Don't Forget To Write Business

Way back in the early 90s, a fella who’d given me my first ever formal sales training session, Welsh wonder Wynn Rees, called me up once I’d started a new job searching for a lead.  At the end of the conversation he made sure I didn’t lose fact of one thing; “don’t forget to write business” he said.

His point was there are several distractions, it’s easy to take your eye of the sales ball.

I was reminded of this today by two experiences.  The first was a juicy comment I really liked from a guy that founded a search engine marketing company ten years ago (pre-dating Googling by over 2 years) called David White.  An engaging marketeer, he said he’d grown differently compared to his competitors, as he’d put his “focus on winning clients, not funding”.  He’d avoided the distractions.

Then another company I know of I heard went into administration this week; business intelligence software provider Vecta.  When I knew them well, they had about 15 people selling around 2.5 million.  Nowadays apparently they do a touch more (3m ish) yet with 54 employees.  That doesn’t make sense obviously.  They seem to have spent the past few years constantly sorting out funding.

The message of these stories is stark, and one I often remind my guys of, that a sales person should focus on selling.