Are You CustomerCentric?

How Does Blogging Help Your Company Sell Complex Solutions?

November 24, 2010 | Author: Pekka Sahlsten

There’s no excuse for a company these days not to have a blog. – Matt Cutts, Google Blogging and Social Media Are Spreading As seen on the chart (click the chart to view a larger picture) below published by MarketingSherpa, 69 % of interviewed B2B companies are increasing their budget for social media marketing tactics. In addition to such social media sites as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Flickr, one central pi ... Continue reading

Why Can’t They Just Get Along? (Sales and Marketing, That Is.)

November 17, 2010 | Author: Pekka Sahlsten

Why is it that, as a rule, Marketing and Sales work together so poorly? It should be clear that when two teams both work so intensively with potential customers, their work should be highly coordinated. Nevertheless, this all too seldom is the case. The Degrees of Separation Philip Kotler, Neil Rackham and Suj Krishnaswamy, in their 2006 Harvard Business Review article titled Ending the War Between Sales and Marketing, o ... Continue reading

On Sales and Corporate Strategy

November 16, 2010 | Author: Petteri Laine

Why don’t your sales organisation and corporate strategy speak the same language? Strategy Looks Great (on Paper) I’ve met with lots of companies with great looking strategies. When talking to senior executives they never forget to highlight the hours and money they’ve spent with top consulting companies to help them to put together the strategy of the decade. This is great. What about Execution? On the other hand, t ... Continue reading

Will Sellers Become Obsolete?

November 12, 2010 | Author: Petteri Laine

Customers Know How to Buy Are product sellers needed any longer, if the buyers already know everything about their products? Recent findings indicate that purchasing organizations tie the vendors to their buying process considerably later than in the past. Indeed, the Internet is bursting with information, available both for buyers to research and for competitors to copy – and most anything can be copied in almost ... Continue reading

Can a Good Sales Organization Be Bad in the Customer’s Eyes?

November 10, 2010 | Author: Pekka Sahlsten

In the spring and early summer of this year, when recruiting participants to the Finland’s Best Sales Organization competition, I talked to a lot of sales directors about what is the meaning of a great sales organization to a company. To my surprise, some of them were worried about what their customers might think, if their company profiles itself as good sales organization. One sales director even put it bluntly: We d ... Continue reading

3 Things All Top Sellers Have in Common

November 5, 2010 | Author: Petteri Laine

Salespeople need a lot of different working habits, qualities and skills to succeed at their job. Some of the requirements of course strongly depend on the nature of the task. Large account manager role definitely needs different skills than a new customer acquisition or “hunter” role. However, there are some basic characteristics that I think unite all the top sellers, especially when talking about the comple ... Continue reading

How to Sell When a Customer Is not Prepared to Buy Anything?

November 2, 2010 | Author: Pekka Sahlsten

Often it is said that when selling to corporate customers – as opposed to consumers – you cannot create needs and that you can only fulfill existing needs. In principle, I agree completely: your customer won’t invest large amounts of money without a real identified business need. Why Change the Status Quo? All businesses and business decision-makers have, however, things that could be done better, but which currently ... Continue reading

CustomerCentric Seller’s 7 Steps to Success

October 28, 2010 | Author: George Gombas

Have a conversation about the customer’s situation instead of diving straight into a product demo. Best customer meetings are based on discussions with the goal to understand the customer better. Ask relevant questions to have a meaningful discussion with the customer. Sellers often like to demonstrate their expertise by offering their own opinions to the customer. Customers are much more interested in talking to you whe ... Continue reading

Who Is Your Main Competitor, and How to Win Him?

October 25, 2010 | Author: Pekka Sahlsten

Who do you consider to be your biggest competitor? Is it the market leader or the company down the street, with which you fight like cats and dogs for the the same customers? Wrong. I claim that your most important competitors are No Decision Inc. and Decision Delayed Indefinitely Corp. Surveys show that nearly 30% of all proposals end with “no decision” and just under 25% of all business goes to a competitor. ( ... Continue reading