Lean for Sales ─ Bringing the Science of Lean to the Art of Selling

This book provides readers with a structured and fact-based approach to improving sales close rates and delivering confirmed business value to customers. Using the principles of Lean, it outlines proven techniques to: qualify and document a client’s unique business problem and goal, develop sales proposals using storyboarding and continuous client validation, improve sales team collaboration, and manage sales process performance using a 3-dimensional measurement system that looks beyond revenue to include client value and process effectiveness.

Sean Gillespie is a leading authority on value creation and value delivery in sales engagements, through the use of Lean and Agile tools and techniques. He has enjoyed a 25+ year professional sales career working for 4 of the top 20 software companies, in various senior sales and management roles. From his very first role in sales selling personal computers Sean’s focus has been based on developing strategic relationships with customers that enable tangible customer results. Today Sean works for IBM as a client value leader in IBM systems/software division. Additionally Sean advises the sales management teams on sales progression, success measurement, and sales skills and engagement enhancement.

Michael V. Testani, Sr is a senior business transformation consultant for the IBM Corporation, where he leads operational and culture transformation initiatives across the global IBM enterprise. One of Testani’s primary areas of expertise is helping businesses make a successful Lean transformation, where he has successfully guided many organizations on their Lean journey. Over the last several years, he has been helping to enable Lean and Agile transformation initiatives within the IBM sales organization.

Over his career, Testani has held several corporate leadership positions outside of IBM including, vice president of engineering, plant general manager, director of manufacturing and product manager. He also served as the president and general manager of his own independent consulting company, where he has enabled several clients around the world to adopt Lean principles and practices. He is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, Lean Master, and Agile consultant.

Sreekanth Ramakrishnan, PhD, is a data scientist with IBM Corporate Learning, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In this role, he has global responsibilities for facilitating transformation across IBM Corporation using actionable insights gained from organizational data. He is also responsible to facilitate organizational transformation through Lean and Agile practices.

He is a certified Lean Master and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He has won international awards such as the 2011 IIE Lean Best Practice Award and the 2012 Society of Engineering Management’s "Engineering Manager of the Year" Award. He has also won numerous accolades in learning design and development, such as the Brandon Hall Award.