What can we do today? Have you ever wondered what difference you or your group can make in one single day? Do you work the phones, or go visit customers asking for increase? Do you brainstorm together with co-workers or customers to create a BIG idea for future sales campaigns?

Seems like a relevant question today, as many businesses struggle to make short term goals and the finance driven world becomes more relevant.

I heard something yesterday - that one of the most successful things that Jack Welch of GE fame did was to keep the corporation from being classed as a "finance" org. Because of its broad holdings and the growth of GE credit, there was always a worry that the corp would be predominately considered finance oriented and classed as such. This would create a different environment, causing the debt ratings, multiples, etc to change. It would also create a pressure cooker short term environment for results that causes bad decisions to occur.

What Mr. Welch did, I hear, is to keep the growth coming for the core businesses, such as turbines, so that the credit group did not overtake and become the core group.

Not much about sales and marketing, per se, but if you think about how are goals are set, how we strive to achieve them and how reasonable they are - depends a lot on the financial of the organization you work for.

So, back to the issue/question of the day: What can we do today? It seems the answer depends a lot on your goals and the finance org driving us to a short term world.

Is there an answer out there?