When we think of growth, we often think of increasing revenue or profit or throughput or quality. Those things are all critical, but they're what I think of as end-game goals. And usually, they're tough to grow directly. Here's what I mean:
If you want to increase sales, what has to happen? Could be you need more leads, so perhaps you need better prospecting processes. Could be you're wasting too much time on prospects that never convert to sales, so maybe your sales folks need some training on qualification. Could be you're missing sales because your inventory levels are too low and you can't deliver within the customer's time frame.
A lot of factors could be holding sales back. So, increasing sales isn't a matter of pep talks or making more calls or working harder (necessarily), it's a matter of growing the knowledge and skills of your people. It's about improving the processes that make it possible for you to make sales. It's about understanding and addressing the core competencies that provide the foundation for your business.
Most everything you want to grow has a number of moving parts. As you rebuild and polish each of those parts (and each of your people) the machine works better. It's not easy. It requires hard work, robust dialogue and a willingness to cop to the truth.
