Book Short: The Challenger Sale I’ve written a couple times in the past about how we sell at Return Path. I’ve written about our principle sales methodology for the past decade, SPIN Selling, by Neil Rackham (and Major Account Strategy, also by Rackham, which is basically SPIN Selling for Account Managers), which focuses on a specific technique for solution selling by using questioning to get the prospective client to identify his or her own needs, as well as Jeffrey Gitomer’s two short books, the Little Red Book of Selling and Little Red Book of Sales Answers, which are long on sales questioning techniques. And I also wrote this post about another book called Why People Don’t Buy Things, by Kim Wallace…
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Spin Selling
Book Short: A SPIN Selling Companion
Book Short: A SPIN Selling Companion At Return Path, we’re big believers in the SPIN Selling methodology popularized by Neil Rackham. It just makes sense. Spend more time listening than talking on a sales call, uncover your prospect’s true needs and get him or her to articulate the need for YOUR product. Though it doesn’t reference SPIN Selling, Why People Don’t Buy Things, by Kim Wallace and Harry Washburn is a nice companion read. Rooted in psychology and cognitive science, Why People Don’t Buy Things presents a very practical sales methodology called Buying Path Selling. Understand how your prospect is making his or her buying decision and what kind of buyer he or she is, be more successful at uncovering…
Listen Up!
Listen Up! I’ve always felt that the ability to listen (and the related ability to ask smart questions) is highly underrated in business, while presentation and speaking skills tend to be overrated. We practice the art of SPIN Selling at Return Path, which is a sales methodology based on asking questions and listening rather than constantly pounding features and benefits. And boy, does it work. When done well, sales close much more quickly and prospects/clients are much more engaged because they really understand the need that they have for our services. The same principles apply to management and leadership as well. While you certainly have to be somewhat authoritative and clear thinking as a leader, it’s almost always better to…
Book Shorts: Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales
Book Shorts: Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales, Sales Jeffrey Gitomer’s Little Red Book of Selling and Little Red Book of Sales Answers were great refreshers in sales basics for you as CEO (and head of sales, and sales manager, and sales rep). The books were a bit “self-help” flavor for my taste as a reader, but they were excellent on content, and I have two long pages of notes of “back to basics” items I need to remind myself and my team about. Anyone at Return Path in sales/account-project management/marketing — your copy is on the way, hopefully by way of a barter I proposed with the author (sorry, Stephanie and Tami…), but in any case, we’ll buy them. Anyone else…
Everyone’s a Marketer, Part II
Everyone’s a Marketer, Part II In Part I of this posting, I talked about how everyone’s job function is increasingly touching customers and therefore, in our networked world, everyone needs to think like a marketer. This posting has the same theme but a different spin. From the perspective of the individual person (in a company, and in life), marketing is central to success, although the definition of your target market needs to change with the circumstances. Interviewing for a job? How good a job have you done building the brand of you (your list of accomplishments)? How good is your collateral (resume)? Want to get an increase in your department’s budget or buy a new piece of hardware? Have you…