Want to move upmarket? We recently released The CEO's Strategic Playbook to Complex Sales, featuring Pim Roelofsen and seven other world-renowned experts. In this article, you'll be able to read his top 3 takeaways from the playbook.
The CEO's Strategic Playbook to Complex Sales helps B2B companies with 100-2000 employees to create value-focused sales teams. This 130-page playbook features insights from 8 global sales legends, including John McMahon (The Qualified Sales Leader) and Brent Adamson (The Challenger Customer). It contains essential learnings for scaling revenue efficiently, mastering value-focused selling, and winning bigger deals.
1 / Don't chase the fancy title
A common mistake sales reps make is thinking people with high-ranking titles get things done.
However, a study by Carta showed that the same nine individuals typically make 70% of all decisions within a company.
So, a great question to ask is: who would you turn to for advice?
That will help you identify informal decision-makers. Make sure to contact them, and possibly also develop into a champion.
2 / Influence, information and incentive make a strong champion
The potential of a champion relies on three things.
Influence: They have to be able to change internal conversations.
Information: They must know how to navigate the social network and the political dynamics to get things done.
Incentive: There has to be a personal win in it for them. What’s keeping them attached to the deal, especially when it gets tough?
3 / Ticking off tasks is not the same as closing deals
Be careful of creating pipelines full of tasks that give a sense of activity but with no actual productivity.
A sales rep might be doing a third of the activity of other reps but focus on the most significant value opportunities, like actually writing a business case.
That will inevitably slow things down.
But at the end of the day, it's all about revenue.
