Quotes from John McMahon

When will we learn that it's not about being color-blind? It's about respect and humanity, pure and simple.' The Good Detective

We all live under the shadow of a three century history that his pitted color against color and we all need to change. To me there are no people more capable of that change than people from here. We're not ignorant of what outsiders think. They see a mix of beautiful mansions from the 1800s, and weeds sky high in the next house over. But for me this area of the country is heaven. There's not place I'd rather travel than the South and no place I'd rather live in than Georgia." The Good Detective

If sales managers hire C-grade players and do everything else perfectly—onboarding, training, developing, and maintaining a great sales process—that team will still have a difficult time becoming the number one sales force. However, if you hire only grade A players and do everything else average, the A players will help you find a way to win.

Vending. Not selling.

Stop confusing activities with accomplishment. Stop pushing reps to rush through the sales process. Master the customer conversation with specific personas and use cases. Understand how to sell business value, using a repeatable process. Learn to qualify deal advancement issues in account situations. Coach reps on how to control an opportunity. Understand how to forecast accurately.

Forego's customer churn was high because they sold too low in companies for small dollars. Selling small deals at low levels in a company, without the customer understanding the tangible business value of the product, causes a high degree of customer churn. If a customer doesn't understand the business value of a subscription product, the customer won't renew their annual subscription.

You'll want to meet with the Champion for each of the forecasted deals to ensure your rep has a Champion and is in control." Maniacally qualifying deals early in the quarter by visiting the Champions of your reps' forecasted deals in the first month of a quarter is one of the surest methods of gaining a deep understanding of your forecast.

Instead of tracking meaningful indicators of deal advancement and tangible sales process results, they only kept track of activity KPIs such as: Number of calls Number of emails sent Number of video introductions Number of POCs

Your intuition needs a clear, open mind. It won't work if it's competing with other distracting thoughts, fears, or prejudices of your own past experiences.

Champions have personal aspirations," I said. "To realize those aspirations, they need to differentiate themselves within the organization. One way to do that is to solve notable business problems. It's a way for them to obtain a personal win by being recognized for their efforts and showing their added value to the company.