1CMO

Growth strategy | Advisory | Force multiplier

Teamwork

Get the Right People on the Bus First

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“It is better to first get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, and then figure out where to drive.” – James C. Collins

Early on in my career, I learned a valuable business lesson from my father when he shared this pearl of wisdom with me:

In life, almost every problem is ultimately a people problem.

If I am being honest, the true gravity and impact of that statement was largely lost on me at the time. Furthermore, I cannot even remember the event that triggered the conversation. However, over the years (and all my successive senior leadership roles across a number of organizations) the absolute brilliance of his advice became readily apparent.

All problems are ultimately people problems.

By extension, all solutions are also dependent on people.

Why? Because in any organization it takes people, working together, to solve the problems and come up with solutions that serve clients/customers/constituents.

Whether you call them your people, your team, your coworkers, your colleagues, your talent, or even your workforce…people are the key ingredient for success in any organization.

The Bus Analogy from Good to Great

One of my all-time favorite business strategy books is Good to Great, by Jim Collins, where the author and his team researched a number of organizations in an attempt to decipher the “growth DNA” of great companies.

They had expected to find that the first step in taking a company from good to great would be to set a new direction (defining a new vision and strategy for the company) and then getting the organization committed and aligned behind that new direction.

What they found was quite the opposite.

They discovered this common pattern: Those executives who ignited transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus (their metaphor for the organization) and then get people to take it there.

Instead, they first got the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it. These leaders essentially said, “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”  

Three Simple Truths

Collins also found that these so-called “good-to-great leaders” understood three simple truths:

  1. If you begin with “who,” rather than “what,” you can more easily adapt to a changing world. If people join your organization primarily because of where it is going when they joined, what happens if you need to change direction? You then have a problem. However, if people are on the bus because of who else is on the bus, then it is much easier to change direction.
  2. When you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage them largely goes away.  The right people do not need to be tightly managed or fired up; they will be self-motivated by the inner drive to produce the best results and to be part of creating something great.
  3. Finally, if you have the wrong people, it simply does not matter whether you discover the right direction; you still will not have a great company. Great vision without great people is irrelevant. In fact, as many of us have witnessed in our careers, the wrong people can be a cancer on the organization that will literally kill it from the inside out.

Connecting People to Your Strategic Plan

When starting out on their growth journey, many organizations unfortunately begin on the wrong foot.

It is a common trap for growth leaders to be so focused on the “what” that they neglect to think through the “who.” What do I mean by this?

In the world of growth strategy, execution begins with great leadership. Great leaders have the ability to attract, retain, and grow the talent needed to get the work done. They also instill a bias for action (MFGSD!)

Growing an organization, no matter the size or industry, is always a team sport. You will never reach your destination without the right team in place.

Expanding upon the “right people on the bus” analogy, here is my quick and dirty playbook for how you can connect people and your strategic plan for growth:

  1. It begins with a roadworthy bus. (Ensure your organization and product(s)/service(s) are ready to go to market. Do your values as an organization line up with the value you deliver to customers?)
  2. Make sure you have the right bus driver. (Does the leader of your organization have the experience, passion, and energy to lead the charge?)
  3. Next, get the right people on the bus. (This is your core leadership team.)
  4. Followed by getting the wrong ones off the bus. Quickly. (One of the most important, and difficult challenges for leaders is to take quick and decisive action on those who do not belong on the bus.)
  5. Next, make sure everyone is sitting in the right seat. (Do you have the right people in the right roles.)
  6. Now, as a team, you can think about your destination. (What is your envisioned future? What are your long-term objectives?)
  7. Followed by, plotting your ideal roadmap to get there, along with planning for any unexpected detours you might encounter along the way. (This is where you define your chosen strategy and create a robust plan.)
  8. Start driving! (Now it is time to get out of the building, and get dirty.)

Great People Achieve Great Results

Growth leaders embrace the concept that all problems are people problems, and all solutions require people.

The best leaders focus on building a great culture, one that attracts and retains the talent they need to execute their growth plans. They know that great people will achieve great results.

A roadworthy bus, with the right driver, and the right people on the bus, sitting in the right seats, is a great start to reaching your desired destination.

-Onward

Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast

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“Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.” – Benjamin Franklin

The saying “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” originated in the US Special Forces, but the fundamental principle behind it has been around for much longer, often shared with the expression “haste makes waste.”

The underlying principle is that it is more efficient to do things right the first time. When we rush into doing something, we run the risk of making mistakes and producing inferior results. An added benefit of being deliberate is that with enough practice you can actually become quicker and more efficient at doing the task.

This is an important concept for leaders in any organization. There is a fine line when strategic planning between taking decisive action, and moving too fast. As it turns out, there is great benefit to taking enough time to think about the challenge first. This allows time to assess the situation, develop a strategy, plan, think of different scenarios, and then take purposeful action.

A risk in moving too fast is you do not think things through. You miss clues. Opportunities pass you by. Risks hit you head on because you never anticipated them. Sloppy execution exposes you to a better-prepared competitor.

Military Origins

Special Forces operators carefully prepare for military operations. For example, US Navy SEALs train for missions slowly at first. They walk through the plan and rehearse responses to different possible scenarios. They rinse and repeat until they have a smooth cadence. They practice at slow speeds to build up their comfort level and “muscle memory”, which allows them to execute quickly in combat.

When you consider that modern infantry combat centers around mobility, there is a lot of logic to this approach – there are four typical scenarios in urban combat:

  • Don’t move – you risk getting pinned down and surrounded.
  • Move too fast – risk of being exposed to enemy fire with no cover.
  • Move too slow – risk of being outflanked.
  • Move too hastily – risk of losing situational awareness and running into a trap.

Movement is very important. Clearly, nothing good happens if you are not moving. However, you cannot move too quickly or slowly, you must move with purpose. Of course, there are situations where moving fast is necessary and potentially lifesaving for soldiers – the goal is to move as quickly and perfectly as possible. This is where preparation, practice, and leadership comes in.

For military operators this is a critical way to prepare for difficult challenges, and ensure successful outcomes. With this diligent preparation behind them, they can then perform the operation quickly and efficiently out in the field.

This approach applies equally well to the world of work.

In the World of Work

We live in unprecedented times of unpredictability and disruption. This VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment can sometimes make it challenging to know what to do next.

Many business leaders fall victim to the dangerous assumption that the only way to win in this environment is by running full speed ahead at all times. This popular myth has been glorified by business media, and is magnified by our 24/7, always on, society.

Pick any field, and at the highest levels of achievement and performance, you will find professionals who have trained extensively using this principle to prepare. For example, even when they are moving incredibly fast, elite athletes do not look rushed – they appear relaxed, with purposeful but fluid movements. What we do not see without the benefit of slow motion and expert analysis is that their movements have been finely tuned and optimized through a lot of repetitions, hard work and coaching.

The same observation applies to professionals in any field you can think of – surgeons, master electricians, enterprise sales reps, marketing executives…they all reach the pinnacle of achievement through hard work, deliberate practice, and never rushing. They have a strategy, develop a plan, and then execute. Over time, they perfect their craft and become quicker and more efficient.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

A Sailing Example

When the skipper of a sailboat wants to change directions, it is called tacking the boat. During a race, this critical and carefully timed maneuver can cause the boat to gain or lose position depending on how well it is executed by the crew. There are many variables to consider, including boat speed, wind speed and direction, waves, crew, and proximity to other boats. If you turn too quickly, you shave off speed; turn too slowly and you lose momentum. The goal is a slow but steady, smooth turn with the wind catching the sail at the perfect moment and accelerating the boat out of the turn in the new direction.

Tacking is a skill practiced constantly by sailboat racing crews, and speed is the reward. They know races are often won or lost by a few seconds, and executing this crucial maneuver smoothly and quickly is a critical factor to winning.

Too Slow Can Be Fatal

While slow is smooth, too slow can be fatal.

Leaders must strike a delicate balance between being thoughtful and taking action. The downside to taking a slow approach is that in some organizations it can devolve to “paralysis by analysis.” Teams end up spending so much time thinking and planning that they lose momentum and opportunity passes them by.

A difficult part of leadership is properly designing the solution, but also instilling a sense of urgency to get it done. In this context, urgency does not mean being frantic or that it must be done immediately. Urgency means having a bias for action, but also doing it well.

Movement is the underlying force behind the “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” philosophy – movement that is thoughtful, with a purpose and proper planning, but also deliberate and unrelenting.

Conclusion

A hurried soldier makes a careless mistake and puts their life in harm’s way, an unprepared athlete loses a game against an inferior opponent, and a hard charging executive makes an ill-considered decision. While the stakes are different, the solution to preparing for each situation is the same.

Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

-Onward

Marketing Enables Sales

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“In a great company everybody sells – not just the salespeople.” – Larry Ellison

Marketing enables sales.

In the world of growth strategy there is probably no more fundamental, yet frequently misunderstood, concept than the highly dependent relationship between marketing and sales.

In my work as a growth strategist, this concept is the starting point and a core intellectual foundation for building almost every go-to-market strategy and plan.

For business leaders who are responsible for growing the organization (if we are being honest, this should describe every leader!) this is a critically important concept.

Marketing and sales are vital functions of almost every organization, yet they often live in isolation. Even worse, in many companies they have an antagonistic if not completely dysfunctional relationship. Yet, marketing and sales need each other in order to be successful.

Basic Definitions, and the Challenge

For maximum effectiveness, marketing and sales have to be tightly connected, and working in an aligned and coordinated fashion. Unfortunately, for many organizations this is usually the exception, rather than the rule.

To set the stage for a solution, here are two basic definitions, which also help illustrate the root cause of the problem:

  • Marketing – According to the American Marketing Association marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. 
  • Sales – A sale is a transaction between two or more parties, typically a buyer and a seller, in which goods or services are exchanged for money or other assets.

Once you read these definitions it is easy to see they really are not that far apart. So why the divide?

We do not have to go too far back in history to find a clue. In the late 1940’s post-war growth economy, business strategists and educators began to describe marketing as owning the creation and promotion of a brand – focused on what is commonly called the 4 P’s (product, price, place, and promotion).

And sales? Well, sales was about making the sale to those prospects who responded to marketing’s outreach efforts. The wall began to form because marketing and sales were classically viewed as two completely separate functions, despite both being aligned around wanting to make sales happen.

You can thank technology for helping to bridge the gap. Over the years, as we have layered in more tech-enabled tools like email, websites, CRM, marketing automation, and social media we have begun to break down the wall that separated the marketing and sales functions.

We have removed much of the “friction” around commerce. Knowledge is free. Communication is cheap. The lines are blurred. The connection points between buyers and sellers exponentially multiplied. The pace accelerated.

Transactions can take place without face-to-face contact. At the touch of a button, we can blast messages to thousands or millions of prospects and in many cases they can buy directly without going to a store, or even talking to a human.

In today’s hyper-connected business world we can safely reach one conclusion: everyone is in marketing, and everyone is in sales.

This all makes perfect sense, except for one small problem – nobody told marketing or sales! In many organizations, they are still living in their separate silos.

A Solution to Bridge the Divide

Is there a proven solution to bridge the divide between marketing and sales?

Yes, there is. Many modern go-to-market organizations ensure alignment and collaboration between marketing and sales through a defined sales enablement strategy and approach.

  • Sales Enablement – The process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools to help sales people sell more effectively. The foundation of sales enablement is to provide sales people with what they need to successfully identify and engage the buyer throughout the buying process.

As its name implies, sales enablement is a way to make sure marketing enables sales. One simple way to think about sales enablement is helping buyers to buy, and sellers to sell. Sounds pretty smart and intuitive, doesn’t it?!

How does it work? It begins with enlightened company leaders who understand, and fundamentally believe, marketing enables sales.

Without this executive buy-in and support, sales enablement is doomed to fail, and marketing and sales will continue to live separately.

Next, the marketing and sales leaders of the organization must collaborate to build out their definition and required capability. This will look different for each unique organization since sales enablement consists of a diverse set of tactics and activities.

It often includes an expanded role for marketing to rate, score, and qualify leads. Moreover, in some organizations it can include an outbound lead generation function (sales development representatives) who work to identify and engage targeted prospects in order to develop them into marketing qualified leads (MQL).

It is very common to see sales enablement jointly owned by marketing and sales. In smaller organizations, it may be the same person overseeing both functions. In larger organizations it might roll up under a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) or Chief Revenue Officer.

The sales enablement stakeholders then build out a strategy. They will need to define the approach to provide sales with the resources they need to sell. This strategy is always tailored to each specific sales team’s needs so they can best target their audience and close more deals. It should also include a thorough analysis of the resources, tools, content, and information to provide sales with to ensure it is helping them convert more leads into customers.

Sales Enablement ROI

Does sales enablement work?

My experience is that it does, and research backs it up! The Aberdeen Group found that companies with strong sales and marketing alignment realized 20% better annual revenue growth than peers without alignment.

Furthermore, a study from Marketingprofs found that sales and marketing teams with high alignment saw a 36 percent increase in win rates compared to less aligned organizations.

Conclusion – Go Forth Together

Sales and marketing alignment is a critical component for company growth.

The role of marketing is to identify who the “best” prospects are for a given brand, in terms of both purchasing power and the potential to become a brand ambassador. Then, marketing creates content that can engage the buyer with that brand and helps progress them on their buyer journey.

Salespeople and marketers close the deal together. It has always been a team effort, and it will always stay that way.

As social selling evangelist, Jill Rowley said, “The new reality is that sales and marketing are continuously and increasingly integrated. Marketing needs to know more about sales, sales needs to know more about marketing, and we all need to know more about our customers.”

Creating sales and marketing alignment is one of the most important ways organizations can improve the effectiveness of both teams. Forging this alignment can also help to lower customer acquisition cost, while also providing a better sales experience for prospective customers.

In a follow-up article, we will explore specific tactics to help drive alignment between marketing and sales.

-Onward