Why Most Sales Strategies Fail Without Tactical Execution

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When I think of the word “insights” as it relates to our business (sales process), the name Anthony Iannarino comes to mind. Anthony sees things differently, before and after they happen in the marketplace. I have relied on him for business and personal topics for several years, and am pleased to call him a friend and colleague.

And thanks for this GREAT article below. Pictured here at The Kennedy Space Center Selling Power 3.0 Conference hosted by Gerhard Gschwandtner in December 2022. We watched a rocket land upright that day….unbelievable!

Article Below By Anthony Iannarino 

International Speaker, Sales Leader, Writer, Author

Strategy without tactics is like a blueprint with no builders—useless, no matter how brilliant it looks on paper.

Most of the time, leaders and managers are hyper-focused on strategy. That’s understandable. Strategy is the exciting part. It’s the big idea, the grand vision, the framework that’s going to guide the team toward a better future. But while strategy is important—crucial, even—it’s rarely enough to produce the outcomes we need in the real world.

To make this practical, let’s look at the idea through the lens of B2B sales. Sales leaders, sales managers, and frontline sellers often put their faith in the overarching strategy. They believe their sales approach—whether consultative, value-based, or insight-driven—is what’s going to produce results. And they’re half right.

My strategy, for example, is to be One-Up (see Elite Sales Strategies: A Guide to Being One-Up, Creating Value, and Becoming Truly Consultative). That means I show up as the expert in the conversation. I am the person with the authority, the insight, and the experience to create value for my clients—often in ways they didn’t expect.

But here’s the truth most people miss: even the best strategy dies on the vine without the right tactics. A strategy without tactical execution is impotent. It can’t do the heavy lifting. It can’t produce outcomes on its own. It’s nothing but an elegant theory.

Let me say it another way. A strategy without a supporting set of modern sales tactics is a failure waiting to happen.

Over time, through building sales methodologies and frameworks for hundreds of clients, I’ve identified the tactical levers that bring strategies to life. These tactics are not arbitrary. They’re designed to create value inside the sales conversation—where deals are won or lost. Below is a short list of effective B2B sales tactics that support any value-based or consultative strategy.

Modern B2B Sales Tactics That Make Strategy Work

Insight-Led Discovery – Don’t start by asking the same tired questions as your competitors. Begin discovery with insights about your client’s market, their industry shifts, or economic trends. This repositions you immediately and reframes how the client sees their challenges.

Problem Reframing – Most clients describe their symptoms, not their disease. One of your jobs is to help them see the root cause of their issues—often something deeper, more structural, and more strategic than they realized.

Gap Analysis – Use data to calculate the distance between where the client is now and where they want to be. Show them, in real terms, the ROI of making a change. This makes your solution a business decision, not just a purchase.

Strategic Questioning – Don’t just ask questions—craft questions that create clarity, uncover blind spots, and connect tactical pain to strategic risk. Your questions should do more than gather information; they should deliver value.

Pain Amplification – Not in a manipulative way—but in a real, ethical way. Clients often underestimate the cost of doing nothing. Help them explore the implications of inaction and align internal stakeholders around the urgency to change.

As a strategist, your job is not done until you’ve defined the tactics required to execute. If you’re a sales leader, a manager, or a consultant, you must also be a tactician. Otherwise, your strategy is nothing more than an aspiration.

The future belongs to those who can marry strategy with execution—who can connect ideas to actions that produce results. The tactics above are just a handful from a longer list I use with clients to drive real-world outcomes in enterprise sales environments.

If your sales strategy isn’t producing, don’t revise the strategy first. Look at your tactics. That’s where the gap almost always lives.

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Kevin Leak Testimonial for Flannery Sales Systems

We’re honored to share this fantastic testimonial from Kevin Leak who has partnered with us twice to strengthen his teams and drive revenue through our sales process training workshops.

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How Sales Process Generates Revenue

By one definition, process is “a series of steps with input and output.” Whether you are aware of it or not, process impacts our lives from the moment we are born. My kids go through a process to get out the door to school every morning. The orange juice they drank also went through a process to get to the table. Their teachers go through the process to advance their learning over a year’s time. All these processes are designed to get a predictable outcome.

In business, a well-defined sales process can lead to year in, year out predictable revenue. Wall Street rewards public companies based on their ability to annually predict their earnings. Some miss wildly and some are spot on. How can this be achieved? Look to the sales process, the organizational engine that generates the revenue. Here are few ways that sales process can help to generate revenue more effectively:

1. Use objective criteria – once defined, a sales process provides objective criteria and the framework to make decisions. Say a sales group is underperforming. What numbers or facts are available through sales process to pinpoint the problem? From the pipeline or opportunity review standpoint, there are specific data points you can rely on for analysis. Is it in the types of clients you are calling on? Are your sellers getting stuck in prolonged evaluations that never yield a decision? Or is it in the close ratio? It may not matter where the problem is, what really matters is that you are able to look at each problem objectively with certain criteria and then correct the course.

2. Allocate human and technological resources – How much should we spend to hire and train people? Or how much should be invested in CRM or other sophisticated software tailored to my business? As you pinpoint where bottlenecks exist, the lens you look through will help to determine if people or technology is needed to help improve. On the front end of the process, many solid lead generation services exist to help identify qualified opportunities. It’s my experience that the challenges towards the end of the selling process come in the form of the skills of the seller, or ability to effectively negotiate and close.

3. Increase visibility into new areas for growth – This may be viewed as an ethereal, strategic choice based on gut feel and economic trends, but hard data is needed for this process as well. Sales process delivers the hard data on what types of customers are attracted to your product, and why they are attracted. If this data not captured in a consistent way, then the top management loses connectivity and an ability to analyze trends with proper perspective.

Agree or not, process is King. I have this discussion with sales professionals from all industries . We learn how each person implements process in their industry, what’s working and what’s not. Broaden your understanding, challenge your thinking and, hopefully, define or refine your sales process. Tonight at home, however, I’ll be taking my queues from the process Queen. When the process Queen is happy we are all happy. It’s also my home recipe for predictable success.

Flannery Sales Systems (www.drive-revenue.com) helps organizations define or refine and implement a repeatable sales process. Increasing revenue through sales process is the ultimate goal. Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident we can enhance your results.

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How John Flannery Built a 20-Year Sales Training Success Story by Mastering Process

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By Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO of Selling Power Magazine

There’s a particular look that some entrepreneurs wear like a tailored suit. A mix of modest confidence and deep-seated grit. John Flannery wore that look when I sat down with him—plus an actual tuxedo, in honor of his company’s 20th anniversary.

Two decades of building a business from scratch. That’s rarefied air in the sales training world, where trends change with every algorithm tweak and buzzwords have shorter half-lives than TikTok memes. But Flannery isn’t a trend chaser. He’s a process guy. A clarity guy. The kind of leader who spotted a systemic flaw in big companies—that the larger the organization, the more cracks you’ll find in the sales process —and built a business to fix it.

“I had a good business once,” Flannery tells me, reflecting on his early ventures in wireless tech. “But the partnership didn’t work out.” That’s the sort of line that sounds easy in hindsight but stings in real-time. What followed was a stint working for someone else—a career detour that, for many entrepreneurs, feels like purgatory. But purgatory, as it turns out, is a great place to study the system. And Flannery noticed something: sales processes in big organizations were bloated, fragmented, and increasingly ineffective.

Then came a spark. A trainer he was working with introduced him to a nimble model for sales development. That moment? That was Flannery’s founding motivation. He didn’t just launch a company—he declared a war on complexity. And he armed himself with simplicity, repeatability, and, most of all, a repeatable, adaptable, highly effective process.

Early success came wrapped in grit. “I was 14 months in, still prospecting,” he recalls. Then, like a plot twist in a feel-good movie, a referral introduced him to the president of a scientific distribution company. What started as a one-year contract for 400 employees bloomed into a six-year partnership impacting over 1,100 people.

“That was the anchor tenant,” Flannery says. You can hear the gratitude in his voice. But also the strategy. He knew how to land a whale and build a processing ship around it.

Then came the pandemic—the great disrupter of handshakes in hotel sales conference rooms. Twenty-one in-person workshops, vaporized in a week. On March 12, Flannery was flying back from Philadelphia. On March 13, the country shut down. The old model—face-to-face training—was dead. Online video technology took off.

It could have been a death knell. Instead, it was a pivot. Flannery adapted quickly, transforming 15 of those 21 sessions into virtual trainings. “We had to get good behind the lights,” he says. And fast.

Now, the next tidal wave looms: artificial intelligence. While some view it as a threat to human touch, Flannery sees opportunity in its algorithmic prowess. “Coaching is where AI will lift us the most,” he tells me. His team is working with developers to embed AI into sales coaching—using machine intelligence to tee up the right questions, identify risk signals early, and accelerate pipeline movement before a human coach ever steps in.

This isn’t about replacing the human touch. It’s about preparing it.

As Flannery gears up for the third decade in his business, he’s not chasing novelty. He’s chasing effectiveness. That’s the difference. And maybe the key lesson.

In the end, John Flannery isn’t just building a better sales process. He’s building something more enduring: trust through structure, clarity through chaos, and momentum through meaningful work.

If you’re wondering what it takes to last 20 years in sales training, don’t just study his methods. Study his mindset.

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The Value of Being Face to Face: Reflections from an SDSU Event at WD-40

Last month, the Fowler College of Business at San Diego State University (SDSU — my alma mater) hosted an on-site event at WD-40 Company.
Most know WD-40 as one of the world’s most iconic brands in the “all-purpose” mechanical lubricant market.

The gathering brought together a dynamic mix of business and academic leaders, with approximately 90 professionals in attendance.

Here’s a quick summary of the event:

Hot off the Press: SDSU Research and Insights for Business Leaders
Attendees received an exclusive preview of cutting-edge research ahead of its formal presentation at the Academy of Management conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The session featured panels led by SDSU’s distinguished professors, addressing today’s critical business challenges, including:

  • Exclusive insights from thought leaders before they hit the global stage.
  • Strategies to stay ahead of emerging trends in management and leadership.
  • Opportunities to network with top industry leaders and innovators.

The topics were timely, insightful, and sparked thoughtful discussions throughout the three-hour session.

However, what stood out to me most was a simple but powerful reminder:
There is no substitute for being face to face.

Virtual interactions serve a purpose, but they cannot replicate the energy, collaboration, and relationship-building that happens in person.
While hybrid work arrangements are part of today’s reality, when it comes to building true business connections — business gets done face to face.

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On The Road Again: Providence, Rhode Island

 

B2B Sales Job Seeker Checklist 

Before you review the Checklist below, does everybody you know understand that you are looking for a job? I’m not saying to bring it up first thing at a birthday party, but you should let people close to you know what you are looking for. And then, get on LinkedIn and make those connections to ALL the people who have crossed your path, business and personal.  Alright, proceed below….. 

1. Understand Yourself, and Where You Want to be 

  • Identify your sales strengths (e.g., prospecting, closing, relationship building) 
  •  Know your industry preferences and company type (S, M, L) 
  •  Understand your career goals: entry-level, account exec, sales manager, etc. 

2. Sharpen the Saw 

  • Understand CRM tools (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho) 
  • Develop core skills: cold calling, email outreach, discovery, objection handling 
  • Improve business acumen: learn a P&L, pain points, and the buying processes 

3. Personal Branding & Resume 

  • Craft a clear, results-oriented resume with B2B language 
  • Tailor your LinkedIn profile for B2B roles (highlight sales numbers, achievements) 
  • Gather and post recommendations from colleagues or past clients 

4. Targeting Companies 

  • Identify target industries and regions 
  • Build a list of companies hiring for B2B sales roles 
  • Research each company’s business model, growth, and product offerings 
  • Use Glassdoor/LinkedIn to assess company culture and reputation 

5. Job Application Process 

  • Find the Hiring Manager or a connection to that person. Speak with them FIRST 
  • Apply directly through company sites or via LinkedIn 
  • Reach out to your connections for referrals to Hiring Managers 
  • Track your applications in a spreadsheet or job tracker tool 

6. Practice, Practice, Practice 

  • Be ready to explain your sales process, metrics, and customer stories (if you have experience; if not relevant school curriculum) 
  • Prepare questions for the employer (their customers, team structure, quotas, training, territory) 
  • Refine virtual interview etiquette (camera, lighting, tone, etc.) 

7. Networking 

  • Join industry groups (LinkedIn, Meetup, local business orgs) 
  • Attend webinars or B2B sales events 
  • Consider finding a mentor in B2B sales 

Then comes the offer, and your negotiation to get the best compensation package. Let me know when that happens, I’m happy to help. 

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Your Tipping Point: What made it all work?

John speaks with Selling Powers’ Gerhard  Gschwandtner about the one moment that made it all work for him when starting his sales training organization.

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Month and Quarter End Discounting Sets Bad Precedents

If you listen carefully today, you can hear salespeople out there in the field discounting to get opportunities closed here at the end of the month/quarter to make their revenue plans. What they need to know, that in the absence of establishing the value of your product or service, this tactic will backfire on them in many ways. And seasoned buyers know all about this goat rodeo, and will play the game all the way up to March 33rd to get what they want.

How do you stop this predictable cycle from happening?

During a phone conversation with a VP of Sales, he told me that his team was busy “cutting deals” to hit their annual revenue plan. This is not selling, and the words chosen made my skin crawl. If your team seems to rely on discounting to get orders, maybe you need to focus more attention on your sales process and developing your team to sell value.  The value the customer will receive by using your product or service, not the discount they will get from price list.   Building the discipline to ask the customers the right questions to qualify them as a high or low margin opportunity is a learned skill.  It takes restraint for sales people who have been conditioned to close, close, close.  We know that margins can be improved with well trained sales teams and we’ve seen that happen hundreds of times.

Maximizing your profit margin doesn’t happen by accident.  It won’t happen by sending out a memo targeting desired margins for the coming reporting period either.  It is a result of leadership identifying the development plans needed for the sales team, providing the training, giving feedback on performance and ongoing coaching to reinforce the process that has been identified to close deals without needing to resort to deep discounts.

Revenue is important and sales quotas are an important part of a business plan.  Discounting adds risk as it increases the amount of products to manufacture or services that need to be delivered to achieve a given profit goal.  Start today to protect your margins in future quarters.  Having regular deal reviews will open your eyes to the reliability and quality of the opportunities in your pipeline.  Want to buy some margin insurance?  The time is now.

Flannery Sales Systems helps organizations develop and implement a repeatable sales process.  Improving the effectiveness of your sales organization is the key outcome we provide to clients.  We would welcome an opportunity to explore your needs and understand where your team could benefit from improved skills and sales processes.  Flannery Sales Systems works with a broad cross section of industries and we are confident we can enhance your results.

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Confidence is Critical for Sales Success

Confidence is an important component for success in Sales. In fact, it is critical to success in any pursuit in our personal or professional lives.

In the video above, John talks to Gerhard Schwandtner, Founder and President of Selling Power about how he gained the confidence to start Flannery Sales Systems 20 years ago. A solid network of connections, 13 years of sales experience (at the time- it’s now 38) and an indefatigable work ethic are the combination that bloomed into that confidence. Another important piece for confidence is preparation.

In a conversation with Aaron Rodgers (Super Bowl-winning quarterback) several years ago, John discussed with Aaron his regimented approach to preparation. What are the components that you have or use to create confidence? And how do you pass that on to others?

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