It’s tough finding your footing in a new industry like solar installation. Randy Bishop constantly reorganizes Verengo Solar Plus to deliver value at a reasonable intersection of price and profit.
The president and CEO found the solution by breaking down silos to get sales support across the organization from 175 employees — 75 of whom joined the team since January 2010.
“It’s incredibly important to make sure that everyone is aligned and no one area is getting out of whack,” says Bishop, who achieved revenue of $15 million in 2009, then hit that mark again only halfway through 2010. “That’s how we’ve been able to grow.”
What’s the key to thriving in a recession?
Having the right business model helps an incredible amount when times are tough. The operational side of things becomes critical in a recession.
We’re very focused on … our sales engine. That is where the cost can get most out of whack most quickly. That’s not to say the back end isn’t as important. If the sales and marketing aren’t right, it’s impossible to make it up on the back end. So our entire organization has a very strong orientation to the sales and marketing function.
Execution is incredibly important in those areas. We’re not believers in spending for just branding or awareness purposes. All of our marketing spend is related to generating leads and quantifying that cost per lead and cost per sale. It requires a lot of collaboration between marketing and sales to make sure that what’s being (promised in marketing) is being delivered from the sales channel and that there’s consistency all along that process.
If there’s any disconnect, then the customers vote with their business and go somewhere else.
How do you get consistency across sales and marketing?
A huge part is making sure that incentives align the organization. Make sure that everyone is pulling for the common goals. It’s very easy to have those be out of whack, so we spend a lot of time making sure that everyone’s aligned in terms of what they’re trying to accomplish.
And then communication: Our head of sales and head of marketing sit next to each other, and they constantly speak to each other. We have very tight feedback loops between the two.
