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 | | Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High! by Jeff Thull ISBN-10: 9780471431510 ISBN-10: 0-471-43151-6 ISBN-13: 9780471431510 ISBN-13: 978-0-471-43151-0 Hardcover 2003-05-02 Wiley Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description If you specialize in complex sales, the business-to-business transactions that involve multiple decisions made by multiple people from multiple perspectives, this is the book for you! It presents The Prime Process—a diagnostic, customer-centered approach that clearly sets you apart from your competition and positions you with respect and credibility as a valued and trusted advisor. If the stakes are high and you’re expected to win, this book will give you the edge you’ve been looking for. Buy your copy today! | ||
Reviews | ||
Helpful to Any Leader in Government, UN, or Anywhere Else I found this gem in a West Coast airport. I bought it partly because I have spent 20 years "selling" governments on the idea of doing more with unclassified sources and less with expensive secrets that capture only 4% of the relevant information, and partly because when I role play the well-intentioned but largely hand-cuffed Director of National Intelligence (DNI), I see a real inability to make real change when allowing "business as usual" practices to continue. This book is tremendous. It is coherent, well-presented, with great illustrations, and a superb "reality check" section that the DNI or any other Cabinet leader or non-governmental or corporate or state executive would do well to adopt. The bottom line: any "sale," whether from an external or internal source, is ultimately about making change; about changing what has been done and how it has been done since time immemorial. Second bottom line: virtually every customer lacks the high-quality internal decision-process for diagnostics, surveying of what the options are, or evaluating tradeoffs, and once chosen, the customer needs help in implementing any complex solution because this will require internal change that the entire customer's enterprise will resist. The book opens with a brief summary of the three Eras of sales: Era 1: follow a sales script, be persuasive, sell and move on Era 2: listen, develop a relationship, be a problem solver, win-win Era 3: serve as source of business advantage, be a strategist, nurture the missing decision process and cast of characters within the customer's enterprise, and be ready to implement, measure, and report results I like the author's emphasis on the fact that win-win is not about selling a product, but rather about helping the customer create a process that leads to greater performance and hence greater profit or impact. In this context, I see real value for any vendor that is willing to step back from their "single point technology solution" and actually offer up a range of best in class offerings that can be integrated seamlessly and do not require "one contractor per laptop" to be effective. The author stresses that in complex environments, implementing innovation that produces new value is the winning combination. He points out that complex sales involve: 1) Large financial investments 2) Long sales cycles 3) Multiple decisions at multiple levels in the client organization As I noted the last point I recollected my participation in the CIA's Mid-Career Course (Class 101, 1986) and the attempts then to create a "one agency culture." These attempts failed, and the current DNI is also failing, in part because we hire, train, and promote according to over 100 different systems--we do not train together, we do not work together, and who we promote has little to do with performance in part because there are no metrics for *outcomes*. I like the author's illustration and discussion of how to build a bridge to change with diagnostics, which includes the following: Customer's Business Objectives Critical Success Factors Job Responsibilities Worry List Indicators Causes Consequences Expectations Solutions Wow. Imagine if the US Government saw itself working in this manner! The author stresses that in complex decisions commoditization is not helpful because one size does not fit all, but at the same time, the customers simply do not have the foundation, process, or insights needed to get it right. I certainly found this to be true in government, where Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives (COTR), with a handful of exceptions, have not been able to do functional requirements surveys nor write Statements of Work (SOW) since the 1980's. The author recommends a focus on customers in pain, because pain drives the willingness to change, and that, combined with the diagnosis, drives the sale and the willingness to implement change. As I write this I think to myself that the worst thing we could have done for intelligence reform was to increase the budget from $30 billion a year to $60 billion a year--not only is the secret world not feeling any pain, they are not being asked to account for *outcomes* that are all too meaningless--for example, no one is being held accountable for the fact that we still do not have a consolidated terrorism watch list, and the one we do have has over 750,000 names, at least half of which are false positives. The author warns against providing unpaid consulting (stop at diagnostics--the client has to pay for devising solutions); for creeping elegance (the perennial lure of adding bells and whistles that are both unaffordable, and that will not be used to full effect--one estimate says that employees use less than 20% of existing desktop software capabilities); and of growing resistance inside the customer's enterprise if the needed changes are not explained step by step from day one. From page 176 forward the author asks and discusses 12 questions. Here 1. What is our company all about? 2. Who are the customers we serve? 3. How do we develop new business? 4. What is our diagnostic engagement protocol? 5. What is our personal business plan? 6. What are our solutions? 7. Can we develop new business? 8. Can you diagnose the customer's situation? 9. Can you determine the cost of the problem? 10: Are you perceived as a creative problem solver by your customers? 11: Can you propose an effective solution? 12. Can you effectively present a proposal? This is a great book, helpful to those who both sell and buy in a complex environment. The Earth is the most complex environment we have, and this book helped me think about how to help the United Nations, the Foundations, and the non-violent side of the Pentagon (the folks that now understand we must Wage Peace) come together. A few other books that complement this one: The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business Corporate Creativity: How Innovation & Improvement Actually Happen The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy That Works Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation Transformational Change Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace | ||
Avoid unpaid consulting and become a leader not only a manager of the sales process Jeff Thull is one of the 'fathers' of consultative selling and you really can't go wrong by reading and studying any of his books. This book is not only a primer on the subject but a resource that you'll find yourself going back to over and over again. Business to Business Selling (B2B), that is complex, high dollar, capital intensive selling is different than the transactional sales of a Sandler, Tracey, or Hopkins. The long sales cycles and intense competitive pressures of complex sales require skills that move beyond techniques, closing, and relationship building. A salesperson must manage the sale through a long and involved process with an entire continuum of issues, stakeholders, and obstacles. As Thull says "we need to get beyond selling to managing decisions," "beyond problem solving to managing change," beyond meeting needs to managing expectations," beyond transactions to managing relationships," and "beyond reacting to managing clear communications." This book is the roadmap for doing those things. In some ways this book moves past the idea of consultative selling because everyone claims to be doing that. Often customers don't have a rational or clear buying process themselves. Salespeople have to navigate these turbulent waters while preventing "unpaid consulting" and loosing to a competitor for unseen reasons. Thull offers constructive and timely advice on how to lead not simply manage, to drive change instead of being a victim of other people's processes. "New Solution Selling" offers a better 'system' complete with tactical advice and forms to implement a complex selling process. However for important concepts and a philosophical sales foundation this book is a important read. | ||
I have 37 years in sales.... I am familar with many of the concepts and ideas in this book. I enjoyed the overview of the three eras of sales; particularly since I have lived thru them all! And, the fighter jet complex sale made me appreciate the less complex sales I work with day to day. I believe this is a good book for those new to the world of complex sales and provides a good overview upon which to build and increase your knowledge of the sales process. | ||
Refreshing approach Tired of the same old "wedge foot in door, give presentation then close" mentality? This manual offers a refreshing view of a better method for client management. If you feel your time and resources are too valuable to waste them putting the hard sell tactics on uninterested parties, purchase this book. | ||
Good overview for beginners This is the first book I have read that provides a good foundation for salesman who are beginners. | ||