Suspects and prospects and the art of systems selling.
At different times, I’ve had the good fortune of creating and developing two businesses from nothing more than a good idea.
In 1974, after almost eight years in journalism, an opportunity presented that sent me on a wild ‘n wonderful journey. The MD of a supermarket chain was guest speaker at a lunch I was attending, and the first words he uttered upon his late arrival were… ’somebody’s got to help me with an industry wide problem’. A couple of days later I sought him out and asked him what he was talking about. A few days later we met again, where I outlined how I thought the issue could be solved. It meant changing the way the whole distribution system had worked for decades. It naturally encountered significant resistance along the way, but we persisted, worked hard, and developed the all important toehold. This gave us a reference point, from which success followed. Today this way of distribution is best demonstrated by the likes of Linfox and Toll.
In 1984 I sold my business to a division of Mayne Nickless, because I wanted to get into the new world of computers. In the same year, I attended what is known as The Hannover Messe, to see if another opportunity presented. I saw it in the form of a clever bit of materials handling kit…part of an emerging range of automated storage and retrieval systems (AS&RS). It was a new technology, but in my opinion quite ragged, and clearly still in its infancy stage of development. After the show, I was able to purchase the demo unit and ship it back to Oz. The technology had no patents because it was based on the age old paternoster principle, so I guess it’ll come as no surprise that we took a look at how it worked. It was essentially an electromechanical device controlled by a rather simple in-house developed microcontroller. Remember this was 1984…microcontrollers were pretty basic, inflexible and difficult to interface with a larger system. We could immediately see that it wasn’t the physical device that had to be improved, but rather what it could do. When our system hit the market, it was controlled by (wait for it) a 386 PC with MS-DOS, and using software we had developed. However, around 1988 we introduced software running on Windows. Our control system made our AS&RS very flexible and able to do what people wanted. But It did not have to operate in isolation, it could also interface quite easily with larger manufacturing and distribution systems.
What’s all this about I hear you say?
In 1974 and in 1984…the time when we began introducing the above ideas, we were exhorting business to change quite profoundly the way things had been done for decades. C’mon I hear you say, this is nothing like the challenges our battler has introducing its new way of doing things to business...and in addition, it has all these headwinds facing it. We’ll try the stagflation we suffered in the early 70’s causing profits to collapse, an escalation in industrial disputes, and housing to suffer its biggest bust on record...or how about the ‘recession we had to have‘ in the early 90’s.
In the face of these sort of headwinds, we would say ‘in these times, it‘s more important than ever that your business invests the funds to ensure you are doing things in the most efficient way, and making the best products possible for your customers’
You can say I’m only pumping up my tyres, but the point I’m trying to make is that selling a new way of doing things does not necessarily have to take years and years. I call it ‘systems selling’ and it requires bringing on board everyone…starting with the department head, and progressing all the way up through the managerial layers to GM’s, MD’s and often Directors. They all had to understand what it was, how it worked, and more importantly, what benefits would it bring their business.
As I’m sure most of you know, selling is a numbers game...you‘ve got to keep creating more and more people who are interested (suspects)…convert as many suspects as you can into believers (prospects)…keep qualifying them each step of the way…and when the moment arrives, ask for the order (close the sale). You’d be surprised how many sales people find this last step difficult, or don’t ask for the order at all. We started with the most obvious applications for our technology and worked out from there.
We hear about the doorbell application, for mine a perfectly simple and beneficial product to bring to market...just get the thing done people. After all this time talking about it, I’m dismayed that we still haven’t got a doorbell on the market.
I accept the importance of ‘ecosystems’ and partnerships et al…to expand one’s reach, diversify what can be offered, and make it easier to bring packaged systems and products to market. I understand working together to build systems and products. But like the doorbell, there are scores of products that could have been produced and on the market by now. Perhaps more complicated sexy stuff like AV’s do have to take years and involve numerous partners, but simple things like doorbells could out there earning us good money by now.
Since the AGM in 2018, I have been rabbiting on about premature and excessive remuneration. Me, myself personally believes we provide senior executives and directors with incentives and rewards that are far too excessive, and we pay them way before they actually achieve things that are above and beyond what they should be expected to achieve as part of their everyday job. To date Hey hey is just doing his job people, nothing more, nothing less…but have a look at how much he’s received in his first year in the latest financial report. As he said…’watch the financials’.
