Hard to believe that I’ve had my own company for 9 years now. As I’ve been contemplating my future direction, I found my mind wandering back through the years reflecting on the good, bad and the ugly of being an entrepreneur. Clearly, the good outweighs any of the challenges or I wouldn’t still be doing it today, but boy oh boy, the mistakes that I’ve made.

Are you paying attention to your numbers?

No, I don’t mean your sales numbers, although those are very important. I mean, are you paying attention to things like cash flow and profitability? If you were like me, you don’t pay much attention to the financial segment of your company.  You never learned about balance sheets and profit and loss statements.  Financial statements rarely, if ever get produced.  If there was enough money in the business checking account to pay the bills you are happy.  Your accountant?  You use him for taxes once per year.  Sometimes you are shocked that you owe the IRS a lot of money.

I certainly have a lot of business strengths, but people, accounting and finance are not two of them. As a result, I learned a lot of painful financial lessons over the years.  These days, I do pay attention to the financial side of my company.  Though I will never be a financial management wizard, I’ve discovered that minding your numbers is actually not hard once you understand the simple terms.

Meet Ruth King.

All of us have blind spots when it comes to our businesses. For some, it might be sales or operations. In my case, its finances. For the last several years, I’ve committed myself to learning because even though I will never be naturally gifted in the finance department that is no excuse for not knowing what is going on. I’d like to introduce you to my coach and teacher Ruth King, who is the creator of the website, www.TurnOnMyFinancialLightbulb.com, small business self-help financial coaching.

At Ruth’s site, you can learn about the importance of balance sheets,  profit and loss statements, cashflow, breakeven, pricing, and all of the financial things you need to learn to have a successful business.  Ruth explains this information in plain English, not in accounting gobblygook:

Hundreds of small business owners have taken this course to rave reviews like:

“I’ve been through other financial classes.  With yours I really got it for the first time.  The light bulb finally went off.”

 ”I normally don’t get jazzed about this stuff but I’m jazzed.”

 “I just wanted to drop you a line and thank you.  It is the best money I ever spent.  I now understand  how to read my financial statements and what the  income statement and balance sheet mean. Funny when you buy QuickBooks no one really  explains things the way you do.”

Ruth really knows how to explain accounting terminology in English so that you “get it.”  You take it when it is convenient for you.  And, Ruth even reviews your course homework to make sure you “get it.”

Take the quiz on the home page – I did. You can immediately see whether this course is for you. When you enter EV12578 in the promo code, you receive a $100 discount on the course tuition.  This is a “Thank you” from me to you.  It just might be the right thing to help you.

In the spirit of full disclosure…

I believe so passionately in the good work that Ruth is doing to help business owners improve their financial acumen that I signed on as a referral partner. As peeps from my network sign up for Ruth’s program, I’ll earn a little residual income also. Though I’m earning a little income from the referral, please know that Ruth really knows her stuff…I wouldn’t recommend her otherwise no matter what the referral fee!

In a forum on Focus, the question was asked, “Why don’t more sales organizations invest in sales training courses?”  It is the million dollar question and one that I’m sure has been asked countless times before.

In a nutshell, my thoughts are…

Whatever is going south in your sales organization today will not be resolved with a short-term emphasis on training.

Revenue in steep decline won’t be back on track with a day’s worth of training. Mediocre sales reps will not magically become superstars.

If you want to change your sales situation, you need to start with taking a hard look at what’s really going wrong in your business. Do you have the right people with the right skills (uh, that includes management)? Do you have the right processes in place? Is your messaging clear? Having you been evolving with today’s Internet savvy executive or do you keep hoping that what used to work will work once again?

Until companies are really willing to ask the tough questions, throwing money at training really makes no sense at all.

While I certainly don’t have all the answers, I do have 6 thoughts on what can be done to better leverage the investment made in a training program:

1. View sales development programs as a process NOT an event. At a prior company, we were given lots of great training, but the programs were all different. That meant that none of the methodology was carried forward over the long haul. I’ve been through Solution Selling, SPIN Selling, Precision Questioning, Situational Leadership, Covey’s 7 Habits, ropes courses, coaching programs – you name it. They were great, but they’ve weren’t tied together and they were not aligned with our sales goals and strategies.
2. Stop forcing your salespeople to drink from a fire hose. Yes, it is important to minimize the time that a sales person is out of the field, but stop trying to cram what amounts to a week’s worth of information into a half-day or full-day program. In today’s wired world, there are infinitely more ways to deliver training programs and not all of them need to be face-to-face.
3. Build accountability into the learning process. The physical training event is only the first step. People are creatures of habit. Without reinforcement on an ongoing basis, people will revert to their old habits. People need to put what they’ve learning action; otherwise, there is no point. Accountability can be in the form of webinars, coaching or creating accountability buddies and teams. Bottom line, if you don’t plan to reinforce the learning, it will disappear in a few short weeks and you’ll be back to where you started.
4. Make sure that the content is current and fits your specific needs. Though the guts of the sales training methodology may be the same for consistency sake, whoever you’ve chosen to deliver your training program should darn well learn enough about your business to truly apply the principles to your unique situation. If they aren’t willing to do that…seek out someone else.
5. Make sure the content is sexy and the delivery appeals to different learning styles. Content must be relevant first and foremost, but what about integrating new technology into the mix. If it’s just PowerPoint…boring. I recently read a great article about a company that created sales management training that utilized the iPad during the course. The fact that an iPad was on each table when these managers walked in was enough to start the positive buzz. During the course, managers completed exercises and sent them to the instructor real-time during the program.
6. Make sure the trainer has cred and has great facilitation skills. Yes, we can learn something from everyone. On the other hand, sales people are finicky. If you have never lived life by a quota, how can you possibly tell me what to do to increase my sales? Fair or not, if you’ve never carried a bag and the audience knows it, it undermines credibility. And whatever you do, vet the facilitation skills of the person you hire. Talk to their references, ask to monitor one of their upcoming programs or request a video clip demonstrating their work. It will mean the difference between audience engagement or not.

Contrary to popular belief, I believe training programs DO work when you take a long-term view and make the financial investment to support your vision. Quick fixes do not exist. They never have and they never will!

People don’t buy WHAT you do; they buy WHY you do it.  –Simon Sinek

If you haven’t checked out Simon’s TEDx video, you have to…now. The fact that it is in the top 20 TEDx videos watched is impressive on its own, but what Simon says (couldn’t resist) may seriously challenge your thinking. It has mine.

Let me ask you something…

Can you answer the question, why do you do what you do? I don’t mean what; I don’t mean how…I mean WHY.

Why do you sell cloud computing?

Why do you sell image consulting?

Why do you sell home services like plumbing repair?

Why do you sell books at Barnes and Nobles?

Why do you sell sponsorships to conferences with a cause?

Why do you sell social media marketing?

Why do you sell hotel rooms and conference space?

Why do you sell leadership programs?

Why do you sell coaching?

Why do you sell whatever the next wiz bang technology of the future is going to be?

Get the idea?

Famous leadership and motivational guru’s too numerous to name here have all preached about what they believe inspiring others is all about. Many have complicated theories, elaborate approaches or long lists of the tenets of great leadership.  But I have to say that when I listened to Simon talk about his concept of The Golden Circle, I had a serious “ah ha” moment. The concept is elegant and simple, but don’t be fooled. The concept is quite powerful, and if you, like me, really let the magic of Simon’s words sink in, I’m betting that you can’t help but be challenged to think differently also.

What is your why?

Meet someone at a networking event and ask them about their business and it is quite likely that the answer you receive focuses on “what” the company does and “how” they do it. Pretty standard and sometimes boring approach isn’t it? What’s really that inspiring about either one? What you do is merely the proof of what you believe to be important. The how…well, that’s just the process for getting it done.

Which leads to why…

Why do you do what you do? Simon suggests that using an inside out approach produces far greater results. People buy what you believe he tells us; not as much as what is accomplished or the results delivered. When you focus on the why, you realize that your goal is not about doing business with anyone with a pulse who can buy your product or service. Instead, your goal becomes one about doing business with people who believe what you believe.

There is no way that I can do the matter justice, so I want you to go and watch the video and then….come back and tell me what you think.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4

It has begun. The relentless beating of the negativity drum that our media insists on pounding. Predictable I suppose, but none the less disappointing.