never-ending Sell-Do trap cycle (I鈥檝e been there!). While many service providers think this is simply a natural part of business, most are surprised that聽the path to freedom聽isn鈥檛 nearly so far away.

Wendy Maynard and I discuss this at length in our recently-released book, 鈥淢arketing From the Inside Out.鈥� For more information on how to escape the Sell-Do Trap and turn your marketing into an engine for growth, visit kinesisinc.com.

Shawn Busse is founder and CEO of Kinesis. Contact him at 503-922-2289 or [email protected].