Sorry for the misleading comments. Having started up several businesses I know all too well, and agree with you, that at one point or another a business owner will be wearing all of the hats in the company. Unless, like you mentioned above, there is funding involved to lighten that load very early on or, like we both mentioned before, a partner is already on board that can fill the gaps.

Getting your hands dirty is a must in my book as it’s the only way to be involved from the ground up on building processes to hand off to other people. You end up doing it by yourself or working with someone else with this knowledge already to build each and every process. This is setting the foundation for your business structure. Without it, you can’t successfully hire others to do any jobs within the company.

Personally, I think this is a huge advantage to a company that is internally funded versus one that was externally funded. A lot gets lost when you have the money to move so fast that the business foundation is never made, tested and established.

George Sierchio
http://consultantscoach.com

I agree with your comment about small business owners not having to be an actual sales person in their company. However, this might be necessary if funds are limited and they are just getting started. I would much rather see the owner focus on sales rather than ignore it.

The long term objective of any business owner should be to run and grow their enterprise and function as its CEO. It is impossible to do this if they are working as an employee for the company by doing all of the sales and/or tech work. The ultimate goal should be to hire people to do these jobs. But sometimes, you have to get your hands dirty first to get to this point.

Paul Barnett
Marketing Director
Virtual Administrator

I especially like your take on partners. Unless picking others that compensate for lack of business skills rather than mirror them, a partner is not the way to go as this just adds headaches and other no-so-fun tensions as time goes on.

Although the owner of a small business must be involved in sales process development, I don’t buy into them having to be an actual sales person in their company. If sales is not their thing, then the only choice is to bring someone else on board. If you can’t commit to it, don’t bother as it detracts from the owner taking care of things that suit their skills weakening the company further.

Dustin, the truth of the matter is that most small IT services companies forget they are a business altogether and run things as a self made job. Even when they have employees. This is a huge growth and profitability hindrance.

Without a target audience, a system to market to them and a system to sell to them, you can add as many tech applications to a “Field of Dreams” as you want and they still won’t come… because they have no idea the company exists and what it does.

But with increased sales comes great responsibility to have the rest of the business structure in order. Marketing and sales systems drive the top line while other business systems define the bottom line.

George Sierchio
http://consultantscoach.com

You are right on the money. Sales requires a day in and day out commitment.

Before coming to Virtual Administrator, I managed a fifty-plus person sales team. I have to admit, I was stunned by the lack of focus on sales with MSPs and IT Providers. As you stated, there is “Field of Dreams” mentality. Because of this, I can almost guarantee success to those who give the proper focus to sales. You will have the edge.

Paul Barnett
Marketing Director
Virtual Administrator

I’ve observed that there is a “Field of Dreams” mentality in this industry; if you build it, they will come. Automation, Cloud, VoIP, SaaS; if we only had those things then I could land more customers. The truth is that you will only succeed with a functioning sales engine and by having the focus to make that your top priority in your business.

The hardest part about sales is committing to do it day in and day out. If you can do that then you can learn how to implement a functioning sales engine that adds new recurring revenue every month. Don’t believe me? Ask any of the members of TruMethods

Bob Penland
CTO
TruMethods
http://www.trumethods.com