'I Have Seen the Enemy and It Is Us!'

Credit: Bill Gillespie

I borrowed these words from the comic strip "Pogo" years ago. They were the title slide in a presentation I made to the board of directors of a troubled company. I was hired to turn around their printing operations.

Business corrections are hard but not complicated. The right steps are obvious. Acceptance of how things got broken is the struggle. Let's face it. It's easier to point fingers than it is to look in the mirror.

Having said that, there are a few things that are universal. If you're a business owner, ask yourself the following questions. If you're a rep, do the same thing.

"How well do you want to get?"

100% of the people will say totally but that isn't true. They only want to get well enough to feel better. They don't want to do the hard or painful stuff like change their behavior.

"Would you buy from you?"

We should all ask this one daily. Are you offering what the market wants now? Are you user friendly?

My experience is that troubled companies and reps aren't. They want old solutions to solve modern problems. They want what they miss not what exists. They expect clients to buy and appreciate what they offer, not demand what is needed. This is a race to the bottom.

"How broad are your solutions?"

Do you do one thing, or do you solve lots of client problems? This one is a sleeper but it's so important.

My industry sees work move to resellers (glorified brokers). Weak reps and managers blame "buying power" as the cause and say they can't compete on price. The truth is the reseller offered the solution the client wanted. The losing companies miss what the client is most focused on solving.

"It's not sales, it's operations."

This one is total junk. Operations might be broken but every turnaround gets to sales, eventually. If you're selling good work to good brands your plant will improve and perform.

It falls on ownership to assemble the right sales professionals and to lead everyone to clear market targets. My experience is that no owner that understands this allows a bad plant to be in the way.

Business owners owe their employees a viable business plan and honorable execution. Reps owe their employers best efforts and intelligent market feedback. If you're talking about price you're bidding, not selling, and that won't cut it.

The past isn't coming back bad as I want it to. I miss the 1980's. I had thick brown hair, a 34" waist and offices were full of miniskirts. The 80's were awesome.

Look in the mirror. Your answers will be staring back at you. How well do you want to get? Would you buy from you? What do clients want? Nobody is in your way!

Go get em!