Selling to Big Companies

Drop your tired sales tactics for ones that work!

Buy the book. Also look for Jill's e-Book, which is filled with hundreds of great questions to ask when marketing to big companies. p I've just finished this book and it's a resource I keep going back to as I re-shape my approach to win business from big companies and government as well as to advise my clients. /p SAY GOODBYE TO THE CONDITIONAL CLOSE!! When I worked for IBM in the early 1980's, we were taught the 'conditional close' -- 'If I can...will you...?' I hated it. Now I know why: customers didn't like it either!! Jill explains why, and offers much better approaches. Now I can say farewell to this last piece of hardwired code leftover from my IBM marketing days without thinking, 'Well, one of the world's biggest companies sells this way, so there must be something right about it.' USE SMART QUESTIONS TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS YOU NEED TO WIN Jill suggests questions -- lots of them -- that she's found you can ask your prospects to engage them, get them thinking, and help them become receptive to share with you valuable insights that tell you how you can meet their needs...because that's what it's all about: THEIR needs, not YOURS. In so doing, she lets you abandon forever those thoughtless autopilot queries that turn people off and immediately show that you haven't done your homework and don't really care about them, either as people or as a company. UNDERSTAND & APPEAL TO THE BUSY EXECUTIVE'S MIND & TIME Jill's insights -- which come from honest sharing of her own experiences and mistakes -- take you right inside the head space of busy top executives and make plain how a thoughtful approach can rivet just enough of their attention to get the support you need from them to proceed win the business. CHOCK FULL OF TOP TACTICS Not mere theory, this book is crammed with hands-on tips for how to achieve your goals of winning business from America's largest companies. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and act. ALSO HELPS YOU WITH SELLING TO GOVERNMENT! The US government is the world's largest customer...and that's my market space: I help companies win US government contracts. That is its own very special discipline, but many of the principles that Jill talks about will make your strategies in winning US government business all that more effective. Top executives in both public and private sector are grappling with not enough time and overwhelming challenges. Government buyers have to cope with many more rules, extraordinary public oversight, security, and a highly structured process on top of everything else...but Jill tells you how to appeal to the very real factors that motivate the very real humans who make go/no-go decisions at every step of the sales process.

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Selling to Companies of 'All Sizes'

I have been a student of sales and marketing for many years and have read countless books, listened to numerous tapes, and attend many seminars. I belong to or have attended all the appropriate networking groups. Several years ago I became a President's Club member of a local Sandler Sales franchise. I even made a significant investment to create a multi-media business card so that I could differentiate myself from all the other suitors a decision maker sees on a daily basis. But quite honestly, Jill's book is the best resource I have ever read, and it is causing me to drastically re-think how I market and sell my services. Although she calls it 'selling to big companies', I believe most of her principles are applicable for businesses of any size. Regardless of size, everyone is busy and they just don't have time to waste on sales people who do not offer anything of value. Almost all the resources on the market recycle old techniques that are no longer applicable in today's sales environment. After spinning my wheels and spending a considerable amount of money on inaffective 'cold drop-in calls', cute direct mail pieces, and boring telemarketing calls, I am discontinuing everything and restructing my efforts based on the principles outlined in Jill's book. This book is simply the best handbook I have ever read on how to sell in today's challenging environment, and it will certainly be a means of separating any follower of its powerful principles from the rest of the selling pack.

Detailed manual for connecting and closing complex sales

This succinct, concise, pointed, clearly written guide will help anyone who aims to sell to big companies. Author Jill Konrath is practical, focused and no-nonsense. She includes few of the personal yarns that freckle most such manuals, but enough to let readers know that she writes from experience. Much of what she says is common sense and should be general knowledge. For example, it is hard to imagine that any salesperson would waste time on self-promotion when customers really need and want solutions to their own problems. Yet many sales guides - including this one - emphasize the need to ask questions and offer solutions, so the emphasis must be necessary. The author provides a straightforward how-to manual, with step-by-step guides. She is not afraid to tackle the most elementary matters, such as how to write a letter or how to script a call. We find that this book deserves a place on the shelf of any sales manager or salesperson who is targeting big companies.

Great Guidelines for Sales Success

Would you equip your office with manual typewriters? Would you make your on-the-road calls by searching for pay phone booths? Would you write letters by dictating the content to a secretary who uses shorthand and a steno pad? Certainly not. Why? Because those approaches are outmoded. Professional people have upgraded their skills, and they can work faster, more efficiently and expect greater production. Likewise, I think any sales person who tries to land contracts with big companies will be obsolete, frustrated and destined for failure unless he or she reads this book--and then meticulously implements Jill Konrath's strategies. What makes this book most compelling is that Konrath struggled, searched and stumbled before she came up with her formula for 'Selling to Big Companies.' She had to explore why old adages had become empty platitudes. She had to understand how the corporate world has changed, creating new challenges for every sales force. As I read this book, I looked at the list I had made earlier this week of the prospects I want to contact next. On almost every page, I thought: 'Say, I ought to try that' or 'That makes sense' or even 'No wonder other people got through the corporate door and I didn't.' Her writing style engages the reader, as though the two of you are sipping coffee and swapping ideas. You will like the book's structure--logical, easy to follow. If you are in sales, reading this book--and restructuring your sales campaign--will boost your success, no matter how accomplished you are already. Specifically, you will reshape your research, become more skilled with telephone contacts, revise your concept of networking, and describe business solutions your potential clients will get by contracting with you. Let me suggest that sales people who are aware of this book and do not buy it will be giving their competition a big advantage. I don't think you want to let that happen. As for me, except for five years as a university professor of communication, I have spent my entire professional life selling services and products. Too bad I didn't have 'Selling to Big Companies' three decades ago. However, I won't fret about that. I will use Jill Konrath's guidelines now with every big company representative I contact. I am excited about how my sales will soar.

A Mouthwatering good tool for under 20$

This book is a must read!!! It was such a wealth of information that I would have gladly paid a $100 for it. I read this book in 3 days it was like a miracle cure for selling that I could not detach my eyes from. Selling to big companies is the ultimate guide to get your mind thinking and creative ideas flowing!!!!! Go buy this book today!!!

Getting In Means Getting It Right

This powerful, straightforward little book gives a fresh perspective on the key dilemma confronting all sales people across a wide spectrum of industries. That dilemma simply put is, ¿How do I get into to see the right person.¿ Jill Konrath takes the popular notion that it must be a matter of finding a better way to talk about our products and service and first shows the fallacy of that viewpoint, then methodically and mercilessly obliterates it. The central kernel of truth that informs the entire book is found in these two sentences on page 55, ¿Your offering is only a tool. Decision makers care only about the results your offering deliverers for them.¿ But grasping a truth and applying it are two quite different things. Jill expounds on this truth in so many different ways that if you read the entire book and still don¿t grasp it, you must have had one eye on the soap operas while reading it. But she also tells you in simple terms how to build this truth into a value propositions and why that is key, how this truth shapes your networking philosophy, how this truth informs your letters, emails, voice mails and phone conversations, and how this truth colors and controls that initial interview when you finally obtain it. We are building our sales strategy for 2006 around the principles in this book. If I were a director of a large sales force, my first act would be to put a copy in the hand of every sales person on my team. And, oh yeah, I would make sure they turned off the soap operas while they read it.

Selling to Big Companies?

Want to start selling to big companies? Or perhaps you want to sell more to big companies. Either way, 'Selling to Big Companies' by Jill Konrath is a must read. The book is packed with easy-to-use tools and easy-to-follow methods that anyone can implement to capture the attention of and sell to corporate decision-makers. Corporate decision-makers live in a highly pressured world where the status quo reigns supreme. It takes a masterful approach to penetrate that world. The strength of the book lies in helping the reader identify and hone strategies to do exactly that. 'Selling to Big Companies' has tips on understanding corporate decision-makers, what decision-makers want from you and how to help your prospects understand the tangible, measurable business outcomes you have to offer. The book then goes a step further with specific tools to break through the barriers and become irresistible to decision-makers. 'Selling to Big Companies' even includes an appendix with an Account Entry Tool Kit to customize your own approach. Start out 2006 with a bang and start 'Selling to Big Companies' now.

A Marketing Tool I'll Use

Jill's book, Selling to Big Companies, reads like a conversation. I read it in one sitting. It's full of real-world scenarios and examples of how to deal with difficult marketing communications and actions that both management and sales reps have to face. From value propositions to cold call techniques, Jill makes it clear how to set up a campaign directed to getting your foot in the door of the big guys. It also will work, I'd think, on any prospect. Her book is a fresh change in perspective. She makes it clear that it's not a numbers thing so much as a targeted, thoughtful approach to deliver value. I've already applied some of her knowledge and seen my sales attempts begin to become more fruitful. I highly recommend you buy a copy today. Heck, I bought a few extra for my staff too.

Land the BIG Fish in any ocean, lake or pond

Are you a sales person who's involved in making a sale that's more complex than most? If so, I highly recommend Jill Konrath's book. The biggest challenge most sales people face is getting access to executives, especially those in BIG companies. Sales cycles are getting longer and number of decision makers involved in a typical buying process has increased too. At the same time, price commoditization is affecting even complex sales. That's why I appreciate Jill Konrath's approach in this book. What separates this book from the dozens of other sales books out is that it is really pragmatic and practical. You'll probably read it in a day and then refer back to it again and again. Another thing, this book doesn't dive right into tactics. In fact, the book focuses on developing the optimal mindset first, then strategies and finally tactics. Think! That being said, Jill won't tell you where the fish are... I mean what's the point? Fish are always moving anyway. Instead, Jill teaches you what you need to know to land the BIG Fish in any water. I know because she taught me. Yes, I'm a fan of Jill Konrath. I'm also an avid reader, author and CEO of an Inc 500 company. Buy this book.

Increasing Sales

If you're a newcomer in sales, you can reduce your learning time, and get your commissions rolling in about fifty percent faster by reading 'Selling to Big Companies' and following the tips, trchniques and strategies that if offers in abundance. Likewise, if you have been selling for a while you'll wish you had read this book years ago. But as you'll see, now's not to late to follow its recommendatiions to supercharge your procedures, and win even more customers and larger commissions. finall, if you are a sales manager yu can use this book as a guide for making yours the hottest sales team in your industry. 'Selling to Big Companies' is a business to business sales manual about getting through to and selling corporate executives who are besieged by people 'selling something'. the principals set forth are equally valuable whether your product is as s tra\raight forward as a group insurance policy or an advertising program. or as multifaceted as a specialized new-product introduction service. Author Jill Konrath's advice is based on her more than thirty uears of direct, first hand experience in the corporate sales arena. This a botton-line oriented book that is well writte, and conversatioinal in style with key points highlighted at the end of each chapter. In no way is this a book of 'quick fixes'. the Author emphacises that the seller needs to think, research, plan and follow through to acheive the generous rewards that are out there to be earned. Particularly mentiioned are personal accountability and the importance of building long-term relatiionships to retain a customer's business and gain referrals. y opinion, based on thirty-two years of selling to businesses, is that 'Selling to Big Companies' is a 'must read' for anyone pursuing a sales career.

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