I am a sales gal. You’re a boy working in marketing. I’m not sure I understand what that means—but I know that you get the glamor and I am measured every day by what I deliver.

Mutual respect and understanding—with the customer at the center—is what we need. If you make promises, then you need to deliver on them and don’t obfuscate. I will try to hold up my end.

There are at least two sides to every story. From a seller’s perspective—here’s a list to consider.

1. Selling is hard. Harder than you may ever realize. So if I seem stressed, cut me some slack.
2. I need you to be successful so I will help in any way that I can.
3. Selling is personal. When I make a promise I have to keep it. If you force me to break that promise (by changing processes, features or a rollout schedule) I will never forgive you.
4. I’m trying to change people’s minds, one person at a time. So unless you give me a smart sales process to follow, I can’t tell you when the sale will close. (You need to follow the process as well—so then we will both know what works and what doesn’t.)
5. I care about my customers. A lot. I want to help them solve their business problems. If you don’t understand their problems – you can’t help me.
6. Just because I am a girl doesn’t mean this is me being emotional. The boys care as much about their customers.
7. I believe we have great products. But the customers don’t care about that. They only care about how our products solve their problems. You don’t get to call them (our products) ‘solutions’. Only the customer can call then ‘solutions’. Help me out here.
8. I love selling. I particularly love selling great stuff, well marketed. Don’t let me down. Don’t ask me to sell lousy stuff, poorly packaged.
9. I’m extremely focused on the reward half of the equation. Salespeople love to keep score, and that’s how I keep score. So don’t change the rules in the middle, please.
10. There is no comparison, none, between an inbound call (one that you created with marketing) and a cold call (one that you instructed me to create with a phone book.) Your job is to make it so I never need to make a cold call.
11. I don’t care about the color of our logo. Just sayin’.
12. I need you to fill the top of the funnel—you know that. But your deal doesn’t stop there. I need marketing support to help move deals through the funnel.
13. I know my job is to work my network and keep my customers happy so that I can find opportunities on my own as well.
14. Customers don’t respond to generic value propositions designed for a persona or a segment. Though they may be similar, each customer is unique. Partner with me on my account plan or my deal review so you understand what I mean.
15. My customers are my best marketing partners. I know that you think you are – but you can be more effective if you help me amplify my customer’s success stories.
16. Every once in awhile I actually learn something in the field. Ask!
17. I know that sometimes you’d like to get rid of me and just take orders on the web. But that’s always going to be the low-hanging fruit. The game-changing sales, at least for now, come from real people interacting with real people. Here’s a short book about that.
18. Selling is hard and unpredictable. But I also know that you’ve got to be prepared to measure and predict and plan. That means that I can’t keep what I’m doing a secret. I need to provide feedback to you.
19. If you think I can do a better job explaining what benefits we deliver to a customer, please tell me what I can do better. I won’t be offended.
20. I also know that the two worst pieces of feedback I can give you—because neither is really actionable or especially effective—are a) lower the price, and b) make our products just like our competitors.
21. We have lots of customers who are happy with our products. Do you know why? If you do, please tell me. If you don’t please find out.
22. It is really all about the customer. If you need to understand what I mean, read this.
23. When you work hard and deliver real opportunities to me, my job is to follow up promptly. Sometimes I don’t do that—sorry. I will try to do better.
24. I don’t really want to break up with you.

Mandy xx

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Donal Daly is Executive Chairman of Altify having founded the company in 2005. He is author of numerous books and ebooks including the Amazon #1 Best-sellers Account Planning in Salesforce and Tomorrow | Today: How AI Impacts How We Work, Live, and Think. Altify is Donal’s fifth global business enterprise.