Before they eventually hire an outsourced sales executive such as a part-time VP of Sales, most business owners face hard facts and come to equally hard realizations. At some point, regardless of how long a history of success they have enjoyed over the years, things change – market conditions, technology, the level of competition, and so on – making what worked in the past no longer a guarantee of continued success.
So, what three hard reasons make owners of small- to medium-sized businesses finally see the writing on the wall and seek help from an outsourced sales executive?
They Are Experiencing Pain
Maybe it’s a less-than-expected quarterly profit. Maybe it’s the defection of a key customer (or two or three). Maybe it’s losing their top salesman to a competitor. No matter the nature of the indicator (most likely a lagging indicator), savvy business owners recognize when their business is experiencing a painful time. Sometimes they see the pain as a temporary condition, with the indicator showing merely a short-term aberration in an otherwise sound operating and sales strategy. But when negative indicators begin to string together month after month and quarter over quarter, the hard truth becomes harder to ignore until the pain eventually becomes unbearable.
Some owners of small- or medium-sized businesses are so enmeshed with the daily operations of their company they can’t remove themselves from the minutiae long enough to take a higher-level view. When that’s the case, the pain can become chronic before it is fully recognized and can be dealt with. In fact, some business owners can be so oblivious, so deeply in denial, or so overly optimistic, that it can become too late for a turnaround (akin to trying to turn the Titanic after warnings have been ignored and the iceberg has ripped into the hull).
Other business owners, however, have the kind of perspective that enables – actually, that empowers – them to make bold, strategic and necessary moves earlier. Regardless of when the pain is recognized, if it is felt deeply enough, the business owner may finally look outside the organization for help.
They Fear Consequences for Not Addressing the Pain
Oftentimes, however, merely recognizing and feeling the pain is not enough. The business owner also must have the foresight to understand the consequences of doing nothing. As an example, if one of the salespeople missed last year’s quota, the business owner might consider it to be a difficult year and would commit to taking action if next year’s results weren’t any different. The more astute business owner, however, will recognize that the salesperson’s pipeline is insufficient to turn around their negative results and a second poor year is already in the making. In other words, ignoring that pain will almost surely have consequences again in the future.
For most business owners, however, the consequences are more immediate: not making payroll or not being able to respond to customer needs, for example. Consequences like these have a way of making the pain feel more acute and the need for a cure more urgent. And that’s when many business owners finally call for outside help, seeking an outsourced sales executive.
They Realize They Can’t Fix the Problem with Current Internal Resources
Once a sales and/or revenue generation problem is detected, most business owners will naturally look inside the company to try to fix the dire situation. These owners might mistakenly feel as though they can take on the responsibility of turning around the failing sales performance. Very often, that means the owner taking on more responsibility. But when it comes to sales, the owner who takes on more of the leadership burden ends up neglecting another critical area of the operation.
By the time the owner reaches the point of taking a hard look at the capacity of internal resources, he’s come to terms with needing to do something and has begun considering options. More often than not, the answers don’t lie within the organization as it stands. And when the insightful business owner faces that reality, he begins to look for outside sales leadership help.
Bottom Line:
Pretty much every small- to medium-sized business faces trials. They grow too fast or don’t grow fast enough, they become too dependent on a key client, they suffer too much sales team turnover, and so on. Too often, the business owner is blinded by the day-to-day problems of running the business and cannot immediately see even the most obvious threats to the company’s survival.
The fortunate businesses are those whose leaders recognize problems early and adjust in time to minimize their impact. And when it comes to the impact of sales on the organization, the savviest businesses are those that seek the services of a true sales expert. They soon learn that when they engage the services of an outsourced sales executive, they not only gain experience, they also gain sales industry expertise and an outsider’s keen market perspective. These are among the key advantages of hiring an outsourced sales executive, such as a licensed Sales Xceleration Advisor serving as an outsourced VP of Sales. To learn more about how the proven sales growth systems from Sales Xceleration can help business owners recognize and address growing (and survival) pains, contact an Advisor today.
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