All business owners and CEOs of growing companies often say,” I don’t’ want to put my money in Sales.” or “It is not the right time to invest in sales.” I hear a lot of these. The reasons being crystal clear for everyone to take a step back in investing in Sales because they are unsure of clients or the projects that fall into their lap. They are unsure of finding a prospect that generates revenues for them. This is the case of a Catch 22 situation.
Now let me spell out what a Catch 22 situation is. By definition Catch 22 situation is a knotty problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem. It is a deadlock situation where any two actions are waiting for the other to complete. To be clearer here I would like to quote the famous show-business catch–22: “No work unless you have an agent, no agent unless you’ve worked.”
Recently I was conversing with CEO of an Event Management company. He was explaining to me a CATCH 22 situation. So this company was celebrity management agency. They managed celebrity promotional events, parties or ribbon-cutting ceremony for hospitals, schools, spa, or jewelry store. So I was thinking about how much sale conversion these events would have resulted in for the party. As per his stats it was very less.
I have been seeing these CATCH 22 or what people call as the CHICKEN or EGG situations in all walks of business belonging to different domains.
I have pondered over on this issue and was thinking how we minimize the cost of investment in sales for developing companies to crack the CATCH 22 situation. Hurrah! What is working out for me is NETWORKING and in precise Referral Marketing. Yes, Referral marketing accounts to about 1/3 the cost of overall investment and hence CATCH 22 situation can be overcome.
Do let me know your experience in CATCH 22 situations and share what worked for you in all those situation.
Sriharsha Neergundha Nagaraj Director, Business coach, Author and Speaker 