Been a busy summer traveling the globe and training enterprise sales teams in Europe, Asia Pacific and both coasts of the United States. Observing, coaching and training salespeople and sales managers across the globe, both in-person and virtually, in successive weeks prompts a few summary observations:

• Universality of the Sales Quest - when you take away the language and cultural distinctions, the commonality of sales around the world is striking. Regardless of country, product and marketplace, salespeople young and old are challenged to engage new prospects with compelling sales introductions, adjust sales messaging to target audiences, effectively qualify, question and probe, prioritize and strategically develop and manage account and opportunities, execute sales processes while utilizing internal and external resources, present proposals, negotiate deals to closure and accurately forecast while they keep the pipeline growing and flowing. Sales is a tough but great job if you can get it, and handle it.
• Winners, Losers and Survivors - while all regions are still in various levels of difficult economic straits, one will always find regional high-performing sales super stars who keep blowing out their numbers. Likewise there are those that come up short and don't keep their jobs. There a growing class of those who are just hanging on to jobs with average and mediocre sales production. Tough times create allowances for less than stellar performances. Key is not to settle. Improved sales execution raises all boats.
• Training Skills and Changing Minds - modern sales training is not just about selling products, it's about teaching proven, provocative techniques customized for the new selling era. It's also about changing old mindsets and habits for one generation and capturing minds and developing habits for a whole new generation. Both groups are demanding, curious and infinitely teachable. This generational dynamic is played out in all geo regions.

So with lessons taught and learned, it's now good to be home. Just seems however that the world got smaller.

(from 42 Rules to Increase Sales Effectiveness)

 

Account review sessions can be formal or informal sessions involving managers, the account rep or team, technical management and any other key individuals participating in the analysis and strategy development of an ongoing account, typically a major account. They may last an hour, a half day or even a full day for very complex situations. At IBM these sessions were often grueling with intense preparation. Nevertheless they were critical to successfully navigating and directing resources in a complex sales situation.  

 

Today many opportunities lend themselves to strategic review, or at least best practice selling efforts. In Rule 21 we reviewed an informal

"snapshot" review tool called the 360^o Account Snapshot to manually review deals. Companies are now moving toward dynamic interactive tools that recreate the Strategic Account Plan while guiding one along the sales process for all key sales opportunities.

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