Sales Effectiveness

If I listened to ten of your sales conversations this week, would I hear people genuinely trying to understand the customer, or people trying to find their opportunity to sell?

I've spent a large part of my career in and around sales, selling, leading sales teams, coaching sales people, working with sales leaders and building commercial capability. One thing I've learnt is that when the number isn't where we want it to be, we have a tendency to look for the answer: We need more pipeline. We need more activity. We need better conversion. We need sales training. We need a new methodology. We need better account plans. We need people to prospect more.

It is a pipeline full of opportunities everyone believes will close, but nobody has properly challenged. At this point in the year, optimism is not enough. Your top three opportunities deserve robust commercial diligence: Do we genuinely understand the customer’s priorities? Are we connected to the people shaping the decision? Is the value strong enough to withstand scrutiny from finance and procurement? Have we identified the real obstacles, including the ones nobody is talk