How Are You Maximizing The Revenution?

(This is the companion post to the Business Journal column on the Top 10 Revenution components in preparation for 2012 strategic sales planning)

Before we begin this week’s narrative, let’s not waste time.  Here are five additional Revenution™ components that can help you when developing a winning 2012 strategic sales plan:

1. Marketing beats selling.  However, you must know what third millennium marketing is, become highly adept at it, or know exactly what you’re looking for when selecting a third party marketing provider.  As with most providers – doctor, financial advisor, dentist, lawn mowing company – at least 80% are not worthy.  Choose wisely, my friends.  And if you’re the DIY type – even if you’re a lone salesperson – spend six months, minimum, reading the following authors and heeding their words:  Seth Godin, David Meerman Scott, and The Old Rules of Marketing Are Dead:  6 New Rules To Reinvent Your Brand and Reignite Your Business, by Timothy R. Pearson.
2. Focus.  Understand the cause of why most salespeople and companies are marketplace gluttons:  an anemic pipeline.  The primary difference between a pipeline and a sewer is what flows through it.  Determine which tribes will benefit the most from your products, services, and experience (yes, your customer experience), and target them.  An ATM is created when one, solitary group of like-minded people identifies strongly with you, and returns time and again – telling everyone within their tribe about you.  The goal is to become a highly recognized expert, and this is where you begin.
3. Employ Profound Knowledge.  If you, your boss, and your company do not possess expert knowledge of statistical theory, then your predictive activities will serve only to piss off any employee who’s trying to reach a number (goal) that is statistically impossible to achieve.  I performed goal-setting for years, and became ashamed of it once I was taught some basic statistical theory.  Bone up on statistical process control, submit to the laws of random variation, and show your people that you’ve truly evolved from the simian nature of traditional forecasting.
4. Train and Empower.  There are seven proven steps of The Revenution™ – the absolute alignment of critical revenue growth components that allow elite companies to dominate their respective industries and prosper – and if any of these steps are omitted, or executed out of order, the magic does not occur.  Educate the workforce – especially the marketing and sales organizations – add in progressive, enlightened, and caring Third Door™ leadership, and voila … consistent double and triple PRG occurs.
5. Co-Destiny.  One of my greatest complaints of sales training firms is the inherent opposition to co-destiny.  If there is no win-win – the alternative being a one-sided “sale” for the salesperson – then the long-term effects of the provider-customer relationship becomes perilous, at best.  Simply put, how do you become an important cog in your customer’s success?  How do you become an integral, indispensable component of their strategic plan?  Better yet, how do you make your customer’s customer successful?

And, of course, I must say a few words about the value of reading.  Millions of people go to the movies every week, yet very few read the critical reviews beforehand.  Are all reviews accurate, especially with such a personal taste-type product?  Of course not.  Are they helpful, though, in gaining insight to what the movie is about – so you can make an informed purchasing decision?  Of course!  Then why don’t people perform this seemingly intuitive and easy task?  BECAUSE WE’VE BECOME A NATION OF NON-READERS.  And that costs the consumer time and money.  Talk about waste and rework.  Deming must be turning over in his grave.

As an example, Rotten Tomatoes - the online movie review website for both critics and movie-goers – shows, at the time of this writing, that only  4% of the nation’s critics like the Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill.  Four … percent.  To be fair, 44% of patrons enjoyed the flick.  That means 56% of the people who saw this movie – including those who are huge Adam Sandler fans – spent (on average) $50+ for a couple’s date to the megaplex only to be disappoiinted.  That’s low ROI that could have been avoided.  Don’t get me wrong, the studio executives – and Adam Sandler – adore the fact that we don’t read … in fact count on it … and that’s because this atrocious movie has tallied $68.5 million so far.  It’s funny:  the average consumer will complain over a two cent rise in gas prices, but blow that kind of jack (no pun intended) without even thinking.

The same case can be made for New Year’s Eve, the highest grossing movie in the country right now, where only 7% of critics liked it, and 47% of theater patrons hated it.  Crazy.

So I’m begging you, turn off the tube and read some.  I tell my clients that every focused (based on what they’re trying to accomplish) business book they read can add a minimum of $1000 to their annual income, as long as they implement the core components.  That’s solid ROI, unlike Jack and Jill.

Also, here’s a skill that takes time to develop – especially when you’re in the crosshairs of the daily business and sales fight – but could double your income (or the company’s top line revenue) within 12 months depending on your commitment level:  see everything through the customers lens.

The one consistent request I get from senior leaders is:  how do we make the Revenution™ repeatable and sustainable?  They never like the answer:  make the execution of necessary changes a primary part of all compensation, reward and recognition, job model, and performance review processes.  How else can you put your money where your mouth is?

Similarly, the daily – seemingly innocuous – questions senior leaders ask do more to drive employee behavior than most anything else.  Therefore, to achieve the new culture, the right questions must be asked every day.  Instead of asking how many sales were made, ask, “What did you learn about your customer’s business today?  What are their top three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and how do we positively influence each?”

If you can do that, along with the Top 10, you won’t recognize your company – or yourself – at this time next year.  I see it happen every day with my clients.  So it is written, so it shall be done.