Selling for the Long Run: Build Lasting Customer Relationships for Breakthrough Results - Hardcover

REED

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0071748555 ISBN 13: 9780071748551

Verlag: McGraw Hill, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

CREATE RELATIONSHIPS THAT LEAD TO REPEAT SALES--FOR THE LONG RUN! "Selling for the Long Run stands head and shoulders above the run-of-the-mill sales books. If you're in the business of selling complex products or solutions, it's a blueprint for business success. Don't just read this book--use its principles and strategies every day, and it will fundamentally improve the results you achieve." -- Donal Daly, CEO, The TAS Group "This book provides a fresh, unique, and contemporary perspective on the welldocumented subject of selling in a complex business-to-business world. Wendy Reed gives the reader a contemporary road map for the modern-day, buyer-centric sales philosophy. Read it and learn an approach that most certainly enables sales success." -- Richard E. Eldh, Co-President, SiriusDecisions, Inc. "The fact that buying behavior has changed dramatically is clear to all sales professionals; how to change the way you sell in response is not. Selling for the Long Run offers new insights into how to develop and enrich relationships with clients to not only close more business this year but become the partner of choice going forward as well." -- Jim Dickie, Managing Partner, CSO Insights "Selling for the Long Run provides an easy-to-follow road map to the kind of customer collaboration that can dramatically change the relationship between buyer and seller and lead to deeper, more successful, and enduring partnerships." -- John Golden, CEO, Huthwaite "Until more universities offer degree programs in sales effectiveness, this book is required reading for anyone carrying a quota." -- Peter Ostrow, Research Director, Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Co. ARE YOU IN A GOOD RELATIONSHIP? Selling for the Long Run provides the key principles for acquiring and maintaining satisfied, repeat-buying customers. How is this achieved? One word: relationships. At first glance, the answer seems simple-but is any relationship simple? Wendy Reed, CEO of the global sales training firm InfoMentis, helps you make the transformation from an average salesperson who simply presents products to a great salesperson who serves as a collaborative partner with the customer. It's the best sales approach for good economic times, and it's the only one that works when times are tough. When the buyer perceives you as an advocate for his or her needs, trust is created--and great things follow. Outlining a strategic plan for building customer focus and collaboration into every stage of the sales cycle, Reed provides an insider's perspective to help you: View the sales process from the customer's point of view Align your offering with the buyer's needs Perform proper due diligence before creating your strategy Gain clearer vision into revenue pipelines and forecasts Deliver on all promises made--both explicit and implicit Selling for the Long Run is a blueprint for reenvisioning and retooling your sales cycle to seize the competitive advantage--and keep it. Like any customer in any industry, your prospective buyer's number-one concern is value--bottom line. In the end, he or she wants to make a purchase from a trustworthy partner--which is why you have to stop looking for that one magical "sales technique" and start building the kind of relationships that generate results. Take your first step with Selling for the Long Run.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

WENDY REED is founder and CEO of InfoMentis, a training fi rm representing a global client base including Oracle, HP, LinkedIn, Fiserv, L'Oreal, and PNC. Reed's company has been repeatedly recognized as one of the Top20 Sales Methodology Training Companies by Training Industry, Inc., and has also been named to Inc.'s list of America's fastest-growing companies. Reed was the 2006 recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award for the services industry. Visit InfoMentis at: www.infomentis.com

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SELLING FOR THE LONG RUN

BUILD LASTING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS FOR BREAKTHROUGH RESULTS

By WENDY FOEGEN REED

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 InfoMentis Goup LLC
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-07-174855-1

Contents

Foreword by Greg Norman
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Tale of the Chair and the Ass
PART 1 THE PROBLEM OF SILVER BULLET SYNDROME
CHAPTER 1 The Silver Bullet and the Buyer's Perspective
CHAPTER 2 The Gap Between Buyers and Sellers
PART 2 DETERMINING YOUR STRATEGY (WITHOUT A SILVER BULLET)
CHAPTER 3 Collaboration Maps: Understanding Your Buyer's Business
CHAPTER 4 Influence Maps: Understanding the People Who Vote
CHAPTER 5 Competitive Maps: Understanding the Competitive Landscape
CHAPTER 6 Using Maps to Pick Your Strategy
PART 3 IMPLEMENTING STRATEGY
CHAPTER 7 The Joint Evaluation Plan
CHAPTER 8 Positioning Your Message to Support the Strategy
CHAPTER 9 High-Yield Questions to Support Your Strategy
CHAPTER 10 Your Call Plan
CHAPTER 11 The Overview: Your Customer Game Plan
CHAPTER 12 The Delivery
Epilogue: The Chair and the Ass, Part Two
Glossary
Index

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Silver Bullet and the Buyer's Perspective

"I found out that if you are going to win the game, you had better be ready toadapt."

—Scotty Bowman, most winning coach in NHL history

The key to avoiding the silver bullet is to acknowledge that the buyer has themoney and the seller does not. Hence, the buyers make decisions about you andyour solution, and they are in control of the sales process.

Therefore, no world-class sales process exists, only a world-class buyingprocess. The silver bullet is nothing more than superstition. In fact, the termsales process is misleading. The sales team does not drive theprocess—the buyer does. The key to mastering this process—to tamingthe tornado that often ensues upon embarking on a new sales process—is tolearn how to align your sales process with the buyer's process. This starts byyour understanding the buyer's perspective.

Unfortunately, salespeople and teams have a tough reputation to overcome. Weoften hear the following complaints about sales teams:

* "The sales team was arrogant. They kept telling us what they wanted to tellus, not what we needed to know."

* "The sales reps are always talking. They talk nonstop about themselves, theircompany, and their solutions. They talk, talk, talk, but they never listen,which means they do not understand our business."

* "Every time we ask them a question, we get a slightly different answer, whichmakes it hard to know the truth and trust the sales team."

This reputation stems from a central assumption: as sellers, we often assumethat because we want to develop strategic relationships with buyers, the buyerswant to develop strategic relationships with us. We are so besotted with ourawesome solutions and the sexy features that we believe the benefits areintuitively obvious to all of our buyers. As a result, instead of helping ourbuyers understand how the solution will solve their problem, we jump straightinto what vendors think is cool and ignore the buyers' perspective.

We neglect to understand what the buyer perceives or believes to be true.

Critical to the ability to develop a relationship is our ability to putourselves in the buyers' shoes, culture, and business. In doing so, we can beginto understand the buyers' perspective.

The Two Critical Questions

When sellers identify opportunities, they immediately begin obsessing aboutbudgets and deadlines, busying themselves by worrying about closing sales andmoving on to the next big deal. Though the seller might see the obviousconnection between her solution and the buyer's challenge, the seller'smentality does little to assuage the buyer's fear that the proposed solutionwill not address his specific need.

Instead, the salesperson inadvertently sends a loud message to the buyer:I'm going to love you and leave you by the side of the road.

The seller can begin to rectify this by asking two critical questions. The firstquestion is directed to the buyer.

"What Happened in Your Business That Triggered Your Need for aSolution?"

This question not only helps the buyer feel understood, but answers to thissimple question reveal the buyer's needs and goals.

Surprisingly, most sales professionals cannot name their top three buyers'business goals. Can you? If you were given the challenge of listing thebusiness objectives of your top three buyers, would this information beingrained in your mind, or would you struggle to come up with one of theirgoals, much less three?

Next comes the second critical question, which you—thesalesperson—must be able to answer.

"What Do My Prospects, Buyers, and Customers Think About My Solution, MyCompany, and Me?"

At the end of the day, your own opinion of your solution and company does notmatter. Your competitors' and colleagues' opinions do not matter. Yourprospects are the ones who will decide to spend money with you, or not.Your buyers are the people who will share opinions with prospects andcreate your reputation. Your customers are the people who will validateor dispute information about your solution and your customer service skills.

Such opinions are crucially important. Yet an astounding number of salesprofessionals lack insight into how they are perceived by these most importantpeople.

The Buyer's Perspective of Salespeople

The second critical question requires the salesperson to consider not only thebuyers' perception of his personality, competence, reliability, and the like butalso the perception of his sophistication as a sales professional.

As sales representatives grow personally and within their organization, theyevolve from communicating product solutions to business solutions to strategicsolutions to the buyer.

As indicated in the pyramid, the majority of sales professionals are perceivedas product solution representatives. Most sales professionals start outin this category because they need time to evolve their business knowledge andgrow their abilities. Here are some characteristics of product solutionprofessionals:

Categorizing Sales Professionals

The Buyer's View

• They can intelligently discuss and represent the products and services theysell.

• They have some awareness of other customers who have used their products andservices.

• They can articulate some basic business and financial benefits and points ofimpact offered by their product or service.

Product solution representatives are typically good communicators whoprofessionally present and demonstrate their product and services. They havebasic organization skills, are decent with follow-up tasks and communication,and bond well with buyers. If they are to do business with solutionrepresentatives, buyers expect them to be...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: McGraw Hill
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0071748555
• ISBN 13: 9780071748551
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland