Building the Right Foundation
One of our sales professionals, Sam Hay, casually told me he has 18 sales calls for us this week.
I share that because I can remember when a week with two sales calls was big for Costello.
We’ve got a long way to go on this journey with our customers, but what got us to this point is very simple.
People.
That’s it.
At the end of the day, business is about the people you serve and the people on your team.
Forgetting that is easy.
Tactics, strategies, and technologies go in-and-out of style.
Two things are always true. If you stay focused on these two fundamentals, your odds-of-success go way up. Here it is:
- Understand and serve your customer better than anyone else.
- Build the best team you can and then empower and serve them well.
I know that sounds obvious. But if you look at the way most businesses operate, they don’t know it.
Spreadsheets do not equal knowledge of the customer
Your customers are people. They are not numbers on a spreadsheet.
If you want to be successful, go talk to your customers.
Spend time watching them work. Learn from them. If you spend time with customers, they’ll teach you how to build a product they love. You may not get it right the first time or the fifth time, but you will get it right if you stay close to your customers.
On one of our product demos last week the potential customer clapped. I’ve never had that happen before.
Our current customers taught us how to build a product that would make someone clap.
Getting close to your customer is not a one time or once-per-quarter activity. You have to do it every week. Many companies meet with their customers on a periodic basis. In hyper-competitive markets like ours, you have to find insights that other people miss. The only way to do that is to stay focused on the customer every week.
And if you know your customers well, you’ll know how to build the right go-to-market strategy to reach more of them.
Just like your customers, your people are also not numbers in a spreadsheet.
If you want to be successful, recruit a great team and listen to them.
Nothing I’ve shared works unless you have a great team. If your people aren’t great, you can’t deliver great products/services or outperform in your go-to-market.
A great team that is aligned, focused on the customer, and engaged will deliver great products/services and outperform the market.
That’s it.
- Understand and serve your customer better than anyone else.
- Build the best team you can and then empower and serve them well.
