Are you the Rainmaker in your small or medium business?

A "Rainmaker" is someone who brings in the big deals.

This is really addressed at the owners of small or medium businesses who have worked hard to build their company but just can't seem to grow beyond a particular limit. I've noticed it more over the last few years.

Often, the person who started the company best understands the product and where it fits in the market.

Usually they, the company, has matured enough to put together a business plan for growth and have often designed their systems to scale to handle the increased volumes. It just that for some reason, no one seems to be able to sell their product or service quite as well as the owner.

Standing on the outside, it became obvious to me that there are three main reasons that this occurs:

1. The sales person does not have the authority to make the call. This allows the owner to always be the rainmaker.
2. The owner hired someone who understand the technology or complexity but does not how to sell. This person is often best at after sales support. This allows the owner to step back in and be the rainmaker.
3. The owner hired sales people who cannot sell, or has them in a structure that cannot scale, which often amounts to the same thing. So, in an attempt to grow, the owner steps back into the rainmaker role.

I'd love to hear of similar observations.

Five Rules for Keeping Your Sales Job in this Recession

Early this morning I sat in on a Webinar presented by Jeb Blount from SalesGravy and hosted by Landslide, a Sales CRM company.

The focus was on sales people, mostly in the US, who are worried about keeping their jobs. The five rules given are:

• Activity is Everything
• Don't Complain
• Become Indispensable
• Make No Enemies
• Have a Backup Plan

Most of the advice is the same as the advice that you would hear for advancement in more prosperous times. The significant difference is that recession brings fear to those who thought they were on a comfortable ride, and the ride is always relative.

Whilst Australia is fearing unemployment rates of 7%, the US is predicting 10 to 12%. A recent survey in the US found that 50% are worried that they would lose their job. Clearly a large portion of them are focussing on worrying rather than doing their job.

Then I found an article "The Upside of a Down Market: 10 Reasons Why a Recession is Good for Selling" written by Victor Antonio in which he relates his time as VP of Sales in Argentina when Argentina's unemployment rate was somewhere between 20% and 25%.

So it is obvious that whilst there might be 5 rules for keeping your job in a recession, there are at least 10 reasons why a recession is good for selling.

Go to http://www.intermizzi.com.au/ to find out more.