Given that it is now the do-or-die Q4 for many companies, I thought this topic was timely. While this occurred several years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday. After months of intense selling, providing technical “demos” and submitting a formal proposal, my client was now bracing for what they believed would be a tough “price only” negotiation with procurement.

They had dealt with this procurement manager when negotiating the pilot program, almost a year previously and committed about every negotiation sin you can name (conceded on price, gave away valuable services for free, etc.—all without trading for anything). To make matters worse, this was the biggest opportunity in the company’s pipeline for Q4…

After months of intense work, your company has developed a new business strategy in response to competitive market forces perhaps in order to boost anemic sales and/or increase lagging profits or enter new markets.  Executives have identified and communicated the strategy (objectives, scope and advantage), Ideal Customer Profile and corresponding desired market segmentation. This, of course, led to a realignment of the sales organization, new sales roles and a change to sales compensation. In addition, the entire Marketing program has been revamped to get the right message out to the target market and to arm the sales force with the appropriate collateral material.

I’m sure most of you have been through some or all these changes in your career – and they can be extremely disruptive, especially to short term sales. No organization undertakes these changes lightly and some do so because they have no choice.  However, the right strategy when well executed, can dramatically change the fortunes of the business. In this post I want to discuss one key aspect of executing a new business strategy that is too often overlooked.

I wanted to let you know that “The Compelling Proposal” was just reviewed by Kirkus Reviews and the review was very positive! 

I didn’t realize this was actually a big deal until my wife informed me that authors (you know, real ones that write for a living) vie to get a review from them and live and die by their published reviews.

Thanks for your support!

Steve

In previous posts, we’ve explored the reality of significant uncertainty today in any complex B2B sale, such as “What Is Causing Uncertainty?”. As we’ve discussed, we will almost never have perfect information – and, in truth, we can’t have perfect information. This would require all of the customer’s buying influencers to be perfectly aligned on the outcomes they want to achieve and to basically be experts in what they are buying – meaning they can easily “connect the dots” between those desired outcomes and the best solution to deliver them. Think of the risk we’re taking on!

Add to that, the dynamic of being “sold to.” How many of us can’t wait for another telemarketing call during dinner when we are at home? How many of us appreciate hard sell tactics when we are at the car dealership or shopping for a major appliance? I would bet not too many (my experience is salespeople as some of the hardest to sell to – just saying).  Don’t we all want to feel we are making an informed decision? Aren’t we more willing to part with our money when we get to participate in the buying decision? And yet, too often we act like these aren’t important considerations to our B2B customers. The inevitable result is lower conversion rates and extended sales cycles with a heavy emphasis on price/discounts.

I’m very excited and humbled that my latest book, “The Compelling Proposal (Make It Easy for the Customer to Buy from You)”, has hit #1 on Amazon in two business categories and is listed as the “Hot Seller” in Selling & Sales Presentations.

I can’t thank my connections and followers enough for their support in making this first day launch a huge success! The positive and supportive messages and emails I have received have been truly overwhelming and I am most grateful. As a reminder, the price of $0.99 (Kindle version) will be offered the next few days only, so please feel free to share with your networks and your teams. You can find it on Amazon.

Finally, should you feel inclined, please leave a review on Amazon as this has a huge impact on rankings as well as search results.

Thank you so much!

Steve

I’m very excited that my latest book, “The Compelling Proposal (Make It Easy for the Customer to Buy from You)”, is live on Amazon with the official launch on Tuesday, June 11!  For the first week ONLY, my publisher has set the price to $0.99 (Kindle version) for all my friends, colleagues, connections and followers. Check it out on Amazon.