Why Companies Have Revenue Problems - Ram Charan's Book On Selling by Joe Murphy

I blogged earlier about Ram Charan's book called "Profitable Growth." If you haven't read it , I would recommend doing so, as soon as you can.

It's really a book on growing the revenue. It is full of ideas, ideas that are contrarian to the thinking of most managers and executives. I was always taught to go for the homerun. But as Charan points out, it is really the singles and doubles that count.

As I thought about it, the best sales people hit singles and doubles, a lot or . . . most of the time. It's the big homerun deals they won every so often that put them into the stratisphere.

What can we learn from this?

My take away is:

Too often we aim for the fences. When we do this, we swing hard and because of the natural laws of sales, the client avoids making a decision because the deal is too big and therefore too risky. So, we have no sale.

Second, when we aim for the fences, we tend to put all our time into this one sales, the equivalent of all our eggs in one basket. And we know the "all our eggs in one basket parable."

Third, when we swing for the fences, we swing hard. Sometime trying too hard causing us to fall down when we swing (like one baseball great often did) . . . the equivalent of making mistakes. We force the ball. Sometimes, baseball, like golf, like selling, is about finesse. You have to hit through the ball, and not hammer it. Like sales, espeically in consultative type selling, you have to act somewhat aloof, not starved, and not trying to go for it all.

My point here is this. One of the worst sales people I knew, changed to become one of the best, by hitting singles (in some cases he hit bunts to get on base (really small deals)). Now he is a major hitter for Bearing Point - viewed by many as their top sales person.

But you wouldn't know this 10 or 15 years ago. How did he get so good? He hit singles. A lot of them.

He learned the art of the small deal. He learned it by seeing the small deal so many times, it became instinctive. Now he is hitting grand slams. He is the Barry Bonds of Bearing Point - without steroids!

Hit singles. Crawl before walking. Walk before running. Practice before heading to the marathon.

Best of luck! Visit my web site http://www.josephbmurphy.com/

Six More Questions To Help You Win BIG!!!!

Here are six questions I wish I would have had someone ask of me when I started in the business. Whether you are a small business owner, or an independent consultant, or working for McKinsey or IBM, answering these questions will allow you to become acutely aware of how well you know your target buyers.

Answering these questions is not the entire point. The other part of the point is to continuously think about how you do what-you-do, and improve upon the components. Analyzing and thinking about your answers, what they are today, and what you hope them to be, is critical to your success.

These questions will help you determine how to make a better impact on your market and the executives you meet with when offering solutions to meet their needs.

1. How many “dream” clients are there in your market space or in your territory (these are your absolute, most perfect clients, the 20% that would drive 80% of your sales)? You must name them.
2. How many do you have right now?
3. What are the most frequent objections you hear?
4. Describe five of your most typical purchasers. (Where in the organization did they sit? Did they have a problem they were trying to solve? Or was it an opportunity they were looking to gain?)
5. Why did you win? (Was it your charming personality? Were you able to get to the decision-maker? Was there someone on your team who won the day?)
6. Describe the typical buying structure (What is your clients' process to come to a decision? Where does your buyer reside in the org chart? What authority does your buyer have? Who are the chief influencers?)

I have spoken to hundreds of professionals, and few were able to really hone in on the answers to these questions, except for those that built a niche in a key market. That ought to tell you something, shouldn't it?

Good Luck

Joe Murphy