How to Sell More

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Harvard Business Review. How to Sell More

Table of Contents

Introduction

The Most Important Predictor of Sales Success

To Build a Great Sales Team, You Need a Great Manager

Role definition

Selection

Development

Support

The (New) Skills You Need to Succeed in Sales

Understanding Five Types of Sales Coaches

The Game Buyers Play with Vendors

The Best Sales Leaders Are Trend Hunters

1. Choose the Right Trends

2. Keep It Manageable

3. Tie Insights to Operations

Turn a C-Level Customer into Your Most Valuable Reference

Sell More with Smarter Trade Promotions

The Best Sales Reps Avoid “Talkers”

Entrepreneurs’ Biggest Sales Mistakes

Start Earlier

Your Cousin Doesn’t Count

Be Choosy for a Strategic Buyer

Avoid Discounting

What’s Wrong with Your Sales Training Program

1. It’s Not Based upon Win-Loss Customer Interviewing

2. It Provides an Incomplete Customer Decision-Making Model

3. It Lacks Meaningful Cultural Transmissions

4. Sales Call Execution Is Not Addressed

How to Succeed at Key Account Management

The Science of Building a Scalable Sales Team

1. Hire the Same Successful Salesperson Every Time

2. Train New Hires in a Consistent, Measurable Way

3. Provide Salespeople with the Same Quality and Quantity of Leads Each Month

4. Work Those Leads with the Same Process Every Time

How to Turn a Relationship into a Sale

Generosity Without Expectations of Tit for Tat

Become a Trusted Adviser

And Yet, the Path from Relationship to Transaction Can Be Hard

Stimulate Your Customer’s Lizard Brain to Make a Sale

Context Creates Urgency

Contrast Creates Value

Sales Reps Should Avoid Customers Who Are Ready to Buy

Think Twice before Promoting Your Best Salesperson

To Sell More, Focus on Existing Customers

Is It Heresy to Make Salespeople Pay Their Expenses?

Use Pricing Strategy to Boost Sales

Instill Confidence in Your Frontline

Use Compensation to Align Your Sales Force’s Interests with Profit

Increase Profits by Offering Choices

Reap Results by Involving the C-Level

Make the Most of Your Sales Call

1. Sell Value, Not Products

2. Only Use Relevant Anecdotes and Examples

3. Plan the Sales Call

4. Respond Flexibly and Manage Objections

Strategies for Answering Your Customers’ Toughest Questions

Four Secrets to Selling More

1. Pass on Hiring Hotshot Sales Gurus

2. Lose the Incentives

3. Your Best Secret Weapon for Sales: Customer Support

4. Hold the Line on Prices

Отрывок из книги

Among the disciplines that make up the field of management, sales rarely gets the respect it deserves. If a business does a perfect job of designing its products and services, the theory goes, who needs salespeople? As Peter Drucker wrote: “The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous . . . to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.”

In fact, as the essays in this collection make clear, selling remains a vital function in the vast majority of companies. Technology has made many products more complicated, creating the need for salespeople to educate consumers on their uses. In the B2B world, the shift to services has created a move away from simple transactional relationships between buyers and sellers; instead, companies need to nurture long-lasting relationships with customers, with salespeople often serving critical roles as stewards of those relationships. Feedback gathered by salespeople can serve as a powerful engine of innovation. And as anyone who’s worked in a corporate setting near the end of a quarter knows, salespeople remain the key to the revenue growth that’s so important to many managers and investors. While there will always be a select group of simple products that “sell themselves,” in many industries, good salespeople remain a big determinant of company performance.

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“I have people who work with me who know everything about sales, but they still couldn’t sell,” he said. “They don’t have what it takes. And then I’ve watched kids on YouTube who make fake infomercials and they’re getting millions of views.”

Sullivan has read numerous sales books and attended conferences, but says most provide no more than a brief sugar high. “They get you all fired up, but you fall back into your old ways pretty soon. When you get into a bar fight, you revert to what comes naturally—the old-fashioned tactics.” Your authentic self will always, eventually, come out.

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