A winning strategy enables you to anticipate events and communicate your plan. Complex sales strategies must be driven at the industry, enterprise, opportunity, and individual levels. Without a plan, you are at risk of having more than one salesperson on an account saying the wrong things to the wrong people.
Collaboration is critical to the extended sales team. Not only do you have to have a clear strategy, but you also have to be able to communicate the plan to the team. Everyone on the team must know the goals and objectives and must be accountable for their part.
Additionally, you need to have a plan B. Once you have tested your plan, develop alternative strategies. Bad news early is good news because you can still change your plan. Like poker, the worst outcome is to finish second, late after you’ve spent your resources.
Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, and Charles Burck, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done. New York, New York: Crown Business, 2002.
Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths. New York, New York: The Free Press, 2001.
Robert Coram, Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. New York, New York: Back Bay Books, 2002.
Neil Rackham and John DeVincentis, Rethinking the Sales Force: Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer Value. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer, Sales Effectiveness Insights — 2005 State of the Marketplace Review. Bolder, CO: CSO Insights, 2005.
Howard Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. New York, New York: Basic Books, 1983.
Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.
Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. New York: Norton, 2004.
Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Chet Richards, Certain to War: The Strategy of John Boyd Applied to Business. Philadelphia, PA: XLibris Corporation, 2004.
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Web: http://www.complexsale.com
Around the globe, in more than 50 countries, The Complex Sale, Inc., teaches sales teams the processes and skills they need to achieve competitive advantage.
R.A.D.A.R.®—Winning Opportunity Strategies is a proven opportunity management methodology and live-account workshop that enables salespeople to win the competitive, political sales evaluation.
Total Enterprise Account Management® (T.E.A.M.) enables sales forces to build company-to-company relationships in strategic or global accounts.
Best Practices Sales Cycle Workshops for your sales management team to capture the best practice sales cycle unique to your organization, target market, and value proposition.
Coaching the Complex Sale provides managers with a deep understanding of their role as coaches of the sales and business processes implemented by your organization.
FORe — Forecast Opportunity Reviews are one-day workshops designed to install a common language and methodology for coaching opportunity strategies and avoiding forecast surprises.
P.R.I.S.M.® Preemptive Integrated Sales Messaging solves the knowledge-transfer problem between marketing and sales. Build a playbook that the salesperson can use to provide buyers with compelling, differentiated messages.
Bonfire of Management Principles is a three-day tactical management program designed to create a winning performance culture of standards, tolerances, principles, and expectations among your management team.
Negotiating for Value Workshops address specific issues your sales team will face in maintaining value in a negotiation resulting in lower discounts and better margins.
Sales Strategy Execution Series is a series of individual skills-development courses that teach salespeople how to execute selling strategies.
Global Planning for Sales (GPS) suite of software products integrates with your CRM system and enables the methodologies of The Complex Sale in a simple, yet powerful fashion.
John R. DeVincentis and Neil Rackham, “Breath of a Salesman,” McKinsey Quarterly #4, page 42, 1998.
Bill Hybels, Courageous Leadership (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), p. 32.
Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer, Sales Effectiveness Insights—2005 State of the Marketplace Review (Boulder, CO: CSO Insights, 2006), pp. 164–165.
Joe Galvin, Technology-Powered Sales Productivity (Gartner, Inc. 2004), pp. 6–10.
Theodore Levitt, The Marketing Imagination (New York: Free Press, 1983). p. 79.