If you have ever watched the NFL Draft, you can feel the tension and drama when the Commissioner announces a draft pick to the world and then proclaims the next team that is “On the Clock”. In that scenario, the NFL team has a set amount of time to make…
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…
At the close of a two day sales strategy and training event with a client last week, the question was asked whether Buyers go through similar preparation and training. Although we made the joke that we were doing the same work with their Buyers next week, there is a certain…
We spend a lot of time talking with Executives and Sales Leaders about their Sales related priorities and current challenges. An area of opportunity that I would put forward as low hanging fruit is doing comprehensive Win/Loss Analysis on an ongoing basis. The information is extremely valuable and helps you…
“A FOOL WITH A TOOL IS STILL A FOOL.” -Grady Booch (Software Developer) The title is somewhat self-explanatory and as we all look in the mirror, there is a pretty good chance that we have all invested in some form of tool or technology in our lives to solve…
Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of the most respected and successful actors in the world. I was reading an article about him the other day and I was struck by his process for preparing for a play or a movie. He stated that he always reads his lines out loud…
As we meet with various sales leaders and salespeople, we are finding a common theme emerging. Many salespeople are presenting their “solution” to the client far too early in the sales process. As we dig into the reasons for this behavior we have uncovered some consistent explanations as to why Premature Selling…
Recently I was chatting with a colleague who was down in dumps about his sales team’s inability to properly forecast the opportunities in the sales pipeline. “We have a large number of opportunities at the top of the funnel and nothing that is ready to close.” When…
Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more. The phrase “Will it play in Peoria?” has been around for over 100 years. Derived from Horatio Alger’s book, Five Hundred Dollars, the phrase evolved into its current form after being repeated often by Groucho Marx. It signifies that if a show is successful…
The term Value Proposition may be the most over used and misunderstood business phrase since Partner. Organizations often use Value to describe generic, unproven statements about their product or service that could also describe any of their competitors. If you are curious about how your organization views and is aligned…