Nolan Ryan, one of the greatest baseball pitchers of all time, said: "Enjoying success requires the ability to adapt. Only by being open to change will you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent."  Nolan had an overpowering fastball. To some fans, it may have sometimes seemed as if he was throwing that same pitch over and over.  Actually, even when he threw a bunch of fastballs in a row, he would change the speed (fast, faster, fastest), va […]

Warning: This is going to be uncomfortable.So, you and your team have spent some time building a pipeline of opportunities that will define your year.  Some of these will likely be deals that have slipped from your last fiscal year and have carried over into the current year.In fact, many of these deals may have become like old friends you've visited every month during your forecasting calls – and after every call, they keep getting re-invited back to a discussi […]

Last month Ninety Five 5 announced that Player Map is now integrated into our Sales Success System (S3) as a core module. It's available at no additional cost to subscribers -- all Ninety Five 5 clients now have access to it. This includes a subscription to Player Map X-Ray. But for the folks just joining the conversation, what is Player Map? Meet its creator, Scott Leland. I sat down with him the other day and the following are the highlights of our conversation. Tom: Scott, I […]

Today I'd like to continue our ongoing conversation for sales leaders on account planning, specifically, on the five common errors found in many account plans – mistakes that literally bring your team's deals crashing down.1)    Focusing on what's missing vs. what we have. Sales consultants often claim they can't develop account plans because they don't have enough information. The best advice a sales leader can give them: F […]

In my last three posts we covered the eight major elements of a good account plan. Today I’d like to talk some optional elements – or tools, if you will. Value Creation Analysis. We use this to provide a more global view of the account by identifying industry and business trends, financials, initiatives and measures. It is also a great area to list the key issues facing the client, for example, problems our solution might address and/or results for which our sol […]

This is the third in a series of posts on account planning -- by the end of which, you should be in a position to decide if your approach to account planning can be enhanced by our thinking, or not.Last week we went through the first four of eight key elements of a good account plan. Today we'll cover the last four. An account plan, in our view here at Ninety Five 5, is an essential tool we (and our clients) use to help us protect and grow key accounts. (See last week […]

This is the second in a series of posts on account planning -- by the end of which, you should be in a position to decide if your approach to key account planning can be enhanced by our thinking, or not.In my last post we talked about the "big ideas" around using an Account Plan. At Ninety Five 5 that refers to the tool we use to help us protect and grow key accounts. Today I'll cover some of the first four key elements of a good account plan from the list below […]

Account planning is an integral part of our Sales Success System here at Ninety Five 5, and after reading this series over the next few weeks you should be in a position to decide if our approach to key account planning would be a worthwhile investment of your team's time – or not.First, though: Why is account planning important? Why bother using account plan tools on planning your account activities? Simple: To protect and grow key accounts.While most companies operatin […]

Thinking about the New Year ahead and accompanying resolutions, it struck me the other day that something I've noticed about myself is shared with many of the sales leaders I work with around the world: The gravitational pull of saying "Yes" and the gravity-defying ability to say "No."As sales leaders, it's easy for us to take on new things. Even at our own Ninety Five 5 basecamps, our client sales leaders tend to look at our many tools and methodologies ( […]