It seems that star reps have recognized something that their average-performing peers have not: the most accessible customer contacts, the ones that will always pick up the phone and talk to you, rarely have the influence or ability to build the internal consensus required to get a deal done. Now yes, it’s certainly easier to call on customer contacts that are always up for a chat. But But star performers look for customers that want to do more than just talk. They This type of customer contact is also big picture oriented, but more emotionally driven. Teachers. MORE >>

This is partly a matter of personality, but mostly it’s a matter of needing to continuously adapt to changes in what customers want and how the competition responds. The Anatomy then covers Customer Management, a section which includes everything from best practices around segmentation to the need to develop commercial messaging that leads customers to a company’s unique differentiators. The importance of teaching customers something new , of bringing them unique insights about their own business, is something we cannot emphasize enough and the new Anatomy v6.0 MORE >>

Marketers can use it to track a customer’s activity, and send more tailored communications based on materials prospects download or access from your site or emails over time. When the potential customer’s actions indicate they have formulated a need and are ready to talk to a rep, marketing can alert sales to reach out to the prospect. . IMA is about getting the customer to come to you when they have identified a need (or at least know they have one), and are ready to buy. But what exactly does it mean? And why all the hype?  . MORE >>

In fact, it also sums up the world of customer buying pretty well too. Certainly, customer buying has fundamentally changed: as they are increasingly engaging us as late as they possibly can. Sales Messaging—here, it’s about enabling the sales organization and those in the field to have a teaching conversation with customers and prospects. As David Bowie so eloquently put – “Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes”. Sums up the world of selling pretty well these days, doesn’t it? Which is why, we, in Sales, are going through some changes. Broaden Challenger adoption. It’s a lot to think about. MORE >>

At the highest level, you should think of M&A challenges on three levels:  customer, rep, and manager. Customer-level M&A Considerations. Rep turnover matters to the customer, but if managed well it matters much less than people think. There Part of the message needs to be consistent around customer outcomes and the value to the customer (this isn’t about the changes you’re making, this is about customer value). And there needs to be a tailored component to it, especially around the nature of the customer relationship at the account level.  MORE >>