I’m reading a fascinating sales book just now.
It’s called “Same Side Selling”.
Its premise is that sales people will sell more and have better relationships with customers if, rather than playing competitive sales games with their potential customers, they act as if they’re both in the “same side”, trying to solve the same puzzle.
I’m enjoying the book. It resonates with my own belief that we techies should stop trying to sell agile to our customers, and start working with our customers to help solve their problems.
The book is aimed at helping professional sales people, but I’m enjoying it nonetheless!
I love how life works, sometimes.
- Early last week, one of the IT managers I coach said to me that he’d had a difficult but productive meeting with his product people, where he’d been very open with them, and it … thankfully, it finally felt like they were “on the same side.”
- And then, on Friday, I stumbled across a marketing podcast that was talking about this book called “Same Side Selling”.
So much of my work, these days, is about trying to find then right words … and those five words - ‘we’re on the same side’ feel right.
That’s what collaboration is, after all, but that word “collaboration” is big, and awkward, and it’s the sort of thing you’d put in a manifesto.
I hope you find that useful.