Last weekend was our 3rd annual Leadership retreat here at at Actionable. It’s a fabulous excuse to bring our team together (everyone works virtually here, often times from the far reaches of the globe), but it also gives me good reason to review our progress to date.
Despite the fact that I live in the world of thought leaders and leading business insights – where reflection and planning sessions are encouraged heavily – I still find it challenging to set aside the time for proper review and reflection. I can only imagine what it’s like for leaders in different industries. Kudos to you for taking the time to stay current. You’re the exception, not the rule, and it’ll pay off if it’s not doing so already.
In any event, I took this staff retreat as an opportunity to reflect on the progress we’ve made in the last 30 months. Here’s what our track record has looked like:
I’ve removed the dollars and cents, but I’ve left the rest of the data unedited. The blue line represents the number of monthly unique visitors we see at ActionableBooks.com and, as you can see, it’s been a fairly steady climb. Kira and Andy have been dedicated to that blue line. They wear many hats between the two of them, but effectively everything they’re involved in pushes that number upwards.
I, on the other hand, am responsible for the red line. Whether it’s my personal sales, or the sales leadership & management I provide to our Actionable Consultants, this one is on me. Thankfully, it is moving steadily in the right direction (on average). But you see those three big dips? I know exactly what those were and why they happened – I was focused on product development. We’ve had three major upgrades to the website and product over the last 3 years, and they happen to align almost perfectly to the dips we’ve seen in revenue.
Were the developments important? No question. And did we come out the other side stronger than we went in? The numbers speak for themselves. But what’s become blindingly apparent to me upon reflection is that everytime I focus on product development, top line growth suffers. Where Andy and Kira have focus, I’m bouncing my time between product development, sales, account management and PR. Product Development just happens to be so time consuming (when I’m in it) that the other areas noticeably suffer. So what are the options?
Option #1: Stop developing. Not a realistic option, of course, as our clients expect us to be constantly innovating and, candidly, we have a long way to go before we become the global market leader we believe we can be. It’s worth acknowledging as an option, at least, even if we’d never truly consider it.
Option #2: Hire a sales team. The cardinal rule of entrepreneurship is not to relinquish sales until the sales process is completely proven and duplicatable. I did it anyway. And it didn’t work. Back in 2013 I brought on two professional sales reps. Seasoned , hungry and in complete alignment with the company values, they went to work. It was abysmal. Not their fault. My fault. I won’t do it again for a while.
Option #3: Hire a product manager. It’s sometimes tough to let go of things. Knowing what to let go of can be even harder. I find graphs help. I also know how important it is to focus on your strengths – the highest leverage activities that maximize your innate abilities. For me, that’s client acquisition and management. As much as I enjoy getting into the weeds on product development, I know that there people out there far better at driving that bus than I.
So we’re hiring. And we’re just starting down the path of securing a capital raise to do it properly. The future is bright, strengthened with insights gleaned from reviewing the past.
Reviews and reflection periods are best when they move past the navel-gazing; the back slapping and finger pointing. They’re best when we can learn from the experience of looking back so we can move forward more effectively and with clearer focus. What can you learn from some healthy review? I guess you won’t know until you try.
Image credit: Shari Yantes
