Core Skills required for Revenue Generation

As a business owner, and whether you like it or not, you are in the business of selling.

It is therefore important, that you have a clear and complete understanding of the core competencies required of any person responsible for revenue generation in your business, including yourself.

It goes without saying that understanding alone is not enough, you also need to ensure your own and your employee's skills, are developed to the level necessary for sales success, and then you need to diligently apply those skills, and sure others are applying them as diligently as yourself.

The key skills required in any sales role are; presentation skills, influencing skills, negotiation skills, communication skills, problem solving skills, marketing skills, personal management skills and critically in this day and age, information technology skills.

If your sales are not at the level where they need to be, a good solution is to firstly put in place structured plans for yourself and key employees to become more competent in every one of these skills, with a priority being placed on the skill sets that are most lacking, in those engaged in selling for your business.

These skills alone will not necessarily guarantee success in revenue generation, as a clear understanding of the key attributes that the individuals concerned also need to possess, and their ability to persistently apply these attributes, is the second part of the solution.

These key attributes include; the need and the will to succeed, ability to think and act quickly, ability to focus on goals, a strong belief in the products and services offered, high energy levels, high self esteem, the ability to act independently, an optimistic outlook on life, the ability to see the bigger picture, a willingness to accept responsibility for personal outcomes, and an ability to empathise with others.

As you can see, a revenue generating role is not for the untrained or marginally competent; selling is actually a profession, and a professional approach is needed by anyone who has a responsibility for revenue generation.

You must also remember that a poorly trained and far from competent salesperson, can do more damage to your business in a short time, than almost any other role not performed to its optimal level, in your business.

Unless you develop your own and your employees sales skills to an optimum level, revenue generation will always be harder for your business than it needs to be, and in tough times your cash flow may be severely challenged.

How do you and your key employees measure up in terms of sales skills and personal attributes that support effective revenue generation?

Do all relevant personnel have personal development plans specifically tailored to improve the level of revenue generation in your business?

Have you led by example in demonstrating your own commitment to upgrading your selling skills?

Have you allowed adequate funds in your budget to support the development of all of the necessary skills in your employees?

Do you ensure that you select the right people with the necessary attributes to succeeed in sales, to participate in your sales training programs, and eventually in revenue generating activities for your business?

If you answer all of these questions truthfully, and reflect on what the answers mean for your future revenue, it may pave the way for you to make the changes you possibly need to make, to give your business a good shot in the arm.

Four Critical Business Roles

It never ceases to amaze me that people continue to establish new businesses or struggle on in established businesses, without a clear understanding that there are four critical business roles which must be performed at an optimum level in any business if it is to grow and be successful in the longer term.

Too many business people are not aware that there are very distinct roles which must be performed daily and consistently in any business, and that each of these distinct roles requires people with differing personalities operating in each respective role to ensure that optimal outcomes are achieved for the business.

It is also not well recognised that very few people are actually suited to effectively, and more importantly consistently over time, perform all of the required roles. Many will do their best when assigned one of the four critical roles but inevitably they will eventually drift away from the elements of any role that they personally get limited or no satisfaction from, and focus attention elsewhere to the detriment of the overall business.

Often the limitations of one or two people trying to perform all of the critical roles do not become apparent until the business starts to expand as a result of unplanned for organic growth or external pressures being brought to bear on the business.

In my experience the four critical and quite distinct roles (role groupings) required to be effectively performed in any business aspiring to be successful and sustainable are;

• leadership, strategy development, and new customer/client acquisition,
• budget management, cash flow management, competitor/market research management, business plan management, and demand management,
• customer relationship management/customer retention management/up selling and cross selling to existing customers, and
• administration, sales support and operations management.

In my view each of these critical roles (role groupings) are best suited to people from different personality types, and care taken in matching a particular person with the critical role (role group) which best suits their particular personality, will pay high dividends to the businesses who take this approach.

My own experience indicates that a high level of passion for performing any particular role comes from that role being closely aligned to the type of work activities a person prefers to regularly perform, those preferences generally being aligned to their individual personality type.

Initially, when first establishing a business, it may not be possible to create and fill four separate roles however, if any business is to grow and have long term success, each of these roles will need to be performed by individuals, or groups of individuals, with the specific aptitude and real passion for performing the distinctly different types of daily activities which need to be performed effectively, and consistently for a business to prosper.

If your business has reached the stage of its business cycle where you are ready to grow your business, have a very close look to see if you have all the bases covered in ensuring that each of these critical roles, or role groupings, are effectively covered and the full-time attention of at least one passionate individual, is being applied in each area.

Should you not be satisfied that this is the case, I would suggest that you put any growth plans on hold until you are satisfied, as this will avoid the inevitable problems that will potentially implode your plans, and set your business back for as long as it takes to right the situation.

It may be that your business has stagnated and appears to be going nowhere at present, and if that is the case, have a good look at these critical roles to see if you have them all covered. If not action to rectify this situation may be the change you need to make to get your business firing again.

If you have all bases covered, look closely at the people performing the roles to determine if they are passionate about the type of work involved in the relevant role, and if not place them elsewhere in your business where their passion may be re-ignited, and find the right person for the relevant role.

For those operating smaller businesses with less people than the number of critical roles which need to be covered, I would suggest that each roles is as important as any other and time needs to be applied each day to the performance of all these four critical roles.

In this less than ideal situation it is critical that each of those involved has some affinity with the nature of the work involved in whichever role(s) they are required to perform, and some form of ongoing accountability is introduced to ensure equal treatment of all roles assigned is occurring.

Understanding of these four critical roles and the linkages between them is a vital skill for all business owners to develop. A lack of understanding of same is usually clearly evident to a consultant called in to address issues standing in the way of any business growing to achieve its full potential.

The Six Critical Elements to Building a Successful Business

Creating a business is one thing, but building a successful business that attains a level of profit which represents a satisfactory return on the time and capital invested by the owners and also proves to be sustainable over many years, is a challenge that many business owners fail to overcome.

I believe that six critical elements (the Six S's) must all be effectively in play before any business can realistically become a successful business.

If one or more of these elements is not operating at an optimal level within your business you have some work to do if you want success to eventually come your way.

The Six S's are Synergy, Strategy, Structure, Systems, Substance and Sustainability.

Synergy refers to the alignment between yourself, your role as a business owner, your psychological suitability to the roles you chose to perform within the business, and the actual nature of the business you choose to be involved in.

Strategy refers to the key decisions you make now, as to the future directions you wish your business to take, to get to where you want to be, at a certain point in the future. It is the foundation of all that follows. It also needs to be reviewed and adjusted as circumstances change.

Structure refers to the framework around which you will build your business. It provides the bones around which you will add meat as your business grows. A sound structure holds everything together, and is greater than the sum of its parts.

Systems refer to standardised operations designed to guide the way, light the path, simplify complexity, provide leverage, and ensure consist application of procedures and processes throughout the business. Good systems prevent systemic failure and reduce the overall costs of doing business, hence increasing profitability.

Substance refers to the quality of physical assets, the level of intellectual property present, the working capital available, and the capability of the human resources deployed, or available, to service the growth needs of the business.

Sustainability refers to the longer term ability of the business to continually re-invent itself, remain relevant to its markets, remain profitable, and continuously improve its reputation as a good corporate citizen.

How does your business stack up? Could you be more successful? What more do you need to do?

Opportunity for meeting SME Online needs.

This blog is based on personal experience over the last three weeks. It may provide an eye opener for those who are technically savy and can't for the life of themselves understand why any SME business would resist fully embracing the internet age.

Having taken my own business online over the last three weeks, I now understand more clearly why many SME businesses do not fully embrace the internet and take advantage of all that it offers to them as business owners.

I found that the work involved for anyone who wants to do it themselves is quite considerable, and that is only what is necessary to establish a low level base for a future bells and whistles platform, once sufficient experience in the online business environment is obtained and the funds are available to go down that path.

The work included, but was not limited to, purchasing a domain name, building a complete website, setting up e-mail accounts in the new domain, constructing a comprehensive profile on LinkedIn, signing up for Skype and configuring that system to operate in a personal computing environment, incorporating all Skype add-ons, signing up for a blogging service and setting it up to operate in conjunction with the website, taking and incorporating digital photographs into the website, Skype and LinkedIn, sourcing an online design company to design a company logo for the website and for other electronic forums and then incorporating same where required, selecting and configuring an on-line CRM package, selecting and configuring an e-mail marketing package, and creating a newletter template.

The hours allocated to the tasks listed exceeded three full working weeks and there are still a few small corrections and tweeks which need to be made to finalise the first stage of getting our consultancy business online.

The $ cost involved was minimal, less than $500.00 all up, but without 20 years of computing experience, and significant exposure to online business through other activities, it would not have been possible without calling in specialists to do most if not all of the work.

I would hazard a guess that the cost for a SME business owner to outsource all of the necessary work would see a cost of at least 10 times and up to 20 times what I incurred being charged for all of the work involved.

Having to project managing the exercise would also cause a lot of hassle for the business owner and it would be unlikely that the same result could be achieved within three weeks from first deciding to take a business online if most of the work was outsourced.

Understanding just how busy most business owners are on a daily basis, and how tight cash flow can be especially in difficult economic conditions, I now have a clear understanding of why so many SME businesses have not embraced technologies which we all know they should be embracing.

Perhaps their exists a great opportunity for an IT company to put all of the required elements in one box, include clear instructions, and get it out into the market at a price which would encourage a high volume uptake of the offering.