Category: Sales

Where do most of your deeper insights and marketing knowledge reside? Between the ears of your sales engineers. Unfortunately, both VP’s of this division and the engineers themselves feel they’re above the laws of “selling” to customers.

Sales engineers see themselves akin to ninjas, drop into an account for a few hours, razzle and dazzle the customer, and jettison out in rapid fashion. “I don’t own a quota or a customer” is the often heard line.

However, having this mindset is a massive opportunity lost because your sales engineers are your company’s thought leaders! 

If you are still following the same sales playbook today that you did in 1971 then something has to change, immediately. How we sell should reflect current B2B buying behaviours, this requires a more focused organizational process, strategic vision and elevated core competencies.

You’re in sales, and just like Babe Ruth, you will strike out! I hope that like Babe Ruth, your home runs over-shadow your strikeouts but even great ballplayers will miss a few fastballs.

Now what you do right after your strikeout will dictate whether or not you’re setting yourself up for future success or a fast pass to the minor leagues. There are very few buying purchases in the world that are 1x events over a lifetime. You will get another at bat! ERP software, training or even commercial real estate transactions have another chance at the plate over enough time.

It blows my mind when I think about how dynamic the ever-evolving world of startups, sales, and recruiting is.

No longer is finding a remarkable sales opportunity just about having a good resume and knowing how to interview well. If you want to succeed in sales these days you need to know “why” you do what you do (i.e. “vision). And, you can’t just talk the talk… you’ve got to walk the walk as well, because social media is making everything much more transparent.