ABSTRACT
The Einstein quote, “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better,” implies that a deeper understanding is required to gain sufficient knowledge in order to successfully solve a problem. While a sales professional is not expected to be an expert in the laws of physics and other underlying principles of nature, the Einstein statement can and does apply to the world of sales. Similar to Einstein’s request to look deep into nature, by continuously qualifying and breaking down a sales engagement into a series of phases, a sales professional is able to identify the key components within a client’s process that contributes to the cause, or causes, of its unique problem. The Lean selling approach is one that takes a process perspective in order to identify the unique process performance issues that allow the sales team to customize a solution that is meaningful to the client. This process-oriented approach can be extremely powerful in the world of sales, as client’s business processes are the common threads that can unite information technology, finance, and the business operations teams that are otherwise stand-alone functions within the client’s organization. Figure 5.1 illustrates the Lean sales funnel and the progress we have made since the first step in this journey.
