Every sales cycle follows an S-curve, from the first interaction with client to the final deal and following that. Part A of the S-curve, usually, spreads over a long time period and requires the most effort by the salesperson. In this part, the salesperson tries to build a relationship with the client, and penetrate its multilayered buying group. Since the inherent risks and switching costs for the client are high, the salesperson tries to reduce them by offering alternatives and building trust.

In Jones’s case, all clients, except CG Advertising and General Hospital, are in this part of the S-curve. Therefore, it is important for Jones to develop a relationship with these clients first, before discussing the product details and its benefits. In tackling these clients, Jones is too direct in her approach. She did not focus on building a relationship with the client and leverage that to generate sales. She should focus on EQ and building rapport, as opposed to highlighting the benefits of the product or service.

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In part B of the S-curve, a working relationship and rapport with the client is developed. This can be used to promote products and services, explain life cycle costs and give product demos. This part of the curve is product driven. In the case of CG Advertising and General Hospital, Jones already had a good relationship with the clients’ representatives, and should have used that opportunity to sell the CCC. However, she did not try to sell the CCC to CG Advertising.

Similarly, her follow-up was not very strong. In several instances, she was following up with people after a long duration. For example, she was following up with Betty at Acme Computers after a lapse of six months. Similarly, at Pierson, she had not followed up with Query to retrieve data from him, on the request of Fitzgerald. At ABC Electronics, despite having her friend working there, Jones did not know of the departure of Lawless. In business-to-business context, it is very important that one keeps herself informed of what is happening by building contacts and leveraging on them, since changes can be crucial.

Jones has been having difficulty with the representatives of her clients. Instead of addressing the clients’ issues, she pushes them to listen to her talking about the benefits of the product. In the case of Acme computers, General hospital and Pierson’s, the concerned personnel showed their discontent at having an outsider in their firm to carry out various activities.

They valued the privacy of their work and did not want interference of others. When they showed their discontent towards having outsiders to Jones, she did not address the issue and instead steered the discussion towards the cost benefit of the CCC. Since the sale involves considerable investment on client’s part, it is important for Jones to remove all their related concerns.

An important part of social skills is listening to the client’s needs and concerns and addressing them to the best of one’s abilities. Jones should have listened to the clients, noted their concerns and should have gotten back to them at a later time after sorting out the issues. She should have been innovative, another important part of social competence, and come up with alternatives for her clients.

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In a business-to-business context, a group of people in the organization makes the buying decision. Apparently, Jones only knew, and had contacts with, one person in the organization. This is a recipe for disaster in business-to-business sales.

In a business-to-business sale, since the sale cycle is relatively long, therefore, it is beneficial to have relationships with multiple personnel relating to the buying group. In the case of ABC Electronics, if she had had contacts with various people in the organization, she would have been able to proceed in the sales cycle, even after Lawless left the company. Similarly, Jones was not good at anticipating who the decision makers were in a deal. For example, in Pierson’s, she visited different people to get some information, and in the end got scolded for interference.

Another example is that of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, which is a hotel management company that owns twelve properties around the world. All the properties, that are owned and managed by Rosewood, have their own unique global reputations and identities. The Rosewood brand, itself, is mostly unknown, since Rosewood has always kept its branding secondary to the property names. This, however, has left the Rosewood brand awareness at a very low level with its guests, most of whom are not repeat customers, because they do not know the names of other properties owned by Rosewood.

This has created a challenging issue for the management, who have decided to bring the Rosewood brand to the forefront and promote it in all marketing communications, and to place the Rosewood name preceding all property names. As part of the marketing strategy Rosewood should not invest in marketing and change its positioning.

It should focus on its current strategy and try to capitalize on its strengths of creating value. The core competency of Rosewood is creating unique and distinct ultra-luxurious value for its customers. It can create more value by focusing on central reservation system (CRS), whereby Rosewood can extract and store vital customer information on a central server, accessible by all Rosewood properties.

They can use this information to improve their services, and give their customers more customized services. A firm is capable of improving its production efficiency from the existing brands by increasing the demand of it through the users and usage as well as the uses of the brand itself. It can also expand itself on the current brand and work on the existing area of the product.

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