The collaborative sale: solution selling in a buyer driven world

Description

Buyer behavior has changed the marketplace, and sellers must adapt to survive The Collaborative Sale: Solution Selling in Today's Customer-Driven World is the definitive guide to the new reality of sales. The roles of buyers, sellers, and technology have changed, and collaboration is now the key to success on all sides. The Collaborative Sale guides sales professionals toward alignment with buyers, by helping them overcome their problems and challenges, and creating value. From building a robust opportunity pipeline and predicting future revenues to mastering the nuances of buyer conversations, the book contains the information sales professionals need to remain relevant in today's sales environment. Buyers have become more informed and more empowered. As a result, most sellers now enter the buying process at a much later stage than the traditional norm. The rise of information access has given buyers more control over their purchases than ever before, and... Foreword David Stein xi Preface xv Acknowledgements xix Definitions xxi Part I Foundations of the Collaborative Sale 1 1 The Story and What s Behind The Collaborative Sale 3 The Collaborative Sale 7 What is sales collaboration? 9 2 Solution Selling Meets the New Buyer 13 The Emergence of the New Buyer - Buyer 2.0 16 The Effect of Information Access on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 16 The Millennials are Coming 21 The Effect of Economic Uncertainty on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 23 Buyer 2.0 vs. Buyer 1.0 27 Adapting to the Buyer 2.0 Paradigm 28 The Relevancy of Solution Selling and the Evolution of the Collaborative Sale 33 The Story (continued) 35 3 What the New Buyers Expect: Situational Fluency 39 Seller Agility 42 Situational Fluency 44 Components of Situational Fluency 45 Hiring for Situational Fluency 50 Developing Situational Fluency 51 Technology s Role in Situational Fluency 53 Part II Three Personae of the Collaborative Sale 57 4 The Micro-Marketer Persona 59 Why Be a Micro-Marketer? 60 Micro-Marketers Demonstrate Situational Fluency with Constraint 62 Micro-Marketers Create Their Own Personal Brand 63 Planning and Executing a Micro-Marketer Strategy 66 Enabling the Micro-Marketer Persona 74 The Story (continued) 82 5 The Visualizer Persona 85 What a Visualizer? 85 Buyer States and Strength of Vision 91 Visualizer Conversations 95 Embracing the Visualizer Persona 99 The Story (continued) 101 6 The Value Driver Persona 105 Focusing on Value 107 What is the Value Driver Persona? 107 Using a Collaboration Plan a Buyer Alignment and Risk Mitigation Strategy 115 The Myth of Control 118 Create an Online Collaboration Site 119 Collaborating to Close 121 Enabling the Value Driver Persona 122 The Story (continued) 124 Part III Making the Collaborative Sale a Reality 127 7 Establishing a Dynamic Sales Process 129 Buyer-Aligned Sales Process 134 Dynamic Sales Process 135 Automating Dynamic Sales Processes 137 Expanding the View of Sales Process 138 Sales Process Enables Management and Marketing 140 8 Coaching the Collaborative Sale 143 Sales Management Cadence 144 Motivation 151 9 Implementing The Collaborative Sale 157 Right Process: Buyer-Aligned Learning and Development 159 Right People: Talent Assessment and Analytics 162 Right Tools: Focused Enablement 167 Committing to Success Individually and Organizationally 177 Epilogue 179 Afterword 181 Appendix 183 EssentialCompetencies for The Collaborative Sale 183 Additional Collaborative Selling Tools 186 Contributors 195 KeithM. Eades 195 Timothy T. Sullivan 195 Robert Kear 196 James N. Jimmy Touchstone 197 Dave Christofaro 197 Kenneth Cross 198 Tamela M. Rich 198 Index 199