Originally published on Forbes in Jan 2023. This article has been republished here.
Change To Engage And Engage To Change
Principal at Zomara Group. I help organizations strategize, grow and scale. As Director Bus Dev at EQUANS, I deliver results. Let’s connect!
As a business leader, no matter how much you are made to feel that other criteria also do come into play, the bottom line is your performance is gauged based on profitability, which is achieved by selling your products and services at a higher margin while keeping your costs in control. Of course, there are other parameters, but this is what, in simplified terms, you need to do if you want to be profitable.
Now, charging a higher number is, at times, market-driven (i.e., competitive landscape, target audience, economic factors and so on), but keeping the cost of doing business down is generally the highest priority for any senior executive.
It’s also how many businesses have adapted and shaped themselves in today’s business environment. “Automate and contract out” has sort of become a go-to model and change catalyst to form a cost consistency basis and a way for legacy organizational models to transform and shape themselves for future resiliency and challenges.
Add to that the comfort of accounting and finance to move toward a consistent and predictable operational expenditure (opex) model instead of capital expenditure (capex) model, which could lead to unknowns and unpredictability in return, and you truly have a push from all angles to think outside of the box and innovate technologically.
In one of my previous pieces, I argued that sales roles are transitioning from a salesperson being a seller to being more of a facilitator, and the customer is already in the know regarding you vs. your competition or solution A vs. solution B. What they are looking for from you, in many cases, is to help create a picture of what you can do differently for their unique environment. Since facilitating has become the aspect, do you still need a seller, a business developer or teams? Should you carry their top-draw salaries, benefits, commissions, bonuses and what have you on your balance sheet? Why train and provide a toolkit all in the hope that your employee investment won’t be poached by the competition? Should you not make buoyant technology investments, outsource some or all of the functions and pursue a more predictable return from both those options? The answer to this puzzle is both a yes and a no as well as both.
As a business that is looking to generate profitable value, there is no question that you must invest in top sales/business development talent and empower them with resources. Ingrain in them your distinctive cultural blend that enables them to be successful because they are the ones bringing direct revenue that supports everything else in your business—and the biggest argument, frankly, is that if you don’t, your competition will, which will leave you far behind in no time. But, in addition, part of this empowerment means their time should be spent on high-value activities, and more mundane things must be taken to completion by other internal or external groups or technology.
As an example, you should not expect your high-value sales team to manually manage the customer relationship management (CRM) software or generate reporting. Things of that nature should be integrated, synchronized and automated, but there are still organizations out there that expect their resources to provide weekly funnel reporting to the leadership. These organizations are generally the first ones to adopt jargon like “servant leadership,” but in essence, the leadership mindset is that it wants to be served. For organizations like this, it will be too little, too late, when the market is shaping your future. But if you are serious about shaping the market, the question is not whether you should invest in technology and procedural improvements but what kind of technology and process or functional improvements are right for you.
This brings me to another point, and that is rather than waiting for or developing the right model in-house, you should be open to targeting opportunities where you can collaborate, share, acquire, or procure from others’ expertise.
That may mean things like demand or lead generation, marketing programs, first-level engagement and support functions in scenarios where business case exists should be outsourced to organizations with core capabilities in those specific segments. This leaves your team to solely focus and drive high-value and high-return activities. None of this is to suggest that the performance aspect should be compromised or that you should lose control and oversight, but part of this development is to put key performance indicators (KPIs), compliance guidelines and matrices in place to develop a framework that is consistent and repeatable.
Deliverables like these can also help indirectly on two fronts.
1. You are building a risk or opportunity tolerance model that is quantifiable and nonsubjective.
2. This partnership-type model helps both entities grow cross-functionally and gives them hands-on experience, with both having skin in the game.
The stepping stones to your competitive demise start, in my experience, when an argument is made within the core decision-making group that “This is how we have always done it successfully.” This becomes a massive mindset barrier to climb because who likes change? This dreaded word will bring out stories of what has gone wrong from just about everywhere, but the fact of the matter remains that in this ever-shifting business landscape, this six-letter word is an ever-present constant, and the sooner change is welcomed at all levels, the better it will be not only for your performance but your business’s longevity. The benefits far outweigh the growing pains that this will bring—every time, all the time.
It’s about time to look at change from an outward perspective.
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