To get anything done in a B2B complex sale, you’re not just Selling to The Senior Executive Wo/Man.
That’s why it’s complex.
It’s tempting, especially for salespeople, to depend on just a single contact, champion, or coach inside the client company. Giving in to this temptation? Watch for l-o-n-n-n-g sales cycles, clients who [...]

It’s book review time again. Perhaps you’ve heard that sales people have a rant about marketing people (and others) who don’t understand what sales people do. Today’s book is a nice little vaccine against Complete Sales Ignorance.
The Elevator Summary: Most books about selling are of little use in understanding the psychological world of selling. Sandler [...]

Which of these is true for your company? How are you going to fix it?

Your customers are focused on their own issues — and don’t see you as relevant to those concerns. Are you talking to the wrong people or companies? Are you trying to sell too broadly? Do you simply need to better [...]

Book report time again.
The Elevator Summary: The book isn’t santimonious about Six Sigma or process design. It makes rigorous tools and structured thinking readable, and relevant to complex B2B selling and marketing. He’s also clear that process is not a goal.
Standout Moments: These processes began in manufacturing. What the book does brilliantly is give the [...]

Widget makers have it easy. Plaster photos on the website. We.Are.Selling.This.Thing.  It.Looks.Like.This.  (Do you want it painted in Autumn Glory, Technicolor Stainless, or Urban Soot?)
For those of us who sell things whose souls cannot be captured in a photograph, it’s not quite so literal.
Here are six reasons why your erstwhile customer can’t figure out what [...]

The post:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/04/first-ten-.html
The B2B sale is a relationship sale. What Seth describes is selling into referrals. This is the way most businesses actually grow. Better than 70% of sales come from or through existing customers in many companies and industries.
To scale up in that sales environment, it makes sense to apply a process mentality to figure [...]