The Overcomer & the Undertaker | Contrasts and Strikes | John & Ron

The Overcomer and the Undertaker | Contrasts and Strikes | John and Ron

Are you quite #confused on how to distinguish between Business Development and Sales? Are you also one of those, like I was a few years ago?

John was a gate opener and Ron was a deal closer. Ask John about going to any stranger and developing a #rapport , he would not blink an eyelid. Summon John, tell him a #deal is #mustwin , he would go and close it with due approvals.

Of course, both John and Ron worked in a #corporate framework . John would curate a list of prospects that either don’t have any business with their firm or are lost #clients . Ron would keep a tab on regular #business clients and try to increase #shareofwallet with enhanced long-term value of business. #ltv #sov

John knew that 40% of the company’s annual business was expected from new #clients . He didn’t mind #coldcalling , talking to unknown faces in a coffee shop and do thorough research about competition and their clients. Ron would not sleep till he billed a few clients, checked on delivery status and impressed on #production teams about his client being high priority. He would bargain hard with the #boss for better terms for his clients and then go hard to get the deals done.

John was a solo fighter, knocking 10 gates in a month, getting kicked out in 5, warmed up to 3 and got his foot in the door at 2 of them : the month went well. Ron had daily number to achieve; managed a #team of 5 , always targeted 110% #achievement to be eligible for stretch level #incentives .

For a month the boss interchanged John and Ron’s jobs and watched. For the month Ron didn’t go to approach any new client and John kept waiting and watching about what how the #billing and #projects got managed . The boss realized these guys had different kind of guts and brought them back to their original jobs.

John was an OVERCOMER, the one who can just walk on fire: these are the BD guys who work on the “width” of prospects. Go to 100, get 10 of them agree to talk to their firm. Ron was an UNDERTAKER , the deep digger: these are the sales guys , people with “depth” who would dig tranches in business accounts to extract gold and eliminate #competition on the way.

Overcomers set the stage for the Undertakers to perform. These two complete the act and always have been doing it. The smart managers know how to balance the O and the U in their teams. Remove one from the equation; the other becomes a mere compromise.

Undertakers tell overcomers about what competition is eyeing and well the missile is on its way. Both don’t like to be unsuccessful and never want to fail. Wherever BD and Sales #collaborate , a company scales from #GoodtoGreat.

Find your sweet spot: its rare for a person to be both : so what are you : The OVER guy or the UNDER one?

#businessdevelopment #sales #strategy