Book recommendation: Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow
I do sales training and coaching for startups–clients who are targeting B and C round funding and a successful exit within 3-5 years. Warrilow’s book offers an entertaining and compelling story about creating a business that’s Built to Sell. I highly recommend it.
My client CEOs, and sales leaders, are smart. They’re so smart that what’s obvious to them is often not clear to their employees. What innovators consider to be clear and valuable offerings, are often confusing to the people who must sell those offerings. Founders think their offerings sell themselves which leads to salespeople not knowing what to sell. Not surprisingly, customers don’t know what they’re buying resulting in stalled sales.
Stalled sales turn 3-5 year exit goals into 5-10 year exit hopes.
If you want to sell and/or delegate, Warrilow emphasizes these three things:
- Specialize – Nobody does everything well. Figure out what you do best and do it more.
- Build methods and frameworks – Great ideas must be repeatable by all. Clear methods and frameworks allow ideas to scale—scale leads to growth—growth leads to successful exits.
- Delegate and empower – Great leaders create clear visions and goals, communicate them clearly, and they allow others to find the best ways to get the job done.
Warrillow’s story will seem obvious to many and yet, many fail to follow his simple advice for creating companies that are Built to Sell.
After reading Built to Sell, I took inventory of work I’ve done, at the request of clients.
Sales, sales-management, and sales-strategy are my specialties—plain and simple—and yet I was paid to consult on operations, HR, financial reporting, and IT. (My tech friends cringe at the idea of me giving IT counsel.) Warrilow’s book taught me to be more specialized and it’s helped. I think it can help you.
The Five Abilities® is a simple, common-sense, repeatable framework developed from real-world experiences—not theory. It just works because it’s workable. If you want to learn more go to www.thefiveabilities.com. #Sales #SalesManagement #SalesStrategy
©2019 Rick Wong, The Five Abilities® LLC
