Do you give trust or do you build trust?
The answer is clearly yes.
Trust is something you have to give and that needs building and strengthening day after day.
And for both aspects of trust you need actions, not words.
Tag: sales
Your own thing
It is no longer enough to be able to do your own thing.
Writing a blog post, setting up a campaign, giving an inspirational presentation, writing sequences that sell, hosting an insightful podcast. 99% of us can no longer thrive off of only mastering one of those things.
The two things we need to add to the picture are:
- Doing your own thing at scale – e.g., coordinating the writing and distribution of 100 blog post in one year.
- Doing your own thing in a way that serves other people that work with you – e.g., coordinating the writing and distribution of a series of blog posts that present the product uniquely and faithfully, while at the same time increases the win rate of prospects in a customer segment.
Art is for the 1%.
For the rest of us, it’s business.
A different metric
When you measure leads, all you are going to get is leads.
And there might be some very good reasons why you measure leads. You might know that a given amount of leads will translate into a given amount of deals. You might know that one lead has a monetary value attached to it. You might know that people feel motivated in trying to get more leads. You might have evidence and proof of these and many other things. But when you measure leads, all you are going to get is leads.
So, what happens when the team that sits in the other room, the team that gets leads as an input and needs to transform that into deals, cannot complete that transformation reliably and consistently?
Well, of course they are going to say that the leads are not good, that they are not quality leads.
And that’s exactly how the relationship between marketing, sales development, sales, and sometimes customer success, works in most B2B companies. There’s always somebody, further down the funnel, that complains because the quality of what they get is not good enough.
Because when you measure leads, all you are going to get is leads.
Quality needs a different metric.
Too detailed
Check the specifics and stress over the big picture.
Too often we instead stress over the specifics and don’t even pay attention to the big picture.
One example: check business metrics weekly, even daily, and do it in a way that informs the steps to take next week, next month, not today. Report business metrics quarterly, and do it in a way that links them to a clear, overarching business strategy. Stress only if the quarterly numbers consistently miss the mark, and do it in a way that informs a new strategy.
Risk and reward
Some people do good work. Some people do poor work. Most people do average work.
And the reasons for that are two: risk aversion and reward seeking.
To do good work, you need to be able to deviate from the norm, find new ways, expand the possibilities. In most organizations, this is a risk, and most people prefer not to take it.
To do good work, you also need to be rewarded and recognized for both the success and the failure. In most organizations, average gets rewarded, and most people adapt.
If you are designing how your team will work, keep in mind risk aversion and reward seeking. And remember that if you do what everybody else is used to do, you (and your team) will probably fall in the middle.
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