--- Welcome to the Whitespace Business Development Strategy Blog ---

I read an interesting blog posting from Peter Bregman on the Harvard Business Review website, How Not to Lose a Sale.  In the article, Peter shares a recent sales experience we can all learn from. To summarize, Peter loses a highly-qualified sales opportunity by jumping to a proposed solution too early in the sales process. A friend of Peter's worked with the prospect and sponsored the meeting. The prospect was expecting to gain a better understanding of his issues by exploring the underlying cause(s). Once in the meeting, Peter--excited for the opportunity and eager to show his preparedness and expertise--began suggesting ways to solve the issue before allowing the prospect to discuss his view of the situation. Peter further reduced his probability of winning by ignoring the recommendation of his sponsor to postpone an aspect of the discussion until a later time. As a result, the prospect was disappointed and failed to make a connection with Peter. Peter attributed his poor performance to a lack of “attunement”, a recent concept on persuasion that stresses the importance of appreciating the perspective of others.

I was recently reviewing the Strategic Account Management Association's (SAMA) 2012 Report on Current Trends & Practices in Strategic Account Management.  The report surveyed 700+ global respondents (in a variety of account management roles) across approximately 30  industries.  You can learn more about SAMA or purchase the report here.  As I reviewed the report, there were 10 findings that I found noteworthy:

I was recently speaking with a friend who manages a professional services company. He was contemplating how much faster his business would grow if only he could more fully leverage the professional delivery staff. I’ve found this to be one of the greatest challenges facing professional services firms. I personally encountered the issue while leading the sales and marketing organization for a Big 6 information technology consultancy. With a technical staff of 1,800 consultants and a sales staff of 100, I realized that the key to our success would be our ability to leverage our secret weapon-- the large billable staff.

I was looking through some of my papers the other day and I came across one of my favorite articles written by a close friend of mine, Jerry Kanter, titled:“Planning and Managing Your Career". Though this subject is not something that I typically write about, I thought it would be helpful for anyone in transistion. Jerry was the director of the Center for Information Management Studies at Babson College. He was a prolific writer and authored nine books and countless articles on computer and information technology. He was also an accomplished teacher, philanthropist and athlete. (He was a star on the Harvard University football and track teams--a track award for Most Improved Performance bears his name.) Jerry passed away in 2010. Re-reading his article made me think of what a great mentor he had been, not only to me, but to many others.

I was recently scanning some research from CSO Insights that discussed sales management priorities for 2013.  One particular research finding caught my eye: 57.8% of sales managers planned on investing non-selling time to create account plans for their second-tier of accounts. The managers felt that additional planning (and training) was necessary in order to effectively influence the myriad of cross-functional stakeholders now commonly involved in the buying process.  Planning this next tier of accounts can be a good investment-- assuming you have the budget, the executive commitment and the support resources necessary to plan and execute against the plans created. But before you invest the additional time in the second-tier, you need to honestly assess whether or not you are maximizing the revenue opportunities in your top-tier accounts. One way we have successfully generated additional top-tier revenues is by creating a Strategic Account Executive Sponsorship Program.

What do Neil Young, Betty White, Bob Hope, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Paul McCartney all have in common? Great comic timing? A villa in Tuscany? A love of the Classics?  No, they were all victims of a premature obituary.  It happened to Mark Twain twice, resulting in the now famous quote: ”The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Based on a recent Harvard Business Review article: ”The End of Solution Sales,” we can now add Solution Selling to that list.

At the Whitespace Consulting Group we have embraced inbound marketing “wholeheartedly”-- at least some of us have. Others (mostly me), have been dragged along kicking and screaming.  We are fortunate to have someone on staff that lives and breathes the stuff.  Luckily, she had the fortitude to convince us that we were leaving opportunities on the table because we were not marketing to our target audience in the way that they wanted to be engaged.  “You’ll never have to make a cold-call again!” she exclaimed with the conviction of an evangelist. Point out a creative way to engage a potential client, and you have my attention.  

I recently answered a question on LinkedIn that asked for book recommendations for business development.  The question gave me a chance to reflect on several significant and memorable sales and marketing books that I’ve valued throughout my career. Though several of the books chosen were written many years ago, the foundational principles discussed are still relevant today. I would recommend that anyone who is responsible for business development to read (or at least skim) these books, regardless of their business development role or experience level.

“Whenever we can replace human judgment by a formula, we should at least consider it.” --- Daniel Kahneman, 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, named one of the best books of 2011 by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and The New York Times.

Reading Kahneman’s book reminded me of how important it is to remain open-minded and objective in business, especially in  the conclusions we draw and the decisions we make.  The path to extraordinary growth with our most significant accounts is no exception.  Every good large account planning effort should involve an account plan presentation to a review board of executive stakeholders.  Ideally there would be two reviews annually-- a one-hour initial account plan overview and an abbreviated follow-up review three to six months later.   As the number of accounts planned and presented increases, it is essential to find an efficient method for reviewing the accounts and providing feedback to the teams.

We are often engaged by a client to help resolve a specific sales issue they’ve identified. Before we get too far along, we always spend some time upfront to ensure we understand the issue, including all root causes, and are solving the right problem. What usually surfaces is that the problem that needs to be solved is not the original issue perceived by the client. Sometimes it’s closely related and other times it is much farther afield. So why is it so difficult to identify the real, underlying sales issues in our organizations?  Here are three reasons we’ve encountered: