Jack Dean

FASTpartners

Jack is Managing Partner of FASTpartners, a sales training company that helps sales professionals improve their business/financial acumen and executive selling skills. Jack has extensive buy-side executive experience in his previous role as a Fortune500 CFO. He also has over ten years of experience in the global sales training industry working with sales professionals in a variety of vertical industries including technology, financial services, and professional services. Jack is a former Advisory Board member of CustomerThink and author of the Selling Financial Value blog.

Three Reasons Why B2B Sales People MUST Engage Executives

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Posted on 2012-04-07

Today, the new sales reality is that the buying process is more convoluted and confusing than it has been in the past. This “buy-side” complexity manifests itself in a number of dimensions: More stakeholders, greater caution, higher levels of scrutiny, and numerous signature approvals.

Most of the B2B sales professionals I work with in sales training engagements report longer customer sales cycles and growing levels of personal frustration.

In the past several years the customer’s world has evolved: Technology has been harnessed and “vendor management” workflows have been automated. Today, your customer is much smarter about how it spends money and how it “manages” you.

From my perspective as a former Fortune500 CFO, here are 3 reasons why you must engage at the executive level in your customer’s organization.

Reason #1: When the Economy Goes Down, Decision-Making Goes Up...

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The Ultimate Missed Opportunity for B2B Sales Professionals: The Customer Strategic Planning Cycle

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Posted on 2012-01-06

During my career as a buy-side executive, B2B sales professionals rarely expressed interest in my company’s strategic planning process. That surprised me. In my current role helping sales teams understand customer executive mindset and perspective, I’ve confirmed my fears: most B2B sales professionals are not engaged in their customer’s strategic planning cycle.

In my view this represents the ultimate missed opportunity to influence the customer’s investment decision process. So, why are B2B sales professionals M.I.A.?

Perhaps they don’t comprehend the transformative significance of the strategic planning process. They may perceive it as an “exercise” with no apparent consequences on their relationship with the company. Or, they may confuse it with the budget planning process performed at year-end (sometimes referred to as operating planning).

Perhaps they’re more obsessed with standardizing their own sales cycles, processes,...

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Financial Competence is the Key to Successful Selling at the Executive Level

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Posted on 2011-12-14

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey says trust is not built solely on integrity, but on competence as well. For sales people wanting to become trusted advisors to customer executives, I believe business competence is an essential personal capability. In my view, business competence is more important than “softer” communication/negotiation skills or detailed product knowledge. I also believe that financial acumen skills, knowledge, and capabilities are the foundation of business competence and that most sales people underestimate the importance of financial competence in building trust with senior decision-makers.

According to Wikipedia, “Financial literacy is an important tenet of business acumen, but is not a synonym. Ram Charan, the influential author and consultant, suggests that financial knowledge is the foundation of business acumen, and has described business acumen as, "…...

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Are Your Customer Success Stories “Executive Sticky”?

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Posted on 2011-06-19

Customer testimonials are a widely used prospecting tool by most of you who sell technology solutions. I’ll let you in on a little secret … most of your customer success stories aren’t “executive sticky”. They don’t provide sufficient business value insights or compelling financial reasons to dig deeper into your solution. They don’t act as a catalyst to make your executive engagements, well, more “engaging”.

Today’s executives know a lot about your company before they ever agree to talk with you. As a buy-side executive, I did my homework to get ready to meet prospecting B2B sales professionals. If they piqued my interest enough to get on my calendar, I intended to get a ROI on the meeting.

My Standard Meeting Preparation Routine

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Generic Industry Knowledge Won’t Pass the “Smell Test” with Customer Executives

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Posted on 2011-03-16

If you are a B2B sales professional who aspires to achieve trusted advisor status with your customer, gaining industry insight is a critical success factor.

But a surface layer of generic industry knowledge won’t be nearly enough to establish relevance with a sophisticated decision-maker who is looking to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace.

It won’t pass the “smell test” that buy-side executives deploy to screen the business acumen of sales professionals.

A Veneer of Industry Knowledge

A veneer of industry knowledge may impress your internal colleagues and sales managers, but it won’t move the needle with your customer executives. You won’t last five minutes eyeball to eyeball with a...

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The Ultimate Missed Opportunity for B2B Sales Professionals: The Customer Strategic Planning Cycle

0 comments 1,504 reads

Posted on 2011-02-21

During my career as a buy-side executive, B2B sales professionals rarely expressed interest in my company’s strategic planning process. That surprised me. In my current role helping sales teams understand customer executive mindset and perspective, I’ve confirmed my fears: most B2B sales professionals are not engaged in their customer’s strategic planning cycle.

In my view this represents the ultimate missed opportunity to influence the customer’s investment decision process. So, why are B2B sales professionals M.I.A.?

Perhaps they don’t comprehend the transformative significance of the strategic planning process. They may perceive it as an “exercise” with no apparent consequences on their relationship with the company. Or...

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The Post-Financial Crisis B2B Sales Professional

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Posted on 2011-02-09

We’ve come a long way back from the depths of the global financial crisis. There have been many lessons learned on both sides of the buy/sell equation. For B2B sales professionals, this much should be abundantly clear: it’s a changed sales environment.

A Changed Sales Environment

The business-based, economic buyer has emerged as a dominant force in this changed sales environment. Buy-side executives (VP level and higher) are increasingly involved in influencing purchase and investment decisions, taking over the reins from lower-level buyers. Never has this been more evident than in the technology investment decision-making process.
...

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“Pain-full” Discussions For Customer Executives

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Posted on 2011-01-14

An Executive Encounter

Sales Professional (SP): Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. I understand you spoke to Robert, a mutual friend.

Executive (Exec): Nice to meet you. Yes, Robert spoke highly of you and suggested I accept your invitation to meet.

SP: Well, I want to respect your time so I’ll get right to it. What I like to do when I meet with a C-level executive is to ask some questions to clarify your needs. As you know, we have many end-to-end solutions that solve numerous problems, but we like to diagnose before we prescribe.

Exec: Sounds painful. Are you a doctor?

SP: (Laughing) This won’t hurt, I promise. In your position as Chief Operating Officer, what are your biggest...

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Technology Investment Decisions Are Being Kicked UP and OVER

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Posted on 2011-01-09

If you’re not convinced that customers of technology solutions are adapting to a new market reality, listen to what SAP, one of the largest technology purveyors in the world, said in the first paragraph of the CEO’s Letter to Shareholders in their most recent annual report.

“The past year was marked by changes to the business environment, as customers adapted to a new market reality. Customer buying behavior shifted to an emphasis on smaller transactions and projects with immediate return; decision making moved increasingly to line of business executives and away from the traditional IT power base of the CIO; and there were increased requirements for solutions to help CEOs, COOs, and CFOs manage performance, compliance, and gain more business insight for faster decision making...

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5 Ideas to Improve Your Executive Relevancy in 2011

0 comments 1,263 reads

Posted on 2010-12-28

How relevant are you to your customer executives? What would they say about you and your company? Do they need you as much as you need them? Is there interdependence?

Many sales professionals confide in me that they don’t know the answers to these questions. They do recognize the negative consequences of being irrelevant to customer executives and far from the radar screen.

Not knowing if you are relevant to your customer executives can create a precarious situation, especially in a post-financial crisis economy. Executive relevance isn’t a static concept; either you are moving into their line of sight or you are drifting away.

As you plan your engagement strategies for 2011, here are five suggestions from my perspective as a former buy-side...

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