Pivoting around Chickens Rabbits and Zip Lines

Drew SchmitzSales Recruiter (Blue Octopus LLC) | SalesContingent Coach (Grow Faster LLC)… See more74 articles

Since “pivot” has been a common theme of mine the past month, I thought I would share a couple stories about personal pivoting – which is obviously a key strategy in any organization trying to make a profit.

We use the verb version of the word pivot in business to describe a rotation, turn, spin, swivel, twirl or whirl in our business strategy. You might be selling to European truck drivers in 2018 and suddenly you find there is a better market for plumbing and HVAC companies in 2019. It often doesn’t make any sense until it starts to happen to us…

PART 1: HOOPS & ZIP LINES

About four weeks ago, I was putting the finishing touches on a basketball hoop for my 14-year-old son, Jonah. It had literally taken me a YEAR to complete – the pole needed to be cemented into the ground… then I had to fill it with cement which took four additional days (when it wasn’t raining). But slowly, and surely, we were building the world’s coolest basketball hoop for my future NBA All-star (hopefully he turns out taller than me)!

The last step was attaching the glass backboard, rim and net. I was beyond bored with the process and had other backyard tasks, so I hired David, a handyman, for a 1/2 day to help finish it as well as assist me with a couple of other projects.

As they were tightening the bolts on the backboard (my son holding it, David attaching it and me running back and forth with tools), the basketball hoop’s post snapped in half and almost killed my son. Jonah walked away with a bruising scrape on his back but was otherwise, entirely intact. I have no idea what happened and had an attorney come out and take pictures; I followed every bloody step of the instructions (and I hate instructions) and even re-examined the process after-the-fact.

A week later, I asked my son, “Jonah, how about we skip the stupid hoop and I finally build that zip-line off the treehouse that I’ve been promising for years?”

“That would be pretty cool…” Time to PIVOT!

PART TWO: CHICKENS

About three weeks ago, my 12-year-old daughter, Amelie, asks me “Dad, can we get chickens?”

“Huh, what?” I asked.

“Well, we are raising chickens in science class and we can buy one for $5 and bring it home at the end of the year.”

“Cool!” I stupidly respond. “Let’s do it! Get two but make sure they are hens,” All she had to do was bring a permission slip signed by a parent to class and come up with $10.

My fiancé rolled her eyes at me as soon as I excitedly shared the news. “We’ll have to build a chicken coop…” I was already running ahead to raising chickens.

“What in the world do you know about raising chickens? What are you going to do with them in the winter? Have you Googled or researched anything?” she asked me.

“Um… it will be fun. If we don’t like them, we’ll just get rid of them at the end of the summer!”

And… so it began (we’ll finish this story after Part 3)…

PART 3: RABBITS

About 2 weeks ago, I stopped by a bar that serves up my favorite burger and the bartender overheard my fiancé and I discussing our pet rabbits (we have two “free range” bunnies that have roamed the backyard for the last 2 years and we almost never lock them in their hutch).

Kevin, the bartender, starts asking us questions leading to… “Do you want my rabbit, Winchester? I’m pretty sure he’s fixed… I got him from a lady that didn’t want him any more…”

A week later, Winchester arrives at our home. He wasn’t fixed and immediately started mating with our male and female rabbits (Jonathan & Domino).

PART 4: BACK TO THE CHICKENS…

My daughter failed to turn in the permission slip (or get me the teacher’s contact info) and so the last day of school came and went and we were chicken-less.

So, Winchester is now in the half-finished chicken coop. We have a vet friend that has fixed the other two rabbits, but she’s gone for the summer. I’m going to build a better coop and am shooting for autumn chicks… that way we can actually have adult, egg-laying hens next spring.

PIVOT! I wanted a basketball hoop and chickens this spring… but I end up with a cool, new rabbit (albeit a bit randy) PLUS I will have a zip-line by the 4th of July.

Have you considered pivoting your sales strategy of late? If you don’t, life has a way of forcing you to pivot. Ideally, you are planning ahead, and you’ll experience less chaos.

It’s time to grow faster~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

What is a Salesperson Exactly?

I was having coffee with someone last week that does online sales assessments. We started to break down what a B2B salesperson really means in 2018. I tend to oversimplify and think of salespeople as an inside or outside employee. Smaller companies tend to only have those two positions – but let’s break down the roles into individual sales skills sets (this blog will not cover the growing list of marketing & social media roles).

In an ideal situation, you have all these people on your team. If not, it’s important to think of these nine roles and who takes on these responsibilities inside your sales team. Some people can do 2-3 of these positions, but almost no one is very good at more than a couple.

1. Sales Leadership: it could be more than one role depending on the size of your organization.
2. Sales Trainer: someone in the company that teaches the product or service (and company culture) to the sales team. Typically, “how to sell” (and close) is still taught by the manager.
3. Sales Admin: they are the organizer and support for all the roles on this list.
4. Sales Channel Manager: this position focuses on managing and selling to distributors. Many companies obviously don’t need this title depending on how their product or service is sold.
5. Account Manager: I have a hard time calling this a sales position unless they are servicing and focused on account penetration (or else this is simply customer service). They typically work full time at a desk. In many companies, the inside salesperson has this responsibility.
6. Inside Salesperson: works the phone and email and converts conversations into appointments or demos. They focus on generating leads at the top of the sales funnel.
7. Technical Salesperson or Sales Engineer: they are the topic expert. In software, they do the demos and discuss content. In other technology companies, this is the Sales Engineer.
8. Outside Salesperson: someone that opens the door to a proposal stage. They work the entire sales funnel from lead to close.
9. Closer: sometimes it’s the sales leader that comes in to help close all the deals. Often it is the responsibility of the outside salesperson. Regardless, closing is a trait that many do not have and separating this role should be considered.

It starts at the top. Many companies end up promoting their best salespeople into sales leadership. I’m guessing a promotion to Sales Manager/Director/VP is successful half the time at best (unless the executives above are matching their other abilities to the position). Sometimes effective sales leaders are only average salespeople, but they understand the science of sales and how to motivate a team.

Regardless of how many different sales titles you have in your organization, it starts with the sales leader. He or she is going to have a lot of input into how these roles are divided. In an ideal scenario, they look at every individual on the sales team and place them in the right role to suit their talents.

I’m a big believer in Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept; there are 3 circles for defining what someone is best at: (a) Passion (b) Skills and (c) Money. If you are skilled and passionate about a certain area of sales, that is where you will have the most value. Understanding someone’s passion, skill set and economic engine lead to more success and less stress. These three circles help define where someone best fits into a sales team.

There are a lot of assessment tools that I use for hiring but start with the Hedgehog Concept and you have a quick litmus test of how to design your sales team.

Forward, never straight~ Drew

drew@blueoctopusllc.com

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