Thoughts On Selling

The challenge I've seen in so many organizatio...

2011-12-08T09:29:52.668-05:00

The challenge I've seen in so many organizations is that when the number suck, the first in front of the firing line is those who can't justify their jobs. Sales can tie actions to results very easily. Marketing less so. One requires data to turn into information to turn into decisions (about keeping the marketing schmoe) and that takes money and thus we have the chicken/egg. Which do you cook first?

As a procurement professional I often find that sa...

2011-01-01T20:24:31.641-05:00

As a procurement professional I often find that sales people don't know how to navigate the procurement process and end up not closing the deal when they easily could have. I was so inspired by this issue that I started the blog below..

http://salespeopleguidetoprocurementselling.blogspot.com/

I started out in sales, working for Computer Scien...

2010-04-28T10:10:35.706-04:00

I started out in sales, working for Computer Sciences Corporation in 1978 and went through their Marketing Trainee Program. We were taught "Consultative Selling" back then and it is even more relevant today because prospects are better informed and have a better understanding of the limited resources that their companies have and the importance of making the right decision to their success and upward mobility in the organization.

Any sales person who doesn't have a win-win attitude going into the sales process will not succeed in sales in the long term and do more harm to the company that employees them than good.
-Ray Hoffer

All three levers are really important and urgent, ...

2010-01-01T18:00:59.307-05:00

All three levers are really important and urgent, and I like the combination of them in the framework. But implementation will be different! Customer intelligence could be the easiest one depending on the data quality in the CRM systems - and it can be done sales internally as a regular task.
The second lever, sales enablement is often more difficult to implement and it's an ongoing process and governance issue for sales, marketing and portfolio management. Additionally it's often a change management challenge to turn an organization towards collaboration! If the basic process, content quality and ownership issues are managed successfully the most important tasks follows, creating really good conversation as you mentioned here (for us embedded in an overall consultative selling approach). Industry or account specific playbooks, battle cards, podcasts etc. with consistent messages matching a company's mission and core beliefs could be the dream of a sales enablement manager...
I like the new role of the first line sales manager, getting more a coach than a data based funnel manager. Depending on the oprganization it will be a question of leadership and will request often different sales manager skills! Good idea!

Lee: Great insights; espcially focusing on busine...

2009-10-02T09:43:28.795-04:00

Lee:

Great insights; espcially focusing on businesses committed to short-term ressults.

-Rob Peters