The Most Important Thing Your Company Needs? It’s Not Capital

Capital is the lifeblood of an organization’s functioning. If you don’t have enough capital, you can’t run operations, and if you can’t run operations, you can’t run a business. It makes sense that we might act like capital is the most important thing.

But, as Mike Murtaugh mentioned in a conversation a while back, believing capital is the most important part of a company is a mistake. And an interesting one at that. We think: We need capital in order to run operations. Then we use it to run operations like operations is the most important part of the business: We systematize everything, and build processes to make sure everything runs smoothly. We invest in technology, training, employee retention and growth, continuous improvement.

But operations isn’t the most important thing, either. We use capital to run it, and forget that capital doesn’t emerge fully formed from the business like Athena from the head of Zeus. Capital comes from somewhere. And where does it come from?

Customers. Even a company founded with venture capital eventually has to have a customer. Without customers, you don’t have a business.

Customers, not capital, are the most important part of your company
Customers are the most important part of your business. A thriving customer base equals a thriving company. Operations are important not for their own sake, but because they serve customers and happy customers make a happy business.

Customer success departments exist because customers matter. Human resources departments exist because well-managed human resources serve customers well and customers matter. Finance departments exist to manage the revenue produced by customers and the costs associated with serving customers, because customers matter. IT exists to provide the technology that serves the people who serve the customers because… customers matter.

But here’s a prickly problem: If customers matter so much (and they do), why do we spend so much time perfecting our operations processes… and so little time perfecting the processes that bring customers in the door?

Why Do We Treat Sales Like It’s the Wild West?

Old-fashioned “wild west” movies glamourized the adventures of pioneers on the western frontier of the US and presented a world full of opportunity and risk, featuring big heroes and terrible villains, and not much in the way of functioning governance.

Which is exactly how we treat sales departments. Full of opportunity, full of risk, exciting, dangerous. A place where you thrive or fail, on the strength of your own smarts and courage. You’ve got “big heroes” who bring in the big deals month after month, by some mystical process that amounts to being the “fastest draw in the county.” You’ve got villains, which are the obstinate customers who don’t understand the value of your offering.

Why do we spend so much time perfecting operations processes… and so little time perfecting the processes that bring customers in the door?

And you’ve got next to zero governance beyond “do as we say,” “make your quota,” and “get to the top of the leaderboard.”

Meanwhile, we’re “governing” every other aspect of our organization with clarity and rigor. Our finances operate on precision and consistency. Our operations run on processes and careful tracking. We treat these aspects of the business like they matter, while treating sales like it’s a far distant land that only the brave and wise can thrive in.

The Essentials of a “Well-Governed” Sales Department

Good governance is, quite simply, reinforced structure. An operations department has “laws” in the form of processes, a culture of accountability to those “laws,” and the technology to reinforce them. A company that understands that their customers are the most important part of the business, will build a sales department with similarly structured governance. Such a department will include:

• A sales strategy that acknowledges the value of customers, understands what the market needs, and provides a way of approaching that market that invites the right customers into the process.
• A sales process that supports salespeople in engaging with potential customers and helping them make the decision to become a customer.
• A culture of accountability to the process.
• A culture and system of continuous improvement.

And, underpinning it all, a technology backbone that supports the structure.

Your Traditional CRM Is The Wrong Support Structure

Nearly every CRM currently on the market actively contributes to the myth of the “wild west sales department.” They’re built as dumping grounds for unstructured customer information, and leave the execution of process and strategy to the individual salespeople or, at best, their beleaguered sales managers.

Salesforce and most other platforms force salespeople to operate out of a giant dump of information on a “company card,” then expect them to make sense out of it using their heroic fast-draw skills, to bag a customer or two as if they were on an adventure hunting expedition.

This is so far from the rigor with which we manage operations, finance, and other critical systems in the company that it would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. Sales teams don’t need giant dumps of information, and they don’t like them. They don’t want to interact with them, and they feel like clerks instead of professionals when they’re forced to.

It shouldn’t be that way, and it doesn’t have to be. Technology does exist that can support a truly well-governed sales department. Tools like Membrain structure information as it is input, so that it becomes immediately useful to the user. Membrain supports the salesperson in executing on sales strategy by guiding them through the process, and provides structured insight to help them and their managers improve performance.

Because the information and process are structured, a tool like Membrain also captures best practices as they emerge and amplifies them into an executable strategy. Instead of elevating your best salespeople into untouchable superhero myths, Membrain identifies their winning strategies and makes them accessible, trainable, and coachable across your entire team.

When sales organizations use a tool like Membrain, they get the same data retention as a traditional CRM, but with the flexible structure that supports a continuously improving, well-governed, highly effective sales effort.

A sales effort that treats customers like exactly what they are: The most important part of a company.

In what ways is your organization treating your customers like they matter? In what ways could it do better? Sound off in the comments.