Linchpin Labs

A summary and key pointers from the classic international bestseller book titled "How I raised myself from Failure to Success in Selling" By Frank Bettger

No.1 thing we should solve for today in order to increase the likelihood of a customer buying a high quality low regret deal is "Customer Confidence". It's not customers confidence in supplier, or its brand, product or sales professional. It's customers confidence in themselves. Their ability to make large-scale decisions on behalf of their company. i.e.  Have we asked the right questions Have we looked at the right information Are we even agreed how confident are we that we even agree on the right problem i.e. this is the best solution 4 significant forces eroding Customer Confidence on an ongoing basis Decision Complexity - B2B buying decisions have become increasingly complex as more and more stakeholders have gotten involved in that purchase decision with competing priorities competing metrics Information Overload - Its not a customer struggle with a high quantity of information but they struggle with high quantities of high quality information. Everybody's

The excerpts are taken from  Five Commandments for Faster Growth by Peter Cohan, Lecturer with Babson College published at Knowledge at Wharton (A business journal from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania).  Companies can find growth along five dimensions, ranging from the most basic to the most challenging. These dimensions can either be the same as those in a company’s existing practices, or reflect new and different parameters. Customers, Geographies, Products, Capabilities, and/or Culture. 1. Find growth from current or new customers Segment your current customers. Identify how much of your revenue comes from each segment. Analyze the broad trends – such as evolving customer needs, changing economic conditions, or new technology – that might boost (or contract) growth in these segments. Estimate your company’s share of the most important segments. For saturated segments, identify new segments that would be interested in buying your product and interview potential

A deeply insightful course on Digital Strategy and Action by Dr. Peter Cohan , Lecturer of Strategy at Babson College , Massachusets, USA. Check the lecture by Dr. Peter Cohan - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9WdNKsx970McydQpJlJ9l59tiQzr39Al  Below given slides capture key pointers from the course. 

This is the excerpts from Gartner´s 4 publications for Sales and Accounts Growth mentioned below.  Three Buyer Behavior Myths Debunked   Why Accounts Aren't Growing, and What To Do About It  Win More B2B Sales Deals - How sales delivers more value to today’s B2B buyers The Sense Making Seller - How High-Performing Sellers Help Today’s Overwhelmed Buyers   In essence - Growing Accounts When it comes to growing accounts, customer improvement has a great impact on retention as ensuring customers get maximum value from the solutions they have already bought Provided customers with unique, critical perspective on improving their business Laid out a vision for improving customer’s business Outlined the ROI of their commercial relationship Driving growth Growth is ultimately about asking the customer to do something differently in the future than they have done in the past. And doing something differently moving forward naturally requires a new decision altogether, not simply a repeat of

 Please go through the presentation by globally renowned CEO Coach and Management Guru - Prof. Ram Charan on Digital Leadership.  Disclaimer: This presentation was delivered at FICCI@90 event  available in Youtube. All the content and ideas belong to Prof. Ram Charan. The slide is prepared as a reference material and for community contribution and not for any commerical purposes. 

Here is an interesting webinar  presentation from Gartner based their CEO survey 2021. This reveals lots of information and key insights.   N = 465 business leaders   Key summary 2021 will have 2 very different halves.  i.e. 1H21 – is expected to be tough and dull.  2H21 is going to be boom and growth. ‘Technology related’ has become strategic business Priority no 2 for CEO/Business executives after Growth (no.1). in 2013, Technology related  was positioned in 11 rank. Growth is expected through Geographic expansion, Increasing Sales Revenue (by more of same not delivering), New markets/ new needs, Market share and existing customers. IT was savior and quite hero in 2020. But not in 2021, because it was a Compelled Reactive Catch up not Strategy Acceleration. 2020s need a much harder push. Executives in North America and Europe see more opportunities in North America, Europe, APAC and LATAM. They do not see any growth in Middle East and Africa. Digital, Cost, Talent and Efficient are

Check out the key summary of the latest and emerging topic on sales called ´Sense Making´ .  this is summary of the talk / podcast between Brent Adamson (Distinguished Vice President at Sales Practice - Gartner and Victor Antonio (Sales Trainer and Consultant)  For more details, check out the publication by Gartner titled How Challenger Sales Organizations Make Sense of Sense Making   Dig deeper to find the meaning. Only when you go deep inside the water, you will find beautiful corals.  Key summary Help customer to identify signal and clear noise.  Too much information out there in market. Help customer Reconcile conflicting information.  No.1 depressant of big deals is - customer confidence . this is not lack of confidence in sales, vendor or brand, product/service.  this is the lack of confidence among themselves to make a decisive decision in the face of so much uncertainty  How can you help customers make big disruptive decisions without having to research or study on it for years

This is the summary of the book titled 'Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers' published by Geoffrey Moore  (Silicon Valley Technology consultant) .  This is a legendary and proven framework that emerged during the early 1990's.  Key summary Technology adoption in any of the community is based on their psychological and social profile. High tech innovation and marketing expertise are the 2 cornerstones of U.S. strategy for global competitiveness. High degree of unity required at different teams while chasm crossing. Many of the AR, VR, Holograms, MOOCS not gained mainstream attraction because of poor marketing. Sometimes, a less successful product is often arguably superior with its feature to feature comparison. Technology enthusiasts influence corporate buying decisions. Every company has them. You cannot ignore the tech. guy! Pragmatists buy the whole product based on its benefit, even if the core product is inferior. E.g. W

This is the summary of the book titled 'Doing Agile Right - Transformation without Chaos' published by Harvard Business Review Press 2020. The authors include Darrell Rigby, Sarah Elk, and Steve Berez who are the Partners at Bain & Company, Inc.  This captures the essence of a roller coaster ride for every organization undergoing Agile. The ideas in the book are not only just applicable to enterprise IT and also to the Business side of it. The book not only provides ideas, but also stimulates thinking and creates an urge.  It does not stop by covering just one aspect like Innovation, but also encompasses different angles such as budgeting (i liked most), funding, reviewing, customer loyalty and obsession, functional silos and bureaucracy and GOLDEN MEAN. 

Here are some key insights and stats from the Gartner CIO Agenda 2021 - Rebuild the Future webinar . Access the session deck here  . This is based on the survey with CIOs in different industry verticals across all regions.   n = 1877 CIOs in 74 countries with $ 4.7 Trillion in revenue and $85 Billion in IT spend.  Gartner classifies, survey respondents in 3 categories such as Top, Typical and Trailling based on 3 parameters mentioned below; and their rating on 0 - 5 scales ( Trailling-0,1   Typical-2,3,  4,5-Top ) Digital Maturity  Business Performance  Pandemic Response  Top = 303 ; Typical = 1373 and Trailling = 201 performers.  Summary Overall Global IT spend is expected to increase by 2% in 2021. However, this is the lowest in the last 5 years (2017 - 2.2%, 2018 - 3.0%, 2019 - 2.9%, 2020 - 2.8% and 2021 - 2.0% increase) Digital business has been maturing steadily; and Covid-19 accelerated the organization's digital efforts in the five stages mentioned below.  Refine - 18% Sca