Some things I’ve learned in the past few years:

BIG Office = BIG Clients

In my experience, “Fake it till you make it” doesn’t really work. Yes, it looks nice to have a big office, but if your product/service isn’t ready for mass-appeal, then you shouldn’t be spending so much to make it look like it’s ready for primetime. If the product makes sense, it won’t matter what your office looks like. Just meet the clients for lunch elsewhere and get past it.

More Salespeople = More Sales

Believe it or not, that old Law of Diminishing Returns is a law for a reason. Some salespeople are stellar at what they do. Most are not. So, don’t think just because you’ve added 10 salespeople that you will see 10 times more in sales. It’s just not that simple. You’ll probably find that 10% of your salespeople bring in 90% of your revenue. Fire the stragglers, and give the good ones a raise!

Paying Employees Well = Working Harder

This was interesting. You’d think that giving your employees more benefits, better paychecks, and better hours would make them happy and appreciative. You would think they would put in more work. You’d be wrong. Most low-level employees have no problem taking advantage of the higher pay by simply not going that extra mile. You’re better off paying low base salaries, and super-high commissions. The work ethic will improve, and if it doesn’t, fire them.

Trade Shows = New Clients

This may be a shocker to some people, but trade shows most of the time will not yield much new sales, if any at all. I’ve seen so many startup companies spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on their first year of going to tradeshows. They go “all out”, getting huge displays, advertise in the booklets that the organizers hand out, get models at the booths, etc, etc. And they get a lot of people who walk up and say: “Oh yes, this is amazing, I will totally email you when I get home and sign up!” Well, these companies quickly learn that people at booths are all talk. Look at Trade Shows as simply marketing, don’t think of them as equating into direct sales.

Revolutionary = Overnight Success

You can invent the cure to cancer and getting the word out will be harder than you can imagine. Some people will be skeptics, others will be naysayers’ but many will just want you to fail. People do not like newcomers so if you invent the next greatest thing since sliced bread, don’t expect an overnight success as the old adage is really true, overnight success takes about 20 years.