I do EVERYTHING I can to run a business organization that is light, nimble, simple, and minimalist.
This enables me to sell better, sell faster, and sell more effectively.
It allows me to position myself as a partner, rather than some larger organization that requires my potential customers to adapt to a bunch of rules, policies, and complexities.
And yeah, this positioning does prevent me from looking like a large organization, and this may cost me some potential business, but with the way I am structuring my business and my operations, I need to be light and nimble.
The positives outweigh the negatives. Big time.
Noodling on this concept, however, has me thinking how too many organizations layer so much complexity to their sales organizations, that the sales process becomes overburdened, which results in unnecessarily lengthening and complicating the sales cycle.
Here are some signs that your sales process and/or organizations are burdened with too much complexity:
1. You cannot get your important work done until well after the bell whistles at 5PM.
2. You make your customers contort to your way of doing things.
3. You make your employees fill out complicated "TPS" reports, when a simple email or tweet will do. This takes time away from interacting with your customers and prospects.
4. You make your sales team follow rigid scripts, instead of letting them be human.
5. Requiring strict adherence to arbitrary sales numbers and goals (that aren't legitimate or realistic anyway), forcing your sales force to worry about this, instead of thinking about how to serve their prospects.
6. Shoving a burdensome CRM system down throats to satisfy some management prerogatives, further distracting sales reps from focusing on customers or prospects.
You can probably think of a lot more. This is but a short list to get you started.
But the point is, remove / reduce the complexities from your organization and sales force. They removes some major weight from their shoulders, enabling them to move about more freely, empowered to make some power moves, and move at lightning pace - all on the service behalf of customers and prospects.
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Learn some others ways to simplify your business.
Drawing by Hugh MacLeod.