In the March 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review, three members of a strategic consulting firm in California (Philip Lay, Geoffrey Moore and Todd Hewlin), put forward an approach to selling during a downturn, where they advocate achieving sales by “provoking” customers to action.
There’s some good stuff in this article – but I have a funny feeling that our better salespeople have been taking this approach for years. If this is the case – then perhaps this article’s main value will be as a piece of provocation by managers to salespeople whose performance is well down – as well as a reminder to the better performers of what is possible.
I’ll give a brief overview of the article before taking this point a little further.
The authors’ acknowledge that selling in the current environment is difficult – budgets are on hold, decision makers are cautious and large ticket investment is being referred further up the management chain than has been the case in recent times.
In order to avoid this process – where you may often be one of many vendors – the authors suggest that sellers should step back and review the value that their products and services can bring to customers and prospects. Sellers should then develop a “provocative” point of view relating to their client – and present this at senior level in the prospective organisation.
This provocative point – which should be an insight into the client’s business or industry which should also concern the client – then needs to be presented at the most senior level possible in the client organisation. In order to do this, salespeople may need to leverage the power of their networks to find an entry point at the level required.
Now, I don’t know about you – but this sounds a lot like “real” selling to me. It sounds like what salespeople who have build a reputation as valued and trusted advisors have been doing for years.
The authors contrast their approach to what they describe as “solution” selling. They summarise some of the differences between their approach (provocation) and solution selling as follows: Continue Reading…
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