Building a crack sales team in a tech / Internet start-up

When one interacts with the founders of technology / Internet start-ups during networking events, one topic that never ceases to generate interest is about "what should one's sales strategy be and how to hire a crack sales team". The reason why this is a hot topic for discussion is because typically most of the founders come from a technology background and have had no active sales roles in their previous professional avatars.

I have also seen many of the founders getting into the role of a Head of Sales - not just taking decisions on sales strategy and doing front-line sales but also hiring sales managers and the team. The passion of the founders to take the company forward can absolutely be not doubted but this trend definitely raises the question - "is sales as easy as a DIY tool"?

In my opinion, any technology / Internet start-up is propped up by 4 pillars - Product, Marketing, Sales and Customer Service and the company would be as strong as its weakest pillar. One would have to acknowledge that each of these pillars is a specialized field and needs specialists to strengthen it. This is especially so of Sales because this is the only pillar that has the responsibility of earning money for the company whereas the other pillars look for investment/spends from the company.

Why tech start-ups should outsource marketing

One of the biggest positives one sees in the growth of India's tech-knowledge economy is the rise in entrepreneurial intent among today's professionals, in technology, mobile or Internet space. And typically, my observation has been that most of the technology based start-ups are started by entrepreneurs with technology skills as getting one's own hands dirty is a great way to become an entrepreneur.

One has had an opportunity to meet with scores of founders of tech start-ups in the last few months and most of them have voiced very similar challenges relating to marketing - "what should our marketing strategy be and what kind of a person one should hire to spearhead our marketing".

My advice to a tech start-ups - "time your marketing hiring".

DHL and a man called Craig

Here's a verbatim account of a story shared by good friend Krish with his friends on Facebook.

"My Daughter Priyanka used DHL to courier her applications to American Universities recently. 7 days later, one of the applications had not reached and my daughter had missed her deadline !

Infuriated, I googled the name of the Managing Director of DHL India and Craig's name popped up.

And though no mail ID was available, I used the usual format (firstname.secondname@dhl.com) and sent Craig a mail, for whatever it was worth.

Less than 2 mins later,I got a response from Craig, saying that , he was no longer the MD of India, but he was horrified that this had happened. He put me on to Minal, who heads customer service in India. Over the course of the day he kept in touch, with single line mails, reminiscent of a certain Mr. Goodman. Minal in the meanwhile managed to contact the University, mailed them and explained the reason for the delay. They accepted the application. Craig was as delighted as I was.

And I am a DHL customer for life !

We often share the stories that have brought us grief.Thought I should share a happy story with you.

Warm regards,

Krish"

These are the stories legendary companies / brands are made of. What story do you have?

How to get social media to work for your business

This is how life started for Internet. Just 15 years back. It was supposed to be a fad, a personal fetish that many individuals nurtured but something that would never be useful for business. And life comes around.

Here come Facebook and Twitter with their ubiquitous status updates. Why would businesses be interested in knowing whose mobile conked or whose baby rolled over - they said. Just a few months back.

But can businesses ignore Social Media any longer? I came across this very lucid article "4 ways Social Media is changing business" by Soren Gordhamer (courtesy: Mashable) - I thought it was a fantastic way to look at customer engagement possibilities for business.

The faster businesses adapt social media, the more engaged they would be with their customers and therefore, can respond to their needs better.

Creating a great customer experience

I just came across a brief article on how to create a great customer experience in a retail store. While the article itself is very short, the points made are worth thinking about and present a great deal of depth.

Click here for the full article

Spend more, spend less or spend well?

As we all know, the austerity measures that the Government is seemingly taking up on 'war footing' is occupying a fair amount of media space. One can imagine the amount of wasteful expenditure an organisation of the size of a federal government deals with - the question of course remains if these measures will impact the real unseen expenditure.

That brings us to the point of austerity measures for a company. Over a period of time, as the business picks up, a company typically starts loosening its grip on its austere ways. It can happen in many ways.

a. As the budgets increase, one starts negotiating less harder on the smaller line items. (When the media budgets grow by crores, spends of Rs.5 lakhs and below assume less significance. A lot of smaller line items could just slip through without proper negotiation because people don't have time for it)

b. People start travelling at the drop of a hat while a call or a video conference could have helped deal with the issue. (Bangalore-Mumbai-Bangalore: 5 hours of travel including the commute. 60 minutes of meeting. Relaxing lunch at a nice restaurant. Who is complaining?)

c. The company starts hiring for the future (and not the present) and begins to put on flab. (In the garb of bringing in specialists, more people are hired to divide the job which was earlier done efficiently with less number of people)

d. Salaries begin to jump up without proper authorisation - the excuse? "In these times, we cannot get good quality talent at our scales". (Because one finds the right person, one goes overboard to 'match' the market salary, which in any case is subjective)

e. Team parties get more frequent and spending caps get relaxed. (I was surprised at the spend pattern at a well funded start-up where a team party of 30 odd people would end up with a bill of more than Rs.75,000)

f. The company starts buying things which are not compellingly required. (Exclusive laser printers for each department? Upgrading laptops much before time? Giving key executives the newest phones every 12 months?)

g. The tastes get expensive! (A modest Indica cab becomes a Ford Fiesta and a more senior executive now travels in a Corolla. One starts staying in a more upmarket hotel replacing the old faithful who kept company during difficult times)

The real question is if austerity should be exercised only during tough times. Isn't spending well (as against spending less) a sound business principle?

Of course, one would argue that if businesses can afford to spend more, they should. And in any case, what's wrong in enjoying the success? However, companies might want to look at a few parameters before okaying material changes in the spending pattern.

a. Is this a spend we can stop tomorrow if we need to? (Marketing budgets are a good example - if the quarterly sales numbers are not coming up as per expectations, a good way to pull back and save your profit projections is to reduce the remainder of the marketing budget)

b. Is this a spend that can play havoc with the 'ego' system of your key executives? (Who doesn't want to fly business class? Or stay in a cool 5-star hotel? While no one grudges these privileges to your key executives who have brought you success, when you bring the privileges down, considering these privileges are more like 'status factors', dissentment is inevitable.)

c. Which arc would you place this spend in - the "need" arc, the "comfort" arc or the "luxury" arc? (Even in good times, businesses would do well to straightaway disallow spends in the "luxury" arc while being moderate in approving spends in the "comfort" arc)

d. There should be a strict 'upper cap' on all spends that can be termed 'recurring expenditure' (and this includes the salary) with a 'zero tolerance' view on non-compliance. (For example, hiring of more people than one needs at a salary level much higher than one can afford is an invitation for disaster - it's something one has seen at close quarters many times over)

Are these austerity measures or are plain good business measures? Perhaps, your views will add to the perspective.

Engaging with employees is a full time job

Companies, big or small, thrive because of the people who work for them. It is the passion of the employees that drives a company towards its target and its success. And hence, one would imagine that engaging with one's employees would be the biggest priority for a company. But sadly, while this could be the stated objective, in more cases than not, HR (perhaps the designated department to carry the onus of employee engagement) might be busy handling matters of immediate urgency such as a recruitment drive or a Comp and Benefits presentation to the COO!

It is not to say that an employee engagement strategy and plan is easy meat - infact, one would say that most mid-sized companies should have an exclusive resource to manage employee engagement. Several questions come up about what constitutes employee engagement.

At a broad level, it's about creating an eco-system which places the employee as an important pillar of the organisation's being and success. It then boils down to deriving strategic guidelines on

• creating a framework to reward good employees with challenging and high visibility work
• encouraging the practice of knowledge sharing and team work - intra and inter departments
• streamlining the compensations and benefits policy that is built on the principles of meritocracy
• ongoing communication with the employees to enhance the spirit of belongingness

Giving employees visibility with the CEO is just one of the things that can pull up employee morale considerably and this is one aspect which Cisco seems to do so well - http://features.bizmore.com/2009/08/the-employee-birthday-breakfast/

At the end of the day, a high employee satisfaction score is a factor of all the above and in my humble opinion any company looking for employee engagement should do a grounds up introspection to put together a integrated plan.