Fundamental Barriers to Sales

Dave Knox does an excellent job talking about the fundamentals to sales success. We dealt with it every day in the enterprise, he makes a good point about the inherent risks and directions.

Barrier to success…or key to success?
from Hard Knox Life by Dave Knox

Broadly speaking, the most difficult thing in business is trying to make a sale to another company. This holds true whether this “sale” is an entrepreneur trying to raise capital, an agency pitching a new campaign idea or a start-up trying to get a brand to buy their platform.

But despite this being one of the toughest things in business, there are really only two approaches that companies use to make a deal happen. Some take the approach of going straight to the top, only wanting to engage with a senior executive who has direct budget authority. Others take the opposite approach, instead looking for someone that can become their advocate within the company. Usually this advocate is a more junior employee, the person that influences the budget instead of controlling the budget.... '