Lead Generation for the Complex Sale

This book is fantastic for sales leaders, management, and business owners. It points out that the average salesperson (in complex sales, i.e. capital equipment, business sales, etc.) must generate $1,000 in business per working hour to make their quotas. That won’t happen if we spend our time in unproductive, low quality work, regardless of how important such activities may be.

This book contains the strategies and tools for creating an in-house lead generation system that will help salespeople do what they do best: sell qualified prospects. This book will help transform companies into market/sales driven enterprises, critical to success in this age of hyper-competitively. I believe this is simply one of the best books on this subject (another is “The Fundamentals of Business-to-Business Sales & Marketing”). However many of the suggestions cannot be implemented and may even run counter to the politics and management of the organization you work for. Therefore most of the ideas won’t work for a salesman in the territory pounding away daily to get sales. For example, aligning business systems and the value proposition to optimize lead generation is imperative, however I can’t do that alone, neither can most salespeople.

If you’re an entrepreneur, a sales leader or a manager this book is a must read with sage and up-to-date advice. For the salespeople on-the-ground and in-the-field better book selections for lead generation are “Selling to Big Companies” and “Selling Against the Goal.” However, “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale” does inform every salesperson about the skills needed to be successful regardless of one’s position. Knowing business metrics, how to profile and evaluate prospects, increasing the value of the sales process by being a consultant and not simply a vender with PowerPoint are all critical success factors for modern salespeople. Not only will salespeople be dramatically helped by reading this book, they may be able to create upward pressure for the business and management to improve as well.