Business: Leadership to Grow the Business

Businesses will not hire more employees until they see more demand for the things that they sell.  Consumers--the biggest part of the US economy--will not spend more until they are more confident in their employment and financial security.

Which comes first:  the chicken or the egg?

This is a column about capitalism, free enterprise and business.  So let's look at a business idea that for most of the last sixty years has been considered mundane; today it might almost seem bold.

Here's the idea:  businesses should try a little harder to sell something, instead of waiting for somebody to come in and buy.  Business leaders:  go hire another sales person, and do something professional to help your sales team be more successful so that your business grows and it, too, becomes more successful.

Business exists to make a profit.  That is a "given."  However, selling is the one business activity that can most directly pay for itself, and that is also a "given."

During my selling career one of the professional foundations of the job, and one of the key leadership themes of the business, was to not wait for the customer to ask to buy; instead, it was to have us sales professionals reach out to the customer and learn what they would need to make them more successful, and then figure out what to sell in order to meet that need, and finally make the offer and close the sale.

And that is a short, simple description of something that is very complicated.

There is no "one size fits all" solution to accomplishing this, but many enterprises--especially the small and medium sized ones--can benefit from some guidance on how to most effectively hire additional sales people, and on how to get the most out of the salespeople who are representing the company.