July 23, 2010 11:15 AM

Lisa Nirell’s book, Energize Growth NOW: The Marketing Guide to a Wealthy Company, is a bible for founders looking to energize their firms’ growth. Many of its points ring equally true, in my view, as guideposts for energizing sales growth.

In Nirell’s view, energizing growth requires that you choose a positive mindset, honor your values + recover rapidly when you hit a bump in the road. Just like sales people. She notes that “current planning methods reward the wrong things: good ideas, complexity + busy work.” Just like in sales. After planning, various commotions take over. Accountabilities fade. Well intentioned plans become a distant faded memory. You end up feeling constantly overwhelmed and, as a result, cling to the familiar. Energy’s drained. Worse than that, doing over and over again things which aren’t improving things starts to look a bit like organizational insanity. In sales, it starts to look like another quarter of uncertain sales results.

She notes Jim Collins’ take on this instinctive condition which she refers to as Time Deficiency Syndrome – we end up “leading but undisciplined lives with ever expanding ‘to-do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing – and doing more. It rarely works.” Collins’ take: those who built the good to great companies use of ‘stop doing’ lists every bit as much as ‘to do’ lists. “They unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.” We’ve seen proof of this. Our users recently tripled their collective Return-on-Effort in an 8 week span. User consensus on what triggered the improvement – knowing some sales efforts weren’t having any impact on buyers’ journeys, they stopped wasting those efforts.

Nirell advocates thinking of growth planning as a living organism requiring constant care and feeding. “With on-going preventative care, businesses remain vital and strong.” As part of this, she thoughtfully suggests ways to calculate your firm’s Wealth Quotient, define your Ultimate Result-Unique Value Quotient, and target ideal customers. Each of her insights on these topics resonated with me as clever ways to eliminate corresponding barriers to sales growth. In its details, for instance, the book offers fresh ways to think about personas and how they may affect sales. Table 8.1, for instance, suggests leading and trailing indicators of a firm’s growth stage which, in turn, sharpen the picture of a firm’s ‘fit’ to your profile of your ideal customer.

Against the backdrop of what firms should do, she notes that in most businesses, thinking is stuck in an Industrial Age time-warped mindset - time spent on task equates to value.” Time on task used to count. Today, what counts is the customer value created from time on task. Just like in sales.

In the end, she advocates firms having processes that view + trigger growth systemically. Measure new things that matter. Those which trigger or inhibit growth in ways which span units, dollars, and people. Inspire personal growth. Focus efforts, founded on values, that build and amplify customer value. Inspire change and energize effort in ways that steadily, and incrementally, build customer value. Just like in sales.

With a nod to Kraig Kramers, she advocates anchoring all of the above around what causes sales to consistently happen.

If you’re looking to energize your firm’s growth, drink in the ideas in her book. If you’re looking to energize your firm’s sales growth, apply the ideas in her book using what Chip Heath describes as destination postcards in sales operations that create + measure the customer value from time on task. There are new tools out there, today, that will let you do so. Their impact on sales productivity is proof of both the growth and energizing value of Nirell’s ideas.

Originally posted on Informed Innovation in B2B Sales Productivity

Blogger Profile: John Cousineau
President, Innovative Information. Thirty years in operations research. Pioneer in internet-enabled business practices. Otherwise, just an ordinary guy. Read more about John Cousineau (PDF)

Posted by Sue Ansell at July 23, 2010 11:15 AM

Categories: Sales and marketing

Comments

Ryan email - www.thephoenixprinciple.com

There are several examples of how companies that stick to their core like Circuit City, Sun and Sears end up in a tailspin. How can we defend against this? Check out this posting from Forbes and see what one of their columnist has to say:

http://bit.ly/9Omdk6

John Cousineau email - blog.innovativeinfo.com

Ryan: thxs for your feedback + supporting article. IMO, Nirell's points aren't really about 'sticking to your core' vs. 'disruptive innovation' (a topic aptly covered by both the article + the comments it attracted). Her call isn't for firms to pick one of those two paths to growth, but rather to implement processes (and supporting analytics) which focus efforts, founded on values, that build and amplify customer value. Her thinking, in my view, is well aligned with what firms like Apple have done to both stick to their core + innovate disruptively at the same time. I see a logical fit between her ideas on Energizing Growth with what's needed to improve B2B sales productivity. - John

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