From The Ground Up

Nine years ago we made a decision to move to beautiful Lake Hartwell located on the Georgia and South Carolina line.  We had owned a small cabin on the lake for a few years prior and just loved it.  We sold the cabin and bought a lot at the end of a gravel road that had 5 other lots; different people had purchased each lot, but none had been built on.  We started building and 6 months later we moved in.  We love the lake and have really enjoyed the privacy.

Two years ago construction started on one of the lots.  So much for the privacy.  They have been slowly building this house for two years and are still several months away from completing it.  Two months ago the lot right next to us started building.  In only two months they have almost caught up with the first house.

Watching these two houses being built is the inspiration for this week’s blog.  Why does it take over two years to build house one and six months to build house two?  Which is the better-built house?  Are there advantages and disadvantages to both?

Of course this spurred me to start thinking about Salesnet.  Two years ago we decided to refresh the Salesnet product and infrastructure.   We had to make a decision, do we want to gradually upgrade the product or do we want to rebuild from the ground up?  While most of our competitors gradually upgrade their product and infrastructure we decided to rebuild from the ground up.

We started with the infrastructure.  We replaced every piece of hardware and operating system software.  To make this easier and more secure, we decide to install everything in a new and enhanced data center.  We took the same approach with our disaster recovery site.  This turned out to be a great decision.  When everything was ready and tested we just moved the Salesnet software over to the new infrastructure.

Then it was time to work on the Salesnet software.  We wanted to take advantage of any new leading-edge technology while maintaining what has made Salesnet successful in the past.  We were able to leapfrog all our competition with regards to the Salesnet user interface and the built in analytics, while keeping and improving the patented Salesnet sales process engine.  This sales process engine is what has always been the differentiator for Salesnet.  It is what makes sales people better, which makes for better sales.

To make a long story short, this whole effort has been a major success.  As of the beginning of 2010 our customers, partners, and potential customers have shown that they see the value in The New Salesnet by renewing contracts, adding users, and signing on as new Salesnet customers.  Our build from the ground up approach is validated everyday by our customers.

But we are not going to stop there.  We will continue to launch new exciting features and our decision to leverage the latest technology advances make this much easier to do than if we had decided on the upgrade as you go approach. 

Sorry for the long-winded blog, but when you are excited about what you have accomplished it is hard to keep it brief. 

Good Selling

All Stars – Simple versus Complex Sales

Like most baseball fans, I stayed up way too late watching the MLB All Star game.  I was happy to finally see the National League win this annual event. It is hard to believe it was 1996 when they last won.  I was especially glad to see the Duluth hometown boy win the MVP award.  Brian McCann was in the same class as my oldest daughter in high school. Not only do I have that connection to him, but I have been an Atlanta Braves fan all my life.   

When I spoke with our office’s Boston native (and fan), we had the normal discussion about National League versus American League.  For those of you who are not baseball fans, the main argument is that because of the use of a designated hitter in the American League the game has much less strategy than the National League.  The comeback for the American League fans is that their league’s games are more exciting because they score more runs.  They also claim that their players have more talent.  After seeing the results of this year’s All Star Game I guess the American League’s talent doesn’t pack as much punch as they used to.  Okay, it was only one game, but when it has been 14 years since their last defeat you tend to relish these rare occasions.

All this talk about baseball spurred me to think about how Simple Sales and Complex Sales are much like the two leagues in baseball.  When you think about simple short-term type sales, there is significantly less strategy involved than in a longer-term, complex sale situation.   Even though this is usually the case, maybe it is just that the strategy happens at a different time in the sales process.   You see if you are selling a product that has a very short sales process, it is more likely to be about the product and the positioning of that product before the sales person even gets involved.  For the sales person in the short sales process it is all about closing; for development and marketing it is about the strategy to create the right product and position that product so that the sales person will have the chance to close the sale.  In a more complex sale the sales person is more focused on planning and strategy than closing.  If they do these things correctly it will close itself.   

Taking all this back to baseball, in the American League the strategy is more about getting the right players for the team and positioning them correctly than it is about making strategic decisions during the game.   I prefer the National League and I prefer the complex sale, but there is room and a need for both. 

Until next time:

I wish I had an answer to that because I'm tired of answering that question.  
Yogi Berra