A few weeks back I was in a meeting with a large multi-national company for a client and one of the first things the main contact at the multi-national said, and I am paraphrasing is “our entire business is based on the sales of goods, not production, not supply chain, not technology…if we don’t sell goods, we don’t have a business”.  I have to tell you all reading this that, finally, someone gets it!!!!!

Without sales, without revenue, there is no business.   Our website states “In the absence of revenue there can be no profit”.   What else is there to say.   I have been to business school, I have done my Executive MBA, and it seems to me that most people focus on what to do with the money, once you have it, not how to get or where to get it from and I don’t mean raising money in this case.  I mean getting money the old fashioned way, selling something people want and are willing to pay for.

Sales seems to be often overlooked in companies and is also one of those jobs that everyone feels is relatively easy and they could do themselves.  The reality of its, sales is not rocket science, but it takes a plan, a process, an ability to listen to client need and business pain, the positioning of your product or service to meet that need and then a whole lot of follow up and perseverance.   

We often find a lot of small companies we work with focus too intensely on R&D for too long and don’t focus on sales and then run out of runway.  Other companies rely too heavily on channel partners to sell their goods and when the sales don’t materialize quickly aren’t sure why.  End of the day, whether you are developing software or creating a “green” technology, you need to keep in mind early on who will buy this, why will they buy it, how much will they pay for it and how am I going to sell it.  These questions although simple, are pretty hard to solve and will take in many cases repeated efforts to get it right.  What I am trying to say here is …think with the end in mind, the end in this case being revenues and sales.  For without them you have no business.   Also, if you are reading this and you find yourself in need of some sales assistance, give us a call.  We would welcome the chance to see if we can help.