coaching

Finding the Right Fit in Sales

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I won’t sell a product or service if I don’t believe in it or in the company behind it. But that is only part of the picture. Not all products or services fit everybody, but most are a fit for somebody. Whether you are a seller or leading a sales team, understanding the best-fit use cases helps you create a repeatable sales motion that allows you to:

  • Find and prospect the best candidate companies.
  • Demonstrate benefits for a credible and relevant use case.
  • Find a sponsor who benefits from your offering.
  • Accelerate the deal velocity – even in a large enterprise business.
  • Close large deals faster – and more of them!

When I started at my last company, I was told that the typical deal size was $75K-$80K, having a 9-12 month sales cycle with a midsize company. I was selling a Kubernetes Fleet Management platform, and I quickly found that most midsize companies lacked the containerization needs that Kubernetes provides. Most also needed to gain the skills required for fairly complex solutions, which can take months.

Large Enterprise companies had the need and the expertise to support Kubernetes, which started my profile development exercise. Large companies with a corporate standard containerization product were less likely candidates with a much longer sales cycle. Financial Services companies require strong end-to-end security and cannot afford breaches (reputationally and actual costs). Therefore, they had larger budgets and immediate needs, so they became a primary focus.

While looking at the environments for these companies, it became clear that an initial deal size could easily be in the $500K – $1 million range. And, if you successfully delivered what you promised, there could be several more significant follow-on deals. The icing on the cake is that by selling those companies what they need, solving significant problems or concerns, and treating them like the valued customers they are, they would reward you with loyalty and long-term business.

Finding the right fit for your product or service takes analysis, investigation, testing, and time. Getting this right provides the perfect opportunity to be successful and scale the results through the entire team. It also provides credibility when new customers are willing to speak with prospects and sing your praises. Success breeds success.

This entry was posted in Business Ownership and Management, Career, Selling, strategy, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , .

Why do you want to teach?

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In the past, I wrote about how I like to read, experiment, and learn as much as possible about as many things as possible. My goal isn’t to be the Jack of all trades and Master of none. Rather, I view knowledge and experience as pieces that can be used to build a mosaic of something interesting and/or worthwhile.

Years ago, when I first started programming, my manager had me work with the top performers in the group. Being inquisitive and always wanting to improve led me to ask many questions to understand why things were done the way they were. One Analyst I worked with was extremely sensitive, and after fielding a few questions, he told me, “Programming is like art. Two people will interpret things differently, but you will have two similar pictures in the end, and both do the job. So, quit messing with my picture.”

At first, I was somewhat offended, but then I realized that much of what he stated was true. That led me to incorporate better methods and approaches into what I did, making them my own to continually improve. From that perspective, learning really is somewhat of an art form.

What makes teaching worthwhile to me is helping people improve in ways that are their own rather than teaching them how to do things in one specific “right” way. One analogy is that you teach people to navigate rather than provide them with the route. Also, in order to be a good teacher, you need to have a solid grasp on the topic, be willing and able to relate to students, and want to help them learn. It’s rewarding on a couple of different levels.

Your ability to teach well starts with understanding the topic, but that is the foundation. Applying seemingly abstract concepts to concrete problems is a very helpful skill. In medicine, they have the concept of “See one, Do one, Teach one.” It is a great way to codify knowledge and develop desired skills.

Being open to other approaches that might seem strange at first, but then you see the brilliance in the solution is also helpful. Often a student would mention how they handled a problem, which sounded bizarre at first, but digging deeper into their approach resulted in understanding something pretty amazing.

Amazing teachers are out there, and I’ve met several of them. Those people are worth their weight in gold – especially when teaching children. They have their own kind of “magic” that can inspire people and provide the confidence and desire to do and learn more than they ever dreamed was possible.

Teaching is about helping others and not trying to be the smartest person in the room. And remember, not everyone wants to learn and/or improve, so don’t take that personally. Just do your best to help the people who want to grow and improve. Mentoring is another good way to do this. You will be surprised at the positive impact one person can have by doing this.

This entry was posted in Business Ownership and Management, Career, Life, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , , .