You would be hard pressed to go through a Deal Review and not have this as a question asked by one of your Executives or teammates. What do you think the Price to Win is? In general, we will always be guessing, but some guesses are more informed than others.
Common Language
Fail Less or Win More
If you were given a choice, looking at the effectiveness of sales organization, would you rather lose less or win more? The word “both” was likely just echoing in your head. What we know to be true from both external data sources and the work we do with clients [large…
Strategy Lessons From a 2 Year Old
As a relatively new father, my 2-year-old son never ceases to amaze me at the pace that he both learns and adjusts. He is very vocal and has a great repository of words that grow daily, so you get to hear how his thought process plays out. Like most kids,…
The Art of the Fast Start
It is January 2nd and for most, the first day of the new business year. As an Executive or a Sales Leader, are you and your teams ready to roll? The implication of the question is that there was a lot of thinking and planning done in Q4 to get…
The Sales Carousel
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a conference populated with C-Level executives. Their company size ranged from $20M to $1B+. I was fortunate to be able to interview 10 executives on the subject of sales and how they prefer to be contacted/engaged by sales people. The answers themselves were…
How Are You Being Judged in Your Complex Deals
According to recent studies by CEB and others, when your reps get invited into an opportunity [lead, RFP, etc.], the prospect is already 57% of the way through their purchasing process. The implications are significant on your cost of sale and your win rate. Chances are pretty good that the…
Bring Your Own App?
I saw this headline the other day and I was intrigued by this concept given the work we do with executives and sales leaders in the area of sales strategy and effectiveness. It was heightened by an inquiry we received from a rep from billion dollar plus organization. She was…
The Top 2 Levers for Organic Share Growth
We have talked previously that the concept of strategy is all about growth. Virtually every executive that we speak with has organic revenue growth as one of his or her top priorities. As corporate balance sheets have continued to improve, the volume of acquisitions has continued to accelerate and multipliers…
Manage Their Firsts
If Sales Training budgets are diminishing, then Training for Sales Leadership is even further evaporating down the priority list. As the trend continues to hire “Just Add Water” Sales Leaders [domain expertise, worked for larger brands, and other things that don’t actually work], then the corresponding consequence is to rationalize…
The Lean Sales Organization?
As someone trained in Lean Six Sigma, I see a lot of content focused on the concept of “Lean”. Eric Ries has had success with “The Lean Startup” and we are proponents of the concept of a Minimum Viable Product, which we used with the launch of our INK Sales…