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 for her help with many of the interviews. We also thank our Wiley editors, Bill Falloon and Meg Freeborn.

We benefited from substantive contributions from a group of McKinsey colleagues who provided expertise and shared their experiences. They include: Duarte Braga, Jenny Cermak, Michael Chui, David Edelman, Christoph Erbenich, Jop Gerritsen, Manish Goyal, Parmeet Grover, Maryanne Hancock, Keri Hattich, Roland John, Anna Koivuniemi, Lori Lantz, Candace Lun Plotkin, Wilson McCrory, Saurabh Mishra, Jigar Patel, Ryan Paulowsky, Sara Prince, Christoffer Rasmussen, Brian Selby, Kara Sprague, Jennifer Stanley, Jacob Staun, Alex Sukharevsky, Michael Viertler, Ben Vonwiller, Jennifer Wickland, Wesley Walden, and Lareina Yee.

This book would not have been possible without the help of colleagues who helped us connect with some of the leading sales executives in the world. Thanks to André Andonian, Jaidit Brar, Bertil Chappius, Jon Cummings, Linda Dauriz, Ben Ellencweig, Soren Fritzen, Alka Goel, Jonathan Gordon, Vijay Gosula, Liz Hilton Segel, Martin Huber, Philipp Landauer, Soenke Lehmitz, Enrico Lucchinetti, Jesko Perrey, Steve Reis, Nicola Sandri, Warren Teichner, Evan Van Metre, and Cornelius Walter.

Our publishing team turned this effort from a lengthy electronic file into an actual book. Our thanks to Downey Drouin, our designer, to Dean Emmerton, Jasmine Genge, Michael Harney, Mitra Mahdavian, Kevin Nuffer, Kate Piwonski, Rachel Schaff, and Pamela Simon for their research assistance, to Alexandra Rodriguez for help with logistics, and to Corinne Bontrager and Mianne Ortega, who coordinated the project. Gaby Eichler, Virginie Lesage and Tanya Phillips-Stanford deserve special appreciation for helping us organize ourselves to write this book.

And finally, we would like to thank our spouses Sabina, Cybèle, and Albert for their patience, encouragement, and love over the time we have spent intensely researching and writing this book. We are grateful to them every day.

We have thanked a lot of people. All played their part in the writing of this book, but any errors remain, of course, our own. It has been a privilege to hear so many great sales stories, and an even greater one to be able to pass them on to you.