The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Are you curious about what has “never killed a salesperson?”  Are you curious, period?  I hope so.  It's one of the best traits a salesperson can carry into the field.  Perhaps curiosity killed the cat, but it’s as healthy as a 60-minute workout for those of us who sell.

Probably not! It’s only a slight exaggeration. After 21 years of consulting sales organizations of all sizes, both here in North America and overseas, I can tell you there is one thing that executives and sales managers keep getting wrong.

If you’re a client of The Center for Sales Strategy, this message could be akin to “singing to the choir.” But even the greatest practitioners of customer-focused selling can benefit from a reminder, from time to time.  

Anyone who’s ever participated in sports, coached sports, or watched sports knows the object of the game is to win! We keep score throughout the game, because when the game is over we want to know who played the best and who deserves to be crowned the winner!  Salespeople in B2B sales are pretty much the same. They keep score by evaluating their new business conversion rates, by regularly analyzing their budget vs. goal numbers, by measuring renewals, and by consistently making sure they’re meeting their customer’s goals and ROI. When all of these things are positive… they consider that a win.  

Some say that salespeople are a dime a dozen. Basically, they have very little value.  On the contrary! In b2b sales, great salespeople can literally be worth millions of dollars to their clients’ business.

During the American Revolution, July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved and signed by the Second Continental Congress setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom with the resolution of independence from Great Britain. Two days prior, John Adams wrote these words to his wife Abigail:

1. Surprise Business! – This is new business that comes your way because of your company’s great reputation, your connections in the community, or simply “being in the right place at the right time.”
2. Enterprise Business! – This is new business that you developed from scratch, business that would not have existed anywhere but for your efforts. These are prospects you specifically selected and then worked hard to get in front of. Once in front of these prospects, you nailed an important assignment during your needs analysis meeting, which led to the development of a tailored solution.

We all work hard and deserve a few surprises over the year, but if we don't have some enterprise accomplishments too, are we really selling?

"Things were so much simpler before Apple," says my 11 year old daughter after a recent panic attack over the thought of losing her Instagram followers and pictures. Her iPod Touch was a lemon and luckily under warranty, but the time between her device crashing and her logging back into her Instagram app was pure torture… for both of us!