A Seat at the Table:How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level [Hardcover]

Marc Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2009

Named Best in Category, Sales, in 800-CEO-READ's Business Book Awards

Marc Miller, author of the bestselling Selling is Dead, delivers another critical tool for connecting with decision makers to make more and bigger sales. A Seat at the Table offers a new sales approach: stop selling and start helping customers win, win bigger, and win more often.

Customers only care about one thing: value. And the only proven way to increase sales productivity is to deliver new and different forms of value. Salespeople must become experts in their customers' businesses and help them generate better results. Readers will learn that evolving from "salespeople" to "businesspeople who sell" will earn them a seat at the table--the place reserved for those select people who guide the strategic direction of an enterprise.

A Seat at the Table gives practical advice on how to better connect with decision makers. When they can do this, salespeople will be in a position to create demand for their products and services, protect their core business, and close more sales.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'This book is packed with big insights; Marc has put at least one on every page. Of course, most salespeople are afraid to read a book this powerful, which makes your life even easier.' --Seth Godin, bestselling author of Tribes, Purple Cow, and The Dip

About the Author

Marc Miller is the CEO of Sogistics, a privately held sales force transformation firm, and is a keynote speaker on mastering the complex sale. He is the author of Selling is Dead.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group LLC (May 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1929774699
• ISBN-13: 978-1929774692
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

MARC T. MILLER is the founder and CEO of Sogistics Corporation of Twinsburg, Ohio. He founded Sogistics in 1988 as a sales productivity improvement firm specializing in the large sale. Considered a thought leader in the field of complex sales, he resides in Boston Heights, Ohio with his wife Janet and six children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Selling in the Twenty- First Century, November 25, 2009

By 

Bryan Carey "Bryan Carey" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Seat at the Table:How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level (Hardcover)

A Seat at the Table is a book for the ages: A volume of advice designed for the modern salesperson who wants to distinguish himself/herself and offer potential customers cutting -edge service and competitive advantage. This book takes a different approach to selling- an approach that shifts the emphasis away from trying to offer the most product for the lowest price, over to a strategy that involves creating the most value possible for the customer.

Making connections with the people that matter most is important to any salesperson and this book effectively demonstrates what it takes to get your message across to the executives and other decision makers in any business. The executives are the ones who need to be swayed and this book effectively shows how to talk to them and how to prove to them that your product or service will create value for both your company and theirs, creating a win- win situation. Customers nowadays consider value paramount to any buying decision and this book effectively shows how a salesperson can build a partnership with customers that benefits all parties involved.

A Seat at the Table recommends taking several steps to cement the deal and the book offers many different bits of advice for the determined salesperson to follow. The book includes specific questions to ask and even samples of statements to make to a potential customer in order to improve the odds that you, the salesperson, will seal the deal. The book includes some tables and graphs as well, to illustrate key points, and it is written in an outline format, making it easy to refer back to as a reference guide and training tool for salespersons of all ages. I like the format of this book and I like that it includes examples showing exactly what approaches to take in order to complete a sale. Too often, books about selling talk a great talk, but they don't offer enough examples that explain exactly how to carry out the book's message. A Seat at the Table explains everything quite nicely, with solid organization and clear wording.

Selling has changed over the years and today's salesperson needs to approach the sale from a different perspective. The most important lesson to take from this book is that customers nowadays want more than just the best price. Customers want business assistance from the salesperson and they want to know how a particular product or service they purchase is going to add value. Salespeople can achieve this by becoming businesspeople who sell. Doing all of these things will earn the salesperson the much- coveted seat at the table; building a lasting relationship with the customer that provides benefits to all involved.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Work from a Thought Leader in Sales, June 6, 2009

By 

Emanuel Carpenter... Author/Reviewer (Atlanta, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Seat at the Table:How Top Salespeople Connect and Drive Decisions at the Executive Level (Hardcover)

Does it make sense to use the same selling strategies with executives that you would use on a manager? Marc Miller (Selling is Dead) makes a compelling argument against it in his new book "A Seat at the Table." The target audience for the book is salespeople who offer complex solutions, which could apply to those who sell consulting, information technology, and other services that may have a long and complex selling cycle. The question is, does the book offer something original? Or is it the same recycled ideas that a billion other authors who happen to own consulting firms put on paper? The answer may surprise you.

There are quite a few key points in "A Seat at the Table" that makes this book genius. Among them are Miller's teachings on how to be viewed as a caring consultant and not just a seller, how he teaches sellers to add value to a prospect's current strategy instead of using tactical selling to sell something the prospect may not even need, and his line of questioning with the acronym FOCAS (Fact, Objective, Concern, Anchor, and Solution questions) that helps you identify pains and connect them to the prospect's strategies and your solutions. A case study includes a look at how Proctor & Gamble became more than just a seller to Wal-Mart and was offered a seat at their executive board meetings to offer real value in regards to other key strategic objectives.

There are a few downsides though. For starters, it takes for granted that buyers are not clever enough to know that salespeople calling themselves consultants are still there to sell, regardless of how well they can align their products or services to the buyers' strategies. The book also instructs readers to stop asking pain questions yet the Concern portion of FOCAS seems to do just that. Finally, it would be nice if the author included sections on how to get a foot in the door and how to deal with price objections once solutions are presented.

The bottom line is this: "A Seat at the Table" distinguishes itself from a lot of the noise and reworded sales books you find on shelves today. Much like he did with "Selling is Dead," Miller has once again proven himself to be a thought leader and strategic thinker in the industry. Sales managers and executives should not only buy this book for their staffs but should seriously consider working with the author's firm if they are searching for a better way to connect to executives when selling complex solutions.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Emanuel Carpenter
Author of "Dead Guys Don't Buy"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great info but a fairly tough read, November 16, 2011

By 

Ty Wilde "Author of "Everything I Touch T... (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Seat at the Table (Paperback)

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I finally finished reading this book and the author really knows his stuff. The book is loaded with great information but to be honest, it was a little boring. Never did I get juiced up or excited to run out and make more sales. Would I recommend this book? Of coarse because the information I received from this book will surely help me improve as a salesman. Like I said, The book is loaded with good info.