Hey guys,
Waking up this morning was a struggle – I guess I’m not sleeping as well as I would like.
Ah well – we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Anyway, I’m reading ‘Tribe of Mentors’ at the moment by Tim Ferriss and someone in their said that a favourite quote of theirs that they’d see upon a billboard is:
The question shouldn’t be ‘how hard can you work?’ but rather ‘are you working on the right game?’.
That has given me pause to think about this question.
My real struggle is building out the Lead Generation and Sales team. Getting them to the calibre that I need to be is proving to be a real struggle at the moment.
And it does make you wonder – that even if I did make it work excellently – would the rewards that comes be worthy of the journey to get there?
So with this in mind let’s break it down a little:
Pearl Lemon Leads is an EXTREMELY person intensive business. It’s about making sales calls and ultimately being on the phone and closing appointments.
That means to scale it you need more people. And then you need those people to consistently perform.
And finding the combination of talented people who you think can consistently perform when cold calling….is exceptionally hard.
As my head of new business was pointing out to me – finding great people on the phone is SUCH a hard thing to find….as I’m being reminded.
So then let’s say I succeed in building a team that performs…
Will it be worth it?
I mean I’ve been trying to do this now for the last 2-3 years and it seems like we’re still no closer to building out the team to the level that I want.
However….
Here I still am determined to make it work.
[convertful id=”197358″]
Why?
Well….in spite of the limitations that come with scaling such a company…I guess I feel that I’m still doing my apprenticeship in a way with these challenges.
I’m figuring out how to hire and build a team. I’m considering getting an office in Cairo as well the Philippines to help service this.
I want to briefly talk about why those countries (I’m likely going to build an office in Fulham, London as well) –
Cairo is where my best sales guy currently lives – so having him build a team around him seems sensible. And of course, the labour market is cheaper there – so I’ve commissioned getting an office for 3-months to see how it goes.
Then in the Philippines, I’ve recently taken on a new lady – Krystel who I think is really committed to seeing the company becoming successful and everyone who has spoken to her thinks she has a high degree of talent – as does her friend Andrew.
So between these two people – who don’t live far away from each other at all (and seem to have an endless amount of people they can introduce us to)…I see the possibility of building out an office near them as well.
Anyway…..
To take it back a step –
It’s definitely worth pondering over (all of us should) – are you focussing upon the right problem?
Is the problem you’re trying to solve going to bring the right reward?
This remains to be seen over the coming months as I’m making a real effort to identify salespeople that might be great candidates for the job.
Anyway this consideration about ‘whether I’m working on the right problem’ really stopped me for a moment to ponder over it.
I guess the truth is – is that I like solving problems and it frustrates me when I can’t nail one.
This problem is a ‘human problem’ – in that I can’t find the right people for the ‘right seats’.
But with all of that being said – let’s have a look at what HAS happened over the last 30 days –
- Vasco has come in to do outbound sales – looks very promising
- Krystel has come in to do outbound cold calling – looks very promising
- Andrew has come in to do client relationship management – looks very promising
- Adrian has just joined Pearl Lemon – a good old friend of mine who is committed to me and I have high hopes for him
- Pearl has flowered in her role as head of PR
- Adam has stepped up his game
- Krystel looks like she has a very very strong network
So, all in all, I think I’ve found 5 very promising people who I hope can have long futures at the company.
Even the person I just let go of, Victroy, is determined to come back and regain his place at Pearl Lemon.
Perhaps we just need time then. Time to allow the people we have to develop and flourish (just like Adam has developed), and time to gain mastery over their work.
I guess ultimately time will tell.
But the message is a valid one – it’s critical to analyse the bigger picture with the problem you’re solving and figure out whether it’s the right one?
My rationale in my mind is – is that if I can build a team that can generate excellent appointments….then the potential is limitless because they can go out and do that for any business we launch internally.
Thus guaranteeing our own future success 🙂
So watch this space – and ask yourself – are you focussing on the right problem?
