THE DILIGENCE FIX

Williams sounds a call for maintaining proper priorities in the world of sales.

At the heart of this business book is a warning: When organizations limit their sales teams’ focus solely to revenue generation, the strategy often leads to long-term negative consequences. The problem lies at the heart of most commercial enterprises; the author notes, “A company’s very existence will rise and fall on its sales performance,” but “time is the salesperson’s most limited nonrenewable resource.” As Williams observes, the call for greater and greater profits can eventually set up sales teams to fail at adapting to new circumstances. “The more your team has to adjust to the demands of higher productivity, the more likely new and more complex behavioral issues will emerge,” she writes. “Chances are those basic competencies aren’t nuanced enough to help you diagnose these new problems.” Whether in the world of business-to-business (B2B) or commercial enterprise, Williams identifies the same problems: Executive buyers overwhelmingly report that sellers are unprepared, uninformed, or both. The author advocates for greater diligence, centering two distinct elements: core selling and personal leadership qualities. “When diligence blooms,” she writes, “you see consistent outputs like persuasion, grit, resilience, accountability, and more.” Williams has some tough truths to convey, but her tone throughout radiates can-do empathy that even skeptical business-world readers will find convincing. Her precepts are winningly simple, mostly revolving around sales people paying careful, consistent attention (“listening is a choice to be made over and over again,” she writes). And the underlying message—that concentrating on profits can be taken too far—is certainly welcome.

A forceful and clear-eyed plan for sales forces to adapt to new realities.