Sell it internally
Before you launch outside, you need everyone on board inside. Building that buy-in is a process that continues throughout the life of the vertical.
Early on, it means talking to your employees about their scalability to expand certain services. While he interviewed customers, Holz also interviewed some of C.TRAC’s 40 staff members to learn their strengths and growth potential.
“As we targeted what the core competencies were, it was looking at the talent we had in here and the direction we could grow the talent that’s out there,” says Holz, who discovered strong backgrounds in database design.
Especially in this economy, it’s important to keep employees apprised of their roles as the vertical unfolds. That requires communicating your direction.
“One of the biggest mistakes is companies move forward but they don’t clearly explain to the staff why they’re doing it,” Holz says. “They need to understand that when we come and ask you for assistance, this is something we’re doing for the progression of the company and you’re an important piece of it and this is why.”
Maintaining buy-in means maintaining transparency with everyone, whether they work directly on the vertical or not.
“You have to be transparent to them in what you’re trying to do,” Williamson says. “You have to talk the value prop internally almost as much as you do externally. You have to be able to translate to them how we’re using our tools within the
business to service this new market. They need to understand why you’re doing it, not just in regards to the internal utilization but how is that going to help us to attain our financial and growth goals.”
Williamson provides metrics to track those goals, such as how many executives she meets with and how often and what comes of the encounters.
“It’s all about the small successes and making sure that they understand those — even if they aren’t sales,” she says. “[Show] metrics around how many phone calls does it take to get a meeting and how many meetings did we have this week.”
Holz suggests voicing the vertical’s progress and challenges in regular staff meetings. That setting will also reveal who’s on board.
“You can tell they get it when they’re coming to the table with ideas, they’re engaged in what you have to say and they’re coming to you saying, ‘This is what we think we can do better,’ or, ‘Hey, nice job on that,’” he says.
In a small company like C.TRAC, keeping everyone equally informed will prove crucial when you pull employees into the vertical for assistance. If you’ve built the vertical from the company’s core, they won’t have to switch gears entirely. Plus, their perspectives will only help.
“One of the biggest problems leaders have is tunnel vision. They think they have all the great ideas because they’re so close to it,” Holz says. “Someone that’s working in an entirely different piece of the business is going to come up with a question that may make you think about it differently, and that’s where growth and innovation happens. A good leader is able to launch that vertical and make the surrounding organization better because you’re using all those resources for it to be successful.”