What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us? All Roads Lead To Rome.
Seemingly this is a reference to Roman roads in general and, specifically, the Milliarium Aureum, the Golden Milestone, a monument, probably of gilded bronze, erected by Caesar Augustus in the central Forum of Ancient Rome. All roads were considered to begin from this monument and all distances in the Roman Empire were measured relative to that point. On it were perhaps listed all the major cities in the empire and distances to them. The Romans were extremely skilled road makers and they were also the first to use mile-markers.
This got me to thinking whether there might be an analogy here for sales, particularly those in which I am interested that are business-to-business transactions characterised by being complex and high value requiring a consultative peer-to-peer approach. Is there, for example, a “Golden Milestone” in a sales process to which all roads, ie: conversations, lead and from which they then depart? And, if there is such a milestone, how would it be described, how would you know it? I believe there is.
It would be recognised by the following specification: “The conversation during which a senior executive with access to unbudgeted funds recognises and admits to the seller that there is a key performance indicator for which they are responsible and held accountable that is performing sub-optimally to such an extent that there are measurable cost-of-delay consequences so acute that doing nothing is not an option and for which they are therefore prepared to authorise the commitment of company resources to address”.
What if a seller could produce such data that had been validated by and documented with customer-verifiable-evidence from the buyer? Would that not be a “Golden Milestone”? Would that indeed be a “monument” to which all conversations (read roads) drive towards and from which all conversations lead to a definable end point with measurable sales stages (read mile-markers) along the way? How would that help with improving forecasting accuracy and consistency?
So, to re-purpose the opening statement: “All sales conversations should lead to and from a defined, documented, understood, implemented golden milestone used by all”.
And apart from what have the Romans ever done for us?...they could also claim they have informed the selling process!
John,
If you are curious about this, register your interest by contacting me, John Busby, to discuss at: jb@bkc.net; + 44 7968 066 165
Copyright©2014 John Busby