Agile Selling


Book Description

Being an agile seller virtually guarantees a prosperous career. When salespeople are promoted, switch jobs, or face new business conditions, they need to learn lots of new information and skills quickly. It's a daunting task, compounded by the fact that they're under intense pressure to deliver immediate results. What Jill Konrath calls agile selling is the ability to quickly learn all this new info and then leverage it for maximum impact. Having an agile mindset, one that keeps you going through challenging times, is the crucial starting point. You also need a rapid-learning plan that helps you establish situational credibility with your targeted or existing customers in just thirty days. In Agile Selling, you'll discover numerous strategies to help you become an overnight sales expert, slashing your path to proficiency. Jill Konrath's fresh sales strategies, provocative insights, and practical advice help sellers win business with today's crazy-busy prospects.




Selling Through Someone Else


Book Description

Experience the growth multiplier effect through transforming the distribution and sales network Selling Through Someone Else tackles new opportunities to drive company growth by taking a fresh look at the customer smart distribution and sales process. The authors, from Accenture, one of the world's largest consulting companies, explain how companies can be smarter about what their customers truly want and maximize the return on investment from all available resources for growth opportunities by exploring creative distribution options, including leveraging partners, online outlets, iPads/tablets, your traditional sales force, and more. Selling Through Someone Else demonstrates that traditional approaches are no longer effective and how, by capitalizing on converging forces, companies can transform their "sales" approaches to grow revenue, and enhance customer and brand loyalty. Explores how globalization, new competitors, and low-cost threats are reshaping the way sales is happening today, and how to prepare your company to be successful in this new dynamic and iterative selling model Shows how analytics, the shift to digital selling and mobile sales tools, and new approaches to sales operations can reshape the entire sales function Demonstrates how new ecosystems of partners are created, managed, and incented to drive greater sales and profitability Accenture has helped numerous clients collaborate across IT, Sales, and Marketing to dramatically grow distribution and adapt to the different "playing field" of today. Selling through Someone Else applies the trends and lessons learned from Fortune 500 and Global 500 companies to mid-sized enterprises and small-medium businesses owners.




SNAP Selling


Book Description

Selling is tougher than ever before. Potential customers are under extreme pressure to do more with less money, less time, and fewer resources, and they're wary of anyone who tries to get them to buy or change anything. Under such extreme conditions, yesterday's sales strategies no longer work. No matter how great your offering, you face the daunting task of making yourself appear credible, relevant, and valuable. Now, internationally recognized sales strategist Jill Konrath shows how to overcome these obstacles to get more appointments, speed up decisions, and win sales with these short-fused, frazzled customers. Drawing on her years of selling experience, as well as the stories of other successful sellers, she offers four SNAP Rules: -Keep it Simple: When you make things easy and clear for your customers, they'll change from the status quo. -Be iNvaluable: You have to stand out by being the person your customers can't live without. -Always Align: To be relevant, make sure you're in synch with your customers' objectives, issues, and needs. -Raise Priorities: To maintain momentum, keep the most important decisions at the forefront of their mind. SNAP Selling is an easy-to-read, easy-to-use guide for any seller in today's increasingly frenzied environment.




The New Rules of Sales and Service


Book Description

The essential roadmap for the new realities of selling when buyers are in charge Sales and service are being radically redefined by the biggest communications revolution in human history. Today buyers are in charge! There is no more 'selling'—there is only buying. When potential customers have near perfect information on the web, it means salespeople must transform from authority to consultant, product narratives must tell a story, and businesses must be agile enough to respond before opportunity is lost. The New Rules of Sales and Service demystifies the new digital commercial landscape and shows you how to stay ahead of the pack. Companies large and small are revolutionizing the way business gets done, and this book takes you inside the new methods and strategies that are critical to success in the modern market. Real-world examples illustrate the new marketplace in action, and demonstrate the brilliant utility of taking a new look at your customer and your business. This new edition has been updated to reflect the current reality of this rapidly-evolving sphere, with fresh strategies, new tools, and new stories. Whether you're an independent contractor, a multi-national corporation, a start-up, or a nonprofit, this book is your essential guide to navigating the new digital marketplace. David Meerman Scott provides up-to-the-minute analysis of the current state of the digital commercial landscape, plus expert guidance toward the concepts, strategies, and tools that every business needs now. Among the topics covered in detail: Why the old rules of sales and service no longer work in an always-on world The new sales cycle and how informative Web content drives the buying process Providing agile, real-time sales and service 24/7 without letting it rule your life The importance of defining and understanding the buyer personas How agile customer service retains existing clients and expands new business Why content-rich websites motivate interest, establish authority, and drive sales How social media is transforming the role of salesperson into valued consultant Because buyers are better informed, and come armed with more choices and opportunities than ever before, everything about sales has changed. Salespeople must adapt because the digital economy has turned the old model on its head, and those who don't keep up will be left behind. The New Rules of Sales and Service is required reading for anyone wanting to stay ahead of the game and grow business now.




More Sales, Less Time


Book Description

"I felt like time was taunting me: 'Behind again? You'll never get it all done.' I worked harder and longer hours, sacrificing my limited personal time to stay ahead of the game. Still, it wasn't sufficient. My work just kept expanding, demanding more of me. I could never seem to call it a day. In my entire career, I'd never faced a sales problem of this magnitude." Sound familiar? If so, you're probably an overwhelmed seller. Your clients expect more, with faster turnarounds. Your quota keeps going up. You need to leverage social media, keep up-to-date on your industry, figure out how to sell new products and services, and learn all the latest technologies. The demands are never-ending. You could work nonstop around the clock and still not get it all done. It's a huge problem faced by experienced sales pros, busy entrepreneurs, and sales rookies. If you don't stay on top of your time, it's tough to make your numbers, let alone blow them away. Konrath, a globally recognized sales consultant and speaker, knew she needed help, but found that advice aimed at typical workers didn't work for her—or for others who needed to sell for a living. Salespeople need their own productivity guidelines adapted to the fast-paced, always-on sales world. So Konrath experimented relentlessly to discover the best time-savers and sales hacks in order to deliver the first productivity guide specifically for sales success. In More Sales, Less Time, Konrath blends cutting-edge behavioral research with her own deep knowledge of sales to teach you how to succeed in this age of distraction. You'll discover how to: • Reclaim a minimum of one hour per day by eliminating major time sucks and changing the way you tackle e-mail and social media. • Free up time to focus on activities that have the highest impact on your sales results, such as preparing, researching, strategizing, and connecting with customers. • Optimize your sales processes to eliminate redundancies and wasted time. • Transform your mind-set to effortlessly incorporate new, more productive habits; leverage your best brainpower; and stay at the top of your sales game. Konrath helps you develop strategies specifically tailored to your life in sales, using your strengths to cut through the feeling of being overwhelmed. All salespeople have the same number of hours in a day; it's up to you to rescue your time to sell smarter.




Comic Agilé Volume One


Book Description

Comic Agilé depicts the magical, depressing, funny and potentially educational moments that occur when agility meets reality. Through the form of short comic strips, Comic Agilé brings to a head the challenges, misunderstandings and ill-intentioned behavior that makes it so difficult to put the agile mindset into practice. Besides its tragicomic storytelling, the agile comic describes how to avoid, manage or improve the illustrated situations, so the readers are left with a burning desire to go back to their context and improve their agile practices. For the sake of humanity.




SAFe 5.0 Distilled


Book Description

SAFe® 5.0: The World's Leading Framework for Business Agility "Those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the twenty-first century. SAFe 5.0 is a monumental release that I am convinced will be key in helping countless enterprise organizations succeed in their shift from project to product." –Dr. Mik Kersten, CEO of Tasktop and author of the book Project to Product Business agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to unprecedented market changes, threats, and emerging opportunities with innovative business solutions. SAFe® 5.0 Distilled: Achieving Business Agility with Scaled Agile Framework® explains how adopting SAFe helps enterprises use the power of Agile, Lean, and DevOps to outflank the competition and deliver complex, technology-based business solutions in the shortest possible time. This book will help you Understand the business case for SAFe: its benefits, and the problems it solves Learn the technical, organizational and leadership competencies needed for business agility Refocus on customer centricity with design thinking Better align strategy and execution with Lean Portfolio Management Learn the leadership skills needed to thrive in the digital age Increase the flow of value to customers with value stream networks Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.




Managing Agile Projects


Book Description

Your Hands-On, "In-the-Trenches" Guide to Successfully Leading AgileProjectsAgile methods promise to infuse development with unprecedented flexibility, speed, and valueand these promises are attracting IT organizations worldwide. However, agile methods often fail to clearly define the manager s role, and many managers have been reluctant to buy in. Now, expert project manager Sanjiv Augustine introduces agility "from the manager s point of view, offering a proven management framework that addresses everything from team building to project control. Augustine bridges the disconnect between the assumptions and techniques of traditional and agile management, demonstrating why agility is better aligned with today s project realities, and how to simplify your transition. Using a detailed case study, he shows how agile methods can scale to succeed in even the largest projects: Defining a high-value role for the manager in agile project environmentsRefocusing on "outcomes--not rigid plans, processes, or controlsStructuring and building adaptive, self-organizing "organic teams"Forming a guiding vision that aligns your team behind a common purposeEmpowering your team with the information it needs to succeedManaging the flow of customer value from one creative stage to the nextLeveraging your team members strengths as "whole persons"Implementing full-life-cycle agility: from planning and coding to maintenance and knowledge transfer Customizing agile methods to your unique environmentBecoming an "adaptive leader" who can inspire and energize agile teams Whether you re a technical or business manager, "Managing Agile Projectsgives you all the tools you need to implement agility in "your environmentand reap its full benefits. "Managing Agile Projects is part of the Robert C. Martin series.(c) Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.




Agile Software Requirements


Book Description

“We need better approaches to understanding and managing software requirements, and Dean provides them in this book. He draws ideas from three very useful intellectual pools: classical management practices, Agile methods, and lean product development. By combining the strengths of these three approaches, he has produced something that works better than any one in isolation.” –From the Foreword by Don Reinertsen, President of Reinertsen & Associates; author of Managing the Design Factory; and leading expert on rapid product development Effective requirements discovery and analysis is a critical best practice for serious application development. Until now, however, requirements and Agile methods have rarely coexisted peacefully. For many enterprises considering Agile approaches, the absence of effective and scalable Agile requirements processes has been a showstopper for Agile adoption. In Agile Software Requirements, Dean Leffingwell shows exactly how to create effective requirements in Agile environments. Part I presents the “big picture” of Agile requirements in the enterprise, and describes an overall process model for Agile requirements at the project team, program, and portfolio levels Part II describes a simple and lightweight, yet comprehensive model that Agile project teams can use to manage requirements Part III shows how to develop Agile requirements for complex systems that require the cooperation of multiple teams Part IV guides enterprises in developing Agile requirements for ever-larger “systems of systems,” application suites, and product portfolios This book will help you leverage the benefits of Agile without sacrificing the value of effective requirements discovery and analysis. You’ll find proven solutions you can apply right now–whether you’re a software developer or tester, executive, project/program manager, architect, or team leader.




Doing Agile Right


Book Description

Agile has the power to transform work--but only if it's implemented the right way. For decades business leaders have been painfully aware of a huge chasm: They aspire to create nimble, flexible enterprises. But their day-to-day reality is silos, sluggish processes, and stalled innovation. Today, agile is hailed as the essential bridge across this chasm, with the potential to transform a company and catapult it to the head of the pack. Not so fast. In this clear-eyed, indispensable book, Bain & Company thought leader Darrell Rigby and his colleagues Sarah Elk and Steve Berez provide a much-needed reality check. They dispel the myths and misconceptions that have accompanied agile's rise to prominence--the idea that it can reshape an organization all at once, for instance, or that it should be used in every function and for all types of work. They illustrate that agile teams can indeed be powerful, making people's jobs more rewarding and turbocharging innovation, but such results are possible only if the method is fully understood and implemented the right way. The key, they argue, is balance. Every organization must optimize and tightly control some of its operations, and at the same time innovate. Agile, done well, enables vigorous innovation without sacrificing the efficiency and reliability essential to traditional operations. The authors break down how agile really works, show what not to do, and explain the crucial importance of scaling agile properly in order to reap its full benefit. They then lay out a road map for leading the transition to a truly agile enterprise. Agile isn't a goal in itself; it's a means to becoming a high-performance operation. Doing Agile Right is a must-have guide for any company trying to make the transition--or trying to sustain high agility.