Ten years ago, I built a sales organization that leveraged, what I was calling at the time, pursuit selling teams to drive revenue. The idea was, our product, the clients needs and the environment were sufficiently complicated enough that it required different folks from different parts of our organization to maximize our chances of closing the deal. We knew it would be much harder to win sending the sales person out there by themselves. Our pursuit teams consisted of folks from; product, sales engineering, legal, customer service, operations and delivery.  These teams were collectively under the leadership of the sales person. The sales person was the “QB” and was responsible for the deployment of the people resources and the management of the  sale, the sales cycle and the deal strategy. It was their sale BUT, they had to use, and use appropriately the other members of the pursuit team.

Using this model, we successfully cornered the Voip 911 market, securing 95% market share BEFORE the FCC mandated 911 compliance on all Voip phones. It was a kick ass time to be on that team.

I’ve been a big fan of pursuit team selling since then, but haven’t seen it much lately.  So, it was nice to see this infographic from Barbara Weaver Smith at The Whale Hunters.

This is great.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the more complex a deal is the more resources required to close it. Sales people are not capable nor should they be expected to close large, complex deals on their own. Those days are over.

Sales people need resources to make the sale and that includes people resources. Pursuit team selling is a real solution to landing the big deal. Don’t be shy, start building your pursuit teams  now. The more the merrier I say!