Ronin is a great film. Ronin is the Japanese word used for Samurai without a master. In this case, the Ronin are specialists whose services are available to everyone - for money. The plot revolves around several Ronin hired to form a team in order to retrieve an important suitcase from a man who is about to sell it to the Russians.

The thing I like is that everyone has a specialist skill which, when blended together, creates the perfect team for the objective. To me, when running a new business campaign, you need that mix of people and skill-sets.

Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) represents the client, or sponsor for the project. She sets the objectives and has the initial strategy outline. Sam (Robert De Niro) is the leader of the team, refining the strategy, and Vincent (Jean Reno) is the local man with the contacts. The remaining team are all about execution; they are the foot soldiers needed to ensure the overall objective is met.

It's an excellent parallel to how we work with our clients. We generally start with a role similar to De Niro's, helping shape the strategy, proposition and plan. Then we take up the Vincent role, finding the contacts and getting the inside scoop to support our clients with execution.

The only problem is that, after a number of betrayals and double-crossings, most of the team end up dead and it finishes with the client being killed by the team leader.

OK, so maybe they'll not get the best testimonial ;-)

Labels: sales, teams

In this month's Salesforce Magazine there is an interesting article about Martin Hess.

Martin is Vice President, Technology Solutions Group, UK and Ireland. He leads the team that sells the entire HP portfolio of products and services to all commercial markets: enterprise, public sector and small and medium-size business.

What caught my eye were his comments about how difficult is was "finding people who combine top sales skills with the confidence to present and understand large solutions - those who are comfortable tend to be consultancy types who find it very difficult to close deals"

He went on to say that the next best thing was to have "Orchestra Conductors" in lead roles who know when and where to bring people in and out of the sales cycle.

I like the metaphor, as that's often the role we play with many of our clients.

The other day a friend in the business called it "Sales Facilitation" - we are facilitating the sales process for our clients, but it's usually the client who finally signs on the dotted line for the big deals.

I'll have to remember to take my baton ;-)

Labels: sales, teams