WTF!
The time came for his three-day, companywide, biannual planning
sessions. Day One started with his design and production team. He
said it was energetic, that it was fun and people were excited about
the future. The next day with the sales team, it was the exact
opposite. Let’s just say it wasn’t a good experience.
After his day with the sales team, John proposed an unthinkable
strategy shift to his business partner. He said, “Listen, I’m willing
to bet the future of the company on a new go-to-market strategy.
I’m willing to fail in the pursuit of turning our good company into a
great one.” That night, the two of them made the unbelievably
courageous decision to release the entire sales team.
The next morning, John released eight people from the
organization.
That day, when they got together with the entire design and
production team, they informed them of the decision and what
they had done. The initial reaction from the team, as you can
imagine, was quite panicky and fretful. He reassured them, and as
it turned out, everything was fine. Better than fine, even.
Because of the cuts, their overhead went down by over $1 million.
Thus, even if sales remained flat or decreased slightly due to the
change, things would be okay. However, the result was that sales
actually went up for the first time in years. Not by two percent or
three percent either, but by 12 percent! His bottom line
skyrocketed even much more. Breaking down the entire sales
process and building it from the ground up worked because of the
knowledge he had gained over time and by really paying attention
to his customers' buying journey.
That story really resonated with me. After I first heard it, it stuck
in my head. As we came into this past spring, we knew our cost of
acquisition was way too high at Tulip Media. We were simply not
closing enough deals to justify the money we were spending on
sales (including the cost of a sales team, Salesforce licenses, sample
packages, FedEx packages, etc.).
Like John, I realized I had to examine our own buyers' journey to
see what we were doing right and what needed to be completely
torn down and rebuilt.
I truly believe that in business you sometimes need to be break the
good in the pursuit of the great. And sometimes you need to be
willing to fail in the pursuit of excellence.
That’s our story. It’s been a huge change for us as a company. We
are more excited than ever and are growing faster as a result.
I hope our story inspires you to look at your own company now.
Look at every part of your organization and ask questions. What
part is not working optimally? What part is not working to its
fullest potential? Ask yourself, knowing what you know now: If
you were a younger person with a better understanding of
technology and systems, would you construct your company and
your processes the way you have them right now? If the answer is
no, then what are you going to do about it? Do you have the guts?
Are you willing to fail in that pursuit of excellence?
Like I said, letting go of your sales team is not what I’m advocating.
What I am advocating is to alleviate yourself of the fear of change.
What areas aren’t working well? What decisions are you avoiding? I
challenge you to have the courage to make those tough decisions.
As always, if you would like to learn more about it, you can visit the
link below.
BONUS MATERIAL
TM.MEDIA/TM105
WATCH ANDY'S TED X TALK
Andy Buyting's thought leadership journey started when
he published his first business book in 2007 and first
magazines in 2009. Since that time, he has leveraged
custom magazines and online digital content strategies to
establish himself as a leading authority
in content marketing and brand
positioning.
HOW TO
GAIN AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE OVER
YOUR COMPETITION.
In How to Win Clients & Influence People, Andy Buyting, Founder &
CEO of Tulip Media shares and discusses the Three Pillars of Marketing
to help you become THE thought leader in your marketplace - creating
an unfair advantage over your competition.
This book teaches readers how to utilize the following three pillars:
Through his company, Tulip Media,
Andy and his team make these content
marketing strategies and tools
accessible to their Client-Partners.
1. DIGITAL MARKETING - How to easily and effectively leverage online
publishing and marketing to keep in contact with your customers
and best prospects with high frequency messaging.
2. PRINT MARKETING - The evolution of print marketing and how it
adds credibility and longevity for you and your organization.
3. INTERACTIVE MARKETING - Direct interaction is how you can
bring it all together to create a clear call-to-action that results in
outcomes for you and your company.
Andy’s thought leadership journey started
when he published his first business book in
2007 and first magazines in 2009 . Since that
time, he has leveraged custom magazines
and online digital content strategies to
establish himself as a leading authority in
content marketing and brand positioning.
TulipMediaGroup.com
Through his company, Tulip Media, Andy
and his team make these strategies and
tools accessible to their Client-Partners.
They make creating digital and print content Easy, Effective and
Economical. Learn more at TULIPMEDIAGROUP.COM
WIN CLIENTS
& INFLUENCE
PEOPLE
WARNING
Reading this book will
change your business.
Call now to hear
an important Free
Recorded Message
from Andy Buyting at
My partners and I made the incredibly tough decision to actually
terminate the entire sales department. Not because we wanted to
(we loved those people), but because that tough decision was also
the right decision. We brought on a director of marketing to work
with the other members of our team and made a fundamental shift
in our own go-to-market strategy.
“Whoever owns the ink in an industry is the one who gains an
unfair advantage over their competition”
- Verne Harnish, Founder of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and Author of Scaling Up
At Tulip Media, we sell print and digital solutions for companies to
help their brands grow. In that definition, we realized that we are
more than a publishing company. We are a full-on media company.
Thus, we made two key decisions. First, we make the decision to
rebrand as Tulip Media. Along with that, inspired by John, we
made the decision to also tear down and rebuild our sales process.
Our new director of marketing and the entire production team are
now handling most of the early-stage sales functions. What we’re
finding is that we are dealing with a lot fewer opportunities than
we’ve ever dealt with before, but we’re closing more deals because
the opportunities are better qualified, and our process is much
more engaging and effective.
(800) 819 2804
Create Instant Credibility and Gain an Unfair Advantage
Over Your Competition
ANDY BUYTING
SECOND EDITION
TULIPMEDIAGROUP.COM | 15