Change - Part 5

The topic of change is so near and dear to my heart because I am often brought in to change an organization, leadership team, business or process that simply refused to change until they couldn’t. Often, I am the last chance to change.

I have plenty of my own experience being on the side of having to change, as I ran a business with my brothers that was in a state of never-ending change. It was so incredibly frustrating, challenging, and expensive. The minute we would spend $250,000 - $2,500,000 on the latest technology or equipment, it was out of date and being replaced by the latest within 3 years. So, I get change and the expensive part of it as well, let alone the training, staffing and change management at every phase.

At the same time, this change was necessary for survival. I remember a banker once telling me that they were putting printing companies in the same bucket as restaurants in terms of loan risk.

So, being resistant to change was not an option for us, in fact we had to transform our organization, this large seemingly immovable object into something new, and quickly. We made the pivot to providing marketing services, in addition to manufacturing, all the while being sure that the offerings were always interconnected so we had a cross-sell, upsell opportunity for our reps.

Once the new service offerings were in place it was a full court press to sell. Frankly, that was the hardest part, getting reps that knew one thing extremely well to learn something new. They needed to know it well enough to confidently know how to sell it and even how to start the conversation. Not everyone is built to say ‘no, I haven’t done this before, and you will be my first customer’ – it’s scary. Change for these reps could mean the end of their only source of income. If the client is unhappy with the marketing services they receive, will they pull their other business? If the company brings in another rep to help the traditional rep sell, will they lose their commission or relationship with the client?

Again – as I mentioned in Part 1 - It seems that we have a natural inclination, when it comes to change, to imagine the worse.

Why not embrace the change, learn the new offering, grow your relationship with your client by bringing them more value, sell more, make more money, and grow? Because it’s scary, takes a lot of work and the outcome is uncertain. What we forget is that not changing likely will lead to outcomes that are also scary, resulting in a lot of extra work and uncertainty.

Signed,

Change (Let’s get it done)