RR#067 Multiply Revenue By Subtracting Yourself From The Sales Process
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a business owner.
You might also be the main person closing deals in your business.
Maybe, you’re the only person generating any business at all in your business.
And then doing all the work, too.
It’s common. It’s how most service businesses start. But it’s also why most service businesses fail. Because it isn’t sustainable in the long-run.
When you’re responsible for generating your own leads, turning them into opportunities, running sales calls, executing sales follow-up, and delivering the services you sold, one of three things happens:
You burn out.
Wearing multiple hats is part of entrepreneurship.
You can take a business a long way on grit, determination, and stubbornness.
But we’re all human, and at some point your energy wanes, which comes through in sales calls and service delivery.
This is why most agencies sell for ridiculously low multiples: Founders just want to escape.You ride a rollercoaster of revenue.
You can’t keep up with generating demand, capturing it, and converting it in a consistent way when you’re wearing other hats in the business. And I heard the CEO and client success roles are pretty important, too. 😉
What tends to get pushed to the side is the prospecting that generates and captures demand on the front end.
And volatile demand = volatile sales.You let opportunities slip through the cracks.
On the other hand, maybe you’re disciplined about prospecting and consistently getting deals into the pipeline.
You close some deals on your sales calls and need to follow-up with others. Only, you don’t follow-up. Because as soon as the call ends you get carried away by work horses and never get to it.
This means clients and cash just slip through the cracks.
This is the reality of early stage business building.
But you’ve got to keep in mind, the objective of wearing all the hats is to learn the role, define how to do it well, and hand if off. Or as I tell clients: Do, Document, Delegate.
The way out is creating processes for each step in the process and making it repeatable. When it comes to removing founders from the sales process, the key areas you want to focus on systematizing are:
How to generate demand.
For some of you this may mean content creation and activities that drive inbound leads. And that’s sufficient to get to certain levels of business. But if you want to drive towards $1-10 million, you’ll likely need to pick up some other activity, like social selling or outbound prospecting. Whatever it is, you want this flywheel to be in motion all the time.How you capture and qualify demand.
When you’ve created some demand, you’ll want a reliable way of capturing and qualifying it before going through the sales process. You can use a funnel that has the appropriate amount of friction to screen out unqualified people. Or it may be quick 10-minute call to before hopping on a full 45-60 minute sales call.How you convert demand.
When you have qualified demand, you’ll obviously want a consistent process for converting that demand into paying clients. You want a process that someone other than you can use to run sales calls. And that includes some standardized steps to follow-up after sales calls.
When you have playbooks and processes for each of these functions, you can fill these roles with people and technology to run them without you.
That’s how you beat burnout, volatility, and lost sales. 💥
One way to start systematizing how you generate demand (from above) is with a Business Development Representative (BDR) or appointment setter. And I just dropped a YouTube video on how this can help you sell more, and start the process of firing yourself from sales.
Watch full video.
