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Salesforce Strategy in The Age of AI

Abstract With artificial intelligence, autonomous agents, and shifting dynamics, Salesforce serves as a key case study for how established s...

Showing posts with label Enterprise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enterprise. Show all posts

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Weekend Reading

 

  • Key to Building a Great Company
    • Do the hard things. To build a great startup, you have to move fast. But you shouldn’t let urgency distract you from tackling big, thorny problems. Doing the hard things is one of the most effective ways to build true defensibility. 
    • Protect your principles. Having clear company principles helps your team make faster, better decisions. It’s easier to act autonomously when you have a clear framework to follow. Failing to protect these values can shift your company towards an “exception-based” culture. 
    • Pay your debts. Every time you make a sub-optimal corporate decision, you create a “debt” that must be paid. This is true across engineering, product, and marketing teams. To avoid debts spiraling, keep track of them and proactively pay them down. 
    • Build a brand. If you’re building a good business, you’ll inevitably attract competition. For consumer companies, it’s essential to create an impactful, differentiated brand. If you do it well, you’ll outcompete better-capitalized opponents.”
  • Career Advice
    • Try to be the best at what you do. The money will take care of itself…In business, persistence pays off…Others may have more advantages than you, but no one has more hours in the day than you. No one can outwork you unless you let it happen…Find your workplace tribe…No one cares about your disadvantages. Overcome them…Managers must be managed.
  • Action for Sales Leader When Inflation is Rising
    • Actions - Once you and your peers have assessed the market landscape and your ecosystem, take action. Incorporate immediate actions into existing sales plans and future required actions into your B2B sales strategy. 
    •  Leadership Actions 
      • As with all changes that affect our teams, we must take a leadership role. For example, we must treat economic downturns and the changes that we have to make as a comprehensive change program. As usual, this starts and continues with communication. 
      •  Communication. When economics impacts our business, our teams and those within our partner ecosystems need reassurance about the future of the company. In addition, they need reassurance of their personal futures. Share executive team views on the market. Communicate the results of any assessments that have been made and actions that are planned. 
      • Care for your team. Managers must ensure that open and transparent communications are available. Continue to appreciate and recognize employee efforts during what could be a challenging time. A culture of appreciation drives employee engagement and productivity. 
      • Budget. Although sales does not have tremendous discretionary budget, it goes without saying that leaders must reduce all unnecessary spending, including travel, and consider hiring freezes where appropriate. 
    • Go-To-Market Actions 
      • Position resources toward the market priorities that will drive the best current and future results. For example, some industries such as healthcare may be more recession-proof than others. 
      •  Demand engine changes. Shift marketing spend to appropriately drive demand in target segments and nurture those that will be poised to act when recovery occurs. Share Six Tips Marketing Operations Leaders Can Use To Prepare For A Potential Recession with your marketing partners. 
      • Digital routes to market. Consider how buyers may be changing their purchasing behavior. If, for example, they desire self-service, consider if now is the time to invest in digital selling capabilities. Doing so can meet buyer needs and reduce human sales expense. 
      • Seller enablement. Educate direct and partner sellers on new messaging, offerings, packages, etc. In addition, coach them to ensure that they can effectively leverage these resources. 
      • Coverage and quota. Shift coverage to ensure that existing and targeted priorities are effectively covered. Consider changes to quota or incentives to drive action to the highest-potential opportunities and clients. Also, consider how quota or incentives may have to be adjusted if existing targets are no longer achievable. 
  • Define ROI from Digital Transformation 
    • Example - Insurance 
      • Once the link between digital capabilities and customer and business metrics has been established, begin to map these digital capabilities to the customer lifecycle, the insurance value chain, and a technology stack. 
      •  Demonstrate how digital technologies: Improve product design, marketing and sales, service, and engagement. 
      • Lower the costs of underwriting, acquisition, service, and compliance.
  • 12 Best Sales Methodologies & The Key to Customer-Centric Selling
    • SPIN Selling 
    • N.E.A.T. Selling™ 
    • Conceptual Selling 
    • SNAP Selling 
    • Challenger Sale 
    • The Sandler System 
    • MEDDIC 
    • Solution Selling 
    • Inbound Selling 
    • Target Account Selling 
    • Command of the Sale 
    • Gap Selling

Thursday, August 12, 2021

Telecoms - IT Strategy, Managed Services and Implementation View

 

Telecom Verticals - IT Strategy, Managed Services, and Implementation View on 1Page.

(source: Gartner)






Hype Cycle for the CSPs Network Infrastructure 



Tuesday, July 06, 2021

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

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

Sales Planning and Execution in a Digital World

B2B Sales Planning and Execution - Strategic Lens and Tools for Achieving Success in a Digital world

 



Wednesday, May 05, 2021

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - VIII

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

Cheat Sheet for applying the framework of elements for B2B Sales Planning and Execution 

--



Next: Coming up

  • How a Procurement Executive will Engage
  • How B2B Sales are different in Service vs Product 
--
Previous articles can be read here
  • Part 7 on How to apply elements framework for identifying Steve Jobs Persona can be read here 
  • Part 6 on How to apply elements framework on a Legal Service Counsel can be read here 
  • Part 5 on How a Marketing Manager will engage can be read here
  • Part 4 on How a Sponsoring Executive will engage can be read here
  • Part 3 on Negotiation Styles in B2B Sales can be read here 
  • Part 2 on Persona Mapping in B2B Sales can be read here 
  • Part 1 on Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales can be read here 

Friday, April 30, 2021

Sellers from Mars and Buyers from Venus - VII

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

How to apply the framework of elements on a stakeholder for persona mapping  
-

Application 
The first step is to identify the key elements representing their human traits to apply this framework to any individual. Out of the five elements, a primary and a secondary element plays a vital role in shaping our personality and appearance. Let's apply this framework of creation and destruction of five elements and their elemental attributes with few examples to identify primary and secondary elements.

Steve Jobs

Background
Steven Paul Jobs was an American business magnate, industrial designer, investor, and media proprietor. He was the chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), and co-founder of Apple Inc. Steve is widely recognised as a pioneer of the personal computer and smartphone revolutions.

Appearance

The following characteristics indicate that Space (Metal) element as primary:
  • had a muscular body but in the latter part of life became slim because of illness
  • his face was oval-shaped
  • had lined lower cheeks, and 
  • had wide space between features

The following characteristics suggest that the Fire element is secondary:
  • had a pointy nose, and 
  • had long hair in his youth and later on became partly bald with a receding hairline

Engagement, Communication, Clothing

Space (Metal) attributes are evident in the following behaviours 
  • was self-made and was always keen on the big picture
  • was emotionless (even left his daughter)
  • loved designer clothes and expensive items (he built his own luxury yacht)
  • was meticulously neat and tidy (apple stores, new apple head office, practised the philosophy of minimalism at home and work)
  • was a perfectionist (iPhone and iPad), logical in thinking
  • highly critical (openly criticised Adobes Flash for crashing ios devices and mac), and
  • his email responses were concise and minimal (he used to respond to customer queries from his iPhone with 1-2 lines of text only)

The following supplementary behaviours suggest Fire is the secondary element 
  • he loved new beginnings
  • was fond of public speaking and putting a show (apple events) 
  • driven by action (spent long hours and weekends at work)
  • was inspirational and always promoted the ideas of doing something real, inspiring uni students with his talks
  • brought money with him (he started as a salesman and became one of the best salesmen), and 
  • lacked boundaries and was impulsive (was widely know to shout at staff if they didn't meet his very high standards) 
  • righteousness (lost his cool and criticised Eric Schmidt for copying Apple design by Googles Android)

Summary

By analysing the appearance, engagement, communication and clothing style of Steve Jobs, it is evident that his primary element was Space (Metal), and the second element was Fire. His tertiary element could be attributed to Air.

In terms of his engagement with others, his primary element, Space (Metal), meant that he found it hard to work with people having Air and Fire as their primary element because Air and Fire are in a non-parental child relationship with Space (Metal). People with Earth and Water as their primary element would have worked well with him as these two elements are in a parent-child relationship with Space (Metal). Giving way to harmony prevailing among them.


Image Credit: Wikipedia

Next: Coming up 

  • Cheat Sheet for Sales Planning and Execution using Five Elements   
  • How a Procurement Executive will Engage
  • How B2B Sales are different in Service vs Product 
--
Previous articles can be read here
  • Part 6 on How to apply elements framework on a Legal Service Counsel can be read here 
  • Part 5 on How a Marketing Manager will engage can be read here
  • Part 4 on How a Sponsoring Executive will engage can be read here
  • Part 3 on Negotiation Styles in B2B Sales can be read here 
  • Part 2 on Persona Mapping in B2B Sales can be read here 
  • Part 1 on Marrying Elements of Nature with B2B Sales can be read here