Part 2: A Fishy Tragedy, Avoided
As I said at the end of Part 1 of this blog series, the real question is, what’s on the hook? Because every fish that swims off before you have a conversation with it is a tragedy worse than the…
Part 1: Can B2B Sales Be Industrialized?
I find myself using the phrase “the industrialization of sales” a lot recently — and overconfidently, it turns out. The meaning seemed obvious to me, and I naively thought it must be in common use, until I googled “industrialization of…
Part 2: Sales is Already Dominated by AI Robots. Get Over It!
So, what about the prediction that sales robots will wipe out millions of sales jobs? In a way, they already have. Maybe not millions yet, but information and automation working together as sales slaves have brought efficiencies to selling that…
Your Prospects Are Not Psychic
One should always hesitate before pronouncing something "the best," and be even more circumspect before saying "the worst." But what the heck? The worst thing I hear reps say to open a cold call is "Did you have a chance…
Part 2: Justice Is Blind (Sort of). But Business?
In Part 1 of this blog series, I defined the methods that a business — through its salespeople — can use to get to know its customers: the zero-advantage public information sources; the one-way communications of advertising, focus groups, and…
Part 2: Moneyball — for Realsies
In Part 1 of this blog series, I looked at how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane and his quant team analyzed a bazillion baseball stats and figured out that everyone had been wrong for years about almost everything. Because…
Part 1: Moneyball, for Realsies
It’s April, and that means the Great American Pastime is underway for the 148th time. That 148 years is a clue that I’m talking about baseball, not the ever-popular participation sport of staring at your smartphone as you cross a…
Part 2: Quality vs. Quantity vs. Nothingness
In Part 1 of this blog topic, I posed a question. If Chef Andrew’s 1-hour-and-42-minute walk to work at the famed Edinburgh restaurant 21212 is longer and more strenuous than Chef Alicia’s 46-minute commute to 21212 — a train ride…
Part 1: Quality vs. Quantity vs. Nothingness
If you follow my posts on LinkedIn, you may have noticed that I publish the stats of our top-of-the-funnel team — in the common tongue, our Sales Development people. Here’s an example from Wednesday, vernal equinox week, 2017: I have…
Cold Calling Controversy? I Fear Not!
The “cold calling is dead” debate can get pretty lively, with surprising insights occasionally emerging from the endless back-and-forth. One such insight, for me anyway, came from reading the responses to a simple question: “Why is cold calling so controversial?”…