This is a common debate among business people. Many think it’s all about the product and many think it’s all about the sales process. I happen to think it’s a mix of both but the real question is what is the mix, what are the ingredients, who does what in the process?

I once had to open up some old text books and relearn statistics again trying to figure out what a Z Score is and what that really means…Did I really need to know that the Z Score is the observation less the mean of the population over the standard deviation or do I need to know what it represents from a business perspective?

Probably not :-)

I think complex sales are like a sports team with different positions and I just need my tackle to block for me so I can run through the hole. Learn the concept and the big picture solution to the problem and leave the details to someone who can figure out the Z Score!

Business always comes back to the basics no matter what you are selling so work on those because we can never be good enough at listening and building meaningful relationships. You don’t have to know what a regression analysis is but you do have to help your client solve their business problem so use your team!

Go team.

Brick