Strategy
In Sales, Sometimes You’re The Problem
In the middle of a 0-10 football season in high school, one of our coaches said, “Everyone says you suck. Just don’t suck.” To which one of our players responded, “Thanks for the inspiration, Lombardi.” After the laughs wore off, there was some truth to what our coach said: sometimes, having success doesn’t mean being…
Read MoreWant to Raise Prices? Here’s One Way.
(This isn’t a chest-beating fantasy about how much you can charge if only you’re tough enough and gutsy enough. That’s not reality. Some industries won’t stand for it. Some prospects have too many options they prefer. I do believe, often, you can charge MORE than others and win. But rarely can you charge 65% more…
Read MoreWinning Business BEFORE The Meeting
When I started business school, I remember the teachers lining up and saying, one by one, “I teach you how to make it,” “I teach you how to count it,” and finally, “I teach you how to sell it.” Every business has these functions, whether the person running the business or the firm wants to…
Read MoreWhy Your Consults (or Discovery Calls) Go Sideways
To Help You Win… One of the questions I get most often is, “Why aren’t I closing these opportunities?” To be honest, it’s ACTUALLY phrased like this: Lawyer: “These leads just don’t have any money.” Consultant/Service Provider: “I don’t know what’s going on. Business is slow.” CEO: “Deals keep pushing, so I’m guessing next quarter…
Read MoreConversion is About Math, and That’s About Competing
To Help You Win… My client is a DUI/DWI attorney in Illinois. And last year, when we started working together, she was grinding to grow her firm. She’d been building it for 7 years, on her own. She was doing it all. Filing. Drafting. Meeting with clients. Going to court. Working with the ad agencies…
Read MoreChanging the Conversation, From the Beginning
I had a problem. Customers wanted training. They’d pay for training. I knew they needed something else. It would take longer, require more work and money, but deliver a 5x greater likelihood of a positive outcome. Training would be part of it, but not till after we’d looked at their market, hiring, management, compensation…
Read MoreStrategy and Your Story
Strategy. A word that made Bill Bain and Mitt Romney a LOT of money. It also didn’t hurt most of the CEOs who hired these guys. But it’s often ignored, even though, I’ve written about it so wonderfully in relation to Narcos: Mexico and how the service academies play college football. And yes, about Tennessee…
Read MoreIs the Price Right, Bob?
Thoughts on Pricing from Per Sjofors Because I don’t think this guy really knows pricing. But a guy named Per (pronounced “pear”) does. And he gave me a few thoughts which we’ll cover. They include…. Anchoring The optimal way to present the price How much to discount How to discount I’ll share how this…
Read MoreBoard Game Strategy for Sales and Business.
Board Game Strategy for Sales and Business. Sales are mostly checkers, and everything else is chess. My firstborn, my 10-year-old son, whom I love, just recently finished going 10-1 against me in chess. In fairness, I’ve never played before he taught it to me in stress-free chess, or something like that. In some fairness, he…
Read MoreThree (New?) Ways To Pursue Your Customers.
Three (New?) Ways To Pursue Your Customers. That Your Competitors Probably Are Not. Someone asked me to address a group of CEOs and owners on sales and growth in early January. Not a big deal, usually, as I’ve done this so many times before. Show up with a canned talk, adjust the slides a little,…
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