Growth Dynamics Get Down

Today, I want to bring up a topic that I don't think enough people discuss before it becomes a problem: how to manage team selling effectively.

Symptoms:
The silence was deafening. Both Valerie and her prospect sat there looking at each other waiting for the other person to speak first. Valerie had finished her presentation of the new products' features and benefits and was expecting the Director of Operations to give her some indication of how well she had done.

Hey, I'm going to reference one of my best resources, one of my best business relationships, here this week on fast tip Friday. This is a book that two people I know very well, John Condry and Paul Carpenter, wrote a few years ago. It's about management. It's not just sales management, it's just management in general.

Symptoms:
Elizabeth had just gotten the call every sales person hopes for each day. A target account in her territory reached out and asked that she come right away to help them with a big problem. Knowing her technical expertise could be very valuable in this situation, Elizabeth felt sure that winning the project was just a matter of not making a fatal mistake.

Symptoms:
After a long sales process finally appeared to be coming to a successful conclusion, Paul was breathing a sigh of relief until his client decided he wanted to extract some sweat from Paul for the win. Just when he thought it was over and done, the regional vice president chimed in with one last contract change that he claimed was a deal breaker if it wasn't accommodated.

Symptoms:
Melody and her boss just couldn't understand why she continued to struggle to close business. She was a very outgoing person who was extremely well liked by her customers. She went out of her way to be friendly to everyone and appeared to possess a good knowledge of her product and the selling process. Her failure to excel was confusing everyone.

The economy is not something that can be ignored. Perhaps on the personal side, people can ignore the bigger concept of the economy, but maybe not their own budget needs. On the business side, the economy is always in the picture. Let’s take a few minutes to review what might be impacting longer sales cycles and how strong business development professionals make the most of it.

Symptoms:

Cody knew that the firm he represented was considered the best in class by the other major players in the market. As far as technical competency, customer service and the ability to deliver more than clients expected, Cody's firm always scored extremely high. With that ace to play whenever he needed to, he was sure that this new position as a Business Development Specialist would soon prove to be the road to riches. After his first 90 days Cody and his manager met to review his progress, and the picture was not pretty.

Symptoms:

Brian just made a proposal to a buyer and received the same response he has heard so many times recently. "Thanks for the proposal. Appreciate you coming in. We'll give it some consideration and let you know."