Topic

academy

A collection of 125 issues

What Happens Next

An exchange I was privy to the other day reminded me of how often I’ve cringed when hearing a sales manager talk to one of their charges about a deal. How is it that so often senior people forget how they themselves wanted to be treated when they were

What's Your Top-Line Indicator?

A thoroughly enjoyable meeting at a client the other day uncovered a remarkably simple approach to funnel management. Selling a combination of fairly big-ticket items (mixing ‘hardware’ & ‘software’), the typical account manager monthly revenue target is 50k. Whilst obviously the main figure, there are two other numbers of prominence. How

What The Top Person Wants To Hear

During a recent training event on how to deal with the most senior of people at your buyer organisation, part of the journey involved my asking of the assembled salesforce what each considered such a top person wanted to hear from a “rep”, the first time you met. In their

Reconnaissance Questions

I encountered an irritating reminder of just how difficult it can be to shake off misleading advice when it’s been hard-wired since early training in my fresh-faced selling days. It struck me as though the way selling was taught in the late 80s and early 90s, you should always

Breaking The Unbreakable

A couple of weeks later, you’re maybe ready to laugh about it. In the days before laptops I remember walking up shaky portacabin stairs in a gale-strewn mid-winter with a colleague and dropping a ludicrously expensive and commensurately weighted server. The damage suffered meant that the machine would turn

Focus On Impact Of Change

Disciples of Solution Selling embrace the recognition of ‘change’ and the importance attached to determining how such changes can affect their sales campaign. After the latest in a long and unfortunately never-ending stream of stolen elections in territories with a false veneer of true democracy, this time in Iran, I

Standing On The Shoulders Of CEO Expertise

I’ve spent time lately helping salespeople understand the kinds of topic that CEO-style people want to hear, specific to when they permit a prospective rep to sit before them for five minutes, and do not ‘appear’ directly involved in your decision process. I was reminded of a time fifteen

Measuring Success

I’ve been forever refining my standard initial proposal format. Over the years it’s become shorter, punchier, ever-more written from the client perspective and, well, downright sexier. There’s always been a section entitled Return On Investment, or something similarly professional sounding. Then a delightful thing happened the other

Round The Room

I fondly recall mentoring a cubrep in the late-90s. I’m delighted to report his progress has been suitably stellar, currently residing in New York selling BI solutions on three continents. I went along with him to a widget box-shifter in the Midlands once ostensibly to say nothing. My aim

Binary Beasts

Yesterday I facilitated a thoroughly engaging solution sales workshop. The intent was to introduce a twelve-strong team to what entering this arena entails, given their historical emphasis on relationship and product orientated selling. The live projects this $40m team worked through typically shared around a dozen key players, long cycles