How to treat sales like your other operations

If you’re a business owner or self-employed, you have undoubtedly received some great advice about how to grow your sales from any number of great speakers, bloggers, podcasters, authors, etc. I certainly have!

What I’ve discovered as a business advisor, though, is that even when businesses put those ideas into place, they often still suffer from stagnant or inconsistent sales.

Why? What often hurts small business owners is putting sales into a separate category from operations (larger companies normally have this nailed). For example, most good managers know that getting a quality product out the door requires:

• Standards for quality and timeliness for milestones in the production process and supply chain 
• The right equipment 
• A business system (i.e. an integrated web of processes) designed to deliver quality repeatedly and predictably 
• A method of measuring the process along the way 
• A feedback loop to solve problems 
• Supervision and ongoing training
  

You get the idea. Missing from this example is “waiting until the very end to see how it looks.” Depending on the complexity of the product, that would be a recipe for disaster.

When it comes to sales, though...read the rest at The Business Journals.