Without an Engaging Big Story, Sales Reps are Hung Out to Dry

According to the Cambridge University Press, to “hang someone out to dry” means: “…to allow someone to be punished, criticized, or made to suffer in a way that is unfair, without trying to help them…” B2B sales managers may inadvertently be doing just that to their sales team. Managers require sales reps to contact customers […]

No Time for Waffling

Your attention span is shorter than a goldfish’s, that’d be about eight seconds compared to Goldie’s nine. And Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, said “Time in an attention economy is the only scarce commodity.” So why do proposal writers waste customers’ precious attention by starting cover letters and executive summaries with bleeding obvious cliches? First paragraphs […]

Complacency in Sales Proposals

“I have a dream” — “To be, or not to be” — “Four score and seven years ago…“ Do you recognize these from the few words shown? They’re memorable because of what they mean and stand for, not just because they’ve been heard before. In the B2B world we can make sales writing memorable too […]

Selling Ain’t What It Used To Be

The Subjective Truth of Objective Evaluations

In RFPs, customers evaluate suppliers’ proposals then attach numerical ratings — intending to make subjective decisions look logical and rational — except of course they aren’t. And it’s not just evaluators’ subjectivity that makes proposal ratings a guessing game. Procurement also puts its hand in to the ratings mix because after evaluators rate suppliers’ responses, […]

When Does a B2B Customer NOT Want to Hear their Supplier is Doing Well?

After the new supplier honeymoon is over, B2B customers settle in for the long-term, day-to-day business of getting on. That’s when customers don’t want to hear their supplier is doing well. When their supplier’s given “good enough” service and the customer doesn’t worry anymore. This is a problem for suppliers because when customers don’t want […]

Do Sales Pipelines & Funnels Lie?

In the B2B world, accurately estimating sales is as easy as solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded on a roller coaster. We’re not talking about e-commerce here but about large-dollar, complex service sales. You know the ones; they’re what you work on. Yet what supplier doesn’t look at their sales pipeline and/or sales funnel to guess […]

Marketing Treasure for Unionized Hourly Employers

Not every employer has unionized hourly employees. However, there are lessons to be gained from this ISSA Straight Talk interview hosted by Jeff Cross. It was quite a learning experience and worth all 42 minutes. In the video, Michelle Murray of Living Wage For US Inc shared insights for all hourly employers including building service […]

C-Suite Talking Points for B2B Sales

It’s a constant selling refrain that to succeed in sales, reps must connect as high up in customers’ organizations as possible, ideally at the c-suite level. And that’s not easy if the B2B sale is typically managed by procurement. After all, the c-suite are focused on keeping their enterprises surviving and thriving. And they can […]

Monkeys to Whales: Balancing Conflicts within Proposal Systems

In the zoology of facility service contracts, smaller dollar contracts (monkey size) are bought and sold differently than larger dollar contracts (whale size). It follows that to win different sized contracts, suppliers’ proposals and their strategies must differ too, from monkey to horse, horse to elephant, and elephant to whale. But to do that, suppliers […]

Animals of Facility Service Contracts

OK, facility service suppliers are not animals, nor are their customers. Just wanted to get that out of the way first. With that said, when facility service suppliers grow in size they eventually start going after larger dollar contracts than they had before. And then the game changes. Click here to download a classification of […]

Office 2022: Go With What’s Known

Cliché alert: “The world has changed,” “The only constant is change,” and “Can’t live in the past.” Now that’s out of the way, let’s just say it: There is no magic wand to return office work to the way it was and bring building occupancy back to pre-pandemic levels. Just ain’t gonna happen.

When is Competitive Advantage Not?

Years ago, in a galaxy far, far away, B2B suppliers searched for unique competitive advantages. With one in hand, suppliers wowed buyers, bested competitors, and raced at warp speed beyond revenue and profitability goals, to boldly go where… One Technology No Longer Cuts It Competitive advantages were once always and only a new technology around […]

Living Wage as Competitive Advantage?

A Living Wage strategy isn’t for every supplier or for every situation. But a Living Wage may be the next competitive advantage to secure new business. That may sound scary for suppliers who sell in price-sensitive industries (think janitorial, security, engineering, etc.). However, Living Wage is a voluntary strategy that can be used in select […]

Persuasive Proposal QuickSheet

Make your sales proposals more persuasive to raise win rates and crush sales goals. The following 11 “Tips & Ideas” will help you at the moment of truth to win more contracts, especially the large ones.

Rebuilding Trust in the Built Environment for 2022

The pandemic continues to baffle building owners and managers into 2022. After two years, pandemic fatigue has set in for building owners and managers, their occupants, contractors, and suppliers — yet COVID-19 is still here, and it’s been worse than expected. US deaths are over 800,000 with projections reaching 1 million deaths by March of […]

Best of Revenue-IQ Articles 2021

COVID-19 and variants are still here and worse than most expected. It’s obvious the pandemic is an ongoing catastrophe that has thrown future predictions out the window. US deaths will soon reach 800,000 (796K as of today – December 15), with projections reaching 1M deaths in March of 2022. Today’s 7-day average for hospitalizations and […]

Welcome to the Confusion Games

COVID-19 has been a nightmare for science to communicate what’s going on. The fire hose of information from diverse sources with conflicting agendas feels like wearing roller skates on ice. While the CDC is the gold standard for pandemic science in the U.S., their communications have been atrociously confusing. The CDC shares what they know […]

Call it what it is: Healthy Cleaning

Today’s pandemic awareness is a good time to recognize what “cleaning” can be. And a good model to look at is the triple bottom line of People-Planet-Profit. While People-Planet-Profit has been around for decades, serving its three pillars is more of a challenge mid-pandemic for the cleaning industry. Wouldn’t this be a good time to […]

Beware of Gorging on Component Brands

There’s a trend among service suppliers to tout three, four, or even more component brands (aka ingredient brands) in their sales and marketing. These declarations show up in social media posts, web sites, and in sales proposals. For example, service suppliers may message something like: “Bobbsity Company is proud to announce we are now using […]

Square Pricing in a Round Hole

When B2B contractors respond to RFPs they often have to place their pricing into customers’ pricing models, e.g., spreadsheets or online forms with built-in formulas. Sounds easy; just follow the RFP’s directions, place numbers in boxes, and let the customers’ formulas produce the final, submitted bid price. Here’s the rub: Contractors have their own models […]

From the RFP Stack: How to Format Text-Only Responses

Hourly Wages by Any Other Name

For more than 400 years the often quoted “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet” implies that the name of a thing does not affect what it really is. However, that’s not true for hourly wages in general, now that the $15 US federal minimum […]

Pandemic Vacancies & Re-Occupancy Uncertainties

The road to reopening workplaces this year is rough. Building owners and managers certainly have their work cut out for them. So too their service contractors. The odds against a smooth and rapid reopening are daunting. Consider these variables: The percentage of people vaccinated? Can the vaccinated still spread the virus? What percentage of people […]

Best of Revenue-IQ Articles 2020

Well, 2020 didn’t turn out like anyone expected. Pre-pandemic, the world seemed more of the same but not so now. Nor in the coming months. For Revenue-IQ, 2020 articles fell into two buckets; Account Retention (before the pandemic), and then the pandemic. So, this year’s “Best of” will relist them just like that. Hoping 2021 […]

Ask Me Nicely – Complying with COVID Measures in Commercial Buildings

We may be midway through this pandemic but it will get worse before it gets better as infections surge in flu season; like one train wreck crashing on top of another. Mark Twain said, “There’s nothing common about sense.” And here in the USA, it is, unfortunately, proving true. Over the next two to three […]

Rebuilding Trust in the Built Environment

Building owners and managers are in an existential bind. They have trillions of dollars invested in the built environment, yet many occupants are concerned about returning indoors (55% of U.S. adults are “very” or “somewhat” scared they will contract COVID-19). While building owners and managers have always faced economic variations and seasonal fluctuations, the fear […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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: […]

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, […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 — […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]