Changing the Sales Conversation: Connect, Collaborate, and Close

by Linda Richardson

Overview

In this era of iPads, iPhones, and apps, sales communications may be growing, but sales conversations are dying—and so are too many sales. Globalization, the explosion in competition, the slow economy, and fast-emerging technologies all have changed buying habits. Salespeople can no longer rely on the traditional sales methodologies. They must change the conversation.

A visionary of the consultative sales movement, Linda Richardson has again moved selling forward by reengineering the sales conversation. Purchasing has become a core competency for clients. They evaluate their options against checklists they carefully develop. Richardson helps you understand what is on their checklists and align your solutions with their business and personal priorities to help you win.

Clients today are focused on business outcomes. They are interested in reducing risk. They turn to peers and social networks to self-educate before turning to salespeople. To engage them you must demonstrate that you know their world and that you are prepared with insights and ideas to add to what they already know. Richardson gives you five clear strategies and tools to help you do just that. You will create and shape opportunities, prepare and probe in an entirely new way, gain client consensus, and use sales process and tools to guide and accelerate closing. You will learn:

• Futuring to prepare for and anticipate customer needs
• Heat-mapping to use insights to focus and engage customers
• Value-tracking to connect your solutions to business outcomes and ROI
• Phasing to use sales process to forecast accurately and close
• Linking to reassert heart and trust into your sales conversations

Linda Richardson was named Sales Thought Leader for 2013 and this book shows why as she helps you sometimes tweak but more often change how you sell. She builds on your foundation to take your selling to a new elevation and bring your sales results along with it.

PRAISE FOR CHANGING THE SALES CONVERSATION

"Linda Richardson is in the Sales Hall of Fame. Her new book, Changing the Sales Conversation, is not an option. It's an imperative. When Linda Richardson says it's time to change the sales conversation, you can bet your job, and your wallet, that it's time to change." — Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Little Red Book of Selling

"The sales game has changed radically in recent years, and there's no going back. Richardson not only gets the big picture about the new world of sales, but she also provides the kind of insidebaseball details new and experienced salespeople can really use. This book stands out in a field bloated with old thinking and tired cliches." — Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human

"This book is beyond a 'must-read' or 'must-have' book. This is a MUST-DO guide. It is a landmark book in which Linda Richardson gives us an updated road map that clearly explains today's AND tomorrow's buying patterns and how to leverage technology, connections, and exceptional expertise to win on the new sales landscape." — Marc Ramos, Global Lead, Google Enterprise Learning, Google

"Linda has created a sales foundation for the profession of selling across all industries. With Changing the Sales Conversation she has seized on the new emerging trend: the conversation economy. This is the most substantive and authoritative book on conversation management on the market. A must-read for every sales leader and every top performing salesperson." — Gerhard Gschwandtner, CEO, Selling Power

"Linda's new book accomplishes the almost-impossible: providing an easy-to-understand road map for selling in an increasingly complex business world." — Geoffrey James, author of Business Without the Bullsh*t

"Once again, Linda drives the profession of selling forward. Her insights about the art and science of great sales conversations are clear, compelling and extremely practical. No matter what your sales experience, she has jewels of wisdom for you to succeed." — Mary Slaughter, Chief Talent Officer, SunTrust Bank

"To win going forward, the sales conversation needs to change from product monologues to business solution dialogues, and Linda Richardson shows you now to make that happen." — Jim Dickie, Managing Partner, CSO Insights

"This amazing book is long overdue, and while Linda Richardson says the book is not about how to sell, but about how to sell differently, it captures the essence of the evolution of the buying process and importantly, provides a guide for the individual to influence and optimize the profound change in selling." — Jill Rowley, Social Selling Evangelism & Enablement, OracleInside

"Linda Richardson has moved need/discovery based selling into the conversation economy with her powerful new book Changing the Sales Conversation. It is not simply a book. It is a route-map which guides us all as we work to adapt to the new rules of selling. With Linda as a guide, we cannot but succeed." — Jonathan Farrington, Senior Partner at JFA; CEO of Top Sales World

"Changing the Sales Conversation identifies the new skills that matter to succeed in the new world of selling. Linda Richardson, a pioneer and leading expert in sales, gives you the power to win on the new sales map." — Adam Grant, Wharton professor and bestselling author of Give and Take

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071823654
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	12/27/2013
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Linda Richardson is the founder of Richardson, a global sales performance company where she serves as executive chairwoman. She consults with sales organizations and sales leadership on sales process and sales effectiveness. She teaches sales and managementcourses at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Her last book, Perfect Selling, was a New York Times bestseller and received the SBA gold medal for best sales book. Richardson is credited with starting the consultative sales movement, which has guided most sales methodologies used by companies for the past few decades. Changing the Sales Conversation takes consultative selling to the next level to enable salespeople to succeed in the internet influenced sales environment.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments xi

1 Introduction 1

2 Futuring: Meta-Preparation 15

3 Heat-Mapping: Anticipating Client Needs 47

4 Value-Tracking: Shaping Solutions 83

5 Phasing: Controlling the Process 109

6 Linking: Connecting Emotionally 135

Opening into the Future 145

Appendix 147

Index 155