About Me

Hi, I’m Greg Strosaker. A chaotically organized, distractedly focused, approximately precise, thoroughly brief, passionately disinterested, hesitatingly decisive and rigidly spontaneous study in consistent contrast.

The roles I play:
Product manager for a materials company.
Daddy to 3 boys 8 and under, oldest is autistic.
Hubby to rock star pediatrician.
Hardcore runner - marathon winner.
Amateur economist.
Unrepentant beer snob.
Aspiring sommelier.
Lifelong NE Ohioan, born in Akron, live near Cleveland.
Fascinated by technology and the interwebs.

Please visit Constant Cogitation and Predawn Runner
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Filed under

sales

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Where B2B Sales Reps Go Wrong - Too Much Contact, Too Little Knowledge

B2b_sales
via mckinseyquarterly.com

This is a nice brief writeup on the results of a study showing where B2B sales efforts go wrong (focusing strictly on those where the selling activity itself was an issue - not price or features). The conclusion is clear - 55% of the issues are related to poor sales training - either allowing sales managers to be too aggressive in efforts to contact a customer or in not providing them sufficient product training or content. Both are very "repairable" issues.

I can certainly agree that a pushy sales rep is a big turnoff in evaluating potential vendors; all else being close to equal, I will definitely opt for the less pushy, more collaborative sales manager. And this data indicates I am not alone in having such a preference.

Filed under  //  marketing   sales  
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A Tale of Two Attitudes

Yesterday, I read an article on how a good customer had acquired a few operations of a company in a similar field, who would also have potential use for the solutions we had provided this good customer.  I sent the article on to three of our people involved with the customer, and here are their responses:

#1 (chief engineer, also responsible for a sales territory):  Responded right away: "They like to buy used equipment, but I'm sure they'll get in touch with us if they need anything."

#2 (product manager / designer):  Responded an hour later:  "Hey, sounds like an opportunity, I'll get in touch with our contact to see if there may be opportunities at these new facilities."  A bit later, the contact had already gotten back to our product manager, stating that he would in fact take the idea of using our solutions into these facilities and see if there were some opportunities for us.

#3 (regional sales manager in the acquired facilities territory):  immediately got in touch with our dealer for that territory and, in discovering this dealer had no relationships at these facilities, began talking to potential other routes in to the customer.

Now, which two of the three would you want on your team?  #1 is considered a subject matter expert, but sometimes being the "expert" means you take the basic questions for granted.  Thank heavens we have #2 and #3 on the team as well.

Filed under  //  career   organization   sales  
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Great and Accurate Depiction of the Urgency of Feature Requests from Sales Managers

via onproductmanagement.net

This seems to be spot-on, everything is urgent until the product is actually ready.

Filed under  //  humor   marketing   organization   sales  
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Intelligently Cut Sales Costs by Identifying Appropriate Customer Touch Points

Media_httpwwwmckinseyquarterlycomnewslettersimagecfnov09jpg_angddcjefqacgxt
via mckinseyquarterly.com

When faced with a challenge like a recession, too many companies simply look to cut costs by taking relatively even cuts across all functions. What you should do is look at your business processes to identify opportunities to perform basic operations more efficiently. This even applies to sales, where opportunities to simultaneously reduce costs while improving performance may exist through better utilizing lower cost resources such as telesales or the web to handle basic transactional details. This can free up sales resources to focus on more strategic activities such as new account generation, or enable the use of a smaller, perhaps more commission-driven, sales force.

Filed under  //  sales   strategy  
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