I’m going to let you in on a little secret.  I’ll tell you exactly how this was done:

Led worldwide team of 25 men & women to 242.8% worldwide revenue growth from General Electric by in just 12 months.

After I left, this software firm hired the GE manager from their #1 competitor — but he failed and was fired.  In hindsight, the best resumes all failed.  How is this possible?

The success formula is very, very simple — disarmingly so.

Salespeople work for the company name on their paychecks and the products that company makes.  I used a different approach.  I worked for GE, plain and simple.  By working for GE, I saw their point of view and built trust.  I coached reps all over the world.  GE responded.  It worked.

(If you are a VP of Sales and you are looking to hire a superstar, where do you find a customer-centric leadership skills on a resume?)

Let’s be more specific.  This big business intelligence software company made two products — web- based business intelligence and analytics.

My company was a classic 1.0 sales company — whose leadership at the time was solely focused on extracting as much revenue from customers as they can as quickly as possible and to hell with the consequences.  This company is no longer independent and the entire leadership team has been replaced.

GE needed to buy “Digital Cockpits” and “6 Sigma” quality management systems.

My mission was clear.  How can I position off-the-shelf products as solutions to GE needs?  I was clear that if it was to be — it was up to me.

Working with local resources — presales, post sales and marketing, I put together a solution, including marketing.  It was pure skunkworks — zero support from corporate.

After a couple of big wins, I was ready to go worldwide.    Now my goal was to educate and support my worldwide team — in order to make selling to GE easier than their other accounts. My team was identified, supported, led and the results flow.

One interesting fact, I was disappointed in 242.8% growth.  I felt we could do a lot better.  If the company has mere supported the program and focused on solving problems, we could have done twice that number.

This is why I now teach CEOs how to grow revenue by changing their focus.