The Solution Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Application Exercises, Templates and Scripts for Effective Sales Execution [Paperback]

Keith M. Eades (Author), James N. Touchstone (Author), Timothy T. Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2005

The breakthrough process used by more than 500,000 sales professionals worldwide!

The Solution Selling Fieldbook helps you integrate the plan's nuts-and-bolts techniques into your own day-to-day practices, and immediately gain access to key decision makers, diagnose buyers' business issues, and increase top-line sales.

Building on the processes, principles, and management systems outlined in The New Solution Selling, this practitioner's workbook features:

• A complete step-by-step blueprint for sales success

• A trial copy of Solution Selling software

• A valuable Solution Selling CD-ROM that includes tools, templates, and sales letters

Includes Exclusive Solution Selling Software on CD-ROM

• More than 120 work sheets on negotiating, opportunity assessments, implementation plans, and more
• Letters/e-mail templates
• Coaching on Solution Selling techniques
• Import/export capabilities
• Links to more Solution Selling content

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Market-proven tools and techniques for Solution Selling®, the world’s number-one sales execution methodology

More than 500,000 sales professionals worldwide have discovered the persuasive power of the revolutionary sales process--Solution Selling®. The Solution Selling Fieldbook now shows how to make Solution Selling work for you. This results-driven, step-by-step guide provides you with the methods, processes, job aids, tools, and techniques you need to:

• Stimulate interest, gain trust, and lead prospects to identify and admit pain
• Create and reengineer client buying visions
• Negotiate access to key decision makers to have "C" level conversations
• Differentiate your offerings to provide unique, value-driven solutions
• Dramatically shorten the cycle time between initial call and close
<.i>Improve forecasting based upon verifiable outcomes within the sales process

The Solution Selling Fieldbook will give you the tools to plan and execute the Solution Selling process with every prospect, and improve both your and your organization’s ability to win the business--by selling the solution.

Includes exclusive Solution Selling CD-ROM!

• 30 Solution Selling Job Aid templates, with detailed usage descriptions for each
• Hyperlinks for instant access to valuable Solution Selling Web sites and pages
• Data import and export capabilities, allowing sharing of sales opportunities and job aids with other members of your sales team
• Installation files for a fully functional trial copy of the Solution Selling Software application

About the Author

Keith M. Eades is the Chairman and Senior Managing Prtner of Sales Performance International and the author of The New Solution Selling.

James N. Touchstone leads and manages the development of Solution Selling for Sales Performance International.

Timothy T. Sullivan leads and manages business development for Sales Performance International.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (June 23, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071456074
• ISBN-13: 978-0071456074
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solution Selling Fieldbook Could Help Boost Your Sales, January 16, 2007

By 

Julie Johnson, Ph.D. (NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Solution Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Application Exercises, Templates and Scripts for Effective Sales Execution (Paperback)

The Solution Selling Fieldbook is the perfect compliment to Keith Eades 2004 book, The New Solution Selling. The New Solution Selling is an excellent book destined to become a sales classic. However, in sales, having a great theory doesn't necessarily translate into becoming a great salesperson. The Solution Selling Fieldbook provides tools to effectively implement the sales process and sales strategies discussed in The New Solution Selling. The CD-ROM included in the back of the book makes it easy for the salesperson to personalize all of the worksheets and templates to his or her own territory.

Eades formula for sales success in The New Solution Selling is: Pain x Power x Vision x Value x Control = Sale. The authors of the fieldbook maintain that a successful sales call is a result of effective planning and research. Fortunately, the fieldbook provides all of the tools to effectively plan the sales call.

The fieldbook begins by helping salespeople identify areas of pain in their accounts. As the book points out, "no pain, no change." Discovering the pain is the most important step in the process because it influences everything else that happens in the sales call. The worksheets and examples in the fieldbook help the salesperson identify the "pain" in his or her accounts. An important issue to understand is that pain varies depending upon the key player's job responsibilities. Too often, salespeople focus on one player in the buying center and ignore the others. By providing a systematic format, the fieldbook helps the salesperson make sure that the key players in an account have been identified. While each key player has unique pain areas, the effects of the pain are felt at the company level. The fieldbook helps the salesperson create a pain checklist to illustrate how each key player's pain aggregates at the organizational level.

Of course, planning does no good unless the salesperson is able to talk with the key players in a prospective client's firm. Consequently, the fieldbook moves on to stimulating interest and provides many examples for how to do that in the initial call to a prospect. It also provides letter templates in the event that the initial contact is made by mail. Once contact is established, there is no guarantee that the key player(s) will realize his or her pain. As every good salesperson knows, just because s/he can identify the pain doesn't mean that the prospect willing to do something about it. The fieldbook provides job aids to help the salesperson get the prospect to acknowledge the pain.

Finding and developing the prospect's pain is important so that the salesperson can help create a vision for the solution. Value must be an integral part of this vision. The salesperson needs to lead the sales call with value propositions to stimulate interest. By getting the right kind of information during the sales call, the salesperson can verify and justify the value of the solution. Value justification should be stated in terms of benefits expected (increased profits, increased revenue, or decreased costs). And, as always, The Solution Selling Fieldbook provides templates and exercises to help the salesperson accomplish this difficult task.

In summary, The Solution Selling Fieldbook is an excellent "how to" book for implementing the contents of The New Solution Selling. Salespeople who use this fieldbook diligently should see an increase in overall sales.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solution Selling is a Key Component, July 17, 2008

By 

M. Hunter (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Solution Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Application Exercises, Templates and Scripts for Effective Sales Execution (Paperback)

Solution Selling is very effective in defining a model for the tactical part of a sales engagement - meaning, what you discuss with a customer when you call them on the phone and when you meet with them during a sales call. When executed properly, it helps you and your customer develop a shared vision of the tangible benefit your product or service can provide your customer, and it creates clear milestones toward purchase and implementation. The model is rigorous and must be enforced by management and supported by the operations and service portions of your company to be effective. It can help increase the accuracy of forecasting sales revenues. I believe that it is more applicable for developing new markets, for new products and services, than for creating a competitive edge for established commodity offerings. When combined with a good sales strategy model (i.e. Jeff Thull's "Mastering the Complex Sale"), Solution Selling will deliver a lot of value to your sales force. Read the book, but also take the training. There are no shortcuts in achieving effective sales.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Rsource, September 18, 2011

By 

Wizard07 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Solution Selling Fieldbook: Practical Tools, Application Exercises, Templates and Scripts for Effective Sales Execution (Paperback)

Excellent resource. Good solid information with examples. Good flow to the information. Very practical application. Templates can be revised to fit your needs.