News July 2009
It has long been recognised that for musicians or sportsman that they need to spend considerable time practicing to become elite performers. The figure often quoted is 10,000 hours. The same is true in business.
It takes the same 10,000 working hours to become an ‘expert’ in a particular area of opecialism – realistically that’s about 8˝ years. So on that reckoning, most people working in smaller companies are ‘experts’ – unlike their counterparts in larger organisations.
This is the view of the UK’s leading technology sales and marketing coach, Terry Forsey, who believes that the Small Medium Business (SMB) holds the expertise to bring the country out of recession.
“People within smaller businesses typically spend 70% of their time focussing on their ‘expert subject’,” explained Terry. “When this measurement is transferred to larger companies – who tend to move people around between jobs - the time needed to attain ‘expert’ status rises to around 12 years or even 20 in some cases. This is because so much time is spent in meetings and on admin – I have evidence that in one organisation, sales guys were only selling for 2 days a week – the rest of the time was spent on sales meetings and internal reporting!”
Terry went on to say that within the technology sector, he believed that smaller businesses hold the knowledge to revive the economy and that by specialising in a niche sector (especially if your business is in a broad area like ERP or software development) this ‘expertise’ will make you an expert.
"Larger companies, with their internal redeployment, will never have an ‘expert’ in any niche - so leaving the field wide open,” added Terry. “Smaller companies should also beware of bringing in sales people from such organisations - they rarely have the relevant sales experience needed and are seldom experts in anything other than working for a large company!”
For more information call 01536 771440 or email, terry@forsey.info.
ENDS
