Hi team. Can I call you team?
I know I’ve been a little quiet, but if you’ve been following along, you probably get it. We’re getting close to the end of Q3, so I’ve been auditing my sales process, working deals, and trying to get things wrapped up before Q4.
What I’ve Been Building
If you’ve read some of my other posts, you also know I’ve been thinking a lot about account selection. Not just who fits an ICP, but who actually deserves my attention right now. For the last three weeks, I’ve been turning that thinking into an actual system that will ultimately take my large territory and tell me where I need to focus.
If I can be completely honest, I genuinely thought this would be easier.
Getting a System to Apply the Same Rules Every Time
There are so many variables and situations that have to be considered. The hardest part so far hasn’t been finding a great account. It’s been getting the system to apply the same rules consistently and surface the same accounts for the same reasons every time.
And I think what’s surprised me the most about building this is that you can make something, test it, and something weird can happen. Then you figure out why, make some changes, and run it again. And after all of that, something else breaks. So you start from the beginning and run it again.
When the System Works but the Rules Are Wrong
You can even have a system that works exactly how you told it to, and the problem isn’t anything the system is doing. It’s the rules you gave it.
That’s basically what I’ve been doing for the last three weeks.
How Long Does It Actually Take to Build Something?
It’s given me a new appreciation for how long it actually takes to build something. Three weeks ago, I probably would have heard that something took six months to a year to build and wondered what could possibly take that long.
I get it now.
Making something work once is one thing. Making something that keeps working when you throw different situations at it is a completely different problem.
Heading Into Q4
Anyway, Q3 has given me a lot to think about: what worked, what didn’t, where I wasted my time, and where I should be spending more of it. So I’m heading into Q4 with a slightly different sales process, a system I built to support it, and a few things I want to test. Hopefully I’ll have some interesting results to share.
Until then ✌️