Scaling Sales: Recent Comments

Comment on "Thought Bubble" Inflation: The Sales / Service Handoff

Molly — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:20:22 GMT

Paul, I love the cartoon illustrating the "thought bubble" inflation. As a sales person and a consumer I've had this experience. I never thought about the importance of this gap until now.

Comment on "Thought Bubble" Inflation: The Sales / Service Handoff

Wil Bradley — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:29:54 GMT

Great article. As someone who has been on the sales side, as an SE, a consultant and part of the execution team, this hits home.

Setting expectations is key to any type of sale, especially technology.

Sales definitely needs to have the SE or a consulting rep review SOWs. Involving them at the kickoff meeting may be too late. It might be a good idea to have the SE review technical reqs with the client during the sales cycle. This can be done over the telephone or via Goto Meeting between sales calls. Preventing the unexpected always helps.

The "bubble" usually bursts with implementation. The customer implementation group runs into unexpected issues or requirements. If they haven't been included in the buying process, it leads to a "You should have asked us first" mentality. Things go down hill from there.

Sales people hate it, but I believe including some type of technical review by the implementation group during the sales cycle, can keep the bubble floating to the next sale.

Comment on New Rep Checklist

Jeff Ernst — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:16:11 GMT

Paul, I didn't realize just how much infrastructure there is to set up a new rep before seeing your checklist. When it comes to ramping up new reps on our value proposition, we've created a "New Rep Onboarding" sales playbook at Kadient which is organized differently than our various sales playbooks for working new opportunities or expansion sales. This onboarding playbook lays out the various pitch decks, demo scripts, industry sheets, etc. in a logical order for a newbie to absorb, rather than pointing them to an overwhelming pile of stuff.

Comment on Measuring Winnable Opportunities

Wil Bradley — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:22:21 GMT

You've revealed a very important truth. In sales teams I've worked in, its all about the sale, not really about the profit. I see potential challenges in convincing sales people, who live and die by the quota.