Find a political/cultural adviser. In a force optimized for sales and for creating value for your clients, you will need to be able to speak language and navigate the intricacies of company politics. Politics are at play in both your client's company and your own, and you will … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 6 – Find a political/cultural adviser
October 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 5 – Travel light and harden your CSS
October 31, 2009 By 2 Comments
Travel light and harden your CSS. Unless you ruthlessly lighten your load and enforce a culture of speed and mobility, your competition will consistently out-run and out-maneuver you. In sales this means off-loading those aspects of your work that aren't directly related to … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 4 – Organize for Inter-agency Operations
October 29, 2009 By 1 Comment
Organize for inter-agency operations. Almost everything in sales is done with the contacts at your client, as well as your company's strategic partners and vendors. Everything important will involve your company working with contacts within your client's company, as well as other … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 3 – Organize for Intelligence
October 28, 2009 By 5 Comments
Organize for intelligence. In sales, finding the right contacts (and all of the necessary contacts) within the prospects is difficult and time-consuming. Intelligence and sales are complimentary. Your sales will be intelligence driven, but intelligence will come mostly from your … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 2 – Diagnose the Problem
October 27, 2009 By 1 Comment
Diagnose the problem. Once you know the area and its prospects and contacts, you can begin to diagnose the problem. Who are your competitors? What set of problems or challenges do they solve? Sales is fundamentally a competition between many groups, each seeking to mobilize the … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: 1 – Know Your Turf
October 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
If you have not studied counterinsurgency theory, here it is in a nutshell: this is a competition with the insurgent for the right and the ability to win the hearts, minds and acquiescence of the population . . . For your side to win, the people do not have to like you but they … [Read more...]
Twenty-Eight Articles for Sales: Intro
October 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment
In April of 2006, a former officer in the Australian Army and counterinsurgency expert, David Kilcullen wrote an email that was circulated among the Army and Marines in Iraq. Kilcullen was working as an adviser to the U.S. State Department in Iraq at the time. The email garnered … [Read more...]
Failure to Fail
October 26, 2009 By 1 Comment
Are you failing to fail? Does your prospect list contain the potential clients that you are likely not to win? You know the ones I am talking about: the ones that are happy with their current provider of whatever it is you provide, the ones that are impossible to pin down for … [Read more...]
Sales 3.0
October 20, 2009 By 6 Comments
I love Sales 2.0, so don't get me wrong. Even though technology provides us with wonderful new tools, it is no roadmap to success by itself. The right approach, it seems to me, is Sales 3.0. Sales 3.0 is: Sales 1.0 (timeless principles and skill sets) + Sales 2.0 … [Read more...]
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