Stephen E. Heiman - The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the Worlds Best Companies

STRATEGIC SELLING is a Service Mark of Miller Heiman, Inc., 1595 Meadow Wood Lane, Suite 2, Reno, NV 89502

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Grand Central Publishing Edition

Copyright 1998 by Miller Heiman, Inc.

Copyright 1995 by Miller Heiman & Associates, Inc.

Charts copyright 1998 by Miller Heiman & Associates, Inc.

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

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First eBook Edition: March 1986

ISBN: 978-0-446-54878-6

Contents

BUSINESS LEADERS AND THE PRESS PRAISE STRATEGIC SELLING

Even more timely and effective today than when The Dow Chemical Company first adopted it in 1986.

Gary Hardy, global leader of sales education and development, The Dow Chemical Company

The idea of playing Win-Win has helped us considerably in the sales process and also in our interoffice dealings with one another. No other principle has impacted us as much.

Joe Dejohn, vice president, direct sales division, Atlet, Inc.

At Harris Corporation we have trained over 500 sales and marketing people worldwide on the original Strategic Selling concepts. Our old copies are worn out. The new and updated book is warmly welcomed. The old one helped us win many multimillion-dollar orders, and Im sure this new one will win even more.

Carleton L. Smith, vice president, Asia sales and marketing, Harris Corporation

A practical guide offering new insight into the way salesmen can successfully promote big-ticket items to large organizations.

Financial Post

A method that sales professionals can use effectively. The authors clearly and engagingly describe numerous workshops in which readers can apply their own sales experiences. Professionally yet clearly presented.

ALA Booklist

We quickly went from just a few thousand a month in sales to over $100,000 a month. Strategic Selling gave us confidence in what we were doing. We pegged some accounts as low probability, and even on those we were able to penetrate deeper and put our action plans into effect. Weve been able to get a portion of every account out there.

John Witkowski, director, Southeast business unit, Amersham Healthcare

The year after implementing Strategic Selling was our best sales year ever. This is the second full year weve been using the Miller Heiman processes, and were going to come very close to doubling that.

Roger Ballmer, manager, district marketing, Owen Healthcare, Inc.

The largest sale ever done at my previous position used Strategic Selling to win an extremely difficult and complex sale. The sale was over $5 million year one and it continues to gross over $2 million a year for the past three years. We couldnt have won it without the discipline and hard work of the team and certainly not without the Miller Heiman course.

Andrew Lee, vice president, sales and marketing, Microvision, Inc.

The best books I have read on selling.

Scott DeGormo, Success magazine, on Strategic Selling and Conceptual Selling

Efficient, professional the finest high-level training program I have seen a mini-MBA in how to sell national accounts.

Henry J. Cockerill, former senior vice president, U.S.A. Fountain Sales, Coca-Cola Company

Thousands of HP sales engineers worldwide have been trained in Strategic Selling, and its influences can be directly seen in the results they have attained Its usefulness has spanned product disciplines and national boundaries.

John A. Young, former president and chief executive officer, Hewlett-Packard Company

A totally professional planning process. If Willy Loman had taken the Miller Heiman program, hed have been salesman of the year.

Walter H. Drew, former senior vice president and general sales manager, Consumer Products Division, Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Every year I meet or hear from dozens of graduates of Strategic Selling, Conceptual Selling, and other Miller Heiman programs. I also meet a lot of these people face-to-face at places where I am speaking, giving a seminar, or on sales calls. Virtually all of them say the same thing to me. Invariably it is some version of, Bob, thank you so much for all the money you have made me over the years! The greatest thing about Strategic Selling, and Conceptual Selling and LAMP is that they work! Now I am as susceptible as the next guy to flattery like this, and indeed it is very gratifying to hear this over and over again from so many alumni. But I always respond in the same way, We appreciate the great feedback, but you are the one who had the discipline to apply it. And therein lies the key. Countless seminars are filled with ideas, some good and sound, and many worthless nonsense. But no idea or concept is worth anything unless it can be applied to situational reality. This has always been a planned hallmark of Miller Heiman, Inc. programs. We can provide the knowledge and show our participants how to do something, but the individual must deliver the discipline.

Nor has it been just money that gives credit to Strategic Selling. Consider the stories of just a few of our alumni, of whom we are very proud:

Mike Jackson, western region senior vice president and general manager for General Motors, was the Coca-Cola account manager for Jack in the Box when he first was exposed to Strategic Selling in 1981.

Rick Justice, executive vice president of worldwide operations at Cisco was a twenty-two-year-old sales representative for Hewlett-Packard when he took Strategic Selling. He used the process on everyone of his deals that year, became Sales Representative of the Year, and the rest is history.

Mike Cronk was a young district sales manager at Saga Food Service (now part of Marriott Sodhexo) when he ran Strategic Selling for his district team. (Incidentally, it was the first seminar we ran for a Fortune 500 company.) He just retired from being president of Aramark International.

Reed Hilliard recently retired from a general managers position at Agilent Technologies. He was also a young newly appointed district sales manager at Hewlett-Packard when he introduced Strategic Selling to his team in 1976.

These are but a handful of people who thank Strategic Selling for helping their success over their careers. There are hundreds more.

Next year will be the thirtieth anniversary of the first Strategic Selling seminar. Of course, it wasnt called that thirty years ago, and the exercises were sort of a work-in-progress, but you would recognize the same key principles: Win-Win, Four Buying Influences, Four Modes, Win-Results, Red Flags, Ideal Customer