Explain Your Process
Explain Your Process
Smaller businesses are different to big businesses, in two ways. Each has something to learn from the other.
Big businesses tend to be organized into functions and departments.
This type of structure dates back to the military model developed by the Romans. It was the easiest way for the generals to direct operations. They'd call meetings with the Colonels, who'd call meetings with their Majors, who'd call meetings with their Captains who'd tell the troops what to do.
Of course these guys didn't have computers and DSL lines, so the command structure was the only way of keeping the army going forward.
During the Industrial Revolution the owners didn't have computers either. Adopting the same type of command structure was the only way of directing what the guys using the machines did.
Information technology has moved on to offer many alternative communication models, but big businesses haven't. They're still using the 2,000 year old concept of command structure.
Smaller businesses don't have the same sense of departments, functions and responsibilities. Everybody does a little of everything. They're able to communicate more easily, and they don't want the cost and complexity associated with demarcation of responsibilities.
The bigger businesses can learn from their smaller counterparts how to use communication rather than control to direct organizations. (Management consultants have been telling them this for at least twenty years).
On the other side of the coin big businesses can teach their smaller counterparts about "process". For the same twenty years the large businesses, rather than address the command structure, have focused on the flow of work, and information, between their departmental silos. They now understand very well how to make their "process" work and remove inefficiencies.
Big businesses, like the smaller guys, should focus on removing the cost of middle management, assigning responsibility to the people who do the work and communication.
Smaller businesses should focus on their process - from "first call" to "cash".
This needs to be a single process (because there are no departments for sales, order processing, delivery and cash collection). Everybody does a little of everything.
Understanding the "first call" to "cash" process, and managing it, will help smaller businesses achieve the double win of more, and more satisfied, customers.
Customers (or clients if you prefer) don't want to talk to sales, then delivery, then service.
They just want what they want.
Businesses that can persuade customers of their ability to "deliver" what they want will make more sales, more easily, at lower cost, at better prices.
The best way for smaller businesses to persuade customers of that capability is to have a single, integrated, "first call" to "cash" process, and be able to explain it.
Explain Your Process - To learn more about this author, visit Steven Reeves's Website.
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"I'm not interested in your sales pitch. Tell me how you're going to deliver what I want."
Smaller businesses are different to big businesses, in two ways. Each has something to learn from the other.
Big businesses tend to be organized into functions and departments.
This type of structure dates back to the military model developed by the Romans. It was the easiest way for the generals to direct operations. They'd call meetings with the Colonels, who'd call meetings with their Majors, who'd call meetings with their Captains who'd tell the troops what to do.
Of course these guys didn't have computers and DSL lines, so the command structure was the only way of keeping the army going forward.
During the Industrial Revolution the owners didn't have computers either. Adopting the same type of command structure was the only way of directing what the guys using the machines did.
Information technology has moved on to offer many alternative communication models, but big businesses haven't. They're still using the 2,000 year old concept of command structure.
Smaller businesses don't have the same sense of departments, functions and responsibilities. Everybody does a little of everything. They're able to communicate more easily, and they don't want the cost and complexity associated with demarcation of responsibilities.
The bigger businesses can learn from their smaller counterparts how to use communication rather than control to direct organizations. (Management consultants have been telling them this for at least twenty years).
On the other side of the coin big businesses can teach their smaller counterparts about "process". For the same twenty years the large businesses, rather than address the command structure, have focused on the flow of work, and information, between their departmental silos. They now understand very well how to make their "process" work and remove inefficiencies.
Big businesses, like the smaller guys, should focus on removing the cost of middle management, assigning responsibility to the people who do the work and communication.
Smaller businesses should focus on their process - from "first call" to "cash".
This needs to be a single process (because there are no departments for sales, order processing, delivery and cash collection). Everybody does a little of everything.
Understanding the "first call" to "cash" process, and managing it, will help smaller businesses achieve the double win of more, and more satisfied, customers.
Customers (or clients if you prefer) don't want to talk to sales, then delivery, then service.
They just want what they want.
Businesses that can persuade customers of their ability to "deliver" what they want will make more sales, more easily, at lower cost, at better prices.
The best way for smaller businesses to persuade customers of that capability is to have a single, integrated, "first call" to "cash" process, and be able to explain it.
Explain Your Process - To learn more about this author, visit Steven Reeves's Website.
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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