CustomerCentric Selling / Edition 2

by John R. Holland, Michael T. Bosworth, Frank Visgatis

Overview

The Web has changed the game for your customers—and, therefore, for you. Now, CustomerCentricSelling, already recognized as one of the premiermethodologies for managing the buyer-sellerrelationship, helps you level the playing field soyou can reach clients when they are ready to buyand create a superior customer experience.

Your business and its people need to be“CustomerCentric”—willing and able to identifyand serve customers’ needs in a world wherecompetition waits just a mouse-click away.Traditional wisdom has long held that sellingmeans convincing and persuading buyers. Buttoday’s buyers no longer want or need to be soldin traditional ways.

CustomerCentric Selling givesyou mastery of the crucial eight aspects ofcommunicating with today’s clients to achieveoptimal results:

• Having conversations instead ofmaking presentations
• Asking relevant questions insteadof offering opinions
• Focusing on solutions and notonly relationships
• Targeting businesspeople insteadof gravitating toward users
• Relating product usage instead ofrelying on features
• Competing to win—not just to stay busy
• Closing on the buyer’s timeline(instead of yours)
• Empowering buyers instead of tryingto “sell” them

What’s more, CustomerCentric Selling teaches andreinforces key tactics that will make the most ofyour organization’s resources. Perhaps you feelyou don’t have the smartest internal systems inplace to ensure an ideal workflow. (Perhaps, asis all too common, you lack identifiable systemsalmost entirely.) From the basics—and beyond—ofstrategic budgeting and negotiation to assessingand developing the skills of your sales force, you’lllearn how to make sure that each step yourbusiness takes is the right one.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071637084
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	12/18/2009
Edition description:	Revised and Expanded
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

McGraw-Hill authors represent the leading experts in their fields and are dedicated to improving the lives, careers, and interests of readers worldwide

Michael T. Bosworth is a cofounder ofCustomerCentric Systems®, LLC. He has assistedclients in improving sales effectiveness andshaping customer experience since 1983. He livesin Del Mar, California.
John R. Holland is a cofounder of Customer-Centric Systems, LLC. In addition to the thoughtleadership that drives the CustomerCentric Sellingsales methodology, he provides sales and marketingguidance to a limited number of companies. Helives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Frank Visgatis is a cofounder of Customer-Centric Systems, LLC. He has trained thousandsof salespeople around the world. He lives inSutton, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1What Is Customer-Centric Selling?
Chapter 2Opinions—The Fuel That Drives Corporations
Chapter 3Success without Sales-Ready Messaging
Chapter 4Core Concepts of CustomerCentric Selling
Chapter 5Defining the Sales Process
Chapter 6Integrating the Sales and Marketing Processes
Chapter 7Features versus Customer Usage
Chapter 8Creating Sales-Ready Messaging
Chapter 9Marketing’s Role in Demand Creation
Chapter 10Business Development: The Hardest Part of a Salesperson’s Job
Chapter 11Developing Buyer Vision through Sales-Ready Messaging
Chapter 12Qualifying Buyers
Chapter 13Negotiating and Managing a Sequence of Events
Chapter 14Negotiation: The Final Hurdle
Chapter 15Proactively Managing Sales Pipelines and Funnels
Chapter 16Assessing and Developing Salespeople
Chapter 17Driving Revenue via Channels
Chapter 18From the Classroom to the Boardroom

Index

Editorial Reviews

Even if you are the best salesperson in your company, you could be even better. Forget everything you think you know about selling products to buyers - the rules are changing, and it's about time.

In CustomerCentric Selling, sales experts Michael T. Bosworth and John R. Holland lay out a new approach to sales, one in which salespeople stop forcing products on buyers and start listening to their goals, problems and needs. Stop giving your "expert" opinion on why a buyer should snap up your products, and start engaging decision makers in business conversations that yield results. CustomerCentric Selling will help you stop working inefficiently, and start moving toward better, longer, more mutually beneficial relationships with your customers.

Customer-centric behavior has the following seven basic tenets that set it apart from more traditional selling behavior:

1. Having situational conversations versus making presentations. Traditional salespeople rely on making presentations because they believe this approach gives them the opportunity to add excitement to an offering with snazzy visuals and the supposed innovative use of such presentation tools as PowerPoint. Such dramatics, however, are unnecessary. In order to be effective, a salesperson must be able to relate his or her offering to the buyer in a way that will enable the buyer to visualize using the offering to satisfy his or her needs. The most effective way to determine those needs is through honest conversations with the buyer.
2. Asking relevant questions versus offering opinions. People love to buy, but hate feeling sold to. Most salespeople come to a vision of the buyer's problem before the buyer does, usually to the buyer's chagrin. Customer-centric salespeople use their expertise to frame interesting and helpful questions, rather than to deliver opinions, drawing out of the buyer a realization of his or her needs, and building toward a more useful solution.
3. Solution-focused versus relationship-focused. Salespeople who are not trained to converse with decision makers about product usage gravitate toward focusing on their relationship with their buyers, which can be fleeting, depending on the product and market. In situations where the buyer is attempting to satisfy a need, the successful seller must first earn the buyer's respect by knowing how his or her wares can provide a solution to that need.
4. Targeting businesspeople versus gravitating toward users. Traditional salespeople gravitate toward the users of their products, while customer-centric salespeople target business decision makers. Most traditional salespeople can talk a great deal about a product's features, but very little about how it is used in day-to-day applications. Customer-centric sellers, conversely, focus on how to use a product and what results can be expected, and how much it costs versus the benefits it presents.
5. Relating product usage versus relying on product. Traditional salespeople educate buyers about a product, and assume buyers will know how to apply the product's features to meet their needs. Customer-centric sellers are able to relate conversationally with buyers about product usage.
6. Managing their managers versus needing to be managed. Traditional sales managers monitor activity, rather than progress; they are promoted to management positions, in part, because they were good salespeople - management skills are rarely used as criteria for promotion. Managers of customer-centric salespeople, on the other hand, must only monitor their charges' progress and, when necessary, provide company resources to help them make a sale.
7. Empowering buyers versus attempting to sell them. Selling is not about persuasion, pressure or coercion; it is about empowerment. A seller's objective, going into a new customer relationship, should be to help the buyer solve a problem, satisfy a need, or achieve a goal. The difference between the two sales approaches is fundamental. Copyright © 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries

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