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Sell Smarter for Richer Results
Our sales consulting helps you
Sell Smarter for Richer Results
We’re the best-kept secret for winning large facility service contracts.
North America’s leading facility services hire us for sales proposals, presentations and pursuit processes because we deliver results.
Our clients like to keep our success to themselves and away from their competitors. We understand.
Our 25+ years’ consulting in the facility services industry sets us apart from others — because our work is proven to be:
We’re the best-kept secret for winning large facility service contracts.
North America’s leading facility services hire us for sales proposals, presentations and pursuit processes because we deliver results.
Our clients like to keep our success to themselves and away from their competitors. We understand.
Our 25+ years’ consulting in the facility services industry sets us apart from others — because our work is proven to be:
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“Chris Arlen and Revenue-IQ have great insights into customers’ buying processes and how to successfully serve them.”
VP Business Dev., C&W Services
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“Revenue-IQ’s presentations and proposals are creative and effective sales tools that help set you apart from the competition.”
VP, G4S Secure Solutions
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“Revenue-IQ delivers proposals and presentations on schedule with winning results.”
SVP, Customer Experience, Bee Clean Building Maintenance
It’s a privilege to work with industry leaders
Clients
It’s a privilege to work with industry leaders
Clients
Sales insights for the facility service industry
Revenue-IQ Blog
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Information Overload: “When and How to Reopen”?
I hope the re-open momentum doesn’t overwhelm good sense and science. It’s understandable to want to get back to work, worship, and events (and I really miss good restaurants). On LinkedIn, there’s a tsunami of information about when and how businesses, owners, and building managers should reopen. And reopen we must. And with intelligent plans […]
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Runway to Reopen: What’s Yours?
Tomorrow is officially back on the calendar. Businesses will dig out from sheltering in place. They’ll be coming from a feast of selling emergency services to essential businesses in the pandemic. Or from famine if they were serving non-essentials and shed headcount and waited behind shuttered doors. Yet while we are still in a scary […]
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Service Contractors Ride the Rapids
As of April 3rd, 2020, it’s a cliché to say life and work will never be the same after COVID-19 but it’s still painfully true. For service contractors whose bulk of business is with non-essential companies, this pandemic is like trying to cross whitewater rapids at night. For service contractors working for essential businesses, it’s […]
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6 New Normals of the Post-Pandemic
Let the inevitable coming of spring refresh and reinvigorate us from the winter of COVID-19 and help us retain the lessons learned to prevent the next pandemic. However, the New Normal isn’t here yet, this is still a no man’s land with a long horizon that’s changing the way we work. When will the pandemic emergency […]
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Service Expectations Changed: Technology-Hype Warped ‘Em
We live and work in a culture and time swimming in new technologies, many of them little more than hyper-hyped optimism. Tech-hype has warped service expectations when B2B customers subconsciously expect new technologies to deliver on their marketing promises right now, today. This is especially true for lower-paid, labor-based services. Here new technologies are slowly […]
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When does it Hurt Enough to Improve Account Retention?
Incumbent contractors in the B2B service world know winning the work is just the beginning: It’s the initial, necessary milestone in the lifetime of the contract and customer relationship. Because contractors live by the revenue and profit realized over time, one monthly invoice by invoice, account retention is king – if contractors don’t hold onto […]
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Best of Revenue-IQ Articles 2019
The world changes and yet remains the same, with so much in business and B2B sales that’s clear in hindsight. If only we could benefit from that clarity before the painful events that teach us. Hopefully, these articles from 2019 can help you skip over some of the painful parts of learning. Wishing you and […]
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One Simple, Stupid, Secret to Raising Win Rates
The B2B sales game is high-stakes, black-and-white when it comes to the short-term (won/loss), and complex when it comes to the long-term impacts of customers’ perceptions (credibility, trustworthiness, and viability). However, if all you want is the single sales metric of Win Rates (Wins/Bids) to skyrocket because maybe a year-end bonus is dependent on it […]
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Do Customers Think Your Sales Proposals Are Good?
Your immediate answer may be “If we get the sale our proposals are good – if we don’t, they’re not.” For sales teams, that binary won/lost assessment works for the primary, singular purpose of sales proposals; to win deals. Yet sales proposals can affect customers beyond the one-and-only winner. There are secondary benefits to good […]
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The Invasion of the Cleaning Robots is Here – Resistance is Futile
Autonomous cleaning, aka robotics or automation, has moved from innovation to full-fledged operations. The largest deployment is in cleaning environments with large floor areas, such as malls, colleges, and airports, which can be scrubbed or vacuumed by robots. In the near future, autonomous cleaning will serve even more environments, such as office restrooms and high […]
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Sales Postmortems, Cats & Stove-Lids
A best practice in B2B sales is to hold postmortems; opportunities to find out what worked, what didn’t, and what could be better next time. And what sales team doesn’t want to get better? However, sales postmortems can lead down the wrong path if too much is read into them. Consider this 125-year old observation: […]
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5 Danger Signals for Incumbent Suppliers
Being an incumbent supplier for a million-dollar plus service contract is a bittersweet thing. First, the Sweet As incumbent, your firm gets the revenue, profit, and prestige of a large deal – not to mention, sales reps get to keep their jobs, earn commissions and operational personnel gain continued employment, etc. Fine and good. Now, […]
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Proposal Heroes Not Needed
You know who your proposal heroes are; they’re the bid managers and proposal writers who work round the clock and weekends to get their sales teams’ proposals in by the RFP deadlines. Proposal heroes ARE needed when the timing of proposal work is mismanaged. Proposal heroes ARE NOT needed if you have a proposal methodology […]
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What Species are B2B Clients?
Ask any group of B2B sales reps this question and at first there will be a stunned silence. Repeat the question and there may be one or two adventurous souls who offer a joke as an answer. But typically there’s only that empty void, that silence. Of course the answer is Homo sapiens. Humans. You. […]
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Best of Revenue-IQ Articles 2018
End of year always has some look back and 2018 was fast and furious, wasn’t it? I’m tired of saying “Change is the only constant,” or “This is the new normal.” The world will never be static, nor the technology that disrupts. Hey, living requires CONSTANT LEARNING. But you’ve only got so much time — […]
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Time to Sweat the Small Stuff: Part 3 — A Final 3 Minor Presentation Failures that Keep you from Winning Sales
Here are the final three of nine minor presentation failures that kill sales teams and lose contracts. And although they may seem overly simplistic, it’s important to recognize their lethality. Like the first six failures before them, any one of these by themselves may not lose a sale. But sales teams rarely know which of […]
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Time to Sweat the Small Stuff: Part 2 — More Minor Presentation Failures that lose Sales
You know it’s time to sweat the small stuff when your sales team is walking into the in-person presentation for a large dollar contract. Better do the fine tuning beforehand because winging it in front of evaluators won’t cut it. If you missed the first set of fatal but minor presentation failures, they’re here. This is […]
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Time to Sweat the Small Stuff: Part 1 — Minor Failures that Condemn Sales Presentations to 2nd Place
Having recently worked with procurement on a multi-million dollar outsourced contract, it was fascinating to see sales teams’ minor failures have an oversized impact on evaluators’ decisions. So here are the first three of nine failures that made a difference (the remaining six will come in following posts). There is a time to sweat the […]
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Subtext is the Tricky Part of Sales Intel
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article, and my strength is talking to people who are already committed to selling large B2B service contracts, and I want to take them further. Therefore this article may not be suited for beginners but it won’t hurt them either. To win large B2B service contracts, sales reps propose customer solutions. Those proposals are […]
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In Search of Sales Subtext
To win more complex B2B sales, change the phrase “it’s the economy, stupid” —to— “it’s the sales subtext, stupid.” The altered phrase will remind sales reps to dig deeper to understand customers’ businesses before they rush the pre-packaged obvious in front of them. Hopefully, “it’s the sales subtext, stupid” activates sales thinking rather than insult. […]
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Best of Revenue-IQ Articles 2017
2017. “May you live in interesting times“. It is 2017. The year is true. The expression is not. It’s known as an English translation of a Chinese curse, but it’s not from China, nor is it a curse. And the words themselves are not the blessing they first appear to be. The expression’s true meaning […]
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When Perfect isn’t Good Enough
If you’re an incumbent supplier for a large service contract, you know the deck is stacked against you. Experienced suppliers, those who’ve been around for more than one iPhone release, should be aware of many factors that influence and determine contract retention. And the truth is the last factor on that list is the incumbent’s […]
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Major Pursuit of Large Service Contracts
Timing is everything in pursuit of major service contracts. Sales reps (as bidders) typically wait for the RFP to be released to begin their proposal work. Typical Bidder’s Proposal Work to Procurement’s Timeline However, sales reps are better served if they “Stand in the future and look backwards.” Doing this presents them with a more […]
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Know Your Destination First when Selling Facility Service Contracts
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra (1925 – 2015) Major Pursuit of Large Service Contracts Selling facility service contracts often gets balled up with the marketing of those services. And when a contract is worth millions of dollars, well, that’s about as major as it […]
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Hierarchy of Proposal Persuasiveness
What do customers need from sales proposals? If sales teams had that answer, they’d be as happy as cats in new mown hay fields because win ratios would sky rocket, commissions would be paid in buckets, and managers would approve more time off. The place to begin understanding proposal needs, from the customer’s perspective, would […]
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You Sell a Customized Solution, Really?
How many B2B sales reps say they DON’T sell solutions? None. We all claim it. Almost every modern sales methodology is based on consultative selling: “Please customer, cough and tell me where it hurts.” But to do that, reps must dig into their customers’ situations; to understand their needs-wants-desires, and/or their unknown needs-wants-desires. Then customize a solution […]
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Sales Proposals should be like a Lamborghini: Beauty + Performance that Wins
When meeting customers, you make the effort to look good personally (no bed head); to dress neatly in appropriate clothing (matching customers’ cultural dress code); You show up for appointments on time, and know something about the customer you’re about to meet; Your business cards and leave-behind marketing materials present your firm professionally; You work with your […]
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Don’t Do These 5 Dumb Things in Sales Presentations
Often times knowing what not to do is as helpful as being told what to do. Think about it. If you avoid the “not to dos” you’re that much ahead of the game, and closer to winning. So here are five big things not to do in sales presentations. They’re listed in reverse order, and remember, please […]
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Where to Find What B2B Customers are Buying
B2B customers only buy what helps them achieve their: Business goals (corporate & departmental); Regulatory requirements; Social responsibilities; And/or personal ambitions. End of story. So imagine a sales rep who doesn’t know most, if not all of the above? Imagine that rep trying to design a solution, present it to a customer, and then justify […]
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30 Reasons Why B2B Customers Didn’t Buy + X to the Nth Permutations
It can get a bit old hearing B2B sales reps discuss why customers bought or didn’t buy. I’m speaking about outsourced services in general, where sales reps compete for large contracts bid every few years. Where customers are inured to the bunkum of “smoke and mirror” proposals and dog their way through short-list “dog and […]
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Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable purchasing is a Toxic Leak
“Lowest Price, Technically Acceptable (LPTA)” is a US government purchasing strategy that has leaked its way into where it doesn’t belong; buying complex services and/or products in the private sector. And like toxic waste, it’s difficult to avoid contamination once it spreads. First, LPTA has its place: It’s meant to get the US government best […]
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Best of 2016
2016 was certainly an “interesting” year here in the U.S. with the unexpected election results, and 2017 will bring more “interestingness” in the upcoming political changes and uncertainty. However, 2016 is our 8th Best of the Year roundup. And as always, I hope your year, personally and professionally, was joyous, healthy and full of engaging challenges. […]
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How to Hack Storytelling for Non-Raconteurs
Storytelling is marketing’s latest mantra to engage prospects and convert customers. And who’d have guessed that for the last 100 years sales reps have been doing just that. For B2B sales, success comes down to who tells the best story: And not just the best side splitting, drinks at the bar yarn but also business stories with vulnerabilities, threats, and successes.
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6 Time Zones in Pursuit of a Major Sale
A major pursuit in B2B sales is the process of hunting a whale of a contract. Hunting those large dollar, multi-year, behemoths is dictated by a calendar. And that calendar is further divided up into smaller time zones. And yet many sales reps work on major pursuits as if they can miraculously bend nature and change the calendar.
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Isn’t it Wonderful When Presentations are Conversations?
If you ask 100 B2B sales reps how they feel about making presentations the vast majority will likely say they love giving them. Ask 100 customers how they feel about sitting through those presentations and they’ll likely say they hate them. Why the gap? Being “talked at” versus “talking with” — monolog versus conversation. This disconnect comes from sales reps’: Out-dated […]
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Messaging Insights from Jacques Pepin and Gary Vaynerchuk
Duration and place. If you want to get B2B marketing messaging right, pay attention to these two factors. Duration Jacques Pépin, a French chef and television personality best known for his cooking shows on PBS, said when cooking meat it’s best to either cook at a very high heat for 30 seconds, or at a low heat for […]
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The Most Powerful Insight for B2B Marketing
B2B marketers constantly dig in to understand how customers think, judge, and determine what’s important to them. All this to create better messages and engagement. They pull qualitative insights from “Voice of the Customer” (VoC) and Focus Group interviews, and draw quantitative data from web analytics, Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys. However, these techniques don’t provide great insights into what drove customers […]
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5 Reasons Why Customers Hate to Read Your Sales Proposals
There’s one moment of truth in every large B2B complex sale: when a proposal is submitted to an RFP (Request for Proposal). Until then, customers haven’t evaluated, decided, or bought anything. Up to that point, it’s only sales’ hopes and customers’ explorations. So when that moment of truth comes, why do customers have a hard time evaluating proposals? Because many (most?) […]
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Death in the Last Mile and Final Yards of Biz Dev
Figuratively speaking, new business development for B2B can take hundreds of miles and several years to produce sales. It can take even longer and farther for large sales. And whatever the biz dev road, before reaching the destination – there is always that Last Mile before you get there. Fail to cross that distance and you get […]
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How Competitive are You on the Win Scale?
If sales teams don’t know how competitive they are against the field, it’s just a matter of time before competitors eat their lunch. After all, B2B customers have only so many options to choose from when they buy. They can: • Select you • Select a competitor • Insource an outsourced service & bring it back in-house • Select […]
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Sales Fatigue: Meltdown at the Moment of Truth
Selling is repetitive work. Regardless of methodology, reps do many of the same things over and over again. No wonder sales fatigue is inevitable. Fatigue can set in anytime, during early pipeline filling right up to contract negotiations. However, it’s most lethal in the sales-proposal stage: at the moment of truth. This stage is the only time when customers […]
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How to Create Messaging that is Authentic & True
Foundations dictate potential. They determine how high an enterprise can be built. This is true for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and B2B suppliers. In 1173 A.D. the Tower of Pisa was started and immediately the foundation began to tip. By 1178 three floors were completed and the tower tilted noticeably. In 1272 the lean had […]
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Status Quo is Lorem Ipsum for a Failed Sale
Status quo: noun, the existing state or condition; when customers accept bids and/or sales proposals but decide not to change suppliers. Lorem Ipsum: Dummy text of the printing industry used to mock up a layout without distracting from the design: originally based on several sections of “de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum“, written by Cicero in 45 BC. Failed […]
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Best of 2015
2015 is our 7th Best of the Year roundup. As always, I hope your year was joyous, healthy and full of engaging challenges. We continued a trend started several years ago to write fewer but longer articles. Hopefully you found them helpful. However, if you’d like more frequent, shorter articles instead let me know and I’ll see […]
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What To Do When Sales Tank Instead of Panic
At some point in almost every year B2B sales tank. And not just by a little, but by a gut-wrenching, jaw-dropping amount. It happens. Of course, “tanked” means when the data really shows sales have tanked. Don’t sweat the routine variation that is a part of all sales processes.
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How to Win the Presentation Trifecta for More Sales
In B2B sales presentations, sales teams turn themselves inside out trying to impress customers. The Oscar for winning those performances is to reach the next and last step of the buying process; where sales teams and customers finalize negotiations and sign contracts. Yet understanding what happens in winning presentations is somewhat of an enigma. “It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma, […]
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Pre-Qualify RFP/Bid Opportunities
(Don’t miss the free, customizable tool at the end of this article). Some times of the year B2B suppliers see a substantial uptick in the number of Request for Proposals (RFPs). This typically signals the seasonal beginning of a deluge of RFPs, as many customers’ fiscal year ends coincide. And their Procurement departments remind them of contracts terminating then. Voila! A very active […]
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Debunking the Rainmaker Myth
Rainmaker [reyn-mey-ker], noun : a person who brings in new business and wins new accounts almost by magic, since it is often not readily apparent how this new business activity is caused. Why does this myth still exist? I hear intelligent, experienced senior exces whimper about their inability to find and hire a Rainmaker; a business savant to relieve […]
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Presentations are the Penultimate Sniff Test
In B2B sales, supplier presentations are the next to last step (penultimate) before final contract negotiations. And “sniff test” isn’t a flattering description for such a crucial step in a buyer’s’ evaluation process. So, please forgive the combination of the professional with the vulgar. But when suppliers don’t understand the true purpose for having presentations, and show up only […]
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Sales Proposals are Personal: Don’t Chicken Out
Business proposals are likely the last place you’d think of getting personal. When was the last time in a B2B proposal you wrote “hey, you look really good in purple”? Of course proposals are not the place for that kind of personal comment. However, substitute “you look really good effectively managing FIVE times your current headcount” for […]
Sales insights for the facility service industry
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