We are grateful to all our customers for another successful year. Happy Thanksgiving from Malinee Churanakoses and myself here at Flannery Sales Systems. Thank you to Tom Martin, John Zimmer, Amanda Trinder and Lisa Nicholas.
Renato Beninatto and I have been having conversations for 25 years. The first was in Los Angeles in 2000, when he hired me to lead the North American sales team at Berlitz GlobalNET. The most recent? A conversation we recorded last week for this podcast, What Buyers Really Want.
Between those two milestones, we’ve had dozens of conversations across 11 countries, in dialogues with over 250 attendees at sales process workshops, and during more than a few memorable meals. One of the most special? Sharing dinner with our wives while overlooking the Mediterranean from a villa in Tuscany.
In the video above, Renato shares a wealth of insights on how to Establish Value with your customers to stay relevant in the conversation and uncover new business opportunities with both existing and prospective clients. This research is based on 60 meetings with buyers conducted in Europe, North America, and Australia.
If you’ve been wondering:
- How do today’s buyers really make decisions?
- Where can I bring more value into my customer conversations?
- What’s changed (and what hasn’t) in buyer behavior?
Renato and I cover these topics, and tactics to improve your results.
After you watch and listen, please reply and let us know:
- What parts of this exchange resonated the most for you?
- How are you working to establish value with your customers today?
Until next time, thank you Renato!
John traveled to San Francisco recently to attend some events around the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. Click on the video to learn more about organic revenue growth.
The energy on Wall Street is palpable. And as Sales organizations round out this year, and prep for 2025, that momentum has to carry through all team members. Listen in on how to harness that power for success.
The “March Madness” basketball tournament, formally known as the NCAA Mens/Womens Basketball Championship, is the pinnacle showcase for skill mastery in the collegiate basketball world. This year, my alma mater, the Aztecs of San Diego State University (SDSU), had a spectacular run-up to the championship match.
What The Aztecs did so well is similar to the work we do with our customers’ sales teams, albeit in a different “business setting.” Coach Brian Dutcher of SDSU has refined and reinforced their process (sports leaders will often call it a system), relied on tools, committed to Coaching and focused on continuous skill improvement.
For his team, those skills include bouncing and shooting a ball, playing defense, and getting rebounds. For the sales teams we work with, the key skills are proactively developing new business, identifying business objectives, establishing value, accessing key players, managing the buying process, and (of course) negotiating and closing.
How are you getting better today? Are your sales leaders doing everything they can do to ensure that all customer-facing roles have the skills they need to win? Don’t wait to improve—the competition sure won’t.
There are times in our lives when watching an event unfold where we know that we have to do something. Moving on to the next thing on our daily To Do list is just not enough.
In March of this year, I received a strong message that I needed to help the victims of the war in Ukraine. And it’s a confusing feeling, as what I can I do, other than donating money, from 6,000 miles away from the conflict?
Enter John P. Lynch, my friend (introduced by Stephen O’Connor) who is originally from the East Coast of the USA, and the Founder and Director of the Corporate Aid for Ukraine John created CAU to help the Ukrainians who were pouring into Poland to escape the conflict. He has lived near Krakow for a long time with his family and sent ideas on where I could go to volunteer in June.
The Multicultural Centre in Krakow (here is a sign-up sheet if you want to volunteer: https://ib-polska.pl ) was the organization that I chose, a group that established a clothes collection and distribution center in Krakow. On arrival to the group, I was given a Health and Safety briefing, an introduction to other volunteers for the shifts, and put to work in the warehouse.
Initially, I worked at the front door of the facility to greet the refugees who were coming to get donated clothing. My counterpart was a young Ukrainian woman who spoke Polish, English, and Ukrainian. We managed the headcount of the beneficiaries, made small talk and smiled, and kept the line moving in an orderly capacity.
Some people seemed fine, while others had a faraway look that reflected the grief they were enduring having walked away from their homes with just the clothes on their backs. One woman, with tears in her eyes, showed us a picture of her 19-year-old son who was still in Ukraine. Over 400 people went through the lines each day, mostly women and children, as men above 16 and younger than 60 were required to stay in Ukraine.
During the afternoons of my shifts with the volunteer team, we unpacked boxes of donated clothes into the various categories for women, men, and children by size, function, etc. This was a great opportunity to meet and speak with the other volunteers, many of them who had a direct connection with a Ukrainian family member or loved one. Their stories of how and why they arrived to help were beautiful and inspirational.
If you can, sign up to help these organizations who are combating the atrocity of this war. The perspective I gained is hard to put into written words or when sharing the stories with others. In my opinion, we are all one and have to help each other while standing up to those who would harm others. Until next time, peace to the victims of the war and the wonderful volunteers I met in Krakow.
Selling Power, the leading media company for B2B sales leaders and the publisher of Selling Power magazine, has named Flannery Sales Systems a Leading Training Company in 2022.
FREDERICKSBURG, VA. (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 03, 2022
For over four decades, Selling Power has worked with sales training companies who help sales teams and executive leaders produce better revenue results for their companies. The Selling Power leadership team says this designation speaks to the best-in-class strategies and measurable ROI that Flannery Sales Systems delivers to its clients.
Selling Power founder and CEO Gerhard Gschwandtner says: “Flannery Sales Systems provides sales leaders with a proven sales process to create repeatable revenue generation that maintains focus on the customer. The wisdom and strategic insight Flannery Sales Systems provides is an extremely valuable resource for any sales leader who wants to help their sales team reach the next level of success in 2022.”
“Companies are finding that the marketplace is demanding that their sales organizations are focused and methodical,” says John E. Flannery, President of Flannery Sales Systems. “We train sales executives to define and implement a repeatable process dedicated to revenue generation. This approach reframes traditional selling behaviors and enhances the potential of individuals willing to embrace it.”
About Selling Power
In addition to Selling Power magazine, the leading publication for sales VPs since 1981, Selling Power Inc. produces the Sales Management Digest and Daily Boost of Positivity e-newsletters, as well as a series of five-minute videos featuring interviews with leading business executives. Selling Power is a regular media sponsor of the Sales 3.0 Conference. Learn more at http://www.sellingpower.com.
About Flannery Sales Systems, LLC
FSS is a leading sales process training company that works with customers to develop specific revenue generation programs. They also provide the supporting implementation services to help companies maximize their investment and drive results.
With 35 years of sales, sales management, and business ownership experience, FSS has a comprehensive understanding of how sales organizations run. The FSS team has worked with customers across 17 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and the attendees of these programs represent 21 different languages.




