Dinner with TJ

My good friend, mentor, and 3VL Advisor was in town last week. Probably the best part of talking with TJ is that he helps me get a sense of clarity around what is important….like clearly articulating what we do at 3VL. Here is what we came up with:

o We sell for companies to get them into new markets, launch new products, etc
o We turn sales organizations around and
o We build entry-level sales people

Pretty simple, right? That’s what I thought!

The next important ah-ha was that if we want to successfully scale this business, we have got to identify and recruit more folks into the Principal role. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Our business depends on these folks so we need more of them. The problem is that we have never really stopped to articulate just what makes a great Principal. As TJ reminded me, when I went looking for a wife (or at least decided I would never find what I was looking for… I sat down and made a list of characteristics. Lo and behold…guess what happened? (For those that don’t know the punch line, her name is Juli.)

Anyway, back to the topic of finding Principals… To this point, the best we have come up with is this: Principals must be able to do three things of almost equal importance:
1) Manage the client
2) Manage and develop the team
3) Sell

The last one is pretty important and the term ‘manage’ is a bit of misnomer. We have had lots of folks come through with traditional ‘command and control’ management experience and they have a hard time getting the job done.

A while back, I came up with the following definition: principals have accountability for committed outcomes within assigned client relationships. Ownership of all aspects of project execution within assigned clients including resource acquisition, management, and compensation. Typically: Demonstrated ability to execute in Associate role.

This is good at a high level but it doesn’t really get into the details of the position. For example, I believe that a Principal must be able to hold the team members to a high degree of accountability. This is not so much a management function as a mentoring role where the Principal must constantly work to increase the effectiveness of the Associates. This is easy to see on an Opportunity level where you can’t just manage based on Activity. The words impatience, dissatisfaction, and confidence seem to be a recurring theme in my vocabulary. It takes a great deal of confidence to lead a team in the construct we use.

The good news is that I just found a document from June of 2003 (two years ago) where I set out to capture the values and characteristics necessary for an effective Principal. (It’s nice to know that I have thought through this before.) I think my project for the week is to ask everybody I talk to what they think matters most in a Principal. I’ll let you know what I find out.