Jim Holden - The New Power Base Selling: Master The Politics, Create Unexpected Value and Higher Margins, and Outsmart the Competition

Contents

Praise for The New Power Base Selling

To be successful in sales, it takes 10 percent inspiration and luck with 90 percent smart work and discipline. Power Base Selling has been the most pragmatic and effective guide for many years in my career in professional services. With the new edition, Jim and Ryan are not only sharpening a proven methodology but also adding an essential element in an ever more competitive environment, namely Unexpected Value. This is fundamental to differentiate and defend margins.

Patrick Nicolet CEO Infrastructure Services, Member of the Group Executive Committee, Capgemini

The New Power Base Selling provides salespeople, sales leaders, and chief executives with the knowledge to make the right investment decisions regarding sales opportunities. The methodologies described in this book take the guesswork out of assessing the quality of your sales pipeline and ultimately enable executives to lead a more intelligent sales engine. Intergraph has long been recognized as a leader in protecting lives and property through its software. After implementing the Holden method, sales excellence also became a core competency of Intergraph in just 24 months.

Bill Campbell Senior Vice President, Americas, Intergraph Corporation

Holden and Kubacki have elevated sales to a scientific process that enables sellers to provide exceptional value to their customers. In my 31 years of selling, this is the first definitive work on how to leverage the intangibles of politics, value, and strategy to boost win rates. Its a masters program in sales superiority!

Lou Ebling Global Account Executive, Oracle

Its time to retire the Glengarry leads mentality of sales effectiveness and take an objective, academic look at the science of selling. Holden and Kubacki deliver a provocative and thoughtful message that up-levels the sales profession to its rightful place in the corporate value chain.

Peter Ostrow Vice President & Research Group Director, Customer Management, Sales Effectiveness, Aberdeen Group

The New Power Base Selling presents sales as a management science, analogous to the principles of military special operations and counterterrorism, for developing repeatable strategies to defeat competition. In this latest book from the Fox people, Holden and Kubacki identify the doctrine and practices for leveraging political insight, creating unexpected client value, and formulating highly effective strategies to quickly achieve relative superiority and obtain a decisive advantage in any sales environment. They have successfully brought Sun Tzu into the twenty-first century!

Kevin Nowak Senior Adviser under contract to the US Department of Energy, Office of Security and Cyber Evaluations

Ive been a Holden disciple for a number of years, having found the processes and insights invaluable in helping me to understand how to win in an increasingly complex and crowded marketplace.

In their book The New Power Base Selling , Jim Holden and Ryan Kubacki build upon their time-tested and revolutionary classic, turning the art of selling into a science. Jim and Ryan demonstrate a repeatable, scalable process that will enable any sales force to increase the value of what they sell by establishing sales superiority. Their book details how to leverage the new dynamics of social media and globalization, as well as how to differentiate in the current economic environment.

Holden and Kubackis understanding of sales strategies, along with the proper balance between customer and competitive positioning, provides a must-read and a must-implement for any sales professional.

The New Power Base Selling demystifies the selling environment, helping a salesperson to understand how to balance product, political, cultural, and business concerns to provide Unexpected Value to their clients.

Woody Sessoms Senior Vice President, Global Enterprise Theatre, Cisco Systems

This is a book that I couldnt put down. I was spellbound by the new ideas presented and the concepts of Political Advantage, Value Creation, and Compete Strategy. Sellers must advance from information providers to Customer Advisors, and Holden and Kubacki tell us exactly how to do it using language and examples that are both engaging and compelling. Every organization needs to read The New Power Base Selling if they want to outfox the competition. It is beautifully written and information-packed.

Rosemarie Mitchell CEO, ABS Associates, Inc.

Holden and Kubacki unveil the science of selling. They show how sophisticated business development can itself create Unexpected Value for clients, drive loyalty, and produce competitive market share.

Clark Dean Corporate real estate consultant

The New Power Base Selling is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to achieve the ultimate competitive advantage. The visible and invisible sales tools drilled down on in this book apply to any industrypolitics includedand for any individual facing a competitive battle. The books insights guided my successful and hugely underdog 2010 campaign for US Congress and continue to assist me in the competitive world of Washington, DC.

Joe Walsh Congressman, 8th District of Illinois in the US House of Representatives

A must-read for selling in todays economy and hypercompetitive marketplace. The New Power Base Selling will help ensure value-driven sales rather than price-driven lower-quality business. Jim and Ryan have created an MBA program for selling where all sales professionals can advance to Stage IV Customer Advisors, providing Unexpected Value to customers while driving up win rates.

Garth Carter Vice President, State and Local Government/Education, CIBER, Inc.

This update to the original thinking of Power Base Selling is required reading for every sales professional, whether early in their careers or experienced executives. The key today is relevance and success in an increasingly competitive and complex selling environment. The transition from a product and relationship orientation to a model of political alignment, Value Creation, and Competitive Differentiation yields more wins, trusted advisor status with customers, and larger commission payouts.

Geoff Nyheim Vice President, Cloud Services Sales, Microsoft

Holden and Kubacki masterfully define the many influence factors that drive sales in todays complex organizations. They know what separates super-salespeople from mere account reps, and after reading this book, so will you.

Paul Gillin Author of The New Influencers , Secrets of Social Media Marketing , and Social Marketing to the Business Customer

In 1999, when I was running sales for Sprint, we deployed Holden Power Base Selling and we proceeded to win 13 strategic accounts over the next 13 months. My next opportunity to deploy Holden principles came 10 years later at International Game Technology, and we are back again as a dominant force in the marketplace. Jim Holden and Ryan Kubacki, in The New Power Base Selling, have captured the essence of selling strategically and describe how to effectively navigate in our complex and competitive environments. We will continue to add to their accumulating 50,000 deals... and counting!

Eric Tom Executive Vice President, North American Sales and Global Service, International Game Technology

The New Power Base Selling is a must-read for anyone looking to create a Customer Advisor sales organization whereby you are looking to increase your deal size, provide value differentiation, and help your customers solve their business problems. The result is a win-win for your company and your customerthat is true value.

Dave Furtado Global Vice President of Sales, Ascom Network Testing