Conventional wisdom from people who study B2B buying and/or selling behavior says that success comes when a solution is aligned to the buyer’ “need”. Advice has long been to discover, listen and align to the buyers requirement and needs. Most take this advice on and start the Spanish Inquisition with their own version of SPIN Selling to uncover all these needs with a bunch of fancy questions…

A traditional approach to Marketing relies heavily on this concept of a Funnel which attempts to filter people from top to bottom as a reflection of their buying intent. The assumption that makes it work in their view is that people make decisions in a linear way and set off signals that align with the Marketing teams spot in the Funnel…

On April 8th 2024 I found myself out of a job that I truly enjoyed. The way it went down is a long story that I may tell someday, but for today I want to acknowledge that what happened on April 8th provided me with an opportunity to…

User conferences are awesome. There is a ton of excitement for vendors, partners and customers plus the thrill of prospective customers taking in all the excitement and making the decision to become a customer. But there is almost universally something missing…

In their book Challenger Customer, the authors tell a story of dentists who were presented a cordless drill to replace their old-school and traditional corded drills. Features and function…

There are plenty of reasons transformation efforts fail. John Kotter all the way back to 1995 in an article for HBR gives us 8 solid reasons to consider, and all of them are still relevant today. But one of them stands out…

Normal protocol of a software seller is to do "discovery" to learn about the prospects current situation and pain. The goal is to see if there is a fit so someone can sell software. The problem is that the seller isn't the one who should be discovering…

In professional sales, no one likes No Decision as the outcome of a long evaluation cycle. You spend months, sometimes years navigating all the information that needs to be delivered and the people that need to consume it. Both sides spend a ton…

It is a simple question but the data suggests that many B2B buyers are not sure. 50% of more of B2B buyers say they realized they bought the wrong solution…

Leading a transformation requires a combination of vision, strategy, and effective people management. Below are a few of the key principles for leading a successful transformation…

Where is the meat? Long time ago I worked at a store. Right next to it was a pizza shop owned by a boisterous Greek guy. He had a LOT of personality and made really good food. He owned two …

Everyone in GTM functions has been complaining about a lack of alignment for centuries. (maybe decades), but none seem to really want it, or know how to get it, because they dont…

From an article in HBR... “Unsuccessful transitions almost always founder during at least one of the following phases: generating a sense of urgency, establishing a powerful guiding coalition, developing a vision, communicating the vision …

You are struggling for a reason. If you are in sales and you are struggling the first thing I would look at is your approach. Once that is nailed down I would look at your territory. Some territories are REALLY bad …

It is a big mistake.  People interested in driving performance want to see change and transformation.  They can see the problem and the solution and the end state.  They have a vision. They bring this vision to…

Buyer Enablement is a thing. Gartner's view of it can be seen here and is generally the framework I believe in. Their definition is this. "Buyer enablement is the provisioning …

For years, or at least the years I have been in professional sales, buyers and sellers have always seemed to be at odds, on different sides of the table and often times adversarial. It shouldn't be this way…

Hello and welcome to 48 Boom Street and the very first post on this blog. My name is Vin Messina and you can learn a bit more about me here. For now I will tell you that in early 2024 I found myself out of work…