“The Power of Leadership”

I am a raving fan of the Glazer-Kennedy Insider Circle organization which provides Marketing and Business Development advisement to entrepreneurial thinking folks all over the world.  One recurring theme from GKIC is a warning to close the doors on your Sales Prevention Department.  What is a Sales Prevention Department?  Collectively it is those folks who operate at every level of every organization who intentionally or not undermine Business Development and Customer Service efforts through innumerable means.

At the organizational leadership level of most readers of this “Thought of the Day,” the Sales Prevention Department are the Lawyers and the “Bean Counters” who gain excessive power at the “Home Office” level and overrun Business Development efforts with Sales Killing policies, rules, laws, and paper work which can quickly have your best and brightest people focused on everything but the ease and simplicity with which a new account can be opened and a new customer can begin buying from you.

Here’s a little story from Dan Kennedy which may help you drag your leadership team out of sales prevention mode:

“There is a little neighborhood mom-n-pop coffee shop near my home, where I sometimes eat breakfast.  On the counter, next to the cash register, there are three different receptacles for coins, for charitable donations – one for the Kiwanis Club, one for something for the blind, one for disabled veterans.  One morning, as I dropped my change into one of them, it registered to me that I always plunked my change into the same one.  Why?  I stood there for a few minutes pondering my own behavior.

Then it hit me.  The reason I always put my change into the disabled veterans jag was…

NOT because I had any preference for that charity over the others.  NOT because of any reasoned decision to support it instead of the others.  NOT because of the graphic display or appearance of the different containers.  NOT because of any sales copy on the container.  NOT because of their arrangement on the counter.  NOT for any thoughtful or logical or admirable reason.  BUT definitely for a reason.

The reason, and the only reason, I put all my change into one of these charity jars, each and every time, is…       the hole in the top of the jar I put all my coins into is bigger than the holes in the lids on the other two jars.”

Have a great day dismantling your Sales Prevention Department!

Shawn

Russ M. Miller, LLIF – Chairman & CEO
Performance Institute – A Global Leader in Human Capital and Business Development
Sunny Hong Zhang – Managing Partner – China
Shawn M. Miller – Managing Partner – USA

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