Dafne Tsakiris
Is it time to question your process for filling your sales pipeline with right-fit prospects?
Asking easy questions will lead to small results.
Asking hard questions will lead to big results.
Don’t be afraid to ask hard questions. Start with this one.
“If someone else took over your business tomorrow, what’s the first thing they would change?”
Business process and systems expert Dafne Tsakiris reports: “Usually the first response to this is ‘Everything,’ followed by nervous laughter, but once this is on the table you can dig in deep.”
Tsakiris is a self-described operations expert, efficiency junkie, and passionate entrepreneur who takes ideas from the back of the napkin to their fullest potential.
Her company, Launch Point, was one of those ideas. Born from a double-date conversation over Italian food as her friend shared his company woes, Tsakiris recognized that each of the problems in her friend’s business was 100% solvable with systems improvement.
To date she has worked with more than 100 companies to create business systems.
In my view, creating systems for the area of business development is not a set-it-and-forget-it affair. You might compare it to an annual physical with your doctor or a regular car tune-up with your mechanic.
What you want is a knowledgeable outsider’s help to uncover blind spots that could stop you or your car. The same is true for your business.
“We all have blind spots and less than ideal things we continue ignoring in our business, which is why this question is so powerful,” relayed Tsakiris in a phone interview.
She says the hard question forces us to look at our business from an outsider's perspective, reevaluate what is truly important and focus on what will really move the needle.
“I can promise you that as soon as you ask this question you are going to have a list of at least three to five items that are glaringly obvious that you have been sweeping under the rug for the past months or even years,” says Tsakiris.
If you have a team, she says you can also take this a step further and ask each of your leaders, managers or even team members: “If someone else took over your job tomorrow, what is the first thing they would change?”
That is a gut punch question.
“Trust me when I say you are going to have a laundry list of improvements to make in your business,” says Tsakiris.
(I remember that day at my company: we had a list of 56 items. Ouch. But we attacked the list.)
“This might sound overwhelming, but contrary to a SWOT analysis, internal review, or something similar, this question will only bring up the most critical points to address in order to increase your productivity, profitability, and growth,” she says.
Personally, as I grew my business, I worked with author Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Academy, named for his bestselling book. The academy taught there are six major systems a business owner needs to work on to create a money-making machine.
Three systems have to do with business development: brand promise, lead generation and lead conversation (that is the focus of my writings and teaching).
The other three systems are equally important, and have to do with keeping the brand promise, and they revolve around operations, money, and people.
According to Tsakiris, a truly efficient and effective cross-functional business requires integration across the entire organization, especially between the business’s processes and technology.
“Even if one department is incredibly efficient in and of itself, rewards are diminished if other departments don’t play so well with others,” says Tsakiris.
