The Incumbent’s Dilemma in B2B Services
Why incumbent service contractors should worry and what they can do about it. It’s a fact of life (FOL) that B2B incumbents have it rough from their customers. Customers know when their [...]
21 Rules of the Competitive Proposal Game
Selling a B2B contract is a game where buyers pick winners by judging sellers’ proposals. If sellers blow the proposal (aka losing) they’ve wasted all their time, effort, and money on that [...]
Words Matter to the Voice in Customers’ Heads
When B2B customers read suppliers’ proposals, each individual hears a voice in their head as well as seeing the written words. This subvocalization is a natural process that all humans do when [...]
Storytelling Means Business
Everything’s a story in business. Customers understand complexity from a story. They rationalize their buying from a story, which means sellers sell stories. Sales reps pitch gel electrophoresis [...]
The Last Step Matters the Most
All sales stages count when selling service contracts — but sleepwalk the proposal — and everything vanishes at the end, as if you were never there. Selling service contracts can often take [...]
Who Needs an Engaging Big Story?
Trot out the same old tired sales pitch and watch the competition eat your lunch. Meaningful business stories sell because they engage customers to buy. But sales and marketing folks often fail [...]
Don’t Lose Sales Waiting for RFPs
In the world of B2B service contracts, sales are often lost by the time RFPs are out to suppliers. This doesn’t happen because customers make backroom, illicit deals with an unscrupulous [...]
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 [...]
