The question - Is every CEO an expert on Sales? came to mind when I interacted with lot of CEO's of Small and Medium organizations. Most of the CEO's of these organizations were Technology persons, had good products but all of them had the same issue - they were not able to grow their organizations.
What was the reason? In my opinion the problem was that the CEO was not able to move him away from Sales Supervisory Role. All of them (as entrepreneurs) had build the organizations by themselves acquiring the business in the initial days. Although they were technology person but due to sheer passion, unique products, relationship, chance were able to get some business when they started. This initial success gave them confidence (over confidence) that they will be able to scale the business further.
As the business started to move forward and some transactions started happening, the CEO started getting the stress of sales with regular responsibilities. The deliveries started getting delayed, product improvements went on to a hold and customers were left helpless. The CEO who should have hired experts for critical areas was left like a lone General fighting the war himself while the soldiers looking on. In some cases he may have hired an expert on HR, Quality, Finance, Logistics even Technology but not sales.
Why is it so? Is it because we feel Sales is easy? Have a wonderful product and Sales will follow........ The answer to the question remains unanswered......
I feel following could be the reasons :
1. Everybody has some Sales in him : One probable reason could be that everybody feels sales is easy job and I could do it on my own. We have been selling some idea to our parents as kids, to girlfriend when teenager and so on.
2. Trust : Feeling that somebody will not be able to do justice to the product / service.
3. Confidence in Product / Service : Some of the CEO's I met asked me - Do you feel our product / service has a big potential ? After few years of launch the confidence of the CEO / Owner starts shaking. He is not ready to accept gaps in the product / service, market potential, approach etc.
4. Experiment - After facing many failures he is not ready to experiment any new idea, approach, strategy saying last one did not work and mark my words this will also not work.
5. Patience - I read some where it needs more than 10,000 hours to become an expert. Rome was not built in a day and same way is for your organization also.
6. Luck - I was traveling to overseas with a CEO few years back and asked him - What do you feel makes people successful. He said - 90% of the people who are successful are lucky. I asked - Balance 10%? He said - they are more lucky !!
I do not agree totally but yes some amount of luck needs to be your side to be lucky ... oh successful.
Saarthee Infoserve (www.saartheeinfoserve.com) is a sales and strategy consulting organization serving Entrepreneur’s, SME’s & Enterprises in India. We help implement proven methodologies in organizational ecosystem to maximize their sales productivity and effectiveness to create a high performance organization.
What was the reason? In my opinion the problem was that the CEO was not able to move him away from Sales Supervisory Role. All of them (as entrepreneurs) had build the organizations by themselves acquiring the business in the initial days. Although they were technology person but due to sheer passion, unique products, relationship, chance were able to get some business when they started. This initial success gave them confidence (over confidence) that they will be able to scale the business further.
As the business started to move forward and some transactions started happening, the CEO started getting the stress of sales with regular responsibilities. The deliveries started getting delayed, product improvements went on to a hold and customers were left helpless. The CEO who should have hired experts for critical areas was left like a lone General fighting the war himself while the soldiers looking on. In some cases he may have hired an expert on HR, Quality, Finance, Logistics even Technology but not sales.
Why is it so? Is it because we feel Sales is easy? Have a wonderful product and Sales will follow........ The answer to the question remains unanswered......
I feel following could be the reasons :
1. Everybody has some Sales in him : One probable reason could be that everybody feels sales is easy job and I could do it on my own. We have been selling some idea to our parents as kids, to girlfriend when teenager and so on.
2. Trust : Feeling that somebody will not be able to do justice to the product / service.
3. Confidence in Product / Service : Some of the CEO's I met asked me - Do you feel our product / service has a big potential ? After few years of launch the confidence of the CEO / Owner starts shaking. He is not ready to accept gaps in the product / service, market potential, approach etc.
4. Experiment - After facing many failures he is not ready to experiment any new idea, approach, strategy saying last one did not work and mark my words this will also not work.
5. Patience - I read some where it needs more than 10,000 hours to become an expert. Rome was not built in a day and same way is for your organization also.
6. Luck - I was traveling to overseas with a CEO few years back and asked him - What do you feel makes people successful. He said - 90% of the people who are successful are lucky. I asked - Balance 10%? He said - they are more lucky !!
I do not agree totally but yes some amount of luck needs to be your side to be lucky ... oh successful.
Saarthee Infoserve (www.saartheeinfoserve.com) is a sales and strategy consulting organization serving Entrepreneur’s, SME’s & Enterprises in India. We help implement proven methodologies in organizational ecosystem to maximize their sales productivity and effectiveness to create a high performance organization.
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