About
Being Guided is my personal blog, dedicated to the challenge of helping tech ventures increase sales effectiveness, through applying hands-on coaching, mentoring and tools. This means focusing on selling high-value cloud computing solutions to large and mid-market enterprises, where I have a proven track record in turning coaching into real-world deals.
Increasing sales effectiveness is all about focusing on the big challenges: connecting with hard-to-reach decision-makers; communicating and validating a meaningful ROI; avoiding risky, RFP-led procurements; and crucially, working with field sales people and consultants to generate quality leads, defend value over price, beat tough competitors - and close sales!.
In a tough economic climate, empowered decision-makers have little to no discretionary spending power. This means that they need a clear and solid Return on Investment (ROI) argument to justify investing hard cash in a timely manner. By applying ROI Modelling for buyer-led discovery and validation, the seller is transformed into a role of trusted adviser.
A ROI Model must be based on both an Economic Basis of Decision and Non-Economic (Emotional) Basis of Decision clearly quantified and validated. To avoid deal slippage this must include a Cost of Delay and a Cost of Doing Nothing for the buyer. With no discretionary spend available, a high-value offering depends upon the clarity of this ROI argument.
Through Mentoring, I work with startups and established firms to develop ROI Models and the arguments that underpin value realisation of both complete and highly-conceptual cloud computing offerings. This is where selling has to be executed through a Methodology that engages buyers in the pursuit of value creation - not arm's length procurement games.