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By Mike Schultz Question: On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being "always" and 5 being "never", how often do you stick to project schedules and keep commitments you make to clients? I'm guessing that most of you would give yourself a 1 (or a 2). Of course you make commitments and keep them. What kind of professional would you be if you didn't? (I don't know about you, but many a service provider has made commitments to me and not kept them. A topic for another time...) Next question: On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being "not challenging at all" and 5 being "extremely challenging," how challenging is it for you to implement your lead generation plans that you put in place at your own company (even when all of the stakeholders at the company agree on the plan)? Here at the Wellesley Hills Group and RainToday.com, we asked over 800 leaders at professional service businesses the same question as a part of our upcoming research report The Future of Lead Generation. I was perusing the preliminary results (they're not completely in yet), and 76% of the respondents said they found implementing their own lead generation plans "somewhat" to "extremely challenging" even when they agree internally on the plans. Since service providers by and large deliver on commitments they make to clients, I believe service providers can, in general, execute. Yet when it comes to sustained lead generation, as Larry the Cable Guy might say, service businesses just don't Git-R-Done. Service providers keep commitments they make with clients. They just don't keep commitments they make with themselves. The question is, "Why?" In Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan suggest that the keys to execution at companies are based partially on a number of "Essential Behaviors" of leaders. I couldn't help but think of how these leader behaviors influence the (in)ability of service businesses to execute on their own marketing and lead generation plans. Behavior 1: Know your people and your business. "Leaders have to live in their business. In companies that don't execute, the leaders are usually out of touch with the day to day realities."
In most service businesses, leaders are in touch with the daily realities…of their client projects and their internal staffing. What they're often out of touch with is 1) how the competitive landscape of their own industries has changed, and 2) how the buying cycle at client businesses has changed and, 3) how their own marketing and lead generation activities need to change if they want to grow and stay competitive.
A lot of service business leaders feel pressure – from their competitors, their shrinking revenue and margins, from internal staff, from increasing commoditization in their industry – to "do more marketing and lead generation." Unfortunately, they too often take the easy ways out: - Throwing money at advertising and graphic design
- "Redoing" their websites just for the sake of changing the look
- Delegating billable staff who are currently not-so-billable to drum up some business
- A host of other "maybe if I do this the problem will go away" tactics
Those service business leaders that get in touch with what they need to do for lead generation (and, thankfully, there seem to be more and more of them) that will actually help them grow their revenue are making serious headway. Still, there are too many service firms that aren't executing because they're out of touch with the reality of what they need to do for lead generation and why they need to do it. Thus the lukewarm efforts at executing their own plans. Behavior 2: Insist on realism - “Realism is the heart of execution, but many organizations are full of people who are trying to avoid or shade reality”.
Guard 1: “What?! A swallow, carryin' a coconut?!"
Arthur: “It could grip it by the husk!"
Guard 1: “It's not a question of where he grips it, it's a simple question of weight ratios! A five-ounce bird could not carry a one-pound coconut!"
As this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail continues, the guard proceeds to tell Arthur that to maintain air speed velocity, a swallow has to beat its wings 43 times per second. Arthur's response: “I'm not interested.”
Service business leaders who are interested in realistic marketing and lead generation activities, budgets, and implementation plans get them done. When I work with clients to help them build their plans, I'm often presented with the plan from the last year...and the year before...and the year before. The company leaders describe them as "aggressive" when, in reality, they're castles in the air. No sufficient budget. Ill conceived staffing. Unrealistic timeframes. Behavior 3: Set clear goals and priorities –“Leaders who execute focus on very few clear priorities that everyone can grasp.”
One of the reasons many marketing and lead generation plans are not implemented is that they have too many priorities. When plans have too many priorities, they have no priorities.
In terms of goal setting, one company might plan to spend $350k to "get our name out there" in advertising (a weak goal with little ROI). Another might be, "we'll hire a big-gun business developer and after they ramp up for a quarter they'll sell $2 million in new business" (sounds great...not happening...castle in the air). Behavior 4: Follow through –“Clear, simple goals don't mean much if nobody takes them seriously. The failure to follow through is widespread in business, and a major cause of poor execution.”
"But I got billable and couldn't do that."
"Well, I didn't make those calls because I got busy." (Note: this is what people will say when they don't make business development calls. It's often an excuse.)
"Sorry, I just didn't do that. On to other things."
"Because I got caught up in all the leaders' requests for help with proposals, I didn't get the white paper project done."
If you want people to take your marketing and lead generation plans seriously, there have to be both incentives for taking action and consequences for not taking action. - People in organizations take on the behavioral traits of the leaders. If the leaders take anything, lead generation included, seriously, then the rest of the team will. Leaders at service companies take new thinking and new ideas seriously. They take client projects and client service seriously. They take selling deals that are in their pipelines seriously. Note to leaders: take lead generation seriously. Marketing and lead generation is often the-red-headed step child, pining for, but not getting, the attention they need.
- If you want people to follow plans and hit goals, put some teeth in the consequences for not delivering. When it comes time to tell people which way the bus is going, let them know that they’re either on the bus or they’re not. When team members don't deliver on their part of a client project assignment, they get unpleasant visits from management pretty quickly. Can you say the same when it comes to following through on your lead generation commitments?
Behavior 5: Reward the doers – “If you want people to produce specific results, you reward them accordingly” Simple as it might sound, the flipside of the previous point is rewarding people who Git-R-Done. You'll find treatise after treatise on how to reward successful and productive staff members. Find them. Read them. Reward loudly. If you do, the rewards for your business will be energy, passion, and growth. If not, well, there's always next year. |