Many years ago I found myself in search of the proper title for my position. Job titles were not a big thing at my employer, but we had a business reason to devise one for me. A preferred provider agreement needed a key organizational contact and "Tom" was not going to cut it. I thought about the daily tasks I seemed to be responsible for. I sold things. I defined operational processes. I tried to herd salespeople. The warehouse supervisor reported to me. What am I? I could not find a parallel in other companies like ours. Everyone was either "Sales" or "Operations".

The struggle is real. I have spent most of my professional life managing the tendencies of sales and operations teams to conflict with one another. I have a mantra and it goes like this: "Sales' job is to sell what Operations can support. Operations' job is to support whatever sales sells." The battle field is much more sophisticated than it was when I started. We no longer rely on paper files and clip boards to do our work. I can't just stroll over to a salesperson's desk and find a phone number in his Rolodex or search his phone messages for the latest changes in projects. Likewise, it is nearly impossible for a salesperson to monitor all the operation and logistics processes that touch their projects.

How often do clients ask you for an "apples-to-apples" quote? They send you an RFP to strictly follow so they can see a direct cost comparison between you and your competitors. But in the AV world, true apples-to-apples comparisons don’t exist. Most of the people in the AV community work in competitive situations — we bid on projects, against other companies (and probably even against each other). Competitive bidding is the world we think we live in. But it’s not as comparable as it may seem.

Selling isn’t what it used to be… it’s better. While some people tend to get nostalgic about the “good ol’ days,” I think we can agree that in the tech world, things improve with time. Just think, 20 years ago, we didn’t have the iPhone, Facebook, or YouTube, not to mention tablets, smart watches, and memes.

Want to be happier, make more money, and grow your company? Of course you do — that’s success in business. We all want it… and we want it fast. As a consultant, I’ve seen a ton of AV companies try out all sorts of shortcuts to grow their businesses overnight. One of those shortcuts is hiring a salesperson with their own accounts. The truth is, it’s never that simple.

Reaching a deal with a new client is challenging enough. But getting a new client to actually sign the contract they’ve already agreed to can be even more difficult. We’ve all been there: We complete the proposal and send it over for approval. They respond, “It looks great!” We ask them to sign it and send it back, and then... We don't hear back from them. For some reason, they drag their feet. How do we move from verbal agreement to written confirmation? Once we understand why they’re not signing, we can implement a process that makes it simple.