What sales people can learn from the Jacob Zuma acquitted

This is a summarised version of the full article that can be found here. Jacob Zuma gave himself an even chance of getting off the charges leveled at him. He stayed in the ring long enough to win. The National Prosecuting Office stayed in too long - 7 years. On 6 April 2009 he won. All charges levelled at him were dropped..

What is the lesson that sales and marketing professionals can take away from this?

The longer you stay in the fight, the more chance you have of getting knocked out.

Put another way, the longer your sales cycle is, the more chance you have of making a mistake and losing the sale. Companies that have long sales cycles (six to 24 months) risk offending key players and messing up on promises.

Shorten your sales cycle so that there's less chance of making mistakes and more chance of winning a deal.

For the full article go to Jacob Zuma acquittal.

Jacques de Villiers is a motivational speaker and runss sales training courses in South Africa.