The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process that is Changing the Way People Sell » (Second Edition)

Keith Eades is the founder, president, and CEO of Sales Performance International, one of today's foremost sales performance organizations. Eades and his associates have trained more than 500,000 sales and sales management professionals—from client companies including Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Bank of America, and more—on the principles and practices of Solution Selling. The author of a number of influential books on sales and sales performance, he is also an internationally renowned speaker and presenter.

The Powerful and Proven Solution Selling® Process, Updated for Today's High-Speed, Higher-Pressure Sales Challenges

The original Solution Selling rewrote the rules for the sales profession. Today, the revolutionary yet practical Solution Selling method remains the primary selling process for salespeople competing in every industry around the world, and in every size of business—from the smallest firms to the largest Fortune 500 corporations.

The New Solution Selling comprehensively updates this proven effective approach to help you succeed with today's no-nonsense markets and buyers. A practical guide designed to provide hands-on value to frontline salespeople as well as sales managers and executives, this step-by-step book shows you how to streamline the sales process by:

• Understanding your buyers, their situations and, most importantly, their needs
• Supplying mutually defined solutions to your customers' recognized problems
• Gaining access to key decision makers
• Controlling the buying process
• Defining milestones that can be measured and forecasted

Solution Selling first won its well-earned reputation among technology companies. Now The New Solution Selling shows how the same principles and process may be applied to any business relationship in any industry. This results-based book will show you how to improve your sales performance by first understanding your customers' challenges—and then providing intelligent, accessible, and field-proven solutions to those challenges.

"We have put the principles of Solution Selling® at the core of our selling process—helping all of our 5,000-strong sales professionals, and thousands of Microsoft's business partners, consistently apply proven sales principles to make a real difference to our customers and meet expectations. The New Solution Selling describes how top-performing salespeople behave, and how this behavior fosters success—for both the customer and the salesperson."

—Kevin Johnson, Group VP Worldwide Sales, Marketing, and Services, Microsoft (From the Foreword)

The sales profession has changed tremendously in the past decade. Buyers who once made time to discuss their problems now expect sales professionals to have the business acumen that's necessary to understand and diagnose those problems before they arrive. More importantly, these buyers will only listen to—and buy from—salespeople who can provide them with solutions that are both convincing and workable.

The New Solution Selling shows how to apply the proven Solution Selling approach in the can't-stop-to-talk pace of today's business. The result is a logical and practical process for sales success, one that improves both individual productivity and organizational return on investment. This important book features:

• Completely updated Solution Selling sales process, principles, and management systems for today's tough sales environment
• New tools designed to increase the quality and velocity of sales pipeline opportunities
• Improved methods for overcoming the all-too-common situation when your product is not your buyer's first choice—or even their second
• New techniques for dramatically improving your prospecting accuracy and success
• Effective strategies for shifting an organization's focus from product selling to Solution Selling—at every level, throughout every operation

The original edition of Solution Selling changed the face of selling by transforming the rules for one-to-one selling. The New Solution Selling focuses on streamlining the proven Solution Selling process by showing you how to quickly understand and address your buyers' problems, use your offerings to provide insightful and workable solutions to those problems, and dramatically decrease the time spent between initial qualification and a successful, profitable close.

Keith Eades is the founder, president, and CEO of Sales Performance International, one of today's foremost sales performance organizations. Eades and his associates have trained more than 500,000 sales and sales management professionals—from client companies including Microsoft, IBM, AT&T, Bank of America, and more—on the principles and practices of Solution Selling. The author of a number of influential books on sales and sales performance, he is also an internationally renowned speaker and presenter.

Soundview Executive Book Summaries

A Revolutionary Sales Process for Any Business
According to Keith M. Eades, the founder and president of Sales Performance International and Solution Selling Inc., a solution is a mutually agreed-upon answer to a recognized problem that also provides some measurable improvement. Solution Selling is a sales process that involves direct contact with a buyer who expects the salesperson to understand and diagnose problems before they arrive. Buyers need salespeople who can provide them with solutions that are convincing and workable; The New Solution Selling offers salespeople a practical approach to selling that improves individual productivity and organizational return on investment, as well as customer satisfaction.

Streamline the Sales Process
According to Eades, front-line salespeople need to streamline the sales process by diagnosing the buyer's business issues, supplying mutually defined solutions to the customer's recognized problems, gaining access to key decision makers, and defining measurable and predictable milestones along the way. First, the salesperson understands the customer's challenges, then he or she provides intelligent, accessible and proven solutions to those challenges. Solution Selling is a sales process that consists of these components:

• It's a Philosophy. The customer is the focal point of the process. Helping customers solve their business problems and achieve positive, measurable results is the basis of all actions.
• It's a Map. Solution Selling provides a map of how to get from where you are to where you want to be by offering an end-to-end series of next steps to follow. This includes pre-call planning, creating interest, diagnosing the problem, vision processing, controlling the sale, closing the sale, and post-sale tracking.
• It's a Methodology. Solution Selling is a system of methods that includes tools, job aids, techniques, and procedures that help salespeople and sales teams navigate the selling steps that close more sales faster.
• It's a Sales Management System. Solution Selling provides management with a process to analyze pipelines, qualify opportunities, and coach skills, thus increasing productivity and predictability. It also results in a high-performance sales culture.

Eades explains that buyers want to do business with a salesperson who has a good understanding of their situation as well as a good working knowledge of the capabilities necessary to help them solve their problems. They want a consultant who can add value to their situations. According to Eades, salespeople must add value to a situation if they want to survive.

Identify and Quantify the Pain
The foundation of Solution Selling is based on several underlying principles, including:

• No pain, no change. Pain is the problem, which can be a critical business issue or a potential missed opportunity. When pain is admitted and the value of the resolution of the pain is quantified, buyers have a compelling reason to act.
• Pain flows throughout the entire organization. One person's problems link to other people within the same organization. In selling, it's important not only to identify and quantify the pain of the person you are talking to, but also to link that problem to others.
• Diagnose before you prescribe. This allows you to understand the customer's problems before you discuss the solution.
• The three levels of buyer need are latent pain, admitted pain, and vision of a solution. Be aware of this principle and adjust your sales approach accordingly.
• There are two types of opportunities: looking and not looking. Only 5 to 10 percent of buyers are committed to buy something. The rest, with latent pain, are where the greatest opportunities lie.
• Get there first, set the requirements, and make yourself "Column A." Increase your odds of selling by putting yourself in the most favored position of prospects by finding opportunities in latent pain, and bringing them to an active state of evaluation.
• You can't sell to someone who can't buy. Target and call on people as high up in the firm as possible.
• Buyers' concerns shift over time. Recognize where buyers are and align selling activities with what is important to them.
• Pain x Power x Vision x Value x Control = Sale. Each element of this formula should be monitored as part of the sales process.

Why We Like This Book
The New Solution Selling offers a clear guide to making the most of the Solution Selling concept introduced 10 years ago by Michael Bosworth. Keith Eades has made the concept even more understandable by streamlining the entire process and providing time-tested insights into its guiding principles. Copyright © 2004 Soundview Executive Book Summaries