Enterprise Client Acquisition: Joe Sagrilla of Horizon Business Consulting On 5 Steps to Winning and Keeping Major Clients
Negotiate masterfully. Enterprise clients, for their part, are highly adept at negotiations, often fielding experienced teams whose sole focus is to extract maximum value. It’s possible to win the sale but lose the deal if you negotiate poorly and end up with bad terms.
Securing and retaining enterprise clients is a major milestone for many companies, yet it requires a distinct approach, strategy, and mindset. From the first pitch to long-term account management, what does it really take to win over, and keep, major clients? What are the common pitfalls to avoid, and what strategies have proven effective time and again? In this interview series, we are talking to B2B sales leaders, enterprise account executives, founders, consultants, and anyone with experience in enterprise client acquisition about “Enterprise Client Acquisition: 5 Steps to Winning and Keeping Major Clients.” As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Joe Sagrilla.
Joe Sagrilla is an independent management consultant and business advisor, top business school faculty, Board member, writer, and speaker. His specialties include business strategy, technology, transformation, process improvement, and organizational performance. He currently lives in Austin, TX. Visit www.joesagrilla.com to learn more.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I grew up in a family of small business owners, so I was immersed in business conversations from an early age. That gave me a real appreciation for the risks and rewards of entrepreneurship. I went on to study general business and accounting, launched my career in management consulting, and earned my MBA and CPA along the way.
Over the years, I worked at large global firms like PwC, Ernst & Young, and Booz Allen Hamilton, where the brand name opened doors and taught me how to navigate some of the most complex organizations in the world. Later, I became Chief Strategy Officer at a boutique technology implementation startup. That experience was completely different: we didn’t have a big brand to lean on, so I had to coach our leaders to sell based on the things that made us different. We grew the business 10x in five years, profitably, by winning major enterprise clients who could have easily gone with the big firms instead.
Today, I’ve returned to my passion as an independent management consultant. As part of my work, I advise executives and sales leaders on how to consistently win and keep large clients. I also teach strategy and financial analysis at a top-ranked US business school. The common thread in all these roles has been my ability to sell into and grow relationships with Fortune 500 companies. It’s a skill that can change the trajectory of a career, a startup, or even an established company.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I started out as a consultant at a global firm, my first case was for a large oil and gas company. I came in thinking my business degree had fully prepared me. That illusion shattered in the first meeting. The executives were using acronyms, industry jargon, and technical terms I had never heard. I remember sitting there thinking, “Are they speaking a different language?”
It was a humbling lesson that I needed early on. I realized that solving real business problems requires more than theoretical knowledge. You have to prepare obsessively, stay intensely curious, and be resourceful enough to learn the client’s business in short order. That experience shaped how I advise sales teams today: never assume you know enough going in. Do the work to earn the right to have a meaningful conversation with the company’s decision makers.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
The consulting industry has shifted dramatically. Large firms still have their place, but many enterprise clients are now open to working with smaller firms or independent practitioners like me. They’ve realized that brand prestige doesn’t always equal value. In many instances, what they want is deep expertise, agility, and someone who can deliver results without the overhead and conflicts of interest that come with the big firms.
When I advise enterprise clients, I operate as a force multiplier. I bring two decades of strategy and leadership experience, but I don’t show up with a bench of junior staff or layers of bureaucracy. That means I can move faster, tailor solutions to the client’s unique situation, and often deliver greater impact per dollar invested.
One executive recently told me, “We’re over the moon with these results and you’ve absolutely delivered on everything we talked about.” That’s exactly what I aim for. I partner with business leaders to create outsized value by helping them make the right strategic moves and execute them with confidence.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
In my consulting work, I often help executives navigate difficult, hard-to-reverse decisions. One principle I’ve learned, and now coach my clients on, is that the hardest part is not the choice itself, but the clarity of thinking that comes before the choice.
A common mistake I see is that leaders, when faced with a big decision, immediately jump to weighing options. That skips two critical steps. The first is to clearly define the objective — what exactly you’re trying to accomplish and what success would look like. The second is to dig into root causes so you fully understand what’s driving the current outcome you want to change. Paradoxically, taking the time to do this upfront actually speeds up the overall process. Once you’re clear on the objective and the drivers, the right path forward becomes far more obvious, and you have the logic you’ll need to win over peers and stakeholders.
Even when leaders take the time to properly diagnose the situation, I often see them fall into another trap that I call “Frankenstrategy.” This happens when they try to stitch together pieces of multiple options, either to appease competing stakeholders or to hedge their bets. The result is almost always diluted focus, shaky execution, and weak results. My own leadership style, whether advising clients or leading teams, has been shaped by this principle: clarity first, then decisiveness.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Enterprise Client Acquisition. In order to make sure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with a simple definition. What does Enterprise Client Acquisition mean to you?
To me, enterprise client acquisition means winning first-time business with large, complex organizations — typically those with annual revenues exceeding a billion dollars. It’s not just about closing a sale; it’s about creating a high-value, trust-based relationship with an organization that has the potential to grow into a multi-year, multi-million-dollar partnership.
When I advise executives or sales teams on enterprise client acquisition, I emphasize that it’s not a numbers game like some other sales scenarios. It’s a strategy game. You’re dealing with highly sophisticated buyers, intricate organizational politics, and large financial stakes. The process demands patience, credibility, and a true understanding of both business objectives and personal motivations inside the client organization.
What are the first actions to take when approaching a potential enterprise client?
One of the first things I tell executives and sales teams I advise is this: don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal, which is to have enterprise clients approach you. If your product or service is excellent and paired with the right strategic marketing, opportunities should be coming inbound on a regular basis. That said, outbound approaches are still key, and when you’re initiating contact, the first steps are critical.
The most important action is to identify the right people inside the organization — specifically, the true economic buyers. These are the executives with the authority to approve spending unilaterally. Too many teams waste time targeting people who are involved in the buying process but lack decision-making authority, such as functional managers or procurement personnel. They can block you, but they can’t buy from you. This creates the illusion of progress without any real path to closing. When I coach enterprise sales teams, I always emphasize things like: your metric shouldn’t be “number of meetings.” It should be “number of meetings with buyers.”
Once you’ve identified the executives you want to meet, the next step is to secure a warm introduction wherever possible. At the enterprise level, trust is everything. Buyers are far more likely to engage when referred by a peer. A recommendation from another executive who has worked with you is one of the fastest ways to establish credibility and jumpstart the trust-building process.
At the same time, you need to be doing deep research into the company and its industry. A common mistake is leading with a laundry list of reasons why your product is so great. That’s not enough at this level. Enterprise buyers need to see how your solution connects directly to their business objectives. That means anticipating the challenges they’re facing, articulating them in a way that resonates, and positioning your offering as a means to help them achieve the outcomes they’re seeking.
And here’s a nuance that often separates good enterprise salespeople from great ones: every business objective has a personal motivation behind it. For example, maybe your solution improves efficiency and reduces errors. That’s the business case. But the personal case might be that it helps the executive reduce team churn and spend less time interviewing replacements. The best enterprise sellers connect the dots between the business value and the buyer’s personal motivations.
So in practice, the first actions are: identify the true buyers, pursue warm introductions, and prepare a tailored value proposition that reflects both the company’s business context and the personal motivations of the executive. Done well, this sets the stage for a sales cycle built on trust, relevance, and momentum — rather than one bogged down in gatekeepers, generic pitches, and endless meetings that go nowhere.
Which level of the organization do you reach out to when approaching a potential enterprise client?
It’s less about targeting a specific organizational level and more about identifying a true economic buyer, which is any person with the authority to say “yes” to your type of product or service. Titles can be misleading. In some companies, someone with a modest-sounding title has significant decision-making power. In others, flashy titles like “Vice President” carry little real authority. One area I often focus on with executives who oversee sales teams is helping them ensure their teams can quickly and subtly discern whether they’re speaking with a true economic buyer, and if not, how to chart a path upward in the organization to reach one.
Recognizing that titles are sometimes misleading, in most enterprise organizations, the C-suite, senior vice presidents, and functional vice presidents are typically good targets. Once you’ve made contact, your job is to quickly confirm you’re speaking with someone who can actually approve a purchase. I encourage salespeople to ask direct but respectful questions like, “Is funding already in place for this initiative?” or “Would you be the one executing the contract if we move forward?” These questions save months of wasted effort.
I’ve noticed that many sales professionals hesitate to take this approach. They worry it will come across as pushy. In my experience, both when leading enterprise sales myself and when advising executives on their sales strategy, it’s exactly the opposite. Senior leaders appreciate clarity and directness. It shows that you respect their time and yours.
Of course, there’s an art to working your way up the organizational hierarchy. You may start with someone lower down, but you should always be building trust and adding value as you go, so that person is willing to connect you upward. Ultimately, though, your goal is to get in front of the decision-maker who can accelerate the sales cycle by cutting through internal obstacles.
In short, don’t anchor on a level or a title. Anchor on identifying the person with real economic authority. That’s the individual who can transform a series of exploratory meetings into a closed deal.
What is the best medium to use to ask for a meeting? Cold call? Linked-In, Email? In person? Can you please explain?
I get this question a lot: “Should we be calling? Sending LinkedIn messages? Emailing? Networking at conferences?” The truth is, none of those channels work reliably when you’re targeting executives at large enterprises. Senior buyers don’t respond to cold outreach. Their inboxes are overflowing and most of them have gatekeepers shielding them from unsolicited pitches.
The most effective path, and the one I emphasize when advising enterprise sales teams, is to secure a peer referral. At this level, trust is the currency. Executives are far more likely to take a meeting if they’ve been introduced by someone they know and respect, ideally a peer who can vouch for the value you’ve delivered in the past. A warm introduction like this jumpstarts the trust-building process in a way that no cold email or clever LinkedIn message ever could.
Once you’ve earned that referral, the medium matters less, though I’ll add that in-person is always preferable when possible. Sitting down face-to-face builds rapport and credibility more quickly than a call or video meeting. But the real key is that the meeting happens on the foundation of trust created by the introduction.
Now, what if you can’t get a referral? In those cases, you have to take the long view. The best enterprise salespeople know how to give value before asking for anything in return. That might mean analyzing the company’s earnings calls, reviewing executive interviews, or digging into their financials to pinpoint an issue the leadership team has already highlighted. Then you reach out with something genuinely useful, like a case study of how you solved a similar challenge, a sample or free version of your product, or even an invitation to a peer roundtable you host.
Building trust at this level isn’t about the “best medium.” It’s about the right approach. A cold call is just noise. A referral or a thoughtful, value-driven outreach is an open door.
What are the most common mistakes companies make in pitching to or onboarding with an enterprise client?
There are two big mistakes I see over and over again when companies pitch to or onboard enterprise clients.
The first mistake is focusing too much on the product itself. Enterprise executives aren’t sitting around thinking, “I need a new product with these ten features.” They’re thinking about their strategic objectives: how to grow revenue, cut costs, reduce risk, or make their teams more effective. If you walk into a meeting talking about your product features instead of the client’s priorities, you’re speaking the wrong language.
When I was Chief Strategy Officer at a rapidly growing technology implementation startup, I designed a new sales approach that shifted our focus away from pitching our services and toward listening deeply to client issues. Early on, the team relied on long presentations about what we offered. We would underwhelm enterprise prospects with long presentations about our firm and our services. It wasn’t effective for the pace of growth we were trying to achieve. The breakthrough came when we started asking better questions: “What business outcomes do you ultimately want to accomplish?” “Why haven’t you been able to get there before?” and “How would your business be different if this project succeeded?” That shift, from pitching our service list to uncovering client objectives, led to a step change in the size and quality of the projects we won.
The second mistake is over-relying on rigid sales processes. Too many organizations buy into the idea that there’s a magic formula for enterprise sales — a set of steps or scripts that, if followed, guarantee success. There’s no shortage of gurus out there who claim to have cracked the secret code. But the truth is that enterprise clients are too complex for cookie-cutter formulas. Some move fast, others move slow. Some want a detailed analysis, others want a quick proof of concept. If you try to force every client through the same process, you’ll erode trust and likely lose the deal.
When I advise executives on enterprise sales strategy, I encourage them to treat the sales process as a framework, not a checklist. Yes, every sales cycle follows some general steps, like awareness, qualification, proposal, negotiation, close, etc. But the real skill lies in adapting to the client’s unique circumstances, business objectives, and culture. That flexibility builds trust and credibility, which are the true drivers of enterprise sales success.
In short, the two biggest mistakes are: (1) making it all about you instead of the client, and (2) treating enterprise sales like a rigid assembly line. The winners are the ones who do the opposite by making it about the client’s objectives, and they adapt their process to fit the client, not the other way around.
Can you please walk us through one enterprise win from first outreach to renewal. What were the turning points, and why did they work?
One of the most memorable enterprise wins I’ve been part of was when I advised a pursuit team that ultimately secured a multi-million-dollar project with a Fortune 20 company. The engagement involved a global financial system implementation, complete with process redesign and change management.
From the beginning, we were underdogs. Our boutique firm didn’t carry the brand recognition of the global competitor leading the client’s broader, ERP-driven transformation program. In fact, we had initially been excluded from the process entirely. The client’s executives felt it would be more practical to award the financial systems work to the same large firm already running the ERP implementation. We had to fight just to get a seat at the table.
That challenge forced us to be deliberate in how we positioned ourselves. Where the larger firm was bureaucratic, we were nimble. Where they mechanically followed a rigid sales process, we invested in building genuine relationships with the executive team, learning what mattered most to them personally and tailoring our value proposition to their unique circumstances. I often advise enterprise sales teams to play to their strengths in situations like this, and that’s exactly what we did.
The breakthrough came when I helped the team crystallize a clear “win theme.” Instead of competing as a generalist against a much larger generalist, we leaned into our specialized expertise with the particular financial system at the heart of the project we were pursuing. I knew from experience that if push came to shove, the big firm would inevitably deprioritize this project in favor of their flagship ERP work. That was the breakthrough: we positioned ourselves as the specialist who would be fully dedicated, with no competing priorities. That message resonated with the executives, who couldn’t afford for this initiative to fail.
Once we secured the win, the relationship only grew stronger. We delivered on our promises, which built the kind of trust that leads to renewals and expansions. And that’s an important lesson I emphasize when advising clients on enterprise sales: the sale doesn’t end when the contract is signed. The real work, and the golden opportunity, begins after the deal is closed, when you can deliver on your promises, prove tangible value, and build the kind of trust that only comes from execution. If you invest in this stage, you create an advantage in all future sales, because the trust you establish is nearly impossible for any outsider to replicate.
Enterprise buys as a committee. How do you map stakeholders, create an internal champion, and equip them to sell your solution inside their org?
My first piece of advice is always this: whenever possible, avoid letting the committee drive the decision. The best path is to deal with the true economic buyer — the executive with the authority to say, “We’re doing this.” When you’ve established that relationship, the committee’s role often becomes a formality. That upfront investment in building a one-to-one relationship with the decision-maker pays off many times over compared to months of navigating competing priorities around a table.
That said, committees are a fact of life in enterprise sales, and I’ve helped many executives and sales teams learn to navigate them successfully. The first key is to understand that every company has both an organizational structure and a power structure. Titles in the org chart don’t tell the whole story. Some leaders wield outsized influence despite modest titles, while others with impressive titles may have little real sway. There’s no shortcut to uncovering these dynamics. It takes time, careful observation, and, most importantly, trust. As you build credibility with individual leaders, they’ll often start to share insights about internal politics and power dynamics, sometimes even coaching you directly on how to approach the process.
The second key is understanding incentives. In my consulting work, I spend a lot of time helping executives map incentives because they create predictable behaviors. If you understand what a leader is measured on, or what political or career objectives they’re pursuing, you can anticipate how they’ll evaluate your proposal. That allows you to frame your solution not just in terms of a generic business case, but in terms of how it helps that specific executive advance their agenda.
Finally, there’s the concept of “pre-wiring,” which I consider absolutely critical. Pre-wiring means meeting with every influential stakeholder individually before the formal committee meeting or final sales pitch. Too many sales teams try to save time by going straight to the big presentation. That’s a mistake. When you meet one-on-one, stakeholders are more likely to share their reservations, reveal internal politics, or point out other barriers. You can address those concerns ahead of time and tailor your final presentation accordingly. The alternative is being blindsided in the live meeting, which usually drags out the sales cycle at best and kills the opportunity at worst.
The ideal scenario is that by the time you walk into the committee presentation, you’ve already addressed each stakeholder’s concerns privately. As you present, you should see heads nodding because everyone has already bought into your proposal. In other words, the meeting becomes a formality. That’s when you know you’ve truly mastered committee dynamics.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, please give us your five-step playbook for winning and keeping an enterprise client. Be specific about actions, tools, and owners for each step.
Let me start with a disclaimer: enterprise sales is not a cookie-cutter process. There are no shortcuts or magic formulas, no matter what some gurus might claim. Each client has a unique set of circumstances, motivations, and constraints, and your job is to do the hard work of understanding them. So rather than a prescriptive playbook, I think in terms of five principles that consistently drive success in enterprise sales.
1 . Learn the company and the industry. Preparation is everything. You need to know your prospect’s business. That means studying their financials, listening to earnings calls, reading executive interviews, and staying on top of industry dynamics. When I advise sales teams, I push them to go deeper than surface-level research. The goal is to uncover not just what the company is doing, but why. What pressures are they facing? What opportunities are they chasing? What obstacles are in their way?
This depth of knowledge accomplishes a few key things. First, it allows you to have a conversation at the executive level — not just about your product, but about their business. This positions you as a partner who brings insight, not just a vendor with something to sell. In my own career, whether at global consulting firms or in a startup environment, the best enterprise wins have always come from demonstrating an understanding of the client’s world that exceeded their expectations.
Second, deeply understanding their business gives you the foundation to create what I call a “Value Recipe”: connecting the company’s most important business objectives directly to the capabilities of your product or service. When you show a client that you understand not only what matters to them but also how your offering helps them achieve those priorities, you shift the interaction in a powerful way: from selling to co-creating solutions that drive impact.
2 . Get to the true decision-maker. One of the biggest challenges in enterprise sales is getting in front of the person who can actually say “yes.” Cold outreach rarely works at this level because executives are busy, well-shielded, and inundated with pitches. That’s why I encourage the sales teams I advise to focus on warm introductions wherever possible. The best version of this is when a satisfied client introduces you to one of their peers. That’s not just an introduction — it’s a recommendation from a fellow executive who can vouch for the value you’ve already delivered. That kind of credibility shortcut is priceless.
Of course, you won’t always get the perfect introduction. Sometimes your first contact is at a lower level in the organization. In those cases, the key is to devise a strategy to work your way up. That means building trust with your initial contact, adding value in your conversations, and ultimately earning their support in connecting you upward. The goal is always to establish a one-on-one connection with the true economic buyer; the executive with budget and authority.
When you do reach a new level of the organization, be thoughtful about how you engage. Titles alone can be misleading, so it’s important to clarify whether you’re dealing with someone who can make a buying decision independently. Ask respectful but direct questions like, “Is funding already allocated for this initiative?” or “Would you be the one executing the agreement if we move forward?” These questions save time and demonstrate that you understand how enterprise buying decisions really work.
In short, while you may start at different points in the organization, your end goal never changes: build a direct, trust-based relationship with the economic buyer. That’s the person who can accelerate a deal from possibility to reality.
3 . Build trust by giving value first. At the enterprise level, trust is the currency of sales. As I mentioned prior, the fastest way to jumpstart the trust-building process is through a peer referral, when a client executive you’ve delivered value for introduces you to a peer. That one act of credibility can collapse months of rapport-building and greatly accelerate the overall sales cycle.
But even without a referral, you can still build trust by giving value before you ask for anything in return. That might be sharing a case study, offering a diagnostic session, or providing analysis that gives executives a new perspective. I’ve helped clients land enterprise accounts by doing this well. For example, sending tailored insights on industry risks or hosting peer roundtables where executives could exchange ideas. When you provide value upfront, you flip the dynamic. Instead of asking, you’re giving.
4 . Pre-wire stakeholders. In large enterprises, decisions often involve multiple stakeholders, even when you have a champion at the top. That’s why pre-wiring is so critical. Pre-wiring means meeting with each influential executive individually before the formal sales pitch or committee meeting. In those one-on-one conversations, leaders will share concerns and context they might be hesitant to raise in a group setting.
When I help sales teams improve, I stress that pre-wiring isn’t optional; it’s a best practice. It allows you to address objections in advance and tailor your final presentation so that by the time you’re in the room, everyone is already nodding in support. The goal is to make the big meeting a formality, not a debate.
5 . Negotiate masterfully. Enterprise clients, for their part, are highly adept at negotiations, often fielding experienced teams whose sole focus is to extract maximum value. It’s possible to win the sale but lose the deal if you negotiate poorly and end up with bad terms.
The most important term in most enterprise sales is price, and too many companies either undervalue themselves or give away margin unnecessarily. That’s why preparation and a clear negotiation strategy are non-negotiable. If leadership hasn’t designed incentives that balance profitability and sales volume, sales teams can end up trading margin too freely just to close another deal. The numbers may look good in the short term, but the company’s overall performance suffers. That’s why teams need clear policies around pricing and discounts. These guidelines should give salespeople enough flexibility to exercise judgment while still protecting financial performance. Without that structure, salespeople under pressure may be tempted to reach for the easiest lever to close a deal, which is price.
Masterful negotiation starts long before you sit down with the client. It means anticipating likely requests, mapping out your ideal terms, and defining the minimum conditions you’re willing to accept. Then, in the heat of the negotiation, you need the discipline to stay within those guardrails. And remember, it’s not just about price. Other key terms that directly impact your financial performance, such as specific service levels or how quickly you’ll get paid, should be part of the negotiation, as well.
Company strategy also plays a critical role in creating the conditions for successful negotiation. The ideal scenario is one where demand exceeds supply, giving you the ability to be selective about which clients you work with and which terms you accept. That’s not always possible, particularly in high fixed-cost industries, but it should always be the aspiration. There are bad deals, and knowing when to walk away from them is part of negotiating masterfully.
Finally, the most effective negotiators anchor every discussion in value, not just price. Remember, value is always a function of both benefits and cost. If you’ve connected your offering to the client’s most pressing objectives, you’re not just haggling over numbers — you’re aligning on a fair value exchange. That’s how you secure win-win deals that are good for the client and good for your business.
What systems or processes are essential for keeping enterprise clients happy?
For me, keeping enterprise clients happy boils down to two principles: consistently demonstrating value and continuously investing in the relationship. Those are the behaviors that matter most, and the systems I use as a consultant are designed to make them happen reliably.
The system I consider absolutely essential is what I call “Value Reviews.” These are regular meetings with your client where you recap the progress made, highlight the outcomes achieved, and reinforce the value you’ve delivered. At the enterprise level, this is critical because your executive buyer often doesn’t have direct visibility into the day-to-day impact of your work. They may approve the engagement, but they’re not hands-on with the details. Over the course of a year, it’s easy for them to forget what was accomplished in January when you’re meeting again in December. A Value Review creates space to remind them, “Here’s everything we set out to do, here’s what we achieved together, and here’s the tangible value you’ve realized as a result.” When done well, clients walk away thinking, “This is a partner who has made a real impact on our business.”
Now, one of those Value Reviews should be strategically timed to coincide with the client’s annual budgeting cycle. Specifically, you want it to happen several weeks before the budget process kicks off. In that meeting, in addition to recapping the value you’ve already delivered, you should come prepared with well-developed ideas for new opportunities in the year ahead — opportunities that are directly tied to their business objectives and that you’re uniquely positioned to help them achieve. If you can do this effectively, something powerful happens: your projects get written into the budget proactively. Instead of fighting an uphill battle to get them to find or reallocate budget during the year, there’s already money set aside with your name on it.
Of course, none of this works if you don’t keep your word. You can’t overpromise in the excitement of closing a big deal and then underdeliver once the work begins. You have to be disciplined about doing what you said you’d do, which includes delivering even in the face of challenging circumstances. That’s the foundation of trust.
And finally, you can’t disappear after the initial sale. Enterprise clients expect partners who stay engaged, who keep an eye on their business, and who continue offering value even outside of formal engagements. Sometimes that means sharing an insight from their industry, connecting them to a useful peer, or simply checking in at the right moment.
In my own consulting practice, I’ve seen that these practices — regular Value Reviews, smart timing around the budget cycle, doing what you promised, and investing in the relationship — are what transform a one-time project into a long-term enterprise relationship. And they’re just as applicable for B2B sales teams selling products or services as they are for consultants like me.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
One that has stayed with me is, “Don’t let perfect get in the way of great.” I’ve always had perfectionist tendencies, and early in my career that sometimes held me back. Over time, I learned to recognize when striving for perfection was actually counterproductive. In business, and especially in enterprise sales, momentum matters. You have to keep moving, keep learning, and keep improving. Holding yourself to a high standard is important, but obsessing over nonessential details usually doesn’t serve you or your client. That shift in mindset was a breakthrough for me, and it’s something I emphasize when advising executives and sales teams today.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I believe one of the most impactful changes we could make as a society would be returning to hard money and abolishing fiat currency. Not everyone realizes that US dollars were backed by gold until recently, and that convertibility was only suspended “temporarily” in 1971. When money was tied to gold, there was a natural constraint on how much could be created. Fiat currency removes that discipline, which fuels inflation.
The problem is that inflation disproportionately hurts the most vulnerable — people without assets that can rise in value to offset the loss of purchasing power. For them, every dollar simply buys less over time. A system of sound money would, among many other positive things, create more stability and fairness. Restoring hard money is an idea I think deserves a lot more attention.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow my work at my website and social sites here:
Website: https://www.joesagrilla.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sagrilla/
Medium: https://medium.com/@JoeSagrilla
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JoeSagrilla
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
