For The Strength Of The Pack Is The Wolf

April 30, 2013

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack” – Rudyard Kipling

As I write this first of hopefully many posts on the website of my new pack – Revenade, I am filled with excitement in stepping off in a new professional adventure with an extremely talented pack of proven professionals.  I’m also taken back to the truth contained in the verse of my favorite poet, given me by a very wise mentor when beginning my professional sales career.

While I am the grey, long-toothed wolf in my new pack, I’m excited to share my knowledge, experience, and expertise with not only the immediate members of my new pack, but also with our extended pack that we live to serve and hunt with daily – our clients.  We help our clients achieve success by accelerating profitable revenue through our unique Sales Force Multiplier services and full life cycle outsourced sales execution capabilities.

The wolf and the pack is a powerful metaphor, aptly describing the fact that sales is truly a pack survival requirement for any enterprise regardless of age or size.

The lone wolf salesman is virtually extinct.  Why?  Simple, the shrinking of the world through communication and knowledge gathering technology has created and empowered buyers to become masters of their domains.  Product, service, specifications, price transparency, competitor analysis, references, client satisfaction surveys, global manufacturer direct and pre-negotiated master procurement agreements are all accessible with but a few key strokes from anywhere in the world.  In addition to live bid and reverse auction websites that exact every cent of margin with no need for human intervention; thus, wiping out an entire species of lone wolves.

Given this new market hunting environment there are key wolves you must have in your pack not just to survive, but more importantly to thrive:

Laser-Like Lead Generators – manage multi-communication channel campaigns to quickly access and engage high probability prospects at the decision making level that can quickly be qualified into bona fide leads, complete with the skills of a master detective to first find, but then breach the barriers and reach the impossible to reach.

Hard Core De-Qualifiers – constantly thinking in terms of the money value of time, not the traditional time value of money taught in business school.  Only the most disciplined “de-qualifiers” survive. Otherwise the entire pack will starve while he barks up a barren tree

Exacting Precision Proposal Experts – not just word jockeys and PowerPoint artists, but unconventional psy-ops pros that can craft unique value propositions that demonstrate an immediate and compelling return on investment (not just financial, but also emotional) powerful enough to move a buyer to action, even if it means slaughtering sacred cows worshipped within the enterprise

Presentation Pros with the “Power of Presence” – the fearless that can engage with people on a human level first to establish rapport in order to ask the penetrating questions that create pause, thought, and differentiating respect to pull away from the amateur “show up and throw up” parrot of spewing inconsequential facts, or worse yet, purveyor of the dreaded death by PowerPoint skull drag

Tenacious Closers – live for the challenge and know that sale only begins when the first “no” is uttered.  The same “no” that creates a smile and energy as they work with a genuine desire to help someone through the use of their product or service, and are able to clearly communicate not only the facts, but the confidence in belief that moves others to say “yes”, regardless of price or perception.

Deep and Wide Relationship Builders – big picture visionaries with the gift of the holistic approach in creating client-for-life relationships that flourish and expand throughout the client enterprise by asking to seek true understanding, listening more than speaking, and creating solutions that help and never harm, even at the expense of short term gain.

The day of the lone wolf with complete amalgam of these abilities are over.  Actually, they never existed, but were only in the imagination of CEO’s and business owners that have wasted countless fortunes in leap-of-faith hiring of the mythical image that simply said “yes, that is I” in the interview with the wolf across the desk.

Kipling’s truth about wolves is timeless and as universal as the truth in selling.

As for this wolf?

Ecstatic and howling at the moon to be a new member in this pack.  More to come…