Cause
Most owners are contractors first, not sales and marketing experts. So they teach people how to sell based on technical knowledge, which is great. However this isn’t what makes a sales professional, so we call them estimators. Sales professionals do what estimators don’t do, which is actually sell.
Consequence
Typically you see proposals get emailed versus presented, very bad follow up, zero prospecting, nobody asks for referrals, poor qualification of leads and ultimately a bid and beg, spray and pray, bid it and forget it sales culture which won’t scale.
Solution
Analyze the existing team of estimators and decide if you can transform them or if you need to hire sales professionals instead. Ideally, the estimation is either being done with technology or delegated to a technical expert, while the sales professionals are taking massive action.
Ideal Outcome
As Jim Collin’s says, the greatest companies have the right people in the right seat on the bus. Having the right people in the right seats will be incredible and will help you achieve your goals in the business.