KYC is a term in Financial Services and is a requirement within the Wealth Management world around understanding your client and their goals / objectives to make sure their portfolio matches those goals re asset mix versus what makes the broker the most money. I would like to borrow the…
A few nights ago, I was having dinner with some friends, who are also business colleagues. A question came up at the table re how one the guys approaches strategic planning. He is the CEO of Financial Institution [a large Credit Union to be specific]. His answer was interesting based…
Children are renowned for their constant negotiation of even the simple things in life. What continues to surprise me is the apparent sophistication with which they approach the task. How planned it is may be hard to judge, but the effectiveness is not. My son will be five in a…
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.
I was doing some work with two different clients in the past week where the concept of the “Red Team” came up in conversation. Rooted in military history, a Red Team is an inside group that explicitly challenges a company’s strategy, products, and preconceived notions. It frames a problem from…
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…
I get into a lot of conversations about the increasing Complexity in our customers environments and how that rolls down hill to us. All of our worlds are getting more complex as competitive environments intensify, access to information continues to expand and expectations continue to rise. What is the impact…
Building upon last week’s blog, if we are selling CHANGE, then who is your REAL COMPETITION? Although we all have worthy and formidable competitors, in this new world, our primary competitor is our CUSTOMER or PROSPECT. If you have 100 deals in your sales funnel, more than half of them…
In the world of complex sales, a reality in many markets is there are now more “no decisions” than Wins and Losses combined. A benefit of the work we do with our partner CEB, we get exposed to the most current research and trends from the world of sales and…
I have always liked the fishing metaphor for sales. There is vast opportunity, but spending time in the wrong places yields poor results. “Most of the world is covered by water. A fisherman’s job is simple: Pick out the best parts.” –Charles Waterman A rare occurrence happened the other day.
