Eades Keith M. - The Solution Selling Fieldbook

Keith M. Eades
James N. Touchstone
Timothy T. Sullivan

Copyright 2005 by Solution Selling Inc. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-07-145608-1
MHID: 0-07-145608-2

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-145607-4, MHID: 0-07-145607-4.

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NOTE: The Solution Selling Job Aid Icons Flow Model can be found between pages 182 and 183.

PART ONE
Getting Started

PART TWO
Creating New Opportunities

PART THREE
Engaging in Active Opportunities

PART FOUR
Qualifying, Controlling, and Closing Opportunities

PART FIVE
Managing Your Opportunities

PART SIX
Solution Selling Reference Section

According to the U.S. Census and Department of Labor statistics, almost one-fifth of the American workforce, more than 25 million people, is formally employed as salespeople. The number of professional salespeople all over the world is not precisely known, but its a sure bet that it exceeds hundreds of millions.

Despite the huge numbers of people who make a living by selling goods and services to other people, sales techniques have typically been learned on the job. Selling has always been regarded as more of an art than a science. There have been very limited resources for helping sales professionals to master their craft.

The old clich of salespeople as silver-tongued devils is rapidly fading away. Thank goodnessthat outdated Hollywood stereotype of salespeople as generally devious and untrustworthy hucksters is an utterly inaccurate picture of the millions of sales professionals all over the world.

To succeed in todays highly competitive global market, sales professionals cant get away with manipulative tricks or high-pressure tactics, nor can they rely solely upon their good looks and charm to woo buyers. Instead, sales professionals must provide real service to their customersthey have to understand buyers needs, diagnose their problems, and prescribe authentic solutions that deliver substantial value.

Customers now demand an ever-rising standard of performance from the people from whom they buy. Today, if a buyer interacts with you, that buyer expects you to give him or her value starting with the very first call. Buyers have more information available to them than ever before, and they are able to communicate faster and more effectively. They can evaluate options rapidly and get accurate prices and specifications from multiple sources quickly. In fact, for many commodity purchases, buyers have found ways to dispense with salespeople altogether by buying what they need electronically. This purchasing approach is a growing trend faced by many sales organizations.

To succeed in todays demanding marketplace, not only must you have exceptional interpersonal relationship and communications skills, but you must also provide valuable knowledge, experience, and expertise to buyers. Selling as a pure art form is giving way to selling as a sciencewhile still leaving some room for creativity.

For this reason, the Solution Selling methodology was created. Based upon how buyers buy and effective practices of the worlds most successful sales professionals, Solution Selling provides a way to meet buyers demanding requirements, not only with what you sell, but, more importantly, by the way that you sell, too. The Solution Selling Fieldbook will show you how.

Welcome to The Solution Selling Fieldbook. This book is a how to guide that complements my previous book, The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That Is Changing the Way People Sell (ISBN: 0-07-143539-5, published by McGraw-Hill, 2004), which describes the worlds most widely used sales execution methodology. In this book, I explain all the practical aspects of putting the Solution Selling methodology into practice.