I recently watched an episode of The Profit. This show on CNBC features Marcus Lemonis—a successful entrepreneur and business builder—who attempts to help struggling businesses. The interesting thing about this show is the businesses featured on The Profit request Marcus’s help and guidance. More interesting is the fact many choose to ignore his advice even though he has a track record of success and their organizations are on the brink of collapse!
The Profit’s Approach
Lemonis evaluates each business on their performance in three critical areas:
People
Product
Process
Here are some questions to consider about each if you would like to take The Profit's approach to improving performance:
People:
- Do you use a statistically reliable assessment when hiring?
- How do you evaluate the performance of your people?
- What process do you follow to deal with people who do not produce?
- When was the last time someone was terminated or reassigned to another position because of a performance issue?
Product:
- Do you know the profit margins and profit contribution levels of each of your products and services?
- Do you know the product or products that produce the majority of profit?
- How do you develop new products?
- What is the success rate of new products developed by your organization?
- Will your core products be viable three years from today?
Process:
- Do you have a clearly defined process for each of the following:
- Lead generation?
- Sales?
- Fulfillment?
- Innovation?
- Receivables?
- Recruitment, selection and onboarding?
- How do you evaluate the processes used in your organization?
- What KPIs do you use to measure performance?
- How often are KPIs reviewed?
- How often do you tweak your processes based on KPIs?
Why do Failing Organizations Ignore Sound Business Advice?
From time to time I feel Marcus’ pain when it comes to dealing with customers who need help… ask for help… pay for help, yet refuse to listen to sound advice and make the necessary changes to improve performance. Here are some reasons failing organizations ignore advice designed to help them survive:
- New systems and processes scare people.
- Change often appears to look a lot like work and some folks don’t like to work.
- Terminating unproductive people is not part of the company culture.
- Recruitment and selection systems do not exist to replace unproductive people.
- Ego.
- Analysis paralysis.
- Some clients think they are smarter than everyone else.
- Some organizations are destined to fail.
What to do if a Failing Client Will Not Take Your Advice
Nothing is more frustrating to me as a B2B sales consultant than watching a customer fail as a result of not utilizing solid advice and sales consultant resource.
Here are some tips you can use when faced with this dilemma:
- An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Ask prospects about their willingness to change as you are evaluating them early on in your relationship. Ask them to tell you about the most significant change their organization has ever undertaken. If they can’t think of any… consultant beware!
- Set up specific expectations and KPIs with the customer before you agree to work with them.
- Conduct a progress meeting six months into the relationship to review KPIs. If the client is not buying in at this point, be sure to address the reason and create a written plan to modify behavior.
- Modify your initial plan to see if this improves engagement.
- Let them know you are comfortable with terminating the relationship/contract if engagement does not improve.
- Be like Marcus and walk away from the relationship if the behavior does not change. This action requires you to release the customer from any contract they might have with your firm.
B2B Sales Training Tip
Developing a valid business reason to set more appointments makes a great deal of sense. To learn how to develop better valid business reasons download the Using Better VBRs sales meeting kit to master a step-by-step process used by world-class salespeople.
This kit includes:
- The Using Better VBRs sales meeting kit leaders guide—a script and all the information needed to run this sales training workshop
- The Valid Business Reason overview and examples handout
- The Valid Business Reason worksheet handout
Do you know other B2B sales consultants or trainers who might be interested in this sales meeting kit or other resources for consultants? If so, please share this post.
