Image by Håkan Dahlström

What do your customers think? What’s important? Challenging?

If you get these answers you sell more, so we ask customers.

But their answers don’t help. They’re simplistic, obvious, ambiguous. Their answers lack the detail to help you understand their needs. They lack insight to help you develop a solution for their problems.

This isn’t derogatory, it’s reality.

When you ask customers how you can help them, or what they need help with, you’re likely to be disappointed. Their answers are not enough – but they are a starting point.

Questioning is an art, not a science, which is why following a set list of questions fails.

You want actionable questions. Questions that will give you something to work from, a base into the consultative sales process (understanding first, then being understood).

I Wanted to Know So I Asked

Stick with me here as we’re moving from “asking good questions” to “helping me help you”.

I was hunting for ideas to research and write about in this blog.

So I asked a group of owners, executives and sales managers what their biggest challenge was for their sales team in 2012.

Their answers were…a starting point, which led to more questions.

I’m still looking for an answer to that original question. I’m still looking for what you want to read about.

But I’m closer to a workable answer because I’ve reframed a few original answers into more actionable questions.

Specifically, these actionable questions will get me closer to understanding what you want to read about regarding sales. But now I need your help.

What is Your Biggest Sales Challenge in 2012?

So now I’m asking you for the biggest sales challenges you face in 2012.

Tell me which one of the questions below you’d like an answer to and I’ll get started researching and writing about the top vote getter.

But pick from the list of questions below because they’re actionable ones. The resulting articles will hopefully be more specific and useful.

Please let me know your choice in a comment here.

 1) If you can’t speed up the sales cycle, how do you win more when contracts are put out to bid?

2) Why should customers’ buying cycle care about your sales cycle?

3) If customers can buy now, why don’t they?

4) What’s wrong with a long sales cycle?

5) How do I define my target profile? (what does my perfect customer look like?)

6) What are my new business development goals? How do I create them?

7) Where does social media fit in my new business development? Or is it the whole enchilada?

8) How can I identify the decision makers in the buying process?

9) How do I analyze what decision makers’ want?

10) How do I sell to Procurement’s agenda ?

11) How can I influence Procurement prior to the bid process?

Please let me know your choice in a comment here.

Original Answers Leading to Actionable Questions

The answers below spawned the list of actionable questions I’m asking you to choose from. These answers are presented here with permission.

Randall Martin, Vice President Sales and Marketing of Skyline Building Care felt his biggest sales challenge in 2012 is to:

“Decrease the number of days in the sales cycle”.

Dan Wachtler, President and CEO of IPSA International, Inc.  is facing this 2012 sales challenge:

“What should we know and how should we and shouldn’t we use social media given our demographics.”

Robert Beardsley, Regional Vice President, ABM Security Services is looking at the 2012 challenge of:

“The biggest challenge for any sales person in the service industry these next few years will continue to be the identification of the key decision makers.  There has been a huge shift in the decision making process from front line management to back office procurement. Procurement is now driving the bus while everyone else is more or less going along for the ride.”

Remember, please let me know your choice of your biggest 2012 sales challenge in a comment here.

Image by Kevin Dooley

Your personal brand helps you sell customers what they want and need. Your personal brand is:

• What you stand for
• How you want your customers to perceive you
• The promise you keep with customers

It’s this last definition, “the promise you keep with customers”, that’s the most important. During the sales cycle, which can be years, your personal brand communicates value as much as your offering. Pre-sale you, the sales rep, are the offering. So it’s crucial that your personal sales interactions align “what you do” with “what you say”. Then your personal brand becomes powerful and moves customers to:

• Trust you
• Listen to you
• Value what you say

It won’t matter what you say if your actions don’t match your promises.

Consider Service Quality Research for Your Personal Brand

Customers are drawn to and drool over high quality service. Being a high quality service is much like being a high quality sales rep, so why not use research on service quality to amp up your personal brand?

The fountainhead of research on service quality was first published in “Delivering Quality Service” (affiliate link), by Valerie Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman and Leonard Berry back in 1990.  While the research has progressed since then, this book is still the best source for understanding, and action. One of their findings was to identify the relative importance of 5 service quality dimensions.

In other words, if sales reps get these dimensions right, customers will hand over the keys to their sales receptiveness. Because they’ll have received high quality service, according to what’s important to them.

Here are their five service quality dimensions. Although I’ve added a sales spin to their uses, the five dimensions are from that research. Consider applying them to yourself when pursuing customers for sales – make them part of your personal brand.

#1 RELIABILITY – Just Do It.

Do what you say you’re going to do when you said you were going to do it.

Of the 5 service quality dimensions customers care about this one clocks in at 32%. That means you still must pay attention to the other dimensions BUT DO THE MOST HERE.

#2 RESPONSIVENESS – Do It Now.

Respond quickly, promptly, rapidly, immediately, instantly. Waiting a day to return a call or email doesn’t make it. Even if customers are chronically slow in getting back to you, responsiveness is 22% of their service quality assessment. And believe me, they are assessing you as a rep just as if you were a service.

Consider taking the 10-minute challenge on returning emails and voice messages.

#3 ASSURANCE – Know What Your Doing.

Sales reps, though not expected to be experts, must have a working knowledge of customers’ businesses and how their sales offering benefits those businesses. Why else would customers want to talk with you? Assurance is 19% of customers’ assessment – this matters to them.

#4 EMPATHY – Care about Customers as much as the Sale.

Customers can tell if sales reps are in it only for the commission – and they care. So even if the rep does their part flawlessly, they better make sure customers feel they care about more than making the sale. Empathy is 16% of customers’ assessment – no trivial consideration.

#5 TANGIBLES -  Look Sharp.

Even though this is the least important dimension, appearance matters. Just not as much as the other dimensions. I’m sure you all know of sales reps who focus more on looking good than being reliable or responsive. Look good but realize this dimension tallies only 11% of what’s important to customers.

In Summary – The 5 Takeaways

You are your sales brand. Why not be a high quality one? Consider polishing your sales’ interactions across these 5 service quality dimensions. Can’t hurt.

Customers buy solutions that help their companies survive and thrive. They also buy to make their own work day easier and less stressful.

This is the shadow side of customers – they buy for themselves too.

So help them buy. In sales proposals and presentations do more than you’re already doing. Go over the top and detail your implementation and on-going project management.

Do this in addition to how your solution helps their company but make this shadow side hyper-explicit and prominent.

Pitching Hyper-explicit Implementation & Project Management

The beauty of pitching to the shadow side is that it speaks to their companies’ benefits too.

You’re talking about how their company benefits, while knowing the individual is considering how it will personally impact them.

Although you may already being do this, stress it even more in sales proposals and face-to-face presentations – the shadow side of customers’ individual benefits.

Here’s How

This is what will help them sleep better at night. Point out the process, deliverables and methods. Consider the following:

Process Map

Show a simple map of who does what and when. Consider using a map with swim lanes that show when activities are interdependent on others (i.e. when customers’ legal dept must authorize contract changes, or procurement’s change of Statements of Work).

This can be done easily in Microsoft PowerPoint or Excel, or any draw program.

Frequent Status Reporting

Ask customers during discovery what their preferred reporting procedure is. Then make sure the following is detailed in your sales proposals and presentations.

* How they like to receive status updates (i.e. email, phone, web meeting, or in-person)

* How frequent? (i.e. daily, weekly, monthly)

* How in depth? (this will determine the length of time to plan/schedule, i.e. 15 minutes, 1/2 hour, 2 hours, etc.)

* What info they’d like to see? (i.e. schedule completion, cost variance, etc.)

Detailed Project Plan

Create a true project plan, one that has individual tasks underneath summary tasks, identifies owners, start / end dates, duration and other resources needed.

Consider using Microsoft’s Project, which is extremely powerful, or a gantt chart in Excel can work almost as well.

The length and detail of project plan is relative to the anxiety and concern of your customers. The more anxious they are, the more in-depth and detailed your plan should be.

Formal Progress Reviews

Similar to status reporting but these tend to be more quantitative, formal and include higher level customer participants. This shows you’ll be helping alleviate your customers’ on-going fears or concerns about what they’re receiving, and whether they made a good decision by choosing you.

Progress reviews often include:

* Completion of scheduled tasks (% on target)

* Variations to schedule (changes to plan and their rationale, etc.)

* Cost variations ( report overages even if they are unbillable, you don’t want to lose that good-will credit)

How Else Do You Soothe Customers’ Buying Fears?

This is not an exhaustive list but I’ve used all of these successfully many times. What have you used that’s produced the results you want?

Post up your comments here.

“Grant me the serenity to accept sales’ facts of life (sFOL)
- the courage to do the right selling work
- and the wisdom to know the difference.”
a Seller’s Prayer.

Here are 12 sFOL and what to do about them.

#1) Buyers buy on emotion & justify (to themselves & others) with facts

- do more than your competitors
- dig to uncover buyers’ emotional motivation
- attach it to publicly verifiable facts
- make the sales conversation about them both together

#2) Buyers buy what they want

- give buyers what they want so you’ll get the chance to give them what they need

#3) Buyers rarely know what they need

- help them learn what they need
- they don’t want to be educated

#4) Buyers don’t buy in a vacuum

- buyers have options; they can take no action, go in-house, select your competitors, or choose you
- learn buyers’ options
- develop compelling offerings that counteract each, except choosing you

#5) Buyers buy in their Market Range of Pricing

- they rarely buy at 2x the market price
- be aware of how they see market pricing
- price yourself where your service fits (premium, average in the middle, bare bones low end)

#6) Price is meaningless without value

- sell value, which is what buyers get for what they spend
- your pricing then makes sense (read “Price Without Value is Meaningless“)

#7) Buyers negotiate price at the time of the sale

- don’t let buyers fixate on purchase price alone
- research Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), which is what buyers will spend over the life of the contract
- move the sales conversation onto TCO

#8) Buyers need sellers

- respect the selling profession
- buyers have problems they solve with buying the best solutions they perceive
- buyers need those who can help them make better buys

#9) Buyers aren’t what they used to be

- buyers have changed, they now face job turnover, career insecurity, and lack deep on-the-job experience
- it’s a new school of  buyers
- don’t sell them as if they’re old school

#10) Procurement is the biggest baddest buyer out there

- learn to love Procurement, learn what it’s about (read “Seller’s look at Procurement Strategy“)
– become proficient selling to Procurement (read Sell Service as a Strategic Spend to Procurement“)

#11) Social media is more noise, except when it isn’t

- find where buyers seek knowledge, be there, give there, for the long term, but don’t sell there (read Seth Godin’s The trap of social media noise )

#12) Free valuable info is the new price for buyers’ attention

- give valuable info away for free, even if you can no longer bill for it, even if your competitors may see you doing it – you’ll come up with more good stuff
- buyers will see you as the expert (read The Secret Trigger to Inbound Marketing )

What do you accept & how does it change the way you sell?

• What are your Facts of Life in selling?
• What do you do because of your sFOLs?

How often do you waste time on a prospect that is really a suspect? That’s time lost with as much chance for a sale as a snowball on the sun.

You can’t chase every suspect you come across, so screen them. Qualify suspects into prospects.

The problem is you don’t get enough info to qualify them at your first sighting. You have to pick up bits of info along the way, over time.

Here’s a quick and easy way to quickly cut through the suspects to the prospects.

Answer these 2 questions

Always keep these two questions in your mind and you’ll quickly and easily see who’s worthy of your sales time, and who’s not. And it’s great to be selective as a seller, gives you more self-respect.

What the heck, cut to the chase. Slightly rephrase these questions and ask your suspects directly. You never know what will happen, and it’s fun to turn the tables about who’s courting who.

Question #1 –> Can they afford me?

It’s “Can they afford me?”, not “my company”. This is personal, even though you’re working for a company. It’s your investment of sales time that needs immediate and definite direction.

This question defines a suspect’s sales’ attractiveness – “Is this a good fit with what I want as a seller?”

Also, the question should lead to other questions you’ll be pondering, such as:

* Do they buy what I’m selling? (i.e. Do they need what we offer?)

* Do they value what I’m selling? (i.e. Do they know how important our service is to their business?)

* Are they ready to buy? (i.e. Are they willing to invest time in a supplier relationship?)

* Are they aware of market pricing & scope? (i.e. Are their service expectations in line with their pricing expectations?)

Question #2 –> Will we enjoy working together?

This gets you thinking up front about after the sale. About the alignment and desirability of a long-term relationship with this particular customer, not an anonymous number in a sales funnel.

With this question in mind, you’ll start looking at suspects for signs of:

* How likely are they to make unreasonable demands? (i.e. Are they reasonable, knowledgeable about your service?)

* Will they pay as promised? (i.e. Will they make getting paid difficult?)

* How realistic are they about the variability of service? (i.e. Do they accept that service is never perfect? That hiccups occur?)

* How willing are they to work with you? (i.e. Are they flexible when it comes to finding win-win solutions?)

There is Always the Long Way

The long way is your company’s Prospect Qualifying Matrix.

It’s the one that includes multiple factors. It weights and rates individual prospects’ attractiveness, then calculates an index for how hard you’re supposed to go after that prospect.

Don’t laugh, I’ve developed one and it’s cool. But during your day-to-day sprint do you have time to fill it out?

I suspect not. Which is the reason for memorizing these two simple questions when hunting for new business:

Q1: Can they afford me?

Q2: Will we enjoy working together?

How Do You Qualify Prospects on the Fly?

"It ain't bragging if you can do it" Dizzy Dean, American Baseball, Hall of Fame Pitcher.

That’s right! You deserve more money IF you’re a top producing sales rep (in the top 20% of sales reps in your company).

You also deserve more resources, and respect too.

If you (or they) are already selling tons why should you (or they) deserve more money?

Because it may be more effective supporting (and paying) sales reps who already are successful – instead of trying to raise the skills of the lower 80%.

Also, those top 20%ers are driving your company’s sales success. If they leave for a better offer elsewhere your company is in a tight spot to find equal replacements.

Top Sales Producers Have Many Skills in Many Roles

Let’s face it, selling successfully means succeeding in many roles. There isn’t a single sales activity that guarantees success.

Many skills are needed in many roles. Here are the big ticket ones listed by stage of the sales cycle.

STAGE 1 – Pre-Approach

Before sales reps contact prospects there are a number of roles to be filled. Here are the ones top producers fill, or have when they were starting out:

Strategist – to select the vertical markets, services and geographies that best align with your company’s ability to deliver

Researcher – to quantify vertical markets, identify prospect sources & figure out how to estimate sales sizes

Profiler – to create a target prospect profile based on the strategy and research

STAGE 2 – First Contact

At the first contact with a prospect sales reps must be very good at these key roles:

Greeter – to make friends of strangers (prospects), welcome them to company marketing events and sponsorships

Politician – to meet as many prospects that match the target profile and gain their trust

Telemarketer – to reach out quickly, efficiently and effectively to a large audience of targeted prospects

STAGE 3 – Follow-Up Campaign

The majority of 1st contacts aren’t sales, so top producers use follow-up campaigns to be there when prospects are ready to buy. These are the key roles needed for this stage:

Marketer – to select, design and produce outreach efforts for the rep individually, rather than waiting for a company effort (see inbound and outbound marketing )

Educator – to help prospects learn how the service they buy impacts their business, postively and/or negatively

Promoter – to participate in trade associations, volunteering to charities, all to get the company and rep’s name out there

STAGE 4 – Proposal Opportunity

The moment of truth comes when reps get the opportunity to develop a proposal for a customer. The rep’s roles for this stage include:

Investigator – to dig out the real truth behind what prospects are willing to say

Consultant – to understand prospects’ situation and then design a solution to solve it

Writer – to create the written document that captures the insights gained through investigation and persuasively present the consultative solution

STAGE 5 – Presentation Opportunity

After the the proposal has been submitted, reps now must take on additional roles to do the face-to-face presentation. Here are those roles:

Presenter – to be the leader of the in-person sales presentation

Facilitator – to rehearse and facilitate members of the sales team with their designated topics

Negotiator – to be the go-between person between the prospect and your company finalizing pricing and contracts

What To Do IF…

#1) You are in the Top 20%

You deserve more; money, support and respect. Ask for it. You have the numbers to justify it.

#2) You are in the Bottom 80%

Work at getting better. It’s your career, either at your current company, or at the next one that will hire you.

Get busy learning:

• Seek out sales training (click here to see how I can help)
• Shadow a top 20%er & learn their tips, tricks & secrets
• Use a coach or mentor: pester them with questions (click here to see how I can help)
• Read, get smarter. Here are some of my favorites (I’m an Amazon affiliate):
• No Bull Selling(an oldie but worth it)
• Little Red Book of Selling
• Permission Marketing
• Speed of Trust
• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

#3) You are the only Sales Rep

You can assume you’d be in the top 20% of a like company and ask for more, or not ask. Or you can improve yourself by doing the same things as #2 above.

#4) You are the Sales Manager

First, increase your support (and compensation) to your top 20%ers – you don’t really want to lose them, do you? So where it’s practical, provide them the:

• Sales sheets, brochures, etc. they ask for
• Administrative help in filling out reports, printing proposals, etc.
• Marketing & promotion projects they come up with

Second, create a hiring profile from the roles and skill sets mentioned above. Now you can interview and hire to that profile. You’ll be glad you did.

Summary

It ain't bragging if you can do it...
Dizzy Dean, American Baseball, Hall of Fame Pitcher.

If you’re good ask for more. If you have very good sales reps, keep them. If you’re not as good as you could be, get there, or look for somewhere else.

Hurry up and sell. Be seen working. Fire – ready – aim.

Many sales reps don’t know who their customers are – don’t know where to find them.

And if they don’t know, where do they spend their time or their company’s dollars?

Here are some good things to know to find the right customers:

• NAICS # or GICS # – for buying/researching prospect data & defining vertical markets
• Rough formula for estimating dollar size of service contract from publicly available data, such as # of employees, square footage, etc.
• Seasonal or typical contract cycles – bids go out in September for January 1 start?
• Typical buying process – technical RFP with pre-qualifying RFI, or informal bid submittal?
• Specialized, smaller industry associations aligning to specific verticals
• Blogs they read
• Online communities they participate in
• Industry associations they belong to
• Professional certifications they aspire to
• Criticality of your service to their company’s business survival or success

Nice list.

But with all sales prep work, never let perfect get in the way of good enough.

Something actionable is required.  What research did you do to find the right customers?

“Hello, and you are…?”

“Oh, uh, I’m Sara…and I uh…work for XYZ Corp…I’m a sales rep”

First impressions. Priceless.

All those intentional first meetings with prospects at association lunches, tradeshows, and sales events. And the unexpected introductions at Little League games, school events, the supermarket. That adds up to lots of 1st-impression opportunities.

Booting that 1st-impression isn’t always fatal, but it certainly hurts your initial credibility and trust with customers.

Elevator Statement on Steroids

Why not prepare for 1st – impression opportunities?

This Personal Positioning Statement is based on a branding version from Parker LePla, except this version is for your personal sales work.

It’s similar to an “Elevator Statement” (you’re on an elevator and you’re asked what you do – and you have only 30 seconds to answer). The Personal Positioning Statement answers that question and does much more.

3 Parts of a Personal Positioning Statement

The three parts, after your name of course, are:

• Business – descriptor of what business you’re in
• Benefits – key business benefits your customers receive (benefits are not features)
• Better – description of why you’re better than your competition

Get these three into 2 sentences and easily spoken within 15-25 seconds. Remember you have to breath at some point. And the words must sound like they’re coming from your mouth, not a printed brochure.

Also, these three don’t have to be in order. They just need to be covered.

Here’s my current version -  NOTE: I don’t speak the parts in the parenthesis, they are there to show the three parts.

Hi, I’m Chris Arlen with Revenue-IQ.

We help service suppliers win larger contracts (benefit) through persuasive proposals, slideshows and sales training (business).

As consultant to most of the largest service contractors – we know what works, and what doesn’t (better).

Extra Mileage used within Emails

Re-purpose your Personal Positioning Statement in emails to prospective customers.

Place your “benefit(s)” in the email’s subject line.

Introduce yourself with the “business” part and justify why they would want to return your email with the “better” part.

You’ll want to fill the email text copy out a little, but this gives you a solid foundation.

Summary

If you don’t have a Personal Positioning Statement, get started now. Don’t let “perfect” get in the way of “good enough”.

It’s been said “There’s never a second chance to make a good first impression.” Be prepared.

When you get a call from someone you don’t know, how long before you know they want to sell you something?

Probably within the first five to ten seconds.

And that’s a lot sooner than the caller is willing to believe. They’ll run through a series of benefits, wants and needs thinking they’re going to sell you – before you even become aware they’re selling. That’s what they tell themselves.

And you, you’re waiting for them to stop and take a breath. You know you’ll tell them “No, thank you” yet there’s a tension building in the call. Even though you’re in control and can hang up we rarely do. It’s part of our social manners, our courtesy to strangers.

So we suffer that tension and stop listening after we’ve figured out we’re not interested in what the stranger is selling. Yet that tension remains right up until we tell them “No, thank you” and do hang up.

If we know that about ourselves receiving cold calls, why doesn’t it shape “how” we make cold calls when selling?

Cold Calling Business to Business

There are more efficient ways of reaching customers than cold calling (see Inbound Marketing). And, as a salesperson, if all you’re doing is cold calling it can be soul destroying.

In the contract service world, customers don’t buy contract services over the phone anyway. While the sales process can be initiated by cold calling, it still takes a proposal and signed contract to finish the deal.

With that said, there are times and situations when cold calling can find that “right-place, right-time” customer. They’re the very few customers who are ready to buy from you now. They just don’t know you exist, until you called.

The Initial 5 – 10 Seconds

You know cold calling is a numbers game. As such, you want to get through as many of the “No, thank you” to reach the “right-place, right-time Yes”. Those first few seconds on the phone tells all.

But first, look at it from the customer’s perspective.

• They’re busy in their work day
• They’re not expecting your call
• They may be in a work crisis, or dealing with an enraged boss
• And now, someone they don’t know is calling

 A Respectful & Courteous Approach

There are thousands of ways to start a cold call. Here’s one that defuses tension and quickly filters you to your “right-place, right-time” customers. This starts at the point you get your customer on the phone.

1) Identify yourself and your company

Clear and concise is the only way to go. Respect the fact you’re the interruption. Get to the point. But don’t rush your words, just don’t use lots of them.

Also, if your company name doesn’t clearly describe what your company does you’ll need to add 10 words or less. For example,

“Hi, I’m Chris Arlen with XYZ Janitorial Services” – no need to explain what your company does

“Hi, I’m Chris Arlen with Excalibur Services. We clean high-rise office windows safely.” – now the customer knows what Excalibur does

2) Ask if you can give them a proposal – THEN STOP TALKING

 Think about it. This is the tension on everyone’s mind when getting a call from a stranger “Are they going to ask me to buy something – then I’ll have to say No”.

So remove that tension immediately. Get the unspoken up front and center.

The key here is to stop talking after you ask the question. If you talk first, you lose. There’s a natural leverage to silence, use it to guide your customer to speak.

3) 99.8% will say “No, thank you”

You respond with:

“No problem, just thought I’d ask”

You’ll notice the tension ease. The customer has faced their greatest fear – you asked them to buy and they said “No” – and you were OK with it.

So now you know this is not one of your “right-place, right-time” customers.

But wait – don’t hang up.

4) Now ask other questions

There’s lot’s you’d like to know about this customer. Now’s your chance to ask. Questions such as:

“Is there a better time to talk to you about your service needs?”

“When do you put your service contract out to bid?”

“How do I get on your bid list?“

You should have a list of prepared questions. Ask as many of them as the customer feels willing to answer. And it is a “feeling” judgment on your part. You’ll know when the customer is ready to the end the call, or they’ll do it for you.

Summary

If you’re going to cold call, do it respectfully. Work through the numbers game to reach your “right-place, right-time” customers. Take away the call tension by immediately asking the question customers fear and then show you’re OK with their likely answer of “No”.

Why would it be a surprise to a current service supplier that their contract is at risk?

Forget the fact that the supplier is fully complying with all contract requirements.

Never mind that the supplier is continually delivering high value for the spend.

Disregard the reality that the supplier is consistently meeting quality expectations, if not exceeding them.

Customers are always looking for more. If not from their incumbent, then their next incumbent.

Supplier as Target

If a supplier is currently under contract, that supplier is labeled the “I” word (incumbent) and the future is inevitable, and potentially rocky.

Incumbents should never get caught behind the rebid curve. Take a look at “Walking Backwards: Timeline for Rebids” for some ideas on staying ahead.

To be the proactive incumbent and try to avert the rebid, take a look at “Unsolicited Sales Proposals: Part 2 – The Upside” and see if there’s a way around the impending rebid.

Avoid the complacent mindset that can infect many a successful supplier, beware of Incumbent-itis.

Prepare your expectations to meet those of your customer, think about the 4 Prejudices Incumbents must Battle

Here are some thoughts to shake up your complacency in Would You Rather be Barbarian or Duck?

Congratulations, You’re the Incumbent

The good news is that incumbents have the revenue and profit. And the responsibility to retain the contract, and the revenue, and the profit, year after year.