Earning Success
Do You Know What You Don't Know?
by Bill Lisowski & John Mengelson

Key Questions for Managing & Growing Your Business

INTRODUCTION

Wouldn't it be wonderful if a simple snap of the fingers brought a tsunami of continuous sales growth, record revenue, and huge profits? That certainly would be exciting and gratifying, but unfortunately, the true reality for managers, salespeople, and organizations is the same: success must be earned through hard work.

Many false definitions of success seem to persist. Is it success to win a new sale on a product or service that ultimately loses money for the organization? Is it success to receive payment on a receivable so overdue that carrying it severely erodes your profit margin? Is it success to win the initial sale but fail to earn the right to repeat?

Is it the right kind of success?

To varying degrees, many organizations today do define success incorrectly. And in so doing, these organizations, their sales force, and their managers systematically erode the company's viability through wasted efforts and diminished attention to the correct customer. The maximize their opportunities, but these may be the wrong opportunities.

With that in mind, this three-book series offers up two questions to ask any manager:

"Do You Know What You Don't Know?"
"You Can't Know What You Don't Know, Can You?"

Before your organization can succeed, you must establish the foundation for success. The first book in our Success Series, Positioning Success, provided managers the roadmap and questions to create that foundation by examining the work flow processes supporting their organization, by discovering how its people are used or not used as assets to win customers, and by dissecting the cost structure affecting profitability. (www:PositioningSuccess.com.)

With that understanding of your organization's foundation, the second book in our Success Series, Earning Success, builds on this knowledge and creates a framework to bring in customers. Managers will question the strategies for cultivating new business and growing existing accounts, reexamine the process for winning the sale, and create a mindset for living customer satisfaction.

After the deal is done, the hard work really starts. Retaining Success is the final book in our Success Series. Managers will develop strategies to lead their business through the use of key indicators, uncover ways to cultivate better and long-lasting client relationships, and regenerate the technical infrastructure supporting current and future business.

Establishing a culture of success is hard work. Now let's get started!

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