After a writing journey that took almost three years, I’m excited to announce my next book, Dealstorming: The Secret Weapon That Can Solve Your Toughest Sales Challenges. Penguin Portfolio will publish it on Feb 23, 2016. It marks my return to talking about my days at Yahoo as a sales executive and introduces research and experiences I’ve gained as a consultant since then. For those that read Love Is the Killer App, you’ll appreciate the voice and perspective of this book.
Initially, I set out to write a book on creativity in the sales process, something very needed in business to business, where it’s getting tougher to land quality deals due to competition, more decision makers and technology. During my career, I often called upon my creative experiences (musician, poet) to tackle high-difficulty sales situations. A 2012 survey I conducted found a high correlation between sales executives who had creative projects and sales executives who were top 5% performers at their company. But as I dug into research on the nature of creativity, especially as it could relate to sales innovation, I made a startling discovery: There is no big idea, no lone inventor, no genius person. Most of all the breakthroughs in history occurred because of team-based collaboration, where multiple minds from diverse disciplines built upon ideas or observations.
This made sense once I could dispel the romantic notions of the lone inventor experiencing the eureka moment. At Yahoo and as a consultant, sales genius was always a team sport. When we included everyone with a stake in the outcome or knowledge about the sales challenge, we closed the business most of the time. After interviewing 200 sales leaders across all industries it became clear to me that cross-department team work is the secret to B2B success. So this book will reveal a repeatable process for team building, team leadership and sales innovation I term “Dealstorming.” Over the next few years, I’ll be writing about sales innovation weekly here along with my usual coverage of leadership and success.
If you have a sales conference next year or a B2B client summit, please consider bringing me in to give your keynote. I’ll motivate everyone to collaborate when stuck, lead others to explore new paths and forge relationships across their company and out into the market. I’ll also do free consulting prior to the event, helping you and your team immediately put these concepts to work against big opportunities in your pipeline or major accounts at risk. Contact us for more on this.
Thanks to my good friends at SLAM Agency, there’s a video trailer to explain the book’s concept and reveal details on how you can get a free chapter. Please share it with your friends and connection in sales and leadership. I’m going to be scouring social media to spot your shares, and will be picking out some of you to send a special gift to.
