Everybody sells to survive and prosper

A company must focus daily on selling its products to survive and prosper. Such effort provides the cash a company needs to pay expenses, grow the organization and make a profit. To attain this goal, every employee, from the worker on the loading dock to the CEO, should arrive at work each day thinking, “I'm here to win business and keep our customers happy.” This should be their constant and unrelenting objective.

This means each employee — every single one of them — should know what they must do to personally contribute to generating company revenues. They must also understand how others in the organization fit within the complete team selling process. Think of orchestra musicians who follow this model with the result being beautiful music.

Successful organizations understand this powerful concept and actively communicate clearly to all employees what company revenue goals are for the year, by quarters, months and weeks; leaders then measure and report sales results to all employees on a similar timing basis.

Great business leaders do not assume employees know how to be part of a complete team selling organization. They wisely teach them the fundamentals to ensure each employee understands assignments and how they are interconnected with other employees from pre-sale to post-sale activities.

For example, marketing identifies and specifies what a customer wants to buy. An engineer designs the anticipated product. Manufacturing builds it. The salesman asks for the order and closes the sale. Customer service delivers it. Customer support installs and supports it. Accounting collects payment. Along the way, the controller watches margins and human resources hires the best people. In sum, there is a coordinated flow of work from one entity to the next.

This past week, I spent the day with a company that has a problem with shrinking sales. It became clear to me employees are not talking to and listening to customers. Their focus is elsewhere. Here’s what I recommended the management team do to move the revenue needle in the other direction.

Fundamentals of a complete team-selling program: