Читать книгу Elite Sales Strategies - Anthony Iannarino - Страница 18

Even the most recent strategies and tactics you find in the legacy laggard approach are now more than fifty years old, with some elements dating all the way back to the 1920s. They're built on the concept of information disparity, the idea that because your client was lacking information about your company's products or services, they needed to meet with a salesperson to learn what is available. As you will learn in Chapter 3, this disparity allowed salespeople to take advantage of the customers.

The fact that the prospect needed to buy something the buyer was selling made the interaction transactional, like many business-to-consumer purchases, but transactional models don't create the right level of value for B2B sales. Legacy laggard salespeople are trained to find “the decision-maker,” the single person with the authority to decide to sign a contract and ensure payment, overcome their objections, and make the sale. That process started by answering “why us,” with the salesperson attempting to prove credibility by talking about their company's strengths and history to persuade the prospective client to buy from them. Because prospects in the 1950s and 1960s couldn't simply browse the company website, the salesperson also provided them with particulars of their company's products and services. The value of the conversation was limited to the products and services the sales organization provided, as they were central to making a sale. In fact, if you still start your sales conversation by talking about your company and your products, that strategy is pure legacy laggard. One of the main tenets of the legacy approach was to refuse to provide “free consulting,” an idea that not only reduces your value but prevents you from being One-Up.