The Collaborative Sale: Solution Selling in a Buyer Driven World

Praise for The Collaborative Sale Keith Eades and Tim Sullivan share a passion for raising the quality of the sales profession. They have taken a close look at the recent changes in buyer behavior and developed a modern view of what effective sellers need to do to succeed in todays world. The Collaborative Age of Selling is now upon us. The Collaborative Sale will help you make the transition. Dave Stein, Founder and CEO, ES Research Group, Inc. With the pace of innovation continuing to accelerate, buyers can become overwhelmed with the amount of information that is available to them. As a result, they are looking for salespeople who can help them in making an educated decision, define the optimum solution, and attain a maximized return on investment. The job of the sales person is to work with buyers collaboratively to provide them with the right resources, insights and information to help buyers make that educated decision. In The Collaborative Sale , Keith Eades and Tim Sullivan describe how sales professionals can engage with todays buyers successfully to do this. Jim Ninivaggi, Service Director of Sales Enablement Strategies, SiriusDecisions Our research shows that successful selling requires collaboration talking to resources within your organization, and both listening and participating in conversations with buyers. The challenge for sellers is knowing how to collaborate effectively how to matter to people so that you can be an important contributor to what they are looking to accomplish. The Collaborative Sale provides useful and practical guidance for sales professionals about how they can collaborate, and make a difference to their customers. Peter Ostrow, Vice President and Group Director for Sales Effectiveness Strategy, AberdeenGroup The buying process is changing. The myriad of ways that information is available has changed the dynamics of the sales conversation. Sales professionals need to adapt, in order to succeed they must know how to engage with an informed and savvy buyer, in order to win their business. Keith Eades and Tim Sullivan, in The Collaborative Sale, describe the reasons for these changes, and what sellers can do to align with buyers newly evolving expectations. Jim Dickie, Managing Partner, CSO Insights

Foreword David Stein xi Preface xv Acknowledgements xix Definitions xxi Part I  Foundations of the Collaborative Sale 1 1 “The Story” and What’s Behind The Collaborative Sale 3 The Collaborative Sale 7 What is sales collaboration? 9  2 Solution Selling Meets the New Buyer 13 The Emergence of the New Buyer – Buyer 2.0 16 The Effect of Information Access on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 16 The Millennials are Coming 21 The Effect of Economic Uncertainty on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 23 Buyer 2.0 vs. Buyer 1.0 27 Adapting to the Buyer 2.0 Paradigm 28 The Relevancy of Solution Selling and the Evolution of the Collaborative Sale 33 The Story (continued) 35 3 What the New Buyers Expect: Situational Fluency 39 Seller Agility 42 Situational Fluency 44 Components of Situational Fluency 45 Hiring for Situational Fluency 50 Developing Situational Fluency 51 Technology’s Role in Situational Fluency 53 Part II Three Personae of the Collaborative Sale 57 4 The Micro–Marketer Persona 59 Why Be a Micro–Marketer? 60 Micro–Marketers Demonstrate Situational Fluency – with Constraint 62 Micro–Marketers Create Their Own Personal Brand 63 Planning and Executing a Micro–Marketer Strategy 66 Enabling the Micro–Marketer Persona 74 The Story (continued) 82 5 The Visualizer Persona 85 What a Visualizer? 85 Buyer States and Strength of Vision 91 Visualizer Conversations 95 Embracing the Visualizer Persona 99 The Story (continued) 101 6 The Value Driver Persona 105 Focusing on Value 107 What is the Value Driver Persona? 107 Using a Collaboration Plan – a Buyer Alignment and Risk Mitigation Strategy 115 The Myth of Control 118 Create an Online Collaboration Site 119 Collaborating to Close 121 Enabling the Value Driver Persona 122 The Story (continued) 124 Part III Making the Collaborative Sale a Reality 127 7 Establishing a Dynamic Sales Process 129 Buyer–Aligned Sales Process 134 Dynamic Sales Process 135 Automating Dynamic Sales Processes 137 Expanding the View of Sales Process 138 Sales Process Enables Management and Marketing 140 8 Coaching the Collaborative Sale 143 Sales Management Cadence 144 Motivation 151   9 Implementing The Collaborative Sale 157 Right Process: Buyer–Aligned Learning and Development 159 Right People: Talent Assessment and Analytics 162 Right Tools: Focused Enablement 167 Committing to Success – Individually and Organizationally 177 Epilogue 179 Afterword 181 Appendix 183 EssentialCompetencies for The Collaborative Sale 183 Additional Collaborative Selling Tools 186 Contributors 195 KeithM. Eades 195 Timothy T. Sullivan 195 Robert Kear 196 James N. “Jimmy” Touchstone 197 Dave Christofaro 197 Kenneth Cross 198 Tamela M. Rich 198 Index 199

KEITH M. EADES is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sales Performance International, one of the largest sales improvement companies in the world. Founded in 1988, the company does business in over 54 countries. Keith is one of the leading authorities on transforming companies into world–class sales organizations and is a bestselling author of The New Solution Selling. TIMOTHY T. SULLIVAN is the Director of Business Development for Sales Performance International. Tim is a frequent public speaker and published author on advanced sales and marketing practices.