December 5, 2005
Sales Books #1 - Selling Is Dead
I first saw this book on Seth Godin's blog. His quote was enough:
"There are very few books that actually think about what it means to sell something."
I feel the same way about this book. This is not a tactical book like The Little Red Book of Selling. When you look at sales from a strategic standpoint, you can't avoid seeing the customer - seeing their problems, seeing their measurements, and seeing their viewpoint
Author Marc Miller says that he is following in the footsteps of Neil Rackham's Spin Selling and focuses his book on large sales. He says that three dynamics are at play requiring a change in the way selling is done
- Innovations are becoming commodities at a quickening pace and selling innovation is hard.
- Buyers of commodities don't need help from salespeople.
- Technology will eliminate physical distance and cost of sales will continue to drop.
As the book goes on, Miller spends time on the practical aspects of selling in this new environment. You will see the psychology of the customer, the questions you should ask, and tactics that will moving prospects from the "shopping stage" to "apprehension stage".
I am bigger fan because Miller has a blog and is writing about concepts in the book every day (you will often find him referring to page numbers in the book).
Posted by Todd S. at December 5, 2005 10:44 AMThanks for the link to Arthur's blog - it's good stuff. I was really taken with the SPIN Selling approach but I found it hard to apply to selling via the web. Since I sell software components, you do actually need to do a lot of discovery work with customers before they are comfortable. But you can't do it face-to-face, your site has to do it for you - very hard to get right. I have found that once you can get into an email conversation with someone, you can generally help them understand your offering much more easily.
Posted by: Richard Rodger at December 6, 2005 5:03 AMSomething that helped me in a former job with sales training was this description sales types:
The short sales cycle: 1 product/service, 1 application. This is like asking a girl on a date. She is looking for your value vs her need.
The long sales cycle: mult. decision makers, mult. user groups, can take months.
This is like asking a girl to marry you. There is a lot that has to take place before you can even ask.