Sales Growth, 2nd Edition

Acknowledgments

In any undertaking such as this, there are many people we must thank for their immense help.

First and foremost, we would like to express our gratitude to and admiration for the hundreds of sales leaders to whom we had the privilege of talking over the past few years. Their individual stories and those of their organizations form the blueprint for sales growth that we have tried to capture here. Their insights and courage inspired us to write this book. They were generous with their time and ideas. We thank each and every one of them.

We would also like to acknowledge that this book represents decades of experience in sales growth. This experience was gained from thousands of engagements involving tens of thousands of McKinsey & Company clients. We want to thank all who allowed us to be part of their transformation, and all our McKinsey consultants who have contributed to our knowledge over the years.

We especially would like to recognize the tremendous support of Jon Vander Ark, our former colleague and coauthor of the first edition. Jon’s ideas and contributions remain at the foundation of this edition.

To convert stories into a book is not so straightforward. We would not have succeeded without the help of our editors Jonathan Turton, Barr Seitz, and Geoffrey Lewis. They helped push us to focus on “what’s new”, encouraged us to write a book of stories, not of prescriptive frameworks, and we think made the book an enjoyable read. Thanks also to Sharon Johnson ...