When I ask prospective clients to tell me about their companies, one of the most common responses I hear from integrators is: “We’ve been hovering around $6M in annual revenue for the last several years and can’t seem to get past it. We’re stuck.” Although this is a common issue, the solution is uncommon.
We’ve learned there are two early-stage sticking points in a security integrator’s evolution. One is about the $2M - $3M mark, and the second is at about the $5M - $7M mark. While the first sticking point is usually caused by their owner reaching his capacity for growing the business as the main (or only) sales person, the larger group requires a more complex analysis. When working with the $5M - $7M companies, I typically find a sales team of five to eight people with a part time sales leader who either has an individual quota or other leadership responsibilities. The sales people are working long hours, but not finding new business. It’s like running on a treadmill … they’re working but not going anywhere. When choosing between hunting for new business and taking care of current customers, they almost always choose the latter, and at the end of the year they find themselves in the same spot they were last year.
So, how do we help? First, we analyze everything possible in the organization – not just the sales team. I interview everyone – service, operations, estimators, technicians, and of course the sales people. I want to uncover the activity of the sales people and understand what they’re doing. I let my visit fester a few days to understand the culture of the business (whatever I prescribe needs to fit into their culture or it won’t be implemented).
We then lay out a schedule of initiatives to build and implement over the next several months. Some common examples are: improving the sales hand-off process to reduce time the sales people spend on post-sales activity, modifying the CRM process to manage specific new accounts, or delivering sales training on winning new customers.
Finally, I work with the team to build and implement the improvements – coaching and holding the team accountable to our strategic initiatives. Without an external resource, most organizations will ignore the strategic initiatives and only spend time on the urgent fires.
If you’re interested in how we can help your group get unstuck, please click here.
