Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing approach to complex sales
Review: In this book you can find a refreshing approach in order to create new opportunities to sell.
Showing how to detect the capabilities your current prospect needs in order to reach his goals you can advance in the sales process without the pain and stress that all profesional sales people suffer.
The steps that Customer Centric Selling offer can help you to clarify your real chances to close a deal and this way focus your time, efforts and resources in the prospect where you can add more value.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing
Review: It is refreshing to find a book that attempts to remove some the art and mystique that I have experienced in my sales career to date and replace it with structure and process. In the modern enterprise every aspect of business is subjected to process and 'best practice'. Sales is the lifeblood of any company but yet remains the most unstructured. Surely successful businesses of the future will address this issue. I have recently gone through the process of re-reading all the acknowledged heavyweights (SPIN, New Conceptual Selling etc) You can use elements of each of them to change the way that you approach your own sales situations. I would also highly recommend Jeff Thull's book.
Rating:
Summary: Measurable Sales Process & Sales Ready Messaging
Review: Measurable sales process - Can you explain your sales process in a way that one activity leads logically from one to another, so that a customer or someone from outside your industry could understand it. If you cannot, the chances are you do not actually have a process. Therefore your forecasts and selling activities are a series of "fire drill and Hail Mary" activities.It is simply "the doing whatever it takes process." CustomerCentric Selling has a sales process defined in Chapter 5 that is worth the price of the book, because when you implement your sales force automation with no measurable process the Sales Force Automation software just "sucks faster".
Sales Ready Messaging- addresses the gap between marketing and customer messages and is the "next big thing" in selling. If you or your sales people don't know what to say to a high level buying influence you/they might say anything.(including exactly the wrong thing, because "you will be delegated to who you talk like." Sales ready messaging connects marketing, selling, and sales force automation together in a way no other methodology does. Check out recent Selling Power publications and the American Marketing Association and see Chapter 8 of this text.
This book avoids the gimmicks and overly aggressive behavior suggestions from other books and sets the standard for selling solutions in 2004 and beyond leaving Solution Selling, Selling to Vito, SPIN and the rest in its wake.
Rating:
Summary: Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Review: The concepts contained in this book are not new. Their presentation, however, is. The authors outline why people buy -- and when and from whom. It should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan. Although the word "selling" in the title, but this book more of a business manual is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual.
There are no clever opening lines, or guaranteed PowerPoint templates. If you spend time with the book you will gain much more-an understanding of what you sell, to whom you should be selling it and where to go to find them.If your managers read it, they will develop a new a concept of how to message and manage their sales process. Bosworth and Holland believe customer centric selling contains seven basic concepts:
1. Sales are based on conversations, not presentations.
2. Asking relevant questions versus rendering opinions.
3. Solutions rather than relationships earn buyers' respect.
4. Target businesspeople versus users.
5. Sell usage, not reliance.
6. Salespeople manage managers rather than needing to be managed.
7. Enable buyers rather than selling them. Managers and Salespeople who spent time with this book will add value to their organizations. If you are responsible for moving product, this book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: Diagnose Before You Prescribe
Review: The concepts contained in this book are not new. Their presentation, however, is. The authors outline why people buy -- and when and from whom. It should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan. Although the word "selling" in the title, but this book more of a business manual is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual.
There are no clever opening lines, or guaranteed PowerPoint templates. If you spend time with the book you will gain much more-an understanding of what you sell, to whom you should be selling it and where to go to find them.If your managers read it, they will develop a new a concept of how to message and manage their sales process. Bosworth and Holland believe customer centric selling contains seven basic concepts:
1. Sales are based on conversations, not presentations.
2. Asking relevant questions versus rendering opinions.
3. Solutions rather than relationships earn buyers' respect.
4. Target businesspeople versus users.
5. Sell usage, not reliance.
6. Salespeople manage managers rather than needing to be managed.
7. Enable buyers rather than selling them. Managers and Salespeople who spent time with this book will add value to their organizations. If you are responsible for moving product, this book is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: A very helpful read!
Review: This book is great for anyone who wants to increase sales revenues. It has a LOT of good, practical info on how to unleash the power that salespeople have. It hits all the key points we have concerns about and gives me options for my entire marketing group and sales force. I recommend this book because it's exciting to see a new approach to overcoming the difficulties of selling. A great resource.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: This is an interesting, useful guide to selling a non-traditional way. Many companies, especially in high-technology industries, build their sales effort around early adopters. But early adopters are a minority of the market and their needs and preferences are distinct from those of the mainstream. To adjust their sales effort to the mainstream majority of the market, companies must listen to their audience. Instead of building sales messages around products, they need to build their sales communications and their sales process around customer needs and preferences. Customer-centric selling begins in the earliest stages of marketing and proceeds through the final sale. Authors Michael T. Bosworth and John R. Holland clearly set forth the nature of customer-centric selling and provide a comprehensive guide. We recommend this worthwhile addition to any salesperson's bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Must-read for all sales & marketing people
Review: When you know you're good and want to learn how to become great, drop what you're doing now and read this book. Co-authors Holland and Boswoth pull you up by the shorthairs to show you how to excel.
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