Features
- Cover Type: Hard Cover with 208 pages
- Published by: South-Western Educational Pub
- Edition: 1st Edition April 5, 2005
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0324301251
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0324301250
-
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
- Weighs: 1.2 pounds
Product Description
A fourth of all B2B marketing and sales resources are wasted on misguided initiatives and activities. As much as eighty to ninety percent of the content produced by marketing is considered useless by salespeople. And only 29 percent of a B2B salesperson’s time is actually spent on selling. Companies who sell complex products and services struggle with the growth in the raw volume of content, the constant change, and the number of contributors. This often leads to significant duplication, inconsistent information, and a dilution of the message that complicates the sales process - confusing prospects and sales reps alike. Written by sales and marketing expert Bob Schmonsees, this enlightening book aligns marketing and sales organizations, putting everyone companywide - from the CEO to the assistant - on the same page. The last decade saw an increasing misalignment between marketing and sales, as well as allowed inefficiencies to creep into the marketing and selling model. Schmonsees reveals the secrets to bridging the gap, cutting the clutter, and eliminating the waste.
About The Author
Robert Schmonsees, a pioneer in CRM and knowledge management, is a nationally noted marketing and sales executive with more than thirty years of experience building and running successful high-tech organizations, from start-ups to large publicly traded firms.
Reader ReviewsI met Bob Schmonsees recently when he and I were both speaking at an industry event. Before ever reading this book, it was clear from our conversation that Bob is an extremely experienced and bright marketing mind. This book proved it. Over the last decade, we have been bombarded with tons of useless charges like, "We need to become customer-focused", "We need to focus on solving our clients' business problems", and other meaninglessly lofty corporate platitudes. Furthermore, we all have bookshelves full of tomes that lay out elegant strategies for acheiving those goals - books that philosophize more than instruct. This book takes those strategic objectives down to the tactical level where most of us in the business world live. It provides actionable, step-by-step advice on how marketing managers can create tremendous value for their salespeople by giving them the information and guidance that they have desperately needed since the advent of consultative selling. If you follow the processes in this book, your customers will breathe a sigh of relief as your salespeople begin to sound smarter about their business issues and provide more value as trusted problem-solvers. Other reviewers will give detailed accounts of what is inside this book, but let me offer that I have spent years helping clients struggle with these issues, and this is the most useful and practical book I have seen on the subject. If your salespeople are missing the mark with your customers, 'Escaping the Black Hole' will provide you with a means to help them ask the right questions, uncover the real problems, propose the right solutions, impress more customers, and close more deals.
Search for books at
