39 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to Achieve Superior Results in Sales and Profits, March 11, 2004
Complex sales are those which involve a lengthy process of cultivation and solicitation, a "circle of influence" within which the purchase or pass decision is made, a product or service whose functions/features/benefits/ etc. require technical verification, and a substantial purchase price. In this volume, Thull focuses on the process by which to "compete and win when the stakes are high." To understand how to master the complex sale, one must first understand how and why the role of the salesperson changed throughout the last half of the 20th century. Thull respectfully but clinically explains the inadequacies today of sales strategies, processes, and skills which were effective from the early-1950s until about the early-mid 90s. How well I recall the advice I received from various sales managers when I earned my way through college by selling automobiles and smaller trucks in the Chicago area during summer vacations. Never take "no" for an answer, for example. "Selling begins when the prospect says `no.'" Another chestnut was flattery: "You look great behind the wheel! This car was built for you!" Times change, of course. One paradigm inevitably gives way to another. I agree with Thull that, today, "It's not about selling -- it's about managing [a prospect's] quality decisions." Actually, I view that approach as the purest form of selling: to serve as advisor, concierge, consigliere, consultant, etc. when collaborating with a pre-qualified prospect to make the most appropriate purchase decision.
Thull carefully organizes his material within ten chapters which range from the first, "The World in Which We Sell" (almost worth the price of the book all by itself) to the last, "A Complex Sales Future," in which Thull agrees with Jack Welch that we must either control our destiny or someone else will. Given what I now do to earn a living, Chapter 6 ("Designing the Complex Solution") was of special interest to me. In it, Thull suggests that "Prime professionals approach [Thull's] solution design phase of the complex sale as an exploratory process. The aim is to equip the customer to make the best, most effective choice among the solutions competing in the marketplace." By taking precisely the same approach, the IBM sales force was able to recapture most of the customers it had lost while improving its chances when cultivating and then soliciting prospective new customers.
As Thull explains, the process built during the Diagnosis, a precise agreement on what a customer is experiencing in the absence of the needed solution and it's financial impact, with a collaborative discussion that determines precisely what a customer's desired outcomes are. "The easiest way to begin to define the parameters is to ask customers how they expect their situation to look after the problem is solved." For me, Thull then makes an especially important point when alerting his reader to the "trap" of unpaid consulting which begins "when we cross the line between defining parameters of a solution and creation of the design of the solution itself." Please consult the book for Thull's complete explanation of each phase of The Prime Process.
Given the importance of winning in sales, especially "when the stakes are high," it would obviously be a mistake to assume that Thull (or anyone else) has all the right answers or is even addressing all of the right questions. My strong recommendation is that each reader rigorously evaluate available sources of relevant information and counsel (including this book), using the same process Thull proposes: Discover what those sources are, Diagnose their relative advantages and disadvantages, Design (or Re-Design) a sales program which is most appropriate to one's specific needs and objectives, and then finally, Deliver satisfactory results through effective implementation of that program.
It would also be a mistake to assume that the relevance of the strategies and tactics which Thull endorses is limited, literally, to the buying or selling of a product or service. Many complex "sales" can also involve effective persuasion to obtain funds from financial sources, for example, or to convince the best-qualified CEO candidate to accept the position offered. If used effectively in situations such as these, the same strategies and tactics can also be invaluable.
In today's increasingly more competitive marketplace, Thull observes, "There is no Magic! -- Spectacular success is always preceded by unspectacular preparation" as well as by a better system, sharper skills, and "above all" discipline. The Prime Process is not for every organization, nor does Thull make such a claim. Carefully consider what it involves and, especially, what it requires.
I presume to add a final observation of my own, that there is both "good news" and "bad news." First the bad news: Very few organizations have as yet mastered the complex sale process. Now the good news: Very few organizations have as yet mastered the complex sale process.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Other sales books start to look silly after you read this, March 10, 2004
By A Customer
I thought I knew how to sell. I really did. I usually beat quota, even during the recent bust. I've taken home 6 figure commissions 12 of the last 15 years.
But sales is the kind of career that always surprises you. I've started to see more "No Decision" deals: you qualify the customer correctly, you create the perfect proposal with undeniable ROI. They go away excited. Then no decision the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. They don't go with your competition, they just don't do anything. What the heck is going on?
Or the customers who demand (and usually get) free consulting. Most vendors were desparate during the recession, and happily gave away free consulting to stay in the game. Now things are busy. How do you deal with the demand?
Or RFP's. Yea, we all know that if we didn't help write them, then we're probably too late to win them. Many of us refused to participate in a lot of them. But most deals are coming in with RFP's now. Customers are researching technology on the internet, and writing detailed RFP's themselves. Some are good, some are crap, many have real dollars behind them that I'm not willing to give up on.
Or commidization. Technology that we were selling as a premium, highly-differentiated solution a couple of years ago is available from three other suppliers who compete on nothing but price.
If any of this sounds familiar, you need this book. Mr. Thull has fugured out what's happening, and presents a step-by-step solution. You'll be shocked when he describes exactly what sales techniques you were using, which you thought was so smart, and shows how flawed it really is.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Helpful to Any Leader in Government, UN, or Anywhere Else, November 2, 2007
I found this gem in a West Coast airport. I bought it partly because I have spent 20 years "selling" governments on the idea of doing more with unclassified sources and less with expensive secrets that capture only 4% of the relevant information, and partly because when I role play the well-intentioned but largely hand-cuffed Director of National Intelligence (DNI), I see a real inability to make real change when allowing "business as usual" practices to continue.
This book is tremendous. It is coherent, well-presented, with great illustrations, and a superb "reality check" section that the DNI or any other Cabinet leader or non-governmental or corporate or state executive would do well to adopt.
The bottom line: any "sale," whether from an external or internal source, is ultimately about making change; about changing what has been done and how it has been done since time immemorial.
Second bottom line: virtually every customer lacks the high-quality internal decision-process for diagnostics, surveying of what the options are, or evaluating tradeoffs, and once chosen, the customer needs help in implementing any complex solution because this will require internal change that the entire customer's enterprise will resist.
The book opens with a brief summary of the three Eras of sales:
Era 1: follow a sales script, be persuasive, sell and move on
Era 2: listen, develop a relationship, be a problem solver, win-win
Era 3: serve as source of business advantage, be a strategist, nurture the missing decision process and cast of characters within the customer's enterprise, and be ready to implement, measure, and report results
I like the author's emphasis on the fact that win-win is not about selling a product, but rather about helping the customer create a process that leads to greater performance and hence greater profit or impact. In this context, I see real value for any vendor that is willing to step back from their "single point technology solution" and actually offer up a range of best in class offerings that can be integrated seamlessly and do not require "one contractor per laptop" to be effective.
The author stresses that in complex environments, implementing innovation that produces new value is the winning combination.
He points out that complex sales involve:
1) Large financial investments
2) Long sales cycles
3) Multiple decisions at multiple levels in the client organization
As I noted the last point I recollected my participation in the CIA's Mid-Career Course (Class 101, 1986) and the attempts then to create a "one agency culture." These attempts failed, and the current DNI is also failing, in part because we hire, train, and promote according to over 100 different systems--we do not train together, we do not work together, and who we promote has little to do with performance in part because there are no metrics for *outcomes*.
I like the author's illustration and discussion of how to build a bridge to change with diagnostics, which includes the following:
Customer's Business Objectives
Critical Success Factors
Job Responsibilities
Worry List
Indicators
Causes
Consequences
Expectations
Solutions
Wow. Imagine if the US Government saw itself working in this manner!
The author stresses that in complex decisions commoditization is not helpful because one size does not fit all, but at the same time, the customers simply do not have the foundation, process, or insights needed to get it right. I certainly found this to be true in government, where Contracting Officer's Technical Representatives (COTR), with a handful of exceptions, have not been able to do functional requirements surveys nor write Statements of Work (SOW) since the 1980's.
The author recommends a focus on customers in pain, because pain drives the willingness to change, and that, combined with the diagnosis, drives the sale and the willingness to implement change. As I write this I think to myself that the worst thing we could have done for intelligence reform was to increase the budget from $30 billion a year to $60 billion a year--not only is the secret world not feeling any pain, they are not being asked to account for *outcomes* that are all too meaningless--for example, no one is being held accountable for the fact that we still do not have a consolidated terrorism watch list, and the one we do have has over 750,000 names, at least half of which are false positives.
The author warns against providing unpaid consulting (stop at diagnostics--the client has to pay for devising solutions); for creeping elegance (the perennial lure of adding bells and whistles that are both unaffordable, and that will not be used to full effect--one estimate says that employees use less than 20% of existing desktop software capabilities); and of growing resistance inside the customer's enterprise if the needed changes are not explained step by step from day one.
From page 176 forward the author asks and discusses 12 questions. Here
1. What is our company all about?
2. Who are the customers we serve?
3. How do we develop new business?
4. What is our diagnostic engagement protocol?
5. What is our personal business plan?
6. What are our solutions?
7. Can we develop new business?
8. Can you diagnose the customer's situation?
9. Can you determine the cost of the problem?
10: Are you perceived as a creative problem solver by your customers?
11: Can you propose an effective solution?
12. Can you effectively present a proposal?
This is a great book, helpful to those who both sell and buy in a complex environment. The Earth is the most complex environment we have, and this book helped me think about how to help the United Nations, the Foundations, and the non-violent side of the Pentagon (the folks that now understand we must Wage Peace) come together.
A few other books that complement this one:
The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
Get Back in the Box: How Being Great at What You Do Is Great for Business
Corporate Creativity: How Innovation & Improvement Actually Happen
The Change Handbook: The Definitive Resource on Today's Best Methods for Engaging Whole Systems
Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy That Works
Wellsprings of Knowledge: Building and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation
Transformational Change
Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life
Innovation Happens Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace
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