This is probably going to be a sort of Work Out Loud thread as I describe the activities to build up the new service offerings from my company. I will be delighted to read you comments, criticisms and suggestions in the weeks ahead.
The building up of a new product line is something very new to me. In the past, I have generally been away from the front line of sales and service. I have been focused on helping the companies I have worked for achieve efficiency and effectiveness in a sustainable way. This means not only putting in place the processes, equipment and training needed to reach the designed levels of performance but also making sure that there was a culture of continuous improvement embedded so that as conditions in the market changed, the company could adapt and continue to prosper.
In those situations, there were others, well training and highly motivated to seek out new clients and convince them to buy from us. Yes, there were occasions when I looked at the marketing and sales processes and offered advice on how to improve - but I have never done the selling myself. Now, I don't selling the collaboration services, there is no-one else!
Of course, when we think back on our careers, we have all had occasion to sell: when seeking a new job or role; when seeking support for a new project; even when organizing a night out for our friends and colleagues. When I reflect on the past three years, inside a multi-national company where I was promoting the change of culture to open collaborations, I recognize that I was spending most of my time selling the idea of collaboration through personal discussion, email, blogs, forums and chat rooms. In that situation, I was trying to get people to spend some of their very precious time to try out the new system and see the results for themselves. Perhaps time is a commodity even more scarce than money? What do you think?
Now, to sell the new collaboration services, I need to first get access to the people in companies where I am not an employee. Then I need to identify those people who can make a decision to introduce open collaboration as a way of working and then convince them that my company can deliver a return on the investment made in this change of culture. Finally, if they are interested, I have to persuade them that dedicating the time of their employees and putting in sufficient money to pay for the service of culture change, is really worthwhile!
I made the change from large multi-national because I believe in the power of open collaboration to transform the performance of an organisation.
I made the change three months ago and I have focused so far on recruiting a network of experts to deliver the services and on developing a website to explain what we do. You can take a look and let me know what you think www.thistlemanagement.com
In my next blog, I will be reporting on developments now that the website is ready and, of course, responding to your comments to this blog
Wishing you all happy collaborating!
Neil