Greg's Right FIT #354

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Momentum
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Momentum

• Push decisions down as far as you can in your organizations. Imagine employees operating as independent enterprises aligned with your strategy. Interesting to consider. 
• Realigning your team's perspective takes effort. "I told them to change," won't create long term change. If you want the change to happen, prepare to repeat yourself. A lot. 
• Describing an outcome is difficult, but worth the strain. The clearer the end goal, the easier it is to realign when you inevitably get off track. We all need a North Star. 
• Legislating a problem out of existence is temptating, but let your managers handle it. If your manager keeps your team aligned with your goal, and plays inside your field boundaries, you win.  Plus, they do it much better than the employee manual. Let them do their job. 

Being Human - Incentives and incentives

"Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission.”
― comedian Fred Allen

In a company’s budgeting and planning process, the finance department has an outsized influence on what happens in the sales and marketing area of the business. This makes sense. If a business is supposed to make a profit for its shareholders, it needs a strong finance department to count what comes in and goes out. Plus, they need to project what’s going to come in someday in the future as well as what the future costs will be. Some of those future costs are going to involve sales and marketing expenses, including incentives. 

I'm not the only one to see the problem. It has been described like this:

“Often, sales team incentives and targets are only loosely connected to the profitability goals CFOs pursue. Connecting tech stacks, agreeing on shared KPIs, and creating common dashboards would help finance and sales move from finger-pointing to handshaking.” (Harvard Business Review, 3/21)

When you see the world as income and expenses, one of the easiest ways to make sure you hit the profit mark is to manage expenses, like salesperson compensation, bonuses, or commissions. After all, the finance team needs to hit their personal incentives too.

The thing is, savvy financiers know if the finance department can get financial targets and sales incentives aligned, they can almost take care of a sales team's momentum building all by themselves. 

Simple, but not easy. 

Random Stuff

"Body by Whiskey." (on a t-shirt I just saw)

I'm wandering the streets of Brooklyn with my lovely bride when a thought crashes over me like a wall of water.

Who are all these people? Where did they come from? 

When we set out in the morning there didn't seem to be a soul around. Sure there were a few people in the coffee shop and near the book store, but it didn't feel much different from my little burg on the plains. We visited parks, took in the Manhattan skyline, and got hungry. Since my bride hates to have me looking into my phone for directions, we try to navigate like it's 1992. Wandering here and there, moving further from our home base but getting no closer to a sufficient watering hole. 

We eventually settle on a chicken and waffles place. She's never felt the desire to mix the two, but after today she's a fan. In the glow of fried chicken, cooked dough, and syrup, we head back out into the neighborhoods. That's when it hit me. 

People are everywhere. And it's noisy. 

Tall, short, foreign, domestic, in a hurry, in love, blasting music, zipping by on bikes, having drinks at cafés, and talking. Lots of talking as they overtake me on the sidewalk. "Did he have a French accent?" "Who smells so good?" "So then I said. . ." It's a cacophony of city noise. I smile to myself and continue on. 

Another thought hits me. It's 3pm. I haven't written this week's newsletter. The smile gets serious. It's game time. Let's do this. 

Enjoy the weekend! 

st. Sigh.