Sales 101 Isn’t Enough, Says a Panel of Experts

Yesterday I had the pleasure of hosting an  sales expert round table hosted by Focus.com entitled, What Advanced Selling Capabilities are Required to Win Today? Focus.com came to me asking what topic I’d like to discuss.  The list is always long, but it occurred to me that a discussion among five experts in advanced selling capabilities would be a treat for the audience, and for me as well. I had written a number of times about how Sales 101 doesn’t get the job done anymore for most B2B selling situations. I also have a history with these leaders, having interviewed all of them in the past.

The experts were:

  • Brian Dietmeyer, CEO and Co-Founder, Think! Inc.  Brian answered questions about the power of procurement and how companies can begin to regain some of the ground lost as strategic sourcing has surged over the past decade. Previously, Brian and I discussed strategic negotiation on this podcast.
  • Braham Shnider, CEO and Founder, Channel Enablers.  Braham is an expert in the area of building and managing sales channels.  Braham said during the call that 70% of  products are sold not through direct sales approaches, but through channels.  I had some questions for Braham in this interview.
  • LaVon Koerner, President and Founder, Revenue Storm.  LaVon is an expert in demand creation, among other areas.  His explanation of how salespeople must create, rather than capture, demand was very compelling. A while back, LaVon and I had a great chat on this podcast.
  • Rick Page, CEO and Founder, The Complex Sale, Inc.  I asked Rick to join this advanced selling round table because of his thought-leadership in the area of political selling. His comments resonated among the whole panel.  I interviewed Rick a while back on this podcast.
  • Steve Andersen, Founder and Managing Partner, Performance Methods, Inc. Steve’s company, PMI, is a leader in the area of strategic account management.  Steve shared a few startling trends going on within his clients’ organizations around this critical sales-related function. Steve and I got to discuss PMI and his view of strategic account management on this podcast.

Among the subjects our experts discussed were talent management challenges, future advanced selling trends, collaboration with clients and customers, and how important business acumen is in a complex selling environment.

So here’s the good news

If you missed the round table, here is the MP3 recording, courtesy of Focus.com.  Great working with those folks.

Note: ESR has evaluated these five companies. They subscribe to ESR’s research. Individual, in-depth evaluations of these and dozens of other sales training and sales performance improvement firms will be available on ESR’s website on February 24.

Photo credit: Fotolia.com

Filed under: Account Management, Big Wins, Channel Management, coaching, Hiring, Interview, Measurement, Methodology, Opportunity Management, Sales Strategy, Sales Training Companies, social media

« »

2 Responses to “Sales 101 Isn’t Enough, Says a Panel of Experts”

  1. Jonathan London, on March 1st, 2011 at 5:47 am Said:

    Sales 101 is absolutely essential for any more advanced selling techniques to take hold. In fact, salespeople who master these foundational techniques raise them to a higher level that alleviates the need for more advanced training, Make sure your people are strong in the foundational elements before you bring in anything else or it will not be as successful as possible.

  2. Jeff Goldberg, on March 28th, 2011 at 10:33 am Said:

    I agree with Jonathan. The vast majority of companies I get called in to employ salespeople that, for the most part, never mastered the fundamentals of selling.
    Are there advanced selling techniques that are valuable? Absolutely. Are there some sales which call for more complex selling solutions than others? For certain BUT, unless the salespeople understand and practice Sales 101 first, no amount of advanced training will be useful.

Leave a Reply