Sales Differentiation

"If we don't drop our price, we will lose the deal." That's the desperate cry from salespeople as they try to win deals in competitive marketplaces. While the easy answer is to lower the price, the company sacrifices margin--oftentimes unnecessarily. To win deals at the prices you want,the strategy needed is differentiation. Most executives think marketing is the sole source of differentiation. But what about the sales function of the company? This commonly neglected differentiation opportunity provides a multitude of ways to stand out from the competition. This groundbreaking book teaches you how to develop those strategies. In Sales Differentiation, sales management strategist, Lee B. Salz presents nineteen easy-to-implement concepts to help salespeople win deals while protecting margins. These concepts apply to any salesperson in any industry and are based on the foundation that "how you sell, not just what you sell, differentiates you." The strategies are presented in easy-to-understand stories and can quickly be put into practice. Divided into two sections, the "what you sell" chapters help salespeople: Recognize that the expression "we are the best" causes differentiation to backfire. Avoid the introspective question that frustrates salespeople and ask the right question to fire them up. Understand what their true differentiators are and how to effectively position them with buyers. Find differentiators in every nook and cranny of the company using the six components of the "Sales Differentiation Universe." Create strategies to position differentiators so buyers see value in them. The "how you sell" section teaches salespeople how to provide meaningful value to buyers and differentiate themselves in every stage of the sales process. This section helps salespeople: Develop strategies to engage buyers and turn buyer objections into sales differentiation opportunities. Shape buyer decision criteria around differentiators. Turn a commoditized Request for Proposal (RFP) process into a differentiation opportunity. Use a buyer request for references as a way to stand out from the competition. Leverage the irrefutable, most powerful differentiator...themselves. Whether you've been selling for twenty years or are new to sales, the tools you learn in Sales Differentiation will help you knock-out the competition, build profitable new relationships, and win deals at the prices you want.

Game-changing new strategies to outsmart, outmaneuver, and outsell your competition! Salespeople face fierce competition in their pursuit of winning deals. Differences in product features and functions get smaller by the minute and are not always meaningful to buyers. How do you stand out from the pack and not just land the account, but win deals at the prices you want? Lee B. Salz’s previous ground-breaking, bestselling book, Sales Differentiation, armed salespeople with strategies to differentiate both what they sell and how they sell it. Sell Different! provides a new component of Sales Differentiation strategy to help you outsmart, outmaneuver, and outsell the competition to win more deals at the prices you want. This book provides you with the tools you need to land new accounts and grow existing ones. The practical, proven strategies presented in Sell Different! include: How to defeat your toughest competitor (hint: it’s not who you think it is) An actionable 16-phase plan to reach and engage elusive prospects Finding more of your best clients (it’s easier than you think) Acquiring more referrals than you ever dreamed possible Virtual selling and how to harness its potential Neutralizing the fear of change that paralyzes buyers and kills deals Structuring pilot programs that advance your deals Identifying the critical person needed to win more deals at the prices you want Solving closing problems and fixing the real issue limiting your success Dissecting and resolving the most challenging sales objection — price! What 99.999% of salespeople don’t do, but should Expanding account relationships to explode revenue and lock out the competition How to address a major flaw when comparing salespeople with professional athletes And much, much more! If you are a salesperson, executive, or business owner who desires to win more deals at the prices you want, then this book is for you.

What's the secret to sales success? If you're like most business leaders, you'd say it's fundamentally about relationships-and you'd be wrong. The best salespeople don't just build relationships with customers. They challenge them. The need to understand what top-performing reps are doing that their average performing colleagues are not drove Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board to investigate the skills, behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes that matter most for high performance. And what they discovered may be the biggest shock to conventional sales wisdom in decades. Based on an exhaustive study of thousands of sales reps across multiple industries and geographies, The Challenger Sale argues that classic relationship building is a losing approach, especially when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions. The authors' study found that every sales rep in the world falls into one of five distinct profiles, and while all of these types of reps can deliver average sales performance, only one-the Challenger- delivers consistently high performance. Instead of bludgeoning customers with endless facts and features about their company and products, Challengers approach customers with unique insights about how they can save or make money. They tailor their sales message to the customer's specific needs and objectives. Rather than acquiescing to the customer's every demand or objection, they are assertive, pushing back when necessary and taking control of the sale. The things that make Challengers unique are replicable and teachable to the average sales rep. Once you understand how to identify the Challengers in your organization, you can model their approach and embed it throughout your sales force. The authors explain how almost any average-performing rep, once equipped with the right tools, can successfully reframe customers' expectations and deliver a distinctive purchase experience that drives higher levels of customer loyalty and, ultimately, greater growth.

Win more deals with the perfect sales story! “Power Messaging is a foundational element in our global marketing campaigns and sales training programs. We believe the concepts are core to engaging in customer conversations that are focused on their outcomes and what they want to achieve.” —Karen Quintos, CMO and SVP, Dell Inc. “The concepts outlined in this book are critical skills to building a world-class presales organization.” —Ken Hamel, Senior Vice President, Global Solutions and Presales, SAP “Our new messaging, using the approaches presented in this book, is great and is being widely used by our sales team. We’ve never had a year end sales meeting with content that was met with such widespread acceptance and enthusiasm.” —Jerry D. Cline, Senior Vice President, Retail Sales and Marketing, AmerisourceBergen Drug Company “The best salespeople sit across the table and make change easy for their customer by creating a succinct story and vision for what to change, how to change it, and how it will impact customer results. An enterprise focus on sales messaging, using the concepts in this book, is the hidden secret to driving incremental sales productivity and overwhelming customer success!” —Ken Powell, Vice President, Worldwide Sales Enablement, ADP “The Power Messaging techniques in this book are the foundation of how our marketing team creates our sales messages, as well as the process our field sales teams use for delivering that message in a unique and compelling way. At Kronos our results are a reflection of the power of the tool.” —Aron Ain, CEO, Kronos About the Book: In today’s highly competitive world of complex sales, commoditization of your brand is one of the greatest dangers. You must differentiate yourself from the competition—or you will lose out. And the way to do that is through customer engagement. Rather than sell your own corporate story and brand message, you need to tell customers their story—the one in which they are the heroes and they achieve success. Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer have been developing and honing their Power Messaging sales technique for more than 20 years, and now they reveal all their secrets in Conversations That Win the Complex Sale. Presenting a catalog of facts or playing 20 questions with prospective customers is the surest way to lose the sale. Peterson and Riesterer provide the tools you need to recraft your message into a compelling story that wins more deals. With Conversations That Win the Complex Sale, you’ll learn how to: Differentiate yourself from the competition by finding your “Value Wedge” Avoid parity in your value propositions by creating “Power Positions” Create a message that can literally double the number of deals you close Spike customer attention and create “Wow” in your conversations Prove all your claims without resorting to lists of boring facts and statistics Your competitors are out there telling their own corporate story—a story customers don’t want to hear. Now is the time to seize the moment. This book is the one and only source you need to reframe your sales story and turn the tables on the competition by fully engaging their would-be customers. Conversations That Win the Complex Sale helps you create and deliver messages that customers care about, giving your brand the clear edge in today’s crowded markets.

The new way to transform a sales culture with clarity, authenticity, and emotional intelligence. Too often, the sales process is all about fear. Customers are afraid that they will be talked into making a mistake; salespeople dread being unable to close the deal and make their quotas. No one is happy. Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig offer a better way. Salespeople, they argue, do best when they focus 100 percent on helping clients succeed. When customers are successful, both buyer and seller win. When they aren't, both lose. It's no longer sufficient to get clients to buy; a salesperson must also help the client reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve productivity, quality, and customer satisfaction. This book shares the unique FranklinCovey Sales Performance Group methodology that will help readers: · Start new business from scratch in a way both salespeople and clients can feel good about · Ask hard questions in a soft way · Close the deal by opening minds

Double and triple your sales--in any market. The purpose of this book is to give you a series of ideas, methods, strategies, and techniques that you can use immediately to make more sales, faster and easier than ever before. It's a promise of prosperity that sales guru Brian Tracy has seen fulfilled again and again. More sales people have become millionaires as a result of listening to and applying his ideas than from any other sales training process ever developed.

Customers today are overloaded with information and overwhelmed by options. The truth is, product value is so high across the competition that any kind of meaningful product differentiation--at least in the customers’ eyes--has all but disappeared. Therefore, between not recognizing product differences, combined with not having any time to spare to investigate what they don’t know, the difference maker for many decision makers . . . is you!The salesperson who is always responsive and completely focused on value will, more times than not, be the one who will stand out from the crowd and get the sale. Combining leading-edge research with a vast amount of field experience, Amp Up Your Sales will show anyone how to become the trusted sales professional who consistently wins new business. Readers will learn how to:• Maximize the value of their selling• Accelerate responsiveness to build trust and credibility• Earn valuable selling time with customers• Shape the buyer's vision• Integrate persuasive stories into their sales process• Build lasting relationships through follow-up and customer serviceThe bad news is, your customers won’t understand and appreciate all the advantages of your product. The good news is, they aren’t making the decision based on the product, but on you!

Sales have changed; gone are the days of manipulative and pushy salespeople who rely on charm to get sales. Selling From The Heart is built for the new economy where authentic relationships matter and out-dated techniques just don’t work any longer. Larry Levine understands the essential role of relationships when it comes to selling, how those genuine connections can fuel sales funnels and exceed sales goals. In Selling From the Heart, Larry coaches readers to build meaningful relationships in natural ways by discovering their authentic selves and offering that authentic perspective to clients. Sales professionals and entrepreneurs will find new levels of sales and personal fulfillment by Selling From the Heart.