I am amazed by reading people’s opinions on finance, business, economy, and management. We should do this; they shouldn’t have done that; why don’t collaborators get a better share of the pie?; why can’t we force companies to do that?; why don’t they produce ecological products?; why did they sell to a foreign company?; why can’t we insource the production of semiconductors? Etc.
I am amazed by the lack of financial and business common sense, by the poor understanding of how a company operates, by off-the-ground ideas. Obviously, depending on the number of roles/ experiences someone had, their view of the business world largely varies.
A marketing guy may think that sales reps don’t do their job, the finance team may not understand why we can’t add a product feature in one week, a personal assistant may have an emotional view of company events.
Nothing out of the ordinary here, we are all influenced by our context, and few have a holistic view of the complexity a company operates in.
Still, there is a concept that everybody should be able to understand:
You only make money because CUSTOMERS are buying from you.
A company doesn’t make money because of:
a great product
a great team
a great vision
a great execution
a great purpose
great founders
great values
great ethos
great investors
Sure, all those ingredients are crucial, but a company only makes money by serving its CUSTOMERS.
I write CUSTOMERS in capital letters; the word is so often forgotten that it needs a highlight.
I remember a senior Gartner analyst (was it Michael Maoz?) saying that you can evaluate a company’s customer-centricity based on the number of times the word CUSTOMER appears in the CEO forewords in their annual report.
You’d be surprised at the number of blue chips that don’t pass the test, aka no occurrence of the word.
Many employees think they are serving their organization; many founders think they are serving their mission; many executives think they are serving their shareholders. Still, the reality is that nothing is possible without serving CUSTOMERS first.
CUSTOMERS bring real money to the company; they produce the revenue needed to accomplish our goals.
Few employees link their monthly salary, and the number of CUSTOMERS served. Still, without enough CUSTOMERS, salaries will be paid for a limited period…
It is absolutely key for start-up founders to define their Ideal CUSTOMER Profile (ICP) as soon as possible. The product or service they will develop must be designed for that persona. They need to validate their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) with their ideal CUSTOMERS.
I am in sympathy with founders endeavoring to build a better world! However, I wish they can find CUSTOMERS that will pay for whatever they create in that goal…
What about your sales team?
A side effect of the deficiency of customer focus is the lack of sales culture within organizations. Many CEOs don’t have a sales background, investors neither. Who their customers are and what they are trying to accomplish is a mystery. The number of times executives meet with CUSTOMERS decreases as their salary increases. (No wonder your customer experience sucks.)
As a business angel, it is frequent to see new companies hire many communication, marketing, and engineering profiles but no sales team. It is also common to see founders who don’t have any sales skills think they can sell and forget to partner with a sales veteran.
When you are aware that CUSTOMERS are the essence of your company, then you can invest in a sales team, a customer success team, and a customer service team.
As the saying goes, “An idea is nothing without proper execution.” I would concur with that and add: “Execution is nothing without sales efficiency.”
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Next time you write about a business, please don’t forget to tell us about CUSTOMERS!