IT Sales
How Do You Hire Your Next Sales Superstar?
How do you hire a sales superstar?
I have found over the past 25 years of guiding hundreds of flourishing companies in hiring the best sales professionals, there are several things that successful leaders do in hiring sales professionals that other leaders don’t do. I will share them here over the next several blogs to get you started in the right direction. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I’d be more than happy to talk about your individual challenges.
The first step is to identify what you want in a sales professional. Do you understand what key skills will be required in the person you hire? There are many types of successful sales professionals in the market, but that doesn’t mean they will be successful in your organization. Most leaders tend to hire people like themselves. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Many entrepreneurs are very successful sales people in their own right. They tend to want someone just like themselves without considering what key factors are involved in the job if they are not doing it. Many leaders are very good at building sales at the beginning of their business because they are offering a new product to the market. The way you sell products when they first become available is different than how you sell when you begin facing the competition. Many early sales are unprofitable, but when owners look back on their early success they fail to remember this.
Many entrepreneurs fail to find the right sales professional because they don’t identify the key success factors in their organizations’ success. For example, they need a person with prior experience selling in a market similar to theirs. They may hire a sales professional who comes from a larger competitor without realizing the selling circumstances for the individual was completely different. It’s one thing for a sales professional to get an appointment with a potential client when they work for IBM. It’s another thing entirely when they represent a startup organization. Do you know how to position your product in comparison to your competition? Do you know who is the right person is to call on for your product or services? Do you have current clients in their industry? Most successful sales professionals are good because they are able to target their efforts to the right clients and decision makers. They have a finely tuned understanding of how to find these clients and how to take them through a sales process. If you’re unclear about your target, it could take your sales professional longer to achieve the success you expect. During the interview process you should try to uncover who the sales professional would try to sell your products and services to at first. Ask for specific examples and why they think these organizations would be good potential clients. Take time to discover who the sales person would call on but also why they would chose these clients. How does it match up with your current clients and future customers?
To increase your hiring success, develop a target client profile that will help you and your potential sales professionals understand the type of clients you want them to acquire during the initial stages of their working with you. I’ve found most midmarket organizations struggle to identify the type of clients they want to add to their customer base. They leave it up to the sales professional who spends significant time chasing clients who don’t fit or aren’t profitable clients for their businesses. When you are a small business you may have been able to be less selective in your customer acquisition process but as you continue to grow, you will need to become more focused on what type of clients your business can serve best.
To achieve hiring success, the more time you invest in understanding your business, the more success you will have in hiring the right sales professional. This initial research will help you better understand your business and will also allow for increased success in hiring the right individual at the right time. A bad sales hire can cost your organization between $300,000 and $1,000,000. It is critical to begin with a strong understanding of what business development skills you need in your next sales hire. This information will also help your current sales team succeed as well. I’ve used sales meetings to develop this material in the past and have been very surprised how it positively impacted my current sales team’s efforts, as well.
Next week we will talk about how to develop and interview guide that will help you structure your interview process for success.
A Gold Mine of Information…Paid For in Full
Author Keith F. Luscher
When targeting market prospects in your job hunt or for a targeted, value-based outreach, one of the biggest challenges is researching your prospect list.
Let’s say you are in B2B sales, and you want to reach out to wholesale distributors of durable goods with twenty to 250 employees, headquartered in your county and three counties adjacent. How would you find them? Perhaps your company subscribes to one of the many services out there, such as InfoUSA or Hoovers.
There are plenty of other research tools available on the internet, but I strongly recommend that the first place you check out is your metropolitan library. One of the best library resources is ReferenceUSA (the library division of InfoUSA). This is a database on millions of businesses and households which includes information on census, lifestyle, home values, industry codes and even D&B credit scores. It is access to the same data available commercially through what you may know as Sales Genie, minus the monthly subscription fee. Find out if your library offers it, and if not, find one that does.
Further, you will often be able to access this and other resources online from work or home with your library card. You will not need to make a trip to the library.
The ReferenceUSA database can produce a list of wholesale distributors of durable goods with twenty to 250 employees, headquartered in your county and three counties adjacent. You can narrow your search even further by any number of parameters (each record has data in up to 221 fields—we are talking detailed!). It all depends on what you are seeking.
This first step is unlocking a gold mine…and I am constantly surprised at how many sales professionals and business people I encounter in my own community who are completely unaware of this resource.
Let’s suppose your research yields a list of 28 companies. Which ones will you contact first? Will you start with the companies with the most employees, or the fewest? Will you further qualify by reported gross revenues or credit rating? Perhaps you want to start in your own county first, and expand outward.
Starting with your top priority suspects, begin researching the key decision makers. Depending on the size of the company, the data in ReferenceUSA will give you either just the owner or the entire executive staff and even the board of directors (It even identifies gender—quite helpful when targeting people with transgender names!).
Whatever you find, it is just a start. Their data is well researched and updated, but it is NEVER one-hundred percent accurate. To further identify who’s calling the shots, check out additional data sources (Hoovers for one). The company’s website may give you all that information up front, and may even include biographical information.
ReferenceUSA will even highlight stories in some media sources related to each company record, and even identify competitors. For further research, check out BizJournals online—the media company that publishes business weeklies in the nation’s top metropolitan areas and business markets. In your research, you are seeking any information that may prove relevant to your approach. Knowledge is power.
For further direction on what to do with this knowledge, learn the eight steps of WedgePower. Learn more at WegePower.com.
Keith F. Luscher, (Google Search) is a business development director for The Money Foundation, an independent investment professional’s think tank and production group operating within a broker-dealer. Prior to this he served professionals in the insurance and financial services industries as a management consultant. In that role, he advised producers on issues related to marketing and prospecting, and developed groundbreaking educational curriculum. In addition, Luscher is also a nationally known author, speaker, and expert in media, interpersonal communication and marketing.
The Qualities of Skillful Leadership
by Jim Rohn
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:
1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.
2) Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3) Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.
5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.
6) Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly. It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.
Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.
To Your Success,
Jim Rohn
To read previous articles, quotes, and Q and A from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine Archives, or to get a complete listing of Jim Rohn’s books, audios, videos and seminar schedule, or to place an order; please go to: http://www.jimrohn.com or call 800-929-0434 M-F 8:00-5:30 CST.
Sales Has a New Beginning-Demand Generation 2.0
by Axel Schultze
So here is an interesting story of a security products company that is using social media – no, not in marketing – but in sales.
Sales teams have always been the key connector to the customer base. But in the last few years sales got in trouble for hundreds of reasons that I don’t want to repeat here.
So here is what happened at Company S. After some weeks and months exploring what sales could do better than in the past, the company implemented a new social selling model in its outbound customer acquisition team.
Before:
A team of 25 did primarily cold calling and emailing prospects trying to setup appointments or getting a demo scheduled. The average call out volume was 80 calls a day, the top sales people did close to 100 a day. Typically 10 people where reached and 1 to 2 appointments could be setup. Some of the team mates called for three days to get only one appointment. It looked like a rather typical scenario. Team mates rotated or were replaced within a year as the burnout rate in that business is very high.
The new beginning:In an initial experiment we started with three people for a “social outreach initiative” 1 hour a day. The task was to identify the prospects social presence and then learn what is on top of their mind by reading what they communicate. In most cases it was everything but the company’s products. Over the course of two weeks the sales team was able to connect and build social relationships. Pretty much the same way as the golf playing superstars build relationships with their clients without pitching a product or promotion.
As a result, the prospects communicated with the sales team and both began to understand each other’s tasks. If a security product was of any interest, it was rather likely to get a presentation or an introduction to a person who the company should present to.
The number of touches within that one hour per day reached the 30 mark and it became quickly obvious that two hours a day would get to 60 touches and four hours to 120. In other words the new outreach initiative would get to the same number of contacts in half the time. The success rate even grew twice as much. Out of the 30 connections 4 agreed to have a conversation about the product. That was more than the 100 calls a day achieved in the past.
Obviously it is important to provide social media tools to the team to alleviate distraction, and get the team straight to the clients profiles, track touches, last connection and more. Those tools also act as an important feedback mechanism to teach the teams to be most effective in their engagement.
In the following weeks the program was expanded to four hours a day social outreach program and 4 hours calling. The program not only was more successful but the burnout rate of the team was reduced through this more diverse work pattern.
6 month later
The company decided to do no more cold calls. Phone calls were only “permitted” after the contact had a social engagement or the prospect was not to find in the social web.
The implementation of the whole program took only a few hours of developing a strategy and a plan and training for the sales team how to use social connections, the do’s and don’ts and best practices to keep the relationships over time.
The team named it “Office Golfing”, based on the thought now we can do from our office what the sales stars do on the greens.
After 9 month: 2 of the 25 people left the team because they couldn’t get acquainted with “the social media thing”. The average daily outreach grew to 200 touches per day and then slowed down to 150 as more and more conversation happened. The 1-2 appointments per day per person grew to 7 per day so far. The team is spending most of the time now with their clients in the social web. Clients appreciate the attention and the social touch of the organization.
Marketing is now shifting gear to provide leads with more and better social credentials (the lead quality discussion will never stop) and involving social media monitoring tools to identify additional conversations relevant to their business.
Sales had an all new beginning.
On Nov 18 we show how it works in a live demo http://bit.ly/SCRM1118
You can find Axel at http://xeesm.com/AxelS
If Selling, Listen to the Symptoms
by Ron White
‘Doc…I got this cough.’
‘Is it a light cough?’
‘No Doc it is a deep hacking cough like this….KUUH… KUUH’
‘Okay, anything else?’
‘Yeah, I got the shivers and this red bumpy rash.’
‘Oh, well you have got the Jungle hemoglobin neuro-cardio virus. Take these pills for two weeks and you will be as good as new.’
Isn’t it amazing how a doctor can listen to the symptoms and then accurately diagnose what is ailing you? Well, if you are in sales you should be able to do the same. Listen to what your customers are telling you and it will tell you where you are going wrong in your presentation.
I recently heard a speaker say, ‘Yeah, I didn’t sell but one package of CDs – the owner stood up and said he was going to buy one package of CDs for the office library and everyone could share.’ The speaker then shook his head as if there was nothing he could have done to sell the group. I never heard that speaker’s sales pitch; however, I know exactly what he did wrong by listening to the symptoms. In his sales pitch, he sold the value of his products, which he should have done – however, he did not pitch the value of building your own personal development library. If he would have closed this way, the owner would have never of stood up and said he would buy one for the group to share because he would have been contradicting the value of your own personal library that was just discussed.
I didn’t have to hear his sales pitch; listening to his symptoms, the diagnosis was easy.
What about you? What are the objections you are receiving? Listen closely because they are the symptoms that will diagnose your problem:
” Sounds great! I will definitely get this product one day! – Diagnosis – you didn’t establish the benefits of purchasing today. You did not make it clear that inventory was low, the special price of purchasing today or other incentive.
” I need to think about it – Diagnosis – 50% of the time this will be because you didn’t show them how to purchase (i.e. where to sign) or ask for the sale. The other 50% of the time it is because they have a hidden objection that you did not answer. Your response,’ Is there something in particular I can answer for you as you think about it?’
” Let’s buy one and share! – Diagnosis – you didn’t establish the value of this being a personal purchase.
” It cost too much – Diagnosis – price is rarely the objection, you failed to build value and didn’t demonstrate how this product will actually save you money over a period of time because it is durable or it will save you time and time is money.
Just as a doctor – listen to your symptoms and they will tell you where you are failing. Do not blame the symptoms on your prospects incompetence. Instead – listen, diagnose and treat by altering your presentation the next time. The answer to catapult your sales success is in the symptoms. Listen carefully!
Now, if you will excuse me I have to run. I have the Jungle hemoglobin neuro-cardio virus and I have some pills I need to take.
– Ron White
Ron White asks: What if you could Discover… In Just Hours… A Simple, Proven, 7-Step Sales Formula That Will Supercharge Your Earning Power! If you’re in sales, and you’re interested in supercharging your earning power, then we’ve got GREAT news for you! You see, if you want to earn a high income through sales, what you need is a proven system that hauls in massive amounts of cash whenever you use it. Once you’ve mastered this system, making a great living through selling would be easy. To learn more, go to http://www.yoursuccessstore.com/sales or call 877-929-0439 in the US. International and/or Dallas/Ft. Worth, call 817-442-8549.
Is Everyone in Your Business Market Driven?
I’m sure you get calls every day from people you don’t know about things you don’t need. What happens when a company invests their cash into marketing and advertising programs, but then doesn’t tell everyone on the team about the new programs?
In the past, I ran marketing for a large specialty retailer. I used to get in trouble with my boss all the time because I made sure the cashiers and customer service people were trained on the weekly ads and special events. My boss would say he had sales people to sell and the cashiers and customer service people had other jobs to do. I knew, without a doubt, several customers a day would come in and be introduced to my business by team members who normally didn’t interact with customers but, for whatever reason, they had to deal with customer questions.
How does this relate to a technology business, you’re asking? In the last several weeks, I’ve had conversations with several individuals who wanted to find out more about a technology company’s service offerings. When they called into the company’s office, all they got was a run-around. The person who picked up the call didn’t really understand what the company does or to whom to direct the caller. Now I know this would never happen in your business but just as a test, have a friend call in to your business. See what how your consultants and customer service people provide potential clients with the initial guidance to get them to the right people. Do your people make them feel glad they called or are a problem to be dealt with?
I know what you’re thinking, customers are always calling in so I can’t get my projects done, or worse interrupting my social media agenda. Don’t they understand it’s not my job to answer the phones and spend time talking to you, my potential clients?
It’s funny but I thought customers are part of why we are in business. I know it’s popular to use voice mail because it’s less costly to have potential clients leave messages. But most clients want to feel like more than just a number. If you’re going to have people answer the phone, you might want to invest the time to bring them up to speed on what’s going on in the business and who is still with the company. I’ve heard of several examples of potential clients calling in to discuss a project with an account manager. The person answering the phone didn’t know the account manager was no longer with the firm and they didn’t make sure the right individual got the message. In one case, it cost the company a several hundred thousand dollar deal. I know you still have to win the business but the client was not looking for several bids on the project because of the confidential nature of the project. The fact they knew the account executive meant they were will to pay more for working with the account manager’s team.
All of this leads me to the following point; if your business isn’t market driven, you are probably being driven out of the market by well intended associates who get paid the same if they produce revenue of not.
Here’s a question to consider if you’re still wondering why your phone isn’t ringing as much as it used to in the good old days. Try my call in test. You might be surprised to find that in these challenging economic times some of your employees have forgotten who they work for and why.
If You’re Not Screwing Up, You’re Fired.
Most people in their jobs or client relationships worry about “getting fired” for making mistakes. Indeed, we all make them—and as Alan Mooney, a close friend and work colleague likes to put it: if we aren’t making mistakes, then something is wrong. In fact, he sums this policy up in one simple statement:
“If you are NOT making mistakes, then you’re fired.”
Fired, indeed! The point he emphasized with a touch of jest is that if you are working and focused on desired outcomes, mistakes are inevitable.
Don’t allow this reality to keep you from stretching outside your comfort zone. The only way to avoid making mistakes is to slack off and do nothing. And none of us get paid for that, now do we?
Harry Beckwith (Why am I always quoting this guy?) in his book Selling the Invisible puts it plainly when he cites a common false belief: “Failure is failure.”
In the brief chapter, he cites one historical example after another, from companies such as Avis, 3M and Federal Express of how their leaders made more mistakes than not to reach their ultimate victory. He concludes: “If you’re doing anything worthwhile at all, you will suffer a dozen failures. Start failing so you can start succeeding.”
It also leads me back to when I was leading my earlier Prospect & Flourish bootcamps, and one real estate agent sitting in the program made this remark about making canvassing calls: “Every NO that I receive over the telephone brings me one step closer to a YES.” Indeed, while every “no” you may hear over the phone may not constitute a mistake or failure on your part; it does get you closer to creating a result that’s closer to the one you seek.
As this country grows and matures through what history will eventually refer to as a true economic depression, adopting this mindset will be crucial if we are to arrive safely on the other side. In fact, the word “failure” ought to be removed from our vocabulary. From a purely objective standpoint, there is no such thing as success or failure…there are only results. You either create a result you seek, or you don’t.
Consider this deeply the next time you reach out to set up an interview with a prospective client or employer. Indeed it is one of the greatest barriers to effective prospecting: not trying. An outcome is inevitable, be it from your action or inaction. Act. If you do not create the outcome you seek, so be it. But the question before you then is this:
“How can I use this outcome to bring myself closer to the result I seek to create?”
But don’t let this question overwhelm you. In some ways, the best method to achieving our desired outcome is to not obsess over it. Hence the age-old expression: “It’s not the destination; it’s the journey.”
We’ll talk more about this next week. Until then, blessings to you and yours.
Keith F. Luscher, (Google Search) is a business development director for The Money Foundation / H. Beck, Inc. Prior to this he served professionals in the insurance and financial services industries as a management consultant. In that role, he advised producers on issues related to marketing and prospecting, and developed groundbreaking educational curriculum. In addition, Luscher is also a nationally known author, speaker, and expert in media, interpersonal communication and marketing.
Why the Right Words Matter
As I was looking through my bookshelves for a particular reference, I came across my very first sales training book, How to Master the Art of Selling, by Tom Hopkins. I pulled it off the shelf and starting thumbing through it. I had gone to see Tom Hopkins speak and bought the book there. He even autographed it for me. I took that book home and studied it. I don’t know how many times I read it. Why? I wanted to master the art of sales. Even at the beginning of my career, I knew the key to success was being good at selling.
I haven’t changed my point of view in the decades since I read How to Master the Art of Selling. I’ve read other sales training books. I’ve gone to other sales training courses. But I find that I probably use more of Tom Hopkins ideas in how I sell day to day than anyone else. There are probably a number of reasons for this. But I think it’s because his ideas are easy to learn and easy to implement. That’s not to say they’re simple, just easy for you to say, “I can do this.”
For example, one of Tom’s key ideas is being aware of the language you use. Words can have a positive or negative impact, even seemingly innocuous words like deal or contract. Words trigger an emotional response. I’ve mentioned in this blog before that people buy based on emotions and justify with logic. By inadvertently using a word with negative emotions, you might kill the sale without ever knowing why. The first step is to stop using the word “deal.” Most of us think of it in the terms of a good deal. If the client has doubts about getting a good deal, they may back out of the sale and leave you hanging. A better word to use is opportunity. Opportunity connotes opening doors, new options. It’s filled with positive energy.
I’ve only talked about one word that can change the course of your sales. As a technology entrepreneur, you need to be aware of the words you and your sales team use. Are you moving clients along the process with your words, or turning them off? Use more positive words and you can increase the number of sales you close in record time.
I’m Not an Actor, but I play one on TV
Continuing on the topic of “state”—Are you in control of your state, or is your state in control of you? Successful people are masters of their states—and thus their resourcefulness at virtually any point in time. It is largely the cumulative condition of your thoughts and your physiology; your mind and your body.
When in a negative state, you can’t wait for change. You must change it yourself. For some of us, it seems impossible—indeed it is a skill I continue to work hard to develop myself (especially in the early mornings). Some days it’s easier than others. But like anything, it requires practice.
Let’s say you need to make follow up calls, but you aren’t in the mood. You are not feeling very successful or effective. You’re telling yourself: “What’s the point? No one wants to be bothered by me.” With that, you sit at your desk; your back and shoulders are slumped. You proceed to look around for other “busy” work to do to avoid what you should be doing. So how do you change?
1. Be aware of your present state. You know you are not in the state to do this effectively. You know that your present state—regardless of what caused it (lack of sleep, argument with another colleague, the weather, etc.)—is not going to help you produce the results you want. Objective awareness is the first step.
2. Decide—and imagine—the state you WANT. You have been in that desired state many times. Imagine how you felt, how you behaved, your posture and other body language, and your thoughts. Consider the last good phone session you had (or another example), and begin to relive the positive state you were in.
3. With these indicators, start with your body language. Self talk depends upon body language as much as do our thoughts. Get up, stretch out, and breathe more deeply and with intent. Straighten your posture. Feeling tired does not mean you have to act tired. If you want to feel more energetic, act more energetic.
4. Trade lies for Truth. The message you hear that you’re not worthy and have nothing to offer is a LIE. Don’t surrender to it. Know the TRUTH: that you are a person on an important mission to help people and to create a better world. Your phone call to each prospect is a positive impact on that person’s life—regardless of the outcome. Each phone call is a “pay it forward”—an outreach of service. Every appointment scheduled is medal on your chest for every five to ten calls you complete! Every call is an act of brotherly love and service to others.
5. Never, Never Surrender. This takes practice. It takes persistence. It is simple, but not always easy. But if you know what you WANT, commit to it. Further, you haven’t lost until you’ve quit. Sometimes you will change your state with greater success than other times. Accept this. It’s okay. Persistence is what sets you apart from the rest.
In effect, when you do this, you are acting. You are performing for an audience—and the most important member of that audience is not your prospect…it is you.
Keith F. Luscher, (Google Search) is a business development director for The Money Foundation / H. Beck, Inc. Prior to this he served professionals in the insurance and financial services industries as a management consultant. In that role, he advised producers on issues related to marketing and prospecting, and developed groundbreaking educational curriculum. In addition, Keith is also a nationally known author, speaker, and expert in media, interpersonal communication and marketing. Keith is also the author of several diverse books, including Prospect & Flourish: How to Conquer the “Weakest Link” in the Sales Process –a prospecting and networking guide for sales professionals and job seekers. He is also the author of Don’t Wait Until You Graduate, an widely acclaimed advanced career-planning book for college students that, in the past ten years, has become a part of the college landscape. It has also been translated into Chinese and is now in its second edition.
Are You Creating an Extraordinary Business?
It’s the weekend, TGIF. Everybody’s working for the weekend, right? What if you didn’t? What if the weekend was an interruption to the things you really loved to do? That’s sounds amazing to many people. They can’t imagine wanting to spend more time at work. They go in, put in their time, and treasure every moment they’re not in the office.
But there are others, that special group of people that can’t wait to get to the office. They’re not workaholics, they just love what they do so much, they can’t imagine not wanting to do it. They dream about ways to improve and grow their businesses. That’s not to say they don’t have their issues, struggles or challenges to overcome. It’s just that they look at those same challenges with excitement and a willingness to grow, not as something waiting to beat them down.
So which group would you rather be in? It’s not the difference between owning your own company and working for someone. We all know the technology entrepreneurs who don’t have time for a sandwich at lunch before it’s time to get back to work. They work the same as when they had someone else as a boss. Other entrepreneurs seem to have everything under control. They work hard, but it doesn’t seem to consume them. They can take time off in the middle of the week to go see their child’s school play and not think twice about it.
How do you get that enthusiasm back? The thrill of owning your own company, made in your own image back again? I won’t say it’s easy, but you can do it.
• Start by identifying what you do each day. Are you putting out fires or developing a vision of what you want your company to look like?
• Once you identify what you do in the course of a day, determine if each task is something one of your employees can take over. If so, delegate.
• Develop processes and systems for each of the tasks completed in the office. Write them so you can give the instructions to a new person and he can complete the task with few questions.
• Test your written processes by giving them to someone that doesn’t do the job and see if they can complete the task, using only the written guidelines.
• Take control of the planning in your company. You’re the boss, decide what YOU want to do.
As I said, it’s not easy, but the difference between working with passion and just having a job is how you approach Friday.