LaVon's Blog
No Excuses - Just Results

LaVon Koerner, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Revenue Storm, shares his thoughts and philosophies on selling in today's market. Post your comments on these topics plus gain access to Whitepapers and recent articles.

Current Topics:

12.2.08 He Was Outsold!: The results from our polls on the U.S. Presidential election revealed some "telling" conclusions.

9.21.08 Presidential Campaign Analysis: The general election is now at full throttle with the Democrat and Republican conventions behind us and the Vice Presidential candidates named. With this as the contextual reality, it is a good time to analyze how each candidate has positioned himself from a "strategy" perspective for his campaign. Revenue Storm has a saying, "Most sales campaigns are lost at the beginning of the campaign, not at the end. The salesperson just doesn't find out until the very end.

8.21.08 Bad partner decisions are a reflection of faulty decision criteria: As we watch our Presidential contenders select their Vice Presidential candidates, we witness their individual exercise of judgment. This one decision has the potential to reveal character flaws, if we know what to look for. The same is equally true when a Salesperson selects a partner to round out their solution. This one decision holds the potential to "make" or "break" the election or buying decision.

5.13.08 Leveraging Power Struggles and Avoiding Power Plays: We all know that political campaigns can turn ugly, just like some sales campaigns. But where do they cross the line from being a healthy Power Struggle into a unhealthy Power Play? What are the rules of engagement in a political contest or in a Sales contest when we are up against some aggressive competitors? Is all fair in love and war? Or, are there some rules for trying to "best" your competitor? My Political Analysis #3 deals with some of these questions in a manner that we sales people can learn from the current Presidential election.

4.25.08 How Obama has Outsold Clinton: As America's presidential race continues to take center stage in the media, pundits are having a field day with analysis and predictions. But as is often the case, their focus is on personalities, and events. Rarely do they evaluate the candidates execution of an specific strategy. And as one sales person to another, I find this type of analysis very rewarding. Have you thought about the strategy Obama used to come from nowhere to take the lead? I have, and I came to some surprising conclusions supported by little discussed facts.

3.12.08 Making Customers Instead of Finding Them: If customer demand for your products and services begin to dry up and what little demand that survives can be serviced by a more cost effective way, what happens to the role of the sales professional?

2.11.08 Sales Analysis of Current Political Campaigns: A highly competitive and public sales campaign is being waged in front of our eyes. The political campaigns for President of the United States invite those of us who love the profession of "selling" to analyze every move of the candidates in light of best practices and methods of proven sales techniques.