It’s Wednesday morning, and I, just like every other salesperson, am out on the road focused on sales for the quarter. It actually looks like a very good next couple of weeks with a proposal going out today, numbers of client assignments scheduled plus a deal transaction narrowing down to a close, and a large number of other activities in the funnel to keep me and the boys busy for a while. So, why are there questions about selling rummaging around in my head this morning?

The BIG issue that I’ve been kicking around for the last few months is to figure out analtyically how to reach the level of “Trusted Partner” with a larger number of our cusgtomers and not merely stay at the “Approved Vendor” level?  Everyone knows that it’s far easier -and much more rewarding-to sell to existing customers than new prospects, so the questions are ”What’s the split?”, and “What are the selling and adoption steps necessary to move up the rungs of the ladder from “Approved Vendor” to “Preferred Supplier” to “Strategic Contributor” to the highly prized position of “Trusted Partner”?

To us it’s no longer about making the sale.  I believe that we’ve got that down solid in terms of the process tactics and tools that we’ve been practicing for the past five years.  The questions now that we find intriguing in our company and in the sales offices of the majority of our customers, and that we need to answer over the next couple of months are about adoption, improved utilization and total integratation into the minds of the senior decision makers.  

More on these subjects over the next couple of weeks.
As I think about customer engagements.