Rethinking the Sales Cycle: How Superior Sellers Embrace the Buying Cycle to Achieve a Sustainable and Competitive Advantage [Hardcover]

Tim Young (Author), John R. Holland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 14, 2009

Align your selling methods with their buying habits for a win-win relationship!

“The digital age has dramatically changed the selling profession. John Holland and Tim Young will bring you up to date on their new rules for a customer-centric approach.”
—Al Ries, bestselling coauthor, War in the Boardroom

Since its founding in 2002, CustomerCentric Selling, one of the world’s leading sales training firms, has dramatically changed how selling is viewed—from simply promoting a product to empowering customers to achieve goals or solve problems through the use of offerings.

Today, buyers don’t want salespeople telling them what they want or need; they’ve already gone online and informed themselves—which makes the job of selling more difficult than ever.

So how do you reestablish the relevance you previously took for granted? How, in the world of Web 2.0, can you develop long-term relationships with customers and maintain your competitive advantage? You must stop focusing squarely on the selling cycle—and pay closer attention to the buying cycle. In other words, learn how customers want to buy and align your selling techniques accordingly.

In Rethinking the Sales Cycle, two leaders from CustomerCentric Selling provide the latest research into the buying cycle. They present a step-by-step model that helps you seize market share and hold it by understanding the five stages of the buying cycle. Learn how to:

• Interpret buying behavior at different stages
• Assess your competitive position based upon buyer behavior
• Read the impetus behind a buyer objection
• Merge your selling process with a buyer’s buying process
• Take a committee through a buying cycle to maximize the chance of consensus at the end

When it comes to the buying cycle, today’s customers want control. You can give it to them when you have a selling strategy aligned with their behavior. It’s the best and perhaps only way to succeed in today’s ultra-competitive world.

Rethinking the Sales Cycle gives you unprecedented insight into the mindset, emotions, and behaviors of buyers. Armed with this information, you will find the solutions you need to lead your organization to new heights of success.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Align your selling methods with their buying habits for a win-win relationship!

“The digital age has dramatically changed the selling profession. John Holland and Tim Young will bring you up to date on their new rules for a customer-centric approach.”
—Al Ries, bestselling coauthor, War in the Boardroom

With the proliferation of social networking and other online platforms, you are no longer in control of customers’ perceptions of your products or services. Only by focusing on buyer behavior can you keep your competitive edge fresh and sharp.

Rethinking the Sales Cycle reveals how buyer behavior has changed and explains why traditional sales approaches don’t work. You’ll gain critical insight into:

• The unprecedented power customers wield for building—or killing—your business
• The psychology of buyers and how it changes throughout the buying process
• Developing an organization-wide strategy that aligns your selling techniques to buyer behavior

With Rethinking the Sales Cycle, you will enjoy not only increased sales but, more important, provide superior buying experiences—the foundation of a healthy, lasting seller-buyer relationship.

About the Author

John R. Holland is cofounder and principal of CustomerCentric Selling®. His articles have been published in Sales and Marketing Executive Report, Selling Power, and American Salesman.

Tim Young is CEO of CustomerCentric Selling®. Earlier in his career, he served as president of Harte-Hanks Marketing Services before founding TECHMAR Communications, which became one of the fastest-growing private companies in America.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (December 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071637990
• ISBN-13: 978-0071637992
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #251,449 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Social Selling, November 2, 2010

By 

Suresh C. Sood "frequent reader" (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rethinking the Sales Cycle: How Superior Sellers Embrace the Buying Cycle to Achieve a Sustainable and Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)

An apt title for this book in my mind is "Social Buying : Rethinking the Buying Cycle"and this alone should be a sufficient reason to put down the two tens for this book. I admit my desire to add the book to an already garnered collection of books and discs dealing with sales was only due to Neil Rackham having written the forward. But as I scoot past the forward, I am drawn into the book. The book is unlike any other sales process book I have had the boring opportunity to peruse. Yes, I have to say all of them on my shelf except this one and previously Kaplan's "Bag the Elephant" prevented me from falling asleep from boredom before turning the final page.

Pretty early in the book, the case study buying using social networking helps to stake out the difference between this book and others. The book is up to date and recognises the importance of buyers using social technologies to empower themselves and learn as much if not more than the sales person representing the product or service of interest. The contemporary nature of the book is well supported with a 5 stage B2B buying experience which the salesperson must comprehend to be successful in today''s global marketplace. If one only reads the chapter "Traditional Selling Conflicts with New Buying" the cost of the book would have paid for itself many times over.Overall, reading the book, the reward is a gem not only in learning (e.g. Lovaglia's law) but the humour does not go unnoticed (e.g. "training produces wind up toys"). The authors have taken a staid approach to the teaching of sales process and turned the method inside out by taking the buyer perspective and very strong consideration of the changes online social networking has wrought upon the salesperson.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Selling and marketing in our current environment, January 18, 2010

By 

Larry Cleve (Missouri) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rethinking the Sales Cycle: How Superior Sellers Embrace the Buying Cycle to Achieve a Sustainable and Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)

I just read this book cover to cover. It is a spot on description of the mess that sales has gotten itself into. I have read the other works by John Holland,and others at CustomerCentric Selling,and I have attended and conducted training authored by CustomerCentric principals. That being said, I identified entirely with the problems of being a buyer in a market populated with bad sales techniques. I don't know what it will take to turn the tide of bad sales practices, but Holland and Young are pointing the way. Every sales and marketing manager should read this book and do their best to apply the insight thay gain to their own organization. I particularly liked Chapter 6 which is titled Stage 4: Reassurance referring to the 4th stage of the buying cycle. If you have read Strategic Selling which marked the 70's thoughts on selling, and Solution Selling which marked the 80's, and CustomerCentric Selling which marked the 2000's you will want to read this current work to see how far leading sales organizations have come from product marketing to customer solutions marketing. Neil Rackham's foreword is worth a read on it's own.

5.0 out of 5 stars Good content, October 3, 2011

By 

Victoire de Leusomme (Herndon, VA, US) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Rethinking the Sales Cycle: How Superior Sellers Embrace the Buying Cycle to Achieve a Sustainable and Competitive Advantage (Hardcover)

Worth the read. Very useful during this troubled market when we need to rethink how we approach our opportunities. I found it very useful. I know it will be a book I will return to for reference