Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

We talk about sales people as problem solvers, working with our customers to identify and help solve their problems. We are creating massive sales assembly lines optimizing the order taking process. In some ways, sales leaders revel in this. At the time, many of us were alarmed with that statistic.

Assembly Line 143

Assembly Line Sales Price Trust 143

Partners in Excellence

MAY 26, 2021

Our demand gen, marketing, sales organizational design, sales processes, customer experience—all of it are generally designed around us. Customers become widgets progressing through our very efficient sales assembly lines. Who Are We Designing Our Marketing/Sales Strategies… Structure Isn't Strategy.

Assembly Line 156

Assembly Line Customers Manufacturing Up-sell 156

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 2, 2025

” We see virtually every marketing and sales role threatened by AI (though some of the research doesn’t show this). Likewise, when we saw assembly lines, mass production, and robots replacing artisans, jobs moved into other parts of the economy. Those lost jobs went to other industries and parts of the economy.

Assembly Line 80

Assembly Line GTM Technology Technology 80

Partners in Excellence

AUGUST 7, 2024

Continuing my series on applying lean/agile manufacturing principles to selling, I was reminded by Charles Green and Dave Jackson about an important aspect of these principles that is never mentioned by those promoting lean/agile in our sales assembly lines. It’s called Jidoka or Autonomation.

Trust 139

Trust Assembly Line Manufacturing GTM 139

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

We stop thinking of our customers as human beings, instead treating them as widgets we move along the sales assembly line. Those assembly lines are failing! Sadly, we have adopted a mechanistic view of business–particularly in selling and management.

Assembly Line 141

Assembly Line Trust Up-sell Start-ups 141

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 12, 2024

Why I Love Sales Dave, I found your question very thought provoking. As I pondered my response, I arrived at several reasons why I love Sales. What I like most about the sales profession is that it is similar to managing your own little business. Sales IS business. It isn’t prescribed for you. It’s all self-initiated.

Sell 143

Sell Assembly Line Sports Territory 143

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 12, 2023

Customers and sellers have become widgets moving along the sales manufacturing line, losing the humanity, failing to build trust and confidence the buyers crave. But buyers don’t need to participate in that assembly line, they are learning through other channels, so our assembly lines are underutilized.

Assembly Line 125

Assembly Line Customers Tradeshows Manufacturing 125

Sales Pop!

JANUARY 23, 2024

They’re built in factories on assembly lines, significantly reducing construction time and costs. Owning a mobile home means building equity, boosting financial stability, and creating a sense of place that’s often missing in the rental market.

Assembly Line 147

Assembly Line Construction Price Follow-up 147

Martech

MAY 5, 2025

They blow up the traditional marketing assembly line, where roles are rigidly defined. This is a foundational element of not only personal growth and business, but also of sales and marketing. The Positionless Marketer is the new marketing professional who is a triple threat with data, creative and optimization power.

Assembly Line 103

Assembly Line Campaign Negotiate Strategize 103

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 6, 2017

I believe in sharp, rigorous execution of those processes in driving sales effectiveness and performance. Sales people promoting the old “Hail and Hearty,” sales is all about relationships and “when the going gets tough, the tough take a customer to lunch/golf,” have been somewhat abhorrent to me.

Assembly Line 79

Assembly Line SQL Trust Sales 79

Partners in Excellence

AUGUST 31, 2023

Sellers have become replaceable widgets on an assembly line optimized for growth regardless of cost (figuratively and literally). For the past 15 years, we have had such a focus on mechanizing the process. Automating as much as we can, providing tools that focus more on completing tasks than producing results.

Sell 147

Sell Assembly Line Growth Prospecting 147

Partners in Excellence

MAY 25, 2021

There’s a lot of discussion about specialization in sales. We’ve always had specialists in sales and specialization is important. Sales specialization has moved away from helping the customer think differently about their business to maximizing our own efficiency. We are shifting to other resources to help us buy!

Assembly Line 133

Assembly Line Account management Education Sell 133

Highspot

JULY 31, 2020

Proactively thinking through how and why your sales organization is set up a certain way ensures that you are not only making strategic hiring decisions but that you’re putting your reps in position to thrive. What does a sales department do? What are the types of sales organizations? How do you structure a sales team?

Assembly Line 72

Assembly Line Territory Strategize Sales 72

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 29, 2023

Customers have become depersonalized widgets that we move along our selling assembly lines. Spiers outlines, as tragic as these are, the dehumanizing means by which too many of those people have been notified of their terminations tells us more about the absence of caring and respect senior leaders have of their people.

Assembly Line 147

Assembly Line Trust Clients Technology 147

Partners in Excellence

MAY 23, 2024

When customers said tell me more, the sales process was usually pretty short. Sales/marketing started applying these manufacturing principles to the “mechanization” of the process. And assembly line process started to emerge. The jobs for each person on the assembly line were well segmented and well defined.

Assembly Line 77

Assembly Line GTM Minimum Viable Product Non-Profits 77

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 19, 2021

One of the most important things a sales person can do with her customer is to “understand.” They are not widgets to be passed from sales specialist to sales specialist down our sales assembly line. ” One of the most important things great leaders do is to try to “understand.”

Assembly Line 112

Assembly Line Drivers/motivators Technique Sell 112

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 5, 2023

Pile onto this all the shifts in buyer behavior we see, increasing numbers of buyers actively disengaging with sellers, preferring to navigate their buying processes with out sales help. Our sequences, our assembly line techniques for herding through processed that are optimized for us will fail!

Customers 133

Customers Assembly Line Commission Technique 133

Hubspot

AUGUST 20, 2021

Process Strategy can be seen throughout every department in a successful organization, whether it be sales, production, operations management, customer service, or retention. Consider what your sales team does when it receives a lead. A documented process will make life considerably easier and more efficient for your sales org.

Process 93

Process Assembly Line Profit margin Sales 93

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 15, 2021

We redesign knowledge work, emulating the principles of the industrial assembly lines of the past. We chop up work, creating assembly lines where knowledge workers focus on perhaps the functional equivalent of tightening a bolt. them passing the work to the next person in the knowledge worker assembly line.

Assembly Line 77

Assembly Line Manufacturing Government Up-sell 77

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 30, 2020

” “We are expanding our factory capacity and need to add a new assembly line, can we talk about your products as a potential solution?” I can see them harvesting email addresses from all sorts of sites, so they can broadcast to sales people. Customers prospect very differently than sales people do.

Prospecting 112

Prospecting Customers Assembly Line Education 112

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 9, 2020

They are confronted with confusing information, conflicting data, sales people trying to be “helpful,” yet who seem more interested in their own goals than the buyers.’ Relationships were fundamental to sales and selling in distant times. Related Posts: Sales Is Simple, Buying Isn't! ’ Buying is personal.

Sell 94

Sell Assembly Line High impact Up-sell 94

Partners in Excellence

DECEMBER 17, 2018

Sales Talent Is A Problem, Is it Worth Solving , by the folks at CSO Insights. How do we structure the sales organization to be most efficient? How do we reduce the variability in sales people and what they do, creating the lowest cost ability to acquire customers. They have no preference of digital, sales, or any other.

Assembly Line 88

Assembly Line Pitch Sales Growth 88

Partners in Excellence

MAY 25, 2024

The underlying principles of all of these is an assembly line mentality in workflow design. We outlined specific tasks/metrics for marketing, pre-sales, sales development, etc. Each “station” in the sales manufacturing line has very specific functions and responsibilities.

Assembly Line 77

Assembly Line Manufacturing Contract Represent 77

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 6, 2017

As I mentioned in my prior post , there are a lot of people promoting the application of Lean Manufacturing principles in sales. In sales and marketing, we tend, however to be driven by the opposite, we are focused on today, this week, this month, this quarter. The sales process is fundamental.

Manufacturing 82

Manufacturing Assembly Line Sales Process 82

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 1, 2017

Recently, I was having a conversation with Robert Racine about the state of sales management. During the discussion, he mentioned, almost in passing, that too many Sales Managers are becoming Zombies–that is acting purely on autopilot, rather than thinking, evaluating, engaging. But something has changed in selling.

Assembly Line 77

Assembly Line Quota Sales Construction 77

Hubspot

MAY 9, 2022

Even the most seasoned, effective salespeople can struggle when hashing out how to lead a sales team. Taking the reins doesn't come naturally to everyone, and even born leaders might need a little guidance when transitioning into a sales management role. Sales is an inherently competitive field. Let's dive in.

Assembly Line 81

Assembly Line Objectives and Key Results Construction Commission 81

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 13, 2021

For example, no self respecting sales person/manager would find a 20% win rate acceptable. Or we wouldn’t accept average deal values that are significantly lower than our peers, or sales cycles that are significantly longer. So this is a roundabout way to get to my next #B2BPetPeeves, sales/manager turnover and attrition.

Assembly Line 107

Assembly Line Quota Prospecting Up-sell 107

Outreach

DECEMBER 26, 2018

It's been a great year for Sales Engagement! Yes, And: How Learning Improv Made Me Better at Sales. Readers love the improvisation techniques that Solutions Consultant Andrew Mewborn has applied to sales! Why The Four Tendencies are your Sales Secret Weapon. Succeeding in Sales While Managing Depression.

Cold Call 77

Cold Call Assembly Line Sales Follow-up 77

Sales Hacker

AUGUST 9, 2019

Sales development vs business development. How Sales and Business Development can better work together. But in general, BDRs work with the sales and marketing departments, providing support so they can reach their goals. This requires a unique blend of marketing and sales skills. . Business development is not sales.

Assembly Line 102

Assembly Line Pipeline Sales Closing 102

Partners in Excellence

SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

They trade on this friendship, expecting to get preferred treatment in the sales situation. There’s the polar extreme, those who don’t believe relationships are important or meaningful in sales. Connection is critical to our effectiveness as sales people. They don’t understand what connection is about.

Assembly Line 91

Assembly Line Account management Gaming Sell 91

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 27, 2018

In the face of all this, for the most part we are training our sales people in the same skills I learned many decades ago, and my predecessors learned decades before that. And, there’s always endless product training (actually most of sales training ends up not being selling skills, but instead product training.).

Sell 113

Sell Objection handling Assembly Line Territory 113

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 23, 2022

It is probably the most fundamental skill any sales person must master. ” Second, the script focuses on what we want to talk about, and the things we need to move the customer to the next station on our sales assembly line. I’m almost ashamed to be writing on the topic of call planning/execution.

Assembly Line 115

Assembly Line Quota Meeting Customers 115

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 31, 2017

Each step of our sales process is optimized to maximize the results our sales people get. We recognize different skills and capabilities are needed in different stages of the sales process. We have our marketing and sales automation tools, to support the most efficient operation of our organization. There are 6.8

Assembly Line 78

Assembly Line Manufacturing Account management B2B 78

Partners in Excellence

JUNE 12, 2023

We’ve created “assembly lines” with specialized functions, passing our customers from one station to the next. But no other manufacturing would be done on that line, since it would only be creating scrap or waste. Instead, we seem to be doing exactly the opposite, we are doubling down and doing more.

Manufacturing 71

Manufacturing Assembly Line Technique Quota 71

Heinz Marketing

APRIL 27, 2020

Agile mitigates the seagulls: You prioritize a set of work items for the week, then Tuesday morning your VP of Sales brings a “has to be done today” task to your team. Focusing on “sprints” (i.e. establishing a locked-in list of priorities for the coming weeks) doesn’t allow the ability to be agile as things come up in the meantime.

Assembly Line 98

Assembly Line GTM Strategize Follow-up 98

InsightSquared

SEPTEMBER 20, 2018

Adopted by Japanese manufacturing companies after World War II as a way to reduce waste and create competitive advantage, kaizen evolved beyond the assembly line in manufacturing to all business processes and became the precursor to lean manufacturing. The Japanese term “Kaizen” stands for the continuous improvement of a process.

GTM 73

GTM Assembly Line Manufacturing SQL 73

Martech

JANUARY 25, 2022

The outreach we’re doing feels a little bit like an assembly line,” she said. “As Crafting customer content of this nature may seem time-consuming, but it has the potential to make strong connections with customers, especially when marketing and sales teams are working together.

Assembly Line 98

Assembly Line Prospecting Contact Customers 98