“Dysfunctional buying practices have arisen to combat dysfunctional selling practices” Mahan Khalsa, “Let’s Get Real or Lets Not Play”.

“There are two powerful shifts that are radically changing the dynamics of 20^th Century selling: Information and Global Competition.  The implication to the sales role is that you must now help your client actually succeed. If you do, you both win. If not you both lose. That’s a big shift. It’s no longer sufficient to just get them to buy. If you can’t reduce their costs, increase revenues or margins, leverage their cost of capital, increase productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction, augment a key strategy or initiative, and increase critical performance, you cannot earn their business over time. And if you can’t help them achieve sustainable results, you will be a one-time player rather than a long term business partner. One-time players don’t stay in business.” Mahan Khalsa

These statements would be front page news today but they were first written by the author in 1999.

As I told the groups in St. Louis last week, Khalsa has been my go to visionary for a decade and has written a book that I personally feel is the single most important book  on the authentic buyer-seller relationship that has been written to date. As we shift, along with the rest of our life, the key is to stay in the conscious state as often as possible. Be alert to change-now, and accept that our world will, continue to juggle from the accelerating shifts perhaps for decades.

Good Nurturing, Jim

Optimistic thought for today:  Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!