Leaders Make Selling A Priority!

"I have some deep concerns about the future of your company. I have some deep concerns about your leadership. I have some deep concerns about the management team you have assembled. Your business is not growing for one reason: You and your management team are not leading by example."

This is the opening to a letter I recently sent to a start-up company I have invested in. I wanted to shake them up and help them realize where their problems lie. Often times, business owners and managers tend to blame their bottom line woes on the economy, competition, customers, salespeople or their employees. In reality, results are the biggest indicator of leadership.

Leaders Lead By Example!
Leaders lead. Leaders make it happen. Leaders get big results. Leaders set the pace. Leaders get people to follow. Leaders create excitement. Leaders take accountability. Leaders do what it takes.

Making a profit and growing your construction business is simple. It starts with creating enough revenue to cover your job costs, overhead and profit goals for the year. No revenue = no business = no profit. Successful business leaders are almost always the big-time revenue generators who create lots of sales. The fastest way to fix a company's profit or growth problems is to generate more revenue. Check out these quotes from successful leaders:

“Anyone can manage. Leaders go out and create revenue.” (Sam Walton)
“Anyone can write procedure manuals. Leaders go out and sell stock.” (Jeff Bezos)
“Anyone can mind the store. Revenue takes inspiration and excitement.” (Jack Welch)
“Anyone can organize. Leaders cold call and close sales.” (Lee Iacocca)
“Anyone can tell others to do it. Leaders go out and make it happen themselves.” (Ross Perot)
“Anyone can build great buildings. Leaders get people to sign contracts!” (George Hedley)

Selling Is Not Easy!
For me, selling doesn't come naturally. I don't like to spend my day cold calling on potential customers who don't really want to talk to me. Selling is uncomfortable. Selling is not my gift. So like many of you, what mistake did I do to fix the problem? Hire a salesperson. I figured this would remove me from the sales process. Guess what? It doesn't work. He continually keeps asking me to go on sales calls with him so I can close the deal. This ticks me off! Now what? Can I grow my business without me doing any selling? No!

In my construction business, our clients want to know the owner and project management team before making a decision to hire us. Customers want to know who they’ll be doing business with. They want to build relationships and develop a sense of trust during the sales and contractor selection process.

It’s almost impossible to expect a salesperson get a construction contract signed without the construction company owner’s help. It is easy to hire a salesperson, but the hard part is to get them to do it well without your coaching, direction and hands-on involvement. When you rely exclusively on