Dave Stein

When it comes to an under-appreciated and under-leveraged B2B selling capability, financial/business acumen tops the list.  I believe this so strongly that in both editions of my book, How Winners Sell, I included a chapter on how to get a project funded. It taught readers figure how to cost-justify their products and services to their customers.

You may be aware of Executive Conversation, a sales performance improvement company that focuses on executive selling skills around financial and business acumen.  Executive Conversation (acquire ESR’s profile and evaluation of...

One of the most common issues that needs to be overcome through a sales performance improvement initiative is the subjectivity with which many salespeople pursue business.  If left to their own, many sales reps see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and, frankly, do what they want to do.

This tendency is one of the most important reason to hire the right people (with the relevant personal traits for the job) and provide those people with the structure, processes, and tools to assure that only the positive elements of subjectivity (reading people and situations, instinct (to a degree), and other capabilities one might classify as the “art” aspect of selling) impact their decision-making and how they pursue business. At ESR we know that objectivity is a critical selling capability.

Selective attention is an interesting behavior to study when it comes to salespeople.  Basically, it’s deliberate, focused attention. (...

I’m not sure of the origin of the aphorism, “We see things not as they are, but as we are.”  I’d like you to think about this for a moment with respect to your customers and how they buy.

Actually there are two levels to consider: your Customers, meaning that set of businesses to which you would sell your products or services, and an individual customer. (For this post I’ll use the following convention: Uppercase “C” for all your customers and lowercase “c” for a single customer.)

At ESR, again and again we see sales and marketing leaders who don’t deeply understand these, among other characteristics of their...

We read a lot on the sales blogs and in articles about A, B, and C players.  Those pieces have covered various methods, learning approaches, and tools for transforming C’s into B’s, and B’s into A players.

We have a strong view at ESR about this subject.   With the right approach, time, and support, you might be able to get a B player to an A level.  But you won’t get a C player past the C level.