I am excited to write this article as it is related to the journey and final release of my new book, CEO-Led Sales! If you have ever thought of writing a book, this might help you.
I decided to write this book to share some of my experience, beliefs and discoveries along my 40 year career in several different industries from Police work, small business and large IT sales. I also wanted to unveil the process I went through to write the book for those that might be considering doing the same; from my original thoughts, to storyboarding and creating the final physical book.
The first comment on book writing is that it had been a long time coming! I am happy I didn't start to put pen to paper when I first began to think about the contents. I waited until all of my thoughts were aligned and most importantly I had the right support to get it done. I know a lot of people with half finished manuscripts and I wanted to avoid the mid process burnout.
I had always felt that sales teams' focus was generally on the wrong thing – their success, not the clients. I fundamentally believe this approach inhibits a more predictable, long-lasting success for the Stakeholder – (Clients, Company and Shareholders). CEO-Led Sales is arguing a different way. It's certainly not positioning this approach as an easy way to implement this transformation over the short term. Rather, it's a long term change of thinking and culture designed fix to the current issues I see in enterprise selling and give the CEO confidence in their team and forecasted revenue.
To do this, the CEO must break the current corporate norms. Difficult to achieve if you are not fully engaged in the sales process. This involves restructuring quota and commissions to the client outcome, altering behavioural targets, changing sales and sales management roles, and critically, documenting and communicating the 3-5 year business strategy set by you, the CEO.
CEO-Led Sales will take you on a journey to transform your sales organisation. Starting with what the main issues are with the current process, then introducing the RIGHT model which adds to any current sales methodology and reconfigures the sales approach from deal centric, to client centric. I'm excited to share this with you in my newly released book!
Being my first book – I didn't know what I didn't know, and it was quite an experience! After finally deciding it was time to act, I was fortunate to know Andrew Ford and Chris Grierson (if you think you have a book in you - get in touch with this team); working with Andrew and Chris was instrumental in my success. We worked together from the start to storyboarded the main concepts and then identify the chapters and sections. Once we were satisfied with the structure came the tough part - the writing! You have to be disciplined to continually edit, review, and revise to ensure the finished book's flow and consistency.
The book writing journey is a long one, 18 months in my case. There are ups and downs and having people to help you along the way is imperative to get it done. But once you have the book in your hand, you feel a tremendous sense of achievement! Plus the benefits of being able to provide your clients with a summary of your methodology is fantastic for business.
What's next? Glad you asked. Shortly, I will be commencing a series of podcasts related to the book content to share more examples and anecdotes on winning in sales and how to lead teams for success. If you would like advice on something related to this topic, I would love to hear from you.
If you are a CEO and are struggling with sales and are up for a challenge of a transformation. If you know in your heart that you cannot trust the sales forecast or your current approach to enterprise selling is tactical and outdated. Plus you want to deliver a better outcome to your clients, which will differentiate your organisation in the market, then this book is for you.
Click this link to get a copy of my book and start the journey today.
Regards Andrew
P.S. More information on the official book launch coming soon!
