by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that, to win in a competitive situation, we need to build our fan base inside our prospects’ organizations well before we make our move to sell.

The Boston Bruins (National Hockey League defending Stanley Cup champions this year) began their training camp last Friday.  The seventh (final) game of their 2011 Stanley Cup series against the Vancouver Canucks was electrifying hockey, whether one was rooting Bruins or Canucks, and Boston’s win at the end was a surprise because… .through the first six games, each team had won on its home ice,  the seventh was game was played in Vancouver, and, in the National Hockey League, home teams win 59% of the time. Home ice advantage.  Fifty-nine percent!

Shocked?  Well hang on. If you’re a National Basketball Association fan, home teams win 62.7% of the time.  Almost TWO THIRDS of the games are won by home teams.  Home court advantage. And it’s about the same in the WNBA as well. Amazing, eh?

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded to clarify terms we don’t understand before presenting ideas.

One person’s golf is another person’s word play – meaning, I love a good pun as much as my golfing friends love a good drive or putt.  I love rough puns a lot more than my friends enjoy hitting balls into the tall grass.

Anyhoo, a couple of weeks ago, during the “warming up” stage of a conference call, a few of us on the line began fooling around with puns and plays on words we remembered hearing from our elementary school children.

One of the group offered:

Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, “Dam!”

The folks on the line guffawed appropriately.

Another offered:

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that the value we create in our sales conversations is proportional to the quality of the questions we ask and whose interests we are attempting to serve by asking them.

This is a story about a sales call. A  very experienced, productive (among the top 25% of his sales force) commercial banker took me on a call to one of his customers.  Since rates are low and many banks are urgently seeking to lend money, the lender wanted to refinance the company’s building which, today, is financed by another bank.  The objective of the call was to gain the company’s agreement to consider a proposal for refinancing the building.

The lender opened the call by indicating he wanted to discuss refinancing the building,  then worked through a series of “fact” questions (how much is outstanding on the existing loan, when is the maturity date of the current loan, how big is the balloon payment at the end, what’s your current interest rate, who’s your attorney, when  do you want to close), then led the conversation as follows:

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that 1 pound of discovery is worth 10 pounds of recovery if we make assumptions and present solutions too early.

At least in the movies, somebody would have called out to me, “Nick!!! Stop!  It’s a trap!”

I received a call from a prospective client with whom I had been communicating, on and off, for several years. I had met him a couple of times, face to face. The conversations were… a little awkward. Something about control… physical positioning in the room… couldn’t quite put my finger on it… never felt they were good calls… felt imbalanced. 

So, anyway, I was sitting at my desk one day and the phone rang. I answered and, to make a long story short, he said: “we have been using another vendor for several years. We are looking for something new to help us reach the next level of selling and I don’t think the existing vendor can help us get there. Do you have anything that could help us?”

Barely able to contain my delight after asking a few questions about the situation, I replied,

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded: Like great movie writers and directors, our clients and prospects sometimes spin stories that are not completely connected to the truths they purport to represent. We can be entertained, and we should verify before contracting.

by Nick Miller of Clarity Advantage

In which we are reminded that there ain’t no such thing as a commodity if we consider buyers’ preferences and their buying experience.

The golden New Hampshire morning sun was three hours old. Under a perfect sky, the campus and her students lay still on a Sunday morning. And, then, we were awake.

Dee-dah-dee.   Digga-digga-deeeee-deeeeeeeee.

The powerful opening strains of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor played at Led Zeppelin volume. I’d never heard it before.