Meetings don't kill people. Bad meetings kill people.
Archive for Andy Wiedlin 
Shadows in the Cave: Getting to the Truth in Sales
Posted by Andy Wiedlin on September 6th, 2012 at 9:47 am
One of my favorite parables is Plato's Allegory of the Cave. It is a simple but deep analysis of the human condition, and it also applies to our world of professional sales. In the cave and in real life it's hard to distinguish shadows from truth. But in all things, we need to find truth in order to take effective action and find success.
Too often sales people accept the excuse that we were left off a plan because of "budget cuts." We have to realize that "budget cuts" are an excuse: losing a deal because of budget cuts is like a coroner writing the cause of death was due to lack of breathing and a missing heartbeat.
The fact is that people in general do not like to give bad news and will do anything to avoid confrontation. As the great Doug Weaver often says, the opposite of "yes" is not,"no." If you win a deal, an agency will say,"yes" and send you an IO. But if you don't get a deal, they rarely say, "no." Instead, they come up with a litany of reasons why the answer isn't "yes."The truth is that the decision maker for a brand will always... Read more
