Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
The Unique Sales System Proven Successfully by the Worlds Best Companies
Author: Stephen E. Heiman Diane Sanchez Tad Tuleja Publisher: Warner Books Date of Publication: 1998 ISBN: 0-446-67346-3 Number of Pages: 448 pages
Published by BusinessSummaries, Building 3005 Unit 258, 4440 NW 73rd Ave, Miami, Florida 33166 2003 BusinessSummaries All rights reserved. No part of this summary may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior notice of BusinessSummaries.com
Strategic Selling
Successful Selling in a World of Constant Change
Complex Sales The concept of Complex Sales is a primary feature of this book. The authors defines it as: one in which a number of people must give their approval or input before the buying decision can be made. Complex sales are brought about by a bureaucracy that requires many approvals before making a sale. Change and Strategic Selling Change happens in all aspects of corporate business. It can happen in the market, technology, customer base, product line, competitive position, marketing strategy and even organizational structure. With the influx of change, it is required of you to develop specific skills that will lead to reliable selling strategies. Three Premise of Strategic Selling 1. Whatever got you where you are today is no longer sufficient to keep you there. 2. In a Complex Sale, a good tactical plan is only as good as the strategy that led up to it. 3. You can succeed in sales today only if you know what you're doing and why.
[2]
situation. It has been designed to identify the causes of your current uncertainty, to help you see how those causes affect your current sales objective, and to allow you to make your account position more visible. Step 1: Identify Relevant Changes. Make a list of all the changes that you feel are influencing the way you currently do your business. Note whether it is a sudden event, a longer process of subtle erosion, or an example of continuous growth. Step 2: Rate the Changes as Threats or Opportunities. Go down your list of changes and put an O next to those you perceive mainly as opportunities and a T next to those you see mainly as threats. Step 3: Define Your Current Single Sales Objective. Write down your current sales objective with regards to the account you've chosen. Current sales objective must be based on specific, short-term objectives. It must be measurable, must focus on a specific outcome, and must be single rather than multiple. Step 4: Test your Current Position. Find out how you feel about your specific chances for making this objective work out. Make adjustments to your strategies as you go along. Step 5: Examine Alternate Positions. Once you know where you are, you next want to know where to go. You need to examine alternatives so that you can discover how you might reposition yourself to make the attainment of your Single Sales Objective more likely.
[3]
1. Economic Buying Influence. This is the role of the person who gives final approval to buy. 2. User Buying Influence. User buyers make judgments about the potential impact of your product or service on their job performance. 3. Technical Buying Influences. They screen out possible suppliers. 4. Coach. The Coach guides you to your particular sales objective by leading you to the other Buyers; and by giving you information on what you need to position yourself effectively with each one. In every Complex Sale, you have to sell your proposal, not just to one or two people, but to everyone filling the four Buying Influence roles. Sales people must refrain from the assumption that as long as Mr. Big is sold, everything else will fall into place.
[4]
improved - signals that they are receptive to change. This mode is usually the easiest of the four to sell. The Second Response Mode: Trouble Discrepancy is also present in the Trouble mode, however, it is different from the one perceived by the Buyer in Growth mode. The Buyer in Growth mode welcomes incremental change as a way of improving an already good situation; the Buyer in Trouble mode is begging for immediate change as a way of reversing or preventing a defeat. The Buyer in Trouble mode is ready and eager to buy - but not necessarily from you. The proposal that will be approved is the one that will most quickly remove the cause of the Buyer's perceived problem. The Third Response Mode: Even Keel When a Buying Influence is in Even Keel, your chances of making a sale are low because the Buyer doesn't perceive the essential discrepancy between current reality and desired results. In fact, the probability of a Buyer in Even Keel taking any action is low. The mentality of a Buyer in Even Keel is: Go Away. Don't rock the boat. When a Buyer is firmly entrenched in Even Keel, only three things can raise the probability of your making a sale. The Buyer can see Growth or Trouble coming in, he can be pressured by another Buyer who is already in Growth or Trouble, or you can demonstrate a discrepancy that the Buyer doesn't see. The Fourth Response Mode: Overconfident This is the most difficult of the four Response Modes to sell to. In fact, the probability of making a sale to someone who's in Overconfident Mode is, for all practical purposes, zero. When a Buyer is in this fourth mode, there's clearly a kind of discrepancy between reality and perceived results, but in this case the discrepancy works against rather than for the selling organization. An Overconfident Buyer perceives reality as outstripping the desired results. This person has no incentive to change as the buyer already feels that he is doing better than anticipated.
[5]
new leads that you're looking for. Serving your Buying Influences' individual self-interests is ultimately the best way for you to serve your own. 2. I Win-You Lose: Beating the Buyer The principal reason why you should avoid playing I Win-You Lose is that the Win-Lose quadrant is short-term and unstable. Given enough time, it always degenerates into Lose-Lose. 3. I Lose-You Win: Doing the Buyer A Favor The rationale behind this approach is that the customer will be impressed with the selling organization's generosity and reciprocate in the future. The underlying problem here is one of perception. When you play LoseWin, you give the customer a false sense of reality, one that is represented falsely as the norm and that can be maintained only on a limited basis Ultimately, the Lose-Win quadrant, just like the Win-Lose quadrant, is unstable. It too always degenerates into Lose-Lose. Therefore, it isn't in your self-interest. 4. I Lose-You Lose: The Default Quadrant This is also called the catchall quadrant because, sometimes well after the final papers are signed, it catches all the sales that you haven't consciously and actively managed into Win-Win outcomes.
[7]
Do nothing.
Why Focusing on the Competition Doesn't Work It allows the competition to write the rules of the game. It advertises your weaknesses, not your strengths. It invites price slashing. It makes you look stupid. It deflects attention from the customer's concerns. The Proactive Alternative: Restoring Differentiation The alternative is to think far less about what the competition is doing, has done, or might do, and more about what selling is about in the first place the provision of customized solutions to individuals' problems.
[8]
[9]
have all but eliminated luck and uncertainty as factors in the final buying decision. In Best Few, there is at least a 90 percent probability that you'll close the order in one half or less the time of your normal selling cycle.
Roller Coaster Effect: Cause When you consistently put off your prospecting and qualifying work, it becomes the kind of work that never gets done. So by the time you finish closing all your Best Few and In the Funnel sales objectives, the top of the Funnel has run dry. The Dry Funnel Syndrome and the Roller Coaster Effect are two unwelcome metaphors in the sales world. Roller Coaster Effect: Solution The right way to deal with the Roller Coaster Effect is to arrange your work priorities in such a way that you never experience a dry quarter or a dry Funnel in the first place. You can follow this priority sequence: 1. 2. 3. 4. Do closing work on your Best Few objectives. Prospect by narrowing the Universe. Qualify your Above the Funnel objectives. Work the objectives in the Funnel.
[ 10 ]
The Win-Results of each Buying Influence. The level and nature of your competition.
Lifetime Approach
Strategic Selling is a lifetime approach to the Complex Sale. As you continue to apply and refine this model in future sales efforts, increasingly you'll be able to say, It's the way I go about it that makes me number one.
[11 ]
ABOUT BUSINESSSUMMARIES BusinessSummaries.com is a business book summaries service. Every week, it sends out to subscribers a 9- to 12-page summary of a best-selling business book chosen from among the hundreds of books printed out in the United States every week. For more information, please go to http://www.bizsum.com.