Some Practical Advice For Getting Profitable
Ted Rheingold at Dogster has a great post up titled 10 Tips for Building a Profitable Business. My favorite is #4: Spend at least 50% of your time selling.
Many technology companies assume if they built great product it will sell itself yet that almost never happens. Usually we’ve found that incorrect assumption is a rationalization of people who love building product, but secretly loathe the business side of running a business. Such a strategy is a great way to lose a lot of money. So constantly ask yourself, are we spending 50% of our time selling? I bet you’ll always realize you’re focusing too much on the product and not enough on finding customers that want it. (Of course the inverse is true. If you love selling you need to make sure you spend at least 50% of your time building product or your sales effort will be for naught.)
In most companies, too few people sell too little of the time. If you are a member of the senior executive team of a company that is trying to become profitable, are you spending 50% of your time selling and generating revenue? If not, why not? And, if you have a board of directors, are your board members selling also?