Sales
Haven't sold the copy. I did get the program to be able to read files. I didn't use that ability to renovate the levels yet.
Sales goals. I need to think a bit about sales goals. In a way, you might say that a company is sales. If there aren't sales there isn't a company. If you have a product that everybody and their brother buys and if there is a margin there then you have a company. You might say that a key requirement for the success of any company is sales.
But at least this week, a sales goal didn't sit well. It didn't sit well on a couple of counts. First of all, sales seemed like a distraction at this time when development seemed key. But secondly and more importantly, it was a goal for other people rather than for myself. That fact can easily lead to problems. It can lead to manipulation, to dishonesty. Perhaps less obviously, it can lead you to forget the best interests of the perpective buyer and focus instead on a sale. There seems to be something about a goal that involves changing the behavior of other people that is incompatible with the ideals of a company built to do good.
So there is a tricky thing to think about: you want people to buy your product. But if you make selling it your primary focus you can shoot yourself in the foot morally and probably strategically as well. The best solution that I have for the moment is that sales should be a goal, but only as a byproduct of excellence in other areas. There are really only two other areas: product development and communication. You make something that people will value and then you find ways to let them know about it.
So I think it is OK to have sales aspirations. There is no company without sales. But as far as reaching those aspirations with short term goals, I don't want to do it using sales goals. Rather, I want to focus on product development and communication. I guess the aspirations are goals. But by focusing on your own actions and not on the actions of others you can avoid a lot of the morally grey spots that come from a more direct focus on sales.
So that's what I intend to start doing.
Doug
Sales goals. I need to think a bit about sales goals. In a way, you might say that a company is sales. If there aren't sales there isn't a company. If you have a product that everybody and their brother buys and if there is a margin there then you have a company. You might say that a key requirement for the success of any company is sales.
But at least this week, a sales goal didn't sit well. It didn't sit well on a couple of counts. First of all, sales seemed like a distraction at this time when development seemed key. But secondly and more importantly, it was a goal for other people rather than for myself. That fact can easily lead to problems. It can lead to manipulation, to dishonesty. Perhaps less obviously, it can lead you to forget the best interests of the perpective buyer and focus instead on a sale. There seems to be something about a goal that involves changing the behavior of other people that is incompatible with the ideals of a company built to do good.
So there is a tricky thing to think about: you want people to buy your product. But if you make selling it your primary focus you can shoot yourself in the foot morally and probably strategically as well. The best solution that I have for the moment is that sales should be a goal, but only as a byproduct of excellence in other areas. There are really only two other areas: product development and communication. You make something that people will value and then you find ways to let them know about it.
So I think it is OK to have sales aspirations. There is no company without sales. But as far as reaching those aspirations with short term goals, I don't want to do it using sales goals. Rather, I want to focus on product development and communication. I guess the aspirations are goals. But by focusing on your own actions and not on the actions of others you can avoid a lot of the morally grey spots that come from a more direct focus on sales.
So that's what I intend to start doing.
Doug
posted by Douglas H. at 3:28 PM
1 Comments:
I really like the idea of answering those questions concretely. I guess that part of the answer needs to be dynamic over time: you can choose your target users but in the end your users choose you. Let's see if we can't achieve some clarity over the next couple of weeks.
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