Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories

4QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUSVERSUS HANNIBALSECOND PUNIC WAR (218–201 BC)

ON NOT PRESENTING TOO EARLY:THE SPIN MODEL

He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding.—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 

In 217 BC, Fabius Maximus was given the honor of defending Rome against Hannibal’s vastly superior Carthaginian invasion force. Aware of his army’s inferior military prowess, Fabius employed a policy of harassment and delay rather than allowing a pitched battle—which he would surely lose. He stayed near to Hannibal’s army, just out of reach, exercising a scorched-earth policy to prevent Hannibal from feeding his troops. It was a strategy of slow ...