Book - Gen AI The New Reality - How Key Players Are Progressing

Gen AI The New Reality - How Key Players Are Progressing

About the Book 

In the rapidly evolving realm of Generative AI, this book delves into the intricacies of this transformative technology, exploring its history, potential, and key players. It unravels the value chain, deployment models, and future trajectory of Large Language Models (LLMs) while shedding light on the growth opportunities in this domain.

Embark on a journey through the world of chipmakers, where TSMC reigns supreme, pioneering the most advanced chips, yet facing its unique challenges. Discover the driving forces behind Nvidia's dominance as the "Godfather of AI" and analyse the potential for a dot-com bubble resurgence.

Venture into the realm of Hyperscalers, where Microsoft stands as the undisputed king of AI in the cloud and software. Explore its strategic partnerships, the economics of training AI systems, and the inherent risks associated with its growth.

Delve into the world of Google, the search giant that's leveraging Gen AI to revolutionize its offerings. Examine its search economics, cloud play, diversification efforts, and the infamous $100 billion blunder.

Uncover the secrets behind Amazon's retail empire, where multiple flywheels drive its growth. Analyse the intricacies of AWS, the crown jewel of Amazon's offerings, and the company's pursuit of new flywheels.
Step into the automotive sector, where Tesla stands as a visionary leader, constantly reinventing its vehicles. Explore the company's secret sauce, its growth trajectory, its ambitious FSD plans, and the role of AI-enabled Dojo.

Discover how Oracle, the database leader, is transforming into an AI innovator. Understand the company's growth strategy, its focus on Gen AI, and the challenges it faces.

Dive into the world of Salesforce, a cloud and AI-powered CRM giant. Explore its growth trajectory, its evolving relationship with competitors, and the potential risks it faces.

Examine SAP, the ERP market leader, as it strives to become a one-stop shop for businesses. Understand the company's efforts to catch up with AI advancements and the challenges it faces.

Uncover the story of IBM, a tech giant facing growth hurdles. Analyse its history of misfires, its comprehensive AI play, and the factors that have led to its relative stagnation in recent years.

Key Takeaways

• Understand the evolution, hype, and potential of Generative AI.
• Discover the value chain, deployment models, and future growth of LLMs.
• Analyse the dominance of chipmakers like TSMC and Nvidia.
• Delve into the AI strategies of Hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon.
• Explore the AI innovations of automotive, software, and security companies.
• This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Generative AI landscape, equipping readers with the insights needed to navigate this transformative era.

The sample chapters on Hyperscalers and Chip Makers are available for download below.

Generative AI - Framework to Identify Use Case and Investment

 Generative AI - Framework to Identify Use Case and Investment

Application of Framework - Use Cases for Telecom

Gen AI - Use Cases for Telecom

Negotiation By Earthy Natives and How they Behave as a Seller and Buyer

 Negotiations - Influence to Win

The business-to-business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement beneficial to both. To achieve a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back-and-forth nature of these discussions is driven to gain the upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement), and any helpful information that will assist in bargaining.

In sales, to influence and win negotiations, a lot of preparation is required. This includes collecting information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are minimal. Sometimes, even after gathering information and practice, negotiations can still be lost or suspended indefinitely because of changes in the political landscape, financial upheaval, change in priority, a pandemic outbreak, or other unseen factors. 

The gathering of information and preparation for negotiations is time-consuming and is often challenging. Elements of nature and their attributes are applied to overcome this difficult task of preparing the groundwork for influencing and winning negotiations.

Let us explore how a seller or a buyer leverages elemental attributes learned in previous sections to position and influence their respective stakeholders with the intent to win.

Earth Natives Negotiation

 

Earth means Nurture, Clamness and Stability

Negotiation Behaviour 

o they speak slowly with a deep voice

o they are good listeners and have a lot of patience

o fear of failure makes them hide information 

o they lack transparency and principles

o often can be deceptive or employ dirty tricks like psychological warfare and pressure tactics

o they are sluggish in their responses and only respond when necessary 

o they are accommodative and let others take control 

Argument  

o they are emotionless and have an advisory tone

o impresses upon care and nurture during the discussion

Motivation 

o being lazy, they prefer that the status quo is not challenged 

Concession 

o being fixated, they are not open to making concessions easily 

Reservation 

o being secretive, they don't share their reservations easily or like to hide their reservations to use them later in the bargaining mix     

Positioning 

o they are driven by the status quo instead of being disruptive

Risk Appetite

o is moderate (ref: risk rating is 'moderate') 

o hard to find gaps in their risk mitigation strategy, the opposite side will find it challenging to take advantage  

Secrecy

o they are highly secretive

o they hide information and details   

Information Gathering

o they are good at gathering information

o they rely on their friends or social circle

Preparation 

o fear of failure drives them to prepare thoroughly; attention to detail is good

Objection Handling

o they are open to grievances and will listen patiently

o objection mitigation is primarily anchored at themes like delivery, reliability, care and nurturing

Time  

o they are fixated on their anchoring, cherish long-drawn negotiations

o they use time as a means of bargaining   

Comms Style

o they are slow in communication and respond at their own pace 

o they are good listeners

o they are structured and semantically driven

o they speak with gravitas and purpose and carry a deep voice 

BATNA

o they are secretive and don't open up in conversations 

o they prefer to have alternatives or options 

Price

Reservation and Target Price 

 their secretive nature makes it nearly impossible to know their price range or preference 

 they are good at disguising their intentions 

Offers 

 they prefer multiple offers to negotiate, which keeps the other side guessing; it's a grind for the opposite side 

 fond of hoarding means bundling pricing with freebies will appeal to this type of buyer      

Environment To Influence 

o being lazy, they prefer an indoor environment or a place with a relaxed setting, like to have friends or supporters during the conversation, earthly natives prefer to hoard things so giving freebies (e.g., from marketing events) can assist in influencing

More can be read in the book at amazon.com

 

    

 

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Negotiations by a Attractive and Action Centric Seller and Buyer

Negotiations - Influence to Win

The business-to-business (B2B) sales negotiation is a conversation between a seller and a buyer to reach an agreement beneficial to both. To achieve a zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), both engage in multiple rounds of discussion. The back-and-forth nature of these discussions is driven to gain the upper hand over the other side by finding their reservation point (breaking point), BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement), and any helpful information that will assist in bargaining.

In sales, to influence and win negotiations, a lot of preparation is required. This includes collecting information about the other side's negotiation style, motivation, risks, BATNA, concession, reservation, and timing. Without preparation and gathering of this information, the chances of winning negotiations are minimal. Sometimes, even after gathering information and practice, negotiations can still be lost or suspended indefinitely because of changes in the political landscape, financial upheaval, change in priority, a pandemic outbreak, or other unseen factors. 

The gathering of information and preparation for negotiations is time-consuming and is often challenging. Elements of nature and their attributes are applied to overcome this difficult task of preparing the groundwork for influencing and winning negotiations.

Let us explore how a seller or a buyer leverages elemental attributes learned in previous sections to position and influence their respective stakeholders with the intent to win.

Fire Natives Negotiation

Fire means Action and Excitement

 

Negotiation Behaviour  

o fire represents the heart, so these natives interact with honesty and openness; the sharpness of fire is reflected in their sharpshooting style conversation

o they have no hidden agenda and lose their cool if the opposite side is not transparent

o they lack depth in conversation 

o they use charm to impress upon others

o they are competitive and like to take control of the conversation 

Argument

o fire being sharp, they are data-driven and emotionless

Motivation

o to get the limelight from winning a deal or to be seen as visionary 

Concession 

o they are open and transparent in making concessions through the bargaining mix

Reservation

o they are open and willing to share their own reservations during the conversation with the other side

Positioning 

o futuristic and innovative, new beginnings or new business

Risk Appetite 

o is higher

o gaps can be found in their risk mitigation approach, and the opposite side can identify these gaps to negotiate

Secrecy 

o being impulsive and talkative, it's tough for them to hide information   

Information Gathering

o they are not research-driven, so they struggle with information gathering

Preparation

o they are impulsive and always appear to be in a hurry; thus, they miss attention to detail and often lack comprehensiveness in their preparation

o they rely on their charm and brilliance

Objection Handling 

o they are open to grievances

o they don't address the root cause of the objection because they lack depth and are impulsive

o they get emotional and angry on too many objections 

o their objection mitigation is anchored at themes like innovation and opening new revenue stream

Time

o being agile and impatient, they prefer to wrap up negotiations swiftly 

o they don't use time as a means of bargaining 

Comms Style 

o they are swift and use strong words

o they prefer lots of visuals and data

o they respond immediately and expect the same from the opposite party 

o they are prone to making mistakes 

BATNA

o because they open up in conversations quickly; therefore, they end up sharing information with the opposite side

o it's difficult for them to leverage this option (to use an alternative)

o they often prefer not to apply BATNA 

Price

Reservation and Target Price - their openness and purity make it hard to hide this information from the opposite side; therefore, they end up signalling their range or preference and letting the opposite side gain higher bargaining spread

Offers - don't believe in the multiple or back-and-forth nature of making an offer; they prefer to make one or two offers only

Environment To Influence 

o fire requires air (oxygen) to ignite and spread; therefore, an external environment or a well-ventilated indoor environment is preferred for influencing a fiery native

More can be read in the book at amazon.com

 

Weekend Reading

 From 7 Rules of Power: Surprising — but True — Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career. His seven rules are: 

• get out of your own way — that is, 
• speak with confidence and do not undersell yourself, 
• break the rules — do the unexpected, 
• show up in powerful fashion — with conscious body language and actual language, 
• create a powerful brand, network relentlessly, 
• use your power — do not be afraid to wield power once you have it, 
• and finally, remember that “success excuses (almost) everything” — the powerful attract and retain support.” 

 

Why Buyers chose your Customer 

When buyers were asked to select their top 5 reasons for choosing the winning vendor over other vendors they considered, the top response was that the winner demonstrated a stronger knowledge of the buyer’s company and its needs (68%). (In fact, lack of knowledge of a company and its needs has separately been cited by buyers as their top deal-killer.) 

Focus on Outcomes 

Growing faster than the market - what questions the C-Suite Should ask 

Where is my growth going to come from? 

How do I grow now and tomorrow? 

How do I set up my growth engine? 

17 Common Virtual Selling Mistakes to Avoid

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Attractive and Action Oriented Seller and Buyer

Persona Mapping with Elements - Buyer and Seller 

In the world of business-to-business (B2B) sales, the buyer and seller relationship plays a significant role in winning or losing a transaction. Creating and nurturing these relationships across multiple stakeholders is a challenging, lengthy, and time-consuming process.
One of the critical activities and constituents of a sales plan is to build the buyer's stakeholder persona that will assist in the relationship-building process. Mapping of these stakeholder personas reveals the type of levers that can be used to develop and nurture long-term relationships with the intent of winning and expanding the sales pipeline. Without the intelligence of the buyer's persona, the sales execution effort will be challenging and profoundly inefficient and ineffective.

 
Besides, it addresses the risk of losing a sales representative because by capturing and documenting the buyers' persona, you can ensure that gathered intelligence and levers applied in building relationships and influencing negotiations are not lost with a change in guard at the sellers' end. 

The framework for creating and destroying five elements is applied to overcome the challenging task of mapping and building the persona. The inherent attributes of each element are used to map and develop the personality of each stakeholder at the buyer's and seller's end in different scenarios. 

Let us explore how these elemental attributes assist in building persona maps.

Fire means Action and Excitement

 

Fire signifies purity and divinity. It comprises bright and vibrant colours like red and orange. Similarly, natives with prominent fire element are ethical and straight shooters. Diplomacy is their weakest link; however, they are full of energy and zeal.

 
Fire signifies charisma and brilliance, and it removes the darkness by brightening our surroundings. Similarly, these natives attract others and enlighten them with their brilliance and action. They are persuasive and convince others easily with their thoughts and vision. These natives love to have an audience, like how Fire brings people together during the evenings in winter. For instance, in aboriginal culture, a Sacred Fire is lit before a gathering; similarly, the Holy Fire is lit for a Hindu marriage ceremony. In sales, these natives attract buyers with their charisma and energy. They prefer to use an audience to position their offering.

 

Fire rules the heart, small intestine, and pericardium. The key function of these organs is to regulate the internal body temperature, and together these organs are known as triple heater or burner. The heart is the source of expression, joy, and excitement, and it is reflected in these natives' persona. They are expressive, joyful, and enthusiastic. Their eyes are bright with a shining sparkle in them. As Fire shows us the path in darkness, similarly fiery natives bright eyes become the vehicle to see this world and remove the darkness of ignorance.

 
Fire needs fresh Air (agile) as fuel to ignite or spread. It is extinguished when the air supply has ceased. Similarly, prominent fiery natives are constantly looking for new experiences. They are always exploring to meet and mingle with different types of people. Meeting people or trying new things keeps them energetic. Fiery natives need a constant feed of new challenges in life to keep them going, or else they stagnate and become hopeless.

In sales, a fiery seller will reach out to multiple stakeholders within an organisation to position an offering. Since Fire moves quickly and rises upwards only, these sellers' inherent approach is top-down because they prefer to close a deal quickly. They don't have the appetite to build consensus from the bottom up. These natives use their charisma and data insights to impress upon sponsors and executives to position their offerings and let them cascade to their respective stakeholders. In short fiery sellers like the spotlight, visibility, and engagement at the top serves that intent.

In everyday industrial life, Fire is sharp and is used for cutting or moulding glass or metal to give it a new shape or meaning. Similarly, in sales, these natives share new insights to enlighten others and build their arguments by slicing and dicing the data. A Fiery buyer or seller will underpin their business case or position an offering using data and analytics. Selling to a fiery buyer means you need to develop new data-centric insights, else there is likely to be no mindshare or further engagement.

In Nature, Fire is bold, and during high wind, it can be ferocious. It burns everything in its path, and it's not scared or worried about any consequences. Therefore, these natives are bold, adventurous (risk-takers), and impulsive. They are prone to making mistakes because they often don't anticipate the aftereffects before starting any activity.

Fire's inherent energy is to rise in the upward direction and move quickly. Therefore, these natives are swift movers and are always aiming for higher positions or growth in life. Their desire to win in life is high. Consequently, they put their heart and soul into every task assigned to them.

 
Fire represents heat, which implies that these natives are anger prone. They lose their cool quickly and panic under pressure because losing or finger-pointing in life is something they can't comprehend. It's advisable not to pick fights with these natives because they retaliate or rebel strongly without thinking of any potential consequences. In sales, their desire to win and risk appetite is high because not only do they want to proliferate, but it's the feeling of accomplishment and winning which keeps their spirits alight. Having said that, when a deal is lost, these natives lose their cool quickly and can become hopeless.

Fire represents the future, and it controls the firing of neurons in the brain. These neurons trigger new thoughts and the ability to think ahead in fiery individuals. These natives are visionary because they are hungry, courageous, and can think ahead to the future. Fiery sellers are regarded as rainmakers in sales because inherently, they are hunters, bold and action-oriented. They ensure that the organisation's top line is in black. In terms of potential deal duration, they prefer short term deals because they can't sustain their enthusiasm and energy levels for a longer duration. Multi-year deals with a longer sales cycle are best suited for an earthly seller.

Fire and Water cannot be together because Water extinguishes Fire and becomes a barrier between the Fire and its fuel (Air). Similarly, in price negotiations, a prominent watery buyer cherishes price peddling, whereas a fiery buyer struggles with price negotiations' back and forth nature. They lack patience like a watery buyer and often let others talk on dollars or end up with an overpriced deal.

Generally, fiery natives have medium height sized bodies with slim hips. Fire's inherent sharpness is reflected in these natives' facial features, like pointed eyebrows, eyes, nose, chin, ears, and sharp teeth. Since Fire moves rapidly, these natives speak and walk quickly and have an easy laugh. Fire is bright and vibrant; hence, these natives prefer bright and colourful clothes to wear.

 
In Astrology, Fire represents the South direction and is owned by Mars. Mars represents a soldier and the commander of the army. The Martian person is brave, confident, action-centric and follows the order of the King Sun religiously. He is anger prone and hunts on his own like a lone Wolf. Being the King's army commander, he governs and commands his troops by applying the top-down approach.  

More can be read in the book at amazon.com

Persona Mapping - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales

Excerpt from my upcoming book at amazon.com - "Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales" 

How a Sponsoring Executive of Action Centric (Fire) Persona and Calm and Stable Persona (Earth) will engage with others. 

-----

Sponsoring Executive

An executive sponsor is a person in the management or an executive team responsible for driving the outcome of a proposed solution to resolve a business problem. In business-to-business sales, an executive sponsor can be on either side, at the buyer's or the seller's end. 

At the buyer's end, it is primarily someone who has a keen interest in resolving a business problem or is a decision-maker and strongly influences the outcome of a sales transaction. 

At the seller's end, it is primarily someone keen on growing the business by investing capital and resources.

  

Following are the key responsibilities of an executive sponsor at the buyer's end:

• Prepare and own the business case

• Engage and work with other sponsors and stakeholders in positioning and selling the business case internally and externally with suppliers

• Recommend or assist in the go-to-market approach

• Govern the communication with stakeholders

• Govern the risks and the outcome of the business case 

Let us explore how a sponsoring executive at the buyer's end engages with the internal and external stakeholders by applying the elemental attributes learned in previous sections.

Fire – Action 

Sponsoring Executive

• Business Case Preparation

o they are seeking a futuristic and innovative roadmap or a solution, preferably for short and mid-term 

o a lot of data points are provided for analysis and problem definition

o budget allocation will be generous and is eager to allocate work   

• Go to Market Approach 

o fond of an audience and connecting with higher authorities means they employ a top-down strategy

o being time-consuming, a mechanism like RFP is least appealing 

o they reach out to innovative and agile (swift in delivery) suppliers, or internal teams for selling the business case

    

• Positioning 

o growth-oriented – being passionate for innovation and driven by future trends with the intent of growing the business, their initiatives are positioned as growth-oriented

• Engagement

o being open and honest, they interact with honesty and transparency, loses cool if the opposite side is not transparent

o the sharpness of fire is reflected in their sharpshooting style of conversation, and they have no hidden agenda

o they are competitive and use charm to impress upon stakeholders 

• Communication  

o timely, quick and action-oriented

o they lack depth in conversation, like to take control of the conversation 

o they use data-driven insights and visuals to communicate  

• Governance   

o they exert pressure on stakeholders by repeatedly chasing activity progress 

o they seek action and quick wins 

o they are tolerant and considerate but will have failures or lapses in execution provided the information for the root cause is shared transparently

The book is on promotion for a limited time only.

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus

 My book Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus is on promotion for a short duration. 

Thank you for supporting and buying the book

Thank you for supporting and buying the book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus. Yesterday completed the sale of the 100th book. Gratitude to everyone who bought and sent feedback. 

I will update the sections in the next 2 months. Updated downloads are free of cost.

Part 2 is a work in progress.

B2B Sales Tips - from my new book

 B2B Sales Tips in tweets from my new book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers From Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales

--

Sellers need to anchor their conversation on Price, Risk, and Functionality only when selling to CIOs in Traditional IT (commodity). #Sales #salestips #IT #B2B 

Sellers need to unpack the information asymmetry across different stakeholders at the buyer's end before articulating a value proposition. #Sales #salestips #B2B #marketing 

Sellers need to share commercial insight and educate buyers about it. #Sales #B2B #salestips #B2B #marketing 

B2B Persona Mapping enables sellers in navigating other people's mind. #B2B #Sales #salestips #marketing 

Buyers trap #sellers through the RFP process as it leaves sellers with no BATNA and minimal leverage in negotiations. #sellers #salestips #B2B #marketing 

To sell services in a post COVID and Digital world, building buyers' persona and applying the intelligence is key to success. #Sales #salestips #B2B #marketing 

A fiery Seller brings a vision for the future, agility, excitement, data-driven decision making, whereas a metal Buyer is about boundaries, order, wisdom, logical and emotionless decision making. Fire’s energy movement moves up and seek the limelight, whereas metals movement is inward and non-exuberant. Together, they don't connect at an emotional or physical level. In sales, these two find it hard to start a conversation. Both find each other operating at a different tangent. (2/3)Fire’s agility, rapid speech and disregard for boundaries make a metal native to raise a red flag and a signal to stop and leave the conversation. (3/3) #salestips #Sales #marketing 

A Seller who acts like a broker, open to making concessions through the bargaining mix and fond of discussion, prefers to keep multiple options in hand like a swiss-army knife. #Sales #B2B #Negotiation #marketing #FunFacts #salestips 

Fire requires air as a fuel source to burn & spread; without the supply of air, fire ceases. By governing the speed & supply of air, fire is controlled from being wild to gentle. On the other hand, fire controls the intensity, impatience, & rebellious nature of air by burning it. Show this thread. In sales, when these two transact in a buyer-seller engagement, they act like friends in a symbiotic relationship. Collectively, they can reduce the sales cycle & create new & incremental revenue growth at both ends. Most closed deals will be short term and high margin because both like to wrap up deals swiftly and end up paying more for a service or a product. Airy natives overspend more than fiery natives. #Sales #B2B #salestips #product #marketing 

Buyers who open up in conversations quickly & have no hidden agenda; end up sharing information with the Seller side & makes it difficult for them to leverage the option of BATNA (use an alternative). #Sales #salestips #Negotiation #marketing #product

Difference Between Fire and Water Type Seller

Fire Seller 

Fire signifies charisma & brilliance it removes the darkness by brightening our surroundings. Similarly, #sellers with charisma & brilliance attract others & enlighten them with their brilliance & action. They are persuasive & convince others easily with their thoughts and vision. These #Sellers love to have an audience, like how Fire brings people together during the evenings in winter. They attract buyers with their charisma and energy. They prefer to use an audience to position their offering #Sales #salestips #B2B #product #marketing 

Water Seller

Water has depth, like an ocean or a silent river. When water starts flowing from the mountain top, it has purity, crystal clear visibility, and is drinkable. The sound of flowing water mesmerises everyone, which implies that these #sellers are honest and pure at heart. Besides, watery #sellers think at a very deep and philosophical level, pay attention to detail, and have a sweet voice that captures other people's attention. Among the five elements, Water is the least mobile after Earth because it prefers a horizontal position. Therefore, these #sellers like to lie down on the couch or bed, speak and walk slowly, and take a lot of time to act. They are best described as a turtle in action (slow-moving). #B2B #Sales #salestips #product #marketing

More sales tips from my upcoming book can be found here.

How to Identify Buyers Persona and to Sell Them

My upcoming book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - Elements of Nature Meet B2B Sales outlines a unique way of identifying Buyer and Sellers Persona, and how to apply them in various scenarios across Buyers Map.  

Excerpt from the book

--

Persona Mapping with Elements - Buyer and Seller 

-

In the world of business to business (B2B) sales, the buyer and seller relationship plays a significant role in winning or losing a transaction. Creating and nurturing these relationships across multiple stakeholders is a challenging, lengthy, and time-consuming process. 

One of the critical activities and constituents of a sales plan is to build the buyer's stakeholder persona that will assist in the relationship-building process. Mapping of these stakeholder personas reveals the type of levers that can be used to develop and nurture long term relationships with the intent of winning and expanding the sales pipeline. Without the intelligence of the buyer's persona, the sales execution effort will be challenging and profoundly inefficient and ineffective. 

Besides, it addresses the risk of losing a sales representative because by capturing and documenting the buyers' persona, you can ensure that gathered intelligence and levers applied in building relationships and influencing negotiations are not lost with a change in guard at the sellers' end.    

The framework for creating and destroying five elements is applied to overcome the challenging task of mapping and building the persona. The inherent attributes of each element are used to map and develop the personality of each stakeholder at the buyers and sellers end in different scenarios.

--

Tweets for Book Promotion - Sellers from Mars and Buyer from Venus

Sharing some of the promotional tweets for my upcoming book - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus

• Emotional people are not best suited for #sales. They are better suited for HR roles. More on this in my upcoming book on #B2B #Sales 
• A buyer who speaks sweetly listens calmly with patience, constantly observe the opposite side, pays attention to detail & use empathy to impress upon & don't like to take control, they are primarily price takers in negotiations. #B2B #Sales 
• A buyer being reserved, emotionless, future centric and striving for perfection but has fear of failure will walk away from the deal if the solution offered is not perfect and of the utmost quality. #Sales #B2B 
• People who respond or communicate at their own pace or are slow and carry a deep voice, are best suited for farming activities in #Sales. More on this in my upcoming book on #B2B #Salesforce People who write an email in bullet points and use action-centric wording brings money to the business. #Sales #B2B 
• A Leader is paid for courage and vision, not for time and effort #thinking #leader
• A buyer with visible and big nostrils will be ideal for sellers for closing a high margin sales deal #B2B #Sales #funfacts
• A buyer who writes short and crisp emails is driven by perfection and the utmost quality and will walk off from the deal if the solution offered is not perfect and robust. #Sales #B2B
• A seller who looks straight into stakeholders eyes will bring money into the business. #Sales #B2B #FunFacts
• Sellers who are, well-disciplined but lack patience, speak rapidly with conviction and respond swiftly and timely, employ intellect and style to impress upon will make multiple offers to close a transaction. #B2B #Sales #FunFacts
• A Sponsoring Executive (Buyers end) who is action-centric, futuristic, data & visual driven, like an audience & connecting with higher authorities will reach out to innovative & agile suppliers, or internal teams for selling the biz. case. RFP is the least preferred. #B2B #Sales

More tweets can be followed here at this handle

Key Tips on Negotiation

 Key Tips on Negotiation from the book, Never Split the Difference, by Chris Voss.

• A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. 
• Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. 
• People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. 
• To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. 
• Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built. 
• Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart

Customer Experience Principles for Business Growth

The ten principles behind great customer experiences defined by Matt Watkinson in his book 

• 1. Great customer experiences strongly reflect the customer’s identity 
•  2. Great customer experiences satisfy our higher objectives 
•  3. Great customer experiences leave nothing to chance 
•  4. Great customer experiences set and then meet expectations 
•  5. Great customer experiences are effortless 
•  6. Great customer experiences are stress free 
•  7. Great customer experiences indulge the senses 
•  8. Great customer experiences are socially engaging 
•  9. Great customer experiences put the customer in control 
•  10. Great customer experiences consider the emotions

B2B Sales - Sellers From Mars and Buyers From Venus - II

Excerpt from the upcoming book at amazon.com - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus

--

Persona Mapping with Elements - Buyer and Seller 

In the world of business-to-business (B2B) sales, the buyer and seller relationship plays a significant role in winning or losing a transaction. Creating and nurturing these relationships across multiple stakeholders is a challenging, lengthy and time-consuming process. 

To assist in the relationship-building process, one of the key activities and constituents of a sales plan is to build the buyer's stakeholder persona. Mapping of these stakeholder personas reveals the type of levers that can be used to build and nurture long-term relationships, with the intent of winning and expanding the sales pipeline. Without the intelligence of the buyer's persona, the sales execution effort will be challenging and profoundly inefficient and ineffective. 

Besides, it reduces the risk of losing a sales representative, because by capturing and documenting the buyer's persona you can ensure that gathered intelligence and levers applied in building relationships and influencing negotiations are not lost with a change in guard at the seller's end.    

The framework for the creation and destruction of five elements is applied to overcome the challenging task of mapping and building the persona. The inherent attributes of each element are mapped to the personality of the stakeholders at the buyer's and seller's end in different scenarios.

Let us explore how these elemental attributes assist in building persona maps. 

--

Earth Elements Human Traits

● Calm, Stable, Tolerant, Peacemaker, Stubborn (don’t like to be pushed), Hardworking, Strategic, Deceptive, Resentful, Secretive, Lazy, Adaptable, Sing, Fear, Relationship Builder, Nurturing, Predictable, Pleasing, Reliable, Caring, Socialised, Hoards, Focused on Family and Friends, Listen to Friends, Finisher, Workaholic, Sweet Tooth

Appearance - Well Built, Square Face

Body Attributes

● well-built body, thick calves, large muscles in men and breasts in women  

● natural roundness and plumpness to the features

● the face represents, lips, mouth, lower cheeks, upper eyelid, nose bridge

● full lips, thick nose bridge 

● round or plump lower cheeks next to mouth

● less prominent chins, angled jaws, protruding cheekbones so the forehead and chin look comparatively narrow

● eyes wide apart, round nose tip

● roundness in stomach

● deep voice

Organs

o stomach, spleen, pancreas 

Famous Personalities

● Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Patron, Rene Zellweger, Ed Sheeran, Mister Rogers, Princess Diana

● Narendra Modi (PM of India)

Earth means Nurture, Calmness, and Stability

● Key Traits – calm, strategic, hardworking, speak with gravitas, ready to serve

● Role

o Buyer - strategic, long term deals, relentless

o Seller - advisor, bondsman, hardworking

● Upside - determined, patience, practical, relationship builder

● Downside - lazy, deceptive, fixated, don’t forgive, indecision  

● Risk Appetite (Low, Moderate, Considered, High, Extreme) – moderate

● Win Desire (Low, Moderate, Considered, High, Extreme) - high

● Deal Loss - protect people, worries for future, confusion

● Engagement Style (Top-Down, Bottom-up, Hybrid) – bottom-up

● Sales Territory Approach (Hunting, Farming, Hybrid) - farming

●.    Communications Style - slow in communication and action, slow response, good listeners, structured, semantically driven, speak with gravitas and purpose, deep voice    

--

Earth is the most stable element among the five elements. Like a mother, it is providing resources to all living beings to live and grow since the inception and evolution of humankind. Similarly, earthly natives are like a mother who provides resources to her children to live and grow. They provide unflinching and unconditional support to others like how a mother provides for her children. Their inherent ability to guide and nurture makes them a good mentor and a trusted advisor.

The bond between mother and a child is everlasting, similarly, these natives are regarded as a bondsman for their friends and family members. People can count on them for their support during challenging times. In sales, these people protect their team members when a deal is lost.   

The Earth remains mostly calm, except when rare volcanoes erupt or earthquakes or cyclones occur, causing grief to those affected. Similarly, earthly natives remain calm and stable in their day to day life. They lose their cool and calmness rarely, like earthquakes or volcanic eruptions.

A mother raises her children with patience, and determination, and works hard to ensure they get a good life. Similarly, earthly natives are determined, hardworking, and patient to achieve better outcomes. They are relentless in their effort.         

Earth represents the late summer season when fruits are ripe, days are longer with higher temperatures, forcing people to stay indoors, take rest, and life appears to move lazily. Furthermore, earth signifies the afternoon, when people tend to be sluggish after having their lunch. Similarly, earthly natives are less active and cherish sitting in one place like a couch or an armrest chair. Besides this, the earth is the heaviest and slowest mover among the five elements. Thus, earthly natives move at turtle's pace, speak slowly with gravitas, and have a deep voice. These natives communicate and respond at their own pace, so if you send an email to them, then don’t expect an immediate response. Their ability to listen calmly like the slow-moving earth makes them good listeners.

Earth represents the stomach, spleen, and pancreas because like a mother these organs nurture and feed other body organs with nutrients and power to perform their respective function. The stomach is responsible for the digestive system of the body, whereby food is digested and absorbed. This signifies that these people are open to new thoughts and ideas. On the contrary, if they binge, then it leads to obesity and laziness. Consequently, they struggle to appreciate and comprehend new ideas and initiatives. Moreover, the earth’s inherent energy movement is gravitational in the downward direction, which is towards the core. Thus, these natives often have protruding belly falling downwards.      

The Spleen's main function is to filter our blood, by removing old, malformed or damaged red blood cells. This means, earthly natives can transform slowly with time, they can discard old habits and adapt to new ways of life. In sales, selling half-hearted ideas or window dressed old ideas to an earthly buyer will be caught and discarded. These buyers keep their ‘crap’ filter active and switched on.  

Like a mother, the earth generally represents relationships, harmony and patience. This allows these natives to be good in building and maintaining relationships with friends and family members. Furthermore, the constant churning underneath the earth is carried out slowly and calmly by the amalgamation of many layers and items. This implies that earthly natives are collaborative and gel with others easily. 

In sales, these sellers prefer bottom-up engagement, underpinned by their ability to build and maintain relationships. In terms of approaching a sales territory, they prefer farming because their risk appetite is low, and slow churning or status quo is their mantra. The rapid and cutthroat environment is overwhelming for them.

Earth represents fear, fixation, and relentless effort because any imbalance in the stomach and spleen causes the mind to be unstable and makes it wander from one thought to another, leading to obsessional thinking and constant worry. Besides that, any imbalance in these organs disrupts their continuous effort to supply energy and nutrients to other organs. In sales, fear of failing haunts, earthly sellers. So, to overcome that, they put relentless effort into winning a deal. Their fixation on not failing at any cost gives them a higher desire to succeed. When a deal is lost after putting in enormous effort, they start worrying about the future and drive them to a state where they get overwhelmed by it and become indecisive. Earthly buyers prefer long-term instead of short-term contracts because they are sluggish, and the status quo gives them comfort and accomplishment of security. Moreover, they don’t cherish rapid changes in their environment like an airy or a fiery buyer. Positioning a short-term deal to an earthly buyer is futile. 

Earthly natives are deceptive because the earth represents the stomach and that needs a constant supply of food. To gather resources like money or food, often these natives will employ deception and cheating. This trait is primarily prominent in earthly natives and to a lesser extent in metal and airy natives. 

Earthly natives have a well-built bodies with thick calves and large muscles in men and breasts in women. They have a thick nose bridge, eyes are wide apart, the nose tip is round and the stomach is round. In general, they have roundness and plumpness to their facial features.

Read Part 1 - here and 3 here

Credit: Image Source: Wikipedia, Google, Pinterest

B2B Sales - Sellers From Mars and Buyers From Venus - I

Excerpt from the upcoming book at amazon.com  - Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus

--

Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales

-

Why We Need This

The business to business (B2B) sales is a challenging, complex, and a long-drawn out process spanning across a period of anywhere between six to twenty-four months. The sales cycle varies across the products and services in different industries and geographies for multiple reasons.

To succeed in business to business (B2B) sales, sellers have to gather intelligence, and anticipate prospective buyers’ preferences, thought processes, and modus operandi. Accordingly, the conversation is then initiated for positioning a product or a service. 

Various methodologies like, personality tests developed by Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, Game theory, Behavioural Psychology, etc are used in sales and business to learn about the stakeholder’s behaviour and motivation at the buyers and sellers end. These methodologies provide insights by gathering data or observing individuals over a duration. 

The Five elements-based approach is an ancient methodology, used in Chinese medicine, Feng Shui and Ayurveda for medical treatment, face reading and to understand how humans behave. It relies on the fact that each element found in nature has certain key attributes and each human being behaves under the influence of these elemental attributes. Applying and correlating the significance of these elemental attributes on humans, we can anticipate how an individual will behave. Besides this, every individual will exhibit distinct traits according to their primary and secondary elements, like the energy of Yin and Yang in Chinese medicine. This approach doesn’t require data gathering from each individual, and neither is it required to observe them for a longer duration to build intelligence. This methodology is related to nature through the cycle of creation and destruction.

Applying the five elements-based approach in B2B sales is simple, non-intrusive, and less data-centric. Once the five elements and their attributes are known, applying them to respective stakeholders in the sales value chain is quick, easy, efficient and effective.  

B2B Sales Value Chain

The business to business (B2B) sales value chain model comprises the following stages.   

1. Gather intelligence - build market intelligence by researching and mapping the target market

2. Design and Build - design and build the product or a service to offer 

3. Pricing and Position – price and position to the target segment

4. Engage Prospective Buyer - engage prospective buyers through their journey map

5. Sell – closing the deal by preparing and executing the sales strategy or plan 

6. Deliver - deploy or operationalise the product or service   

7. Service Post Delivery- post delivery service or support  

8. Feedback to Innovate - collect feedback to refine or innovate 

Each stage of the value chain has multiple stakeholders and activities. The sales team or a sales representative follow these value chain activities with the intent of growing the business. During these activities, various internal and external stakeholders are engaged to create a compelling storyline and mindshare among them for positioning and selling a service or a product. 

 

The following list provides a good view of the various stakeholders engaged by the sales team or representative.

● Internal marketing and corporate strategy team for research, positioning, and pricing 

● Internal product engineering or service design team 

● Internal legal services team for defining contractual agreements, terms, and conditions

● Procurement at the buyer’s end

● Sponsoring C-level executives like CEO, CFO, CIO, CDO and their team members at buyer’s end

● Internal sales team, and  

● Any others like internal HR 

This is not an exhaustive list but highlights the complexity and multiplicity of potential stakeholders involved in executing these activities.

To initiate engagement with the prospective buyer, the first step is to build a persona map of stakeholders at the buyers and/or sellers end. This will assist in executing the sales strategy efficiently and effectively. 

Next -  Persona Mapping with Elements - Buyer and Seller 

Digital Transformation - Redifining Industries

In the ongoing pursuit of exploring how our world is becoming Digitally Transformed and how this is going to impact every industry, I have outlined the following agenda for a view point and a book that is still in the exploration stage.

The following agenda outlines the scope for me to explore, write and share my rumblings. I'm keen to get some thoughts and feedback. So please don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Update: Updated work on this topic is here