26 October 2009 | Rich Blakeman

I spent the morning on Friday at the invitation of the ZOLL Medical global sales team, speaking to their amazing worldwide force – 375 strong.

In order to ensure value and impact for ZOLL, we did what we do. What was the leadership team trying to accomplish, fix or avoid? What unique strengths do they possess, and how can they leverage them with each buying influence in their customers’ buying processes? So many questions, so little time.

At the end of the day, the ZOLL team came away with a unanimous assessment of high value delivered. High praise coming from an audience hungry to start their year off with a bang and get a strong head start on their objectives – we followed our process, and achieved our objectives…creating value for ZOLL.

What lessons were there in the work (without giving away ZOLL’s secret sauce)?

• Unanimous affirmation for the meeting’s mantra:  New Opportunities, New Approaches. Affirmed in parallel to one of our shared basic principles: “Whatever it was that got you where you are today is not sufficient to keep you there.”

• Concurrence across business units and around the world that there are three things that you should always know about your customers:

1. Why have they chosen to do business with you?
2. What are you helping them accomplish, fix, or avoid?
3. Do you have senior contacts within your accounts who understand why your company can uniquely service them?

• A reminder of what it takes to land an airplane in the Hudson River and have 155 survivors:  By the book…follow your process…don’t fly by the seat of your pants.

• Complete agreement on what it takes to overcome the fear of calling higher and out of your comfort zone.

• Common definitions for otherwise fuzzy concepts that are critical to ZOLL success – value proposition, differentiation, business results and personal wins.

And finally the lessons taught by seagulls, pelicans, Nemo’s dad, Dora, and Herb Brooks – but that’s a story for another day.

Want to know more? Call someone from the ZOLL sales team. They’ll be glad to help.