Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets (Hardcover)

~ Michael Bosworth (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Solution Selling is an excellent vehicle to teach new salespeople critical sales skills and allow experienced salespeople to fine tune their skills. Solution Selling is the best methodology I've seen for placing emphasis on business issues rather than product." -- Gorshi, Dan, Sales Manager, AT&T Global Business Communications Systems

``Solution Selling is the most comprehensive sales and sales management process available today. Mike Bosworth has the best understanding of sales process in corporate America.'' -- Review

Review

``Solution Selling is the most comprehensive sales and sales management process available today. Mike Bosworth has the best understanding of sales process in corporate America.'' (Fisher, Jeffrey M. Vice President, Symix Computer Systems )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786303158
• ISBN-13: 978-0786303151
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,911 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

85 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Consultive Sales Bible, but only if you use it!, October 2, 2001

By	James Carter (Castro Valley, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I own an agency for OD/HR consulting and have read HUNDREDS of books, manuals etc on selling. I am especially interested in books about selling high dollar intangibles (HR consulting is incredibly intagible). This book is by far the best book I have ever read for this type of selling. If you sell these intangibles, you must read this book.

HOWEVER, in order for these ideas to actually be effective, you must plan on implementing the ideas and putting in a lot of work. Bosworth shows you, tells you, gives you an outline, gives you specific questions and just about anything else you could need to be successful after implementing his process. But this is not a book you can simply read and be successful. It takes practice, practice, practice.

Since I have institued his process in my selling (and I STILL practice the process), my sales calls have dramatically improved. Most notibly, Bosworth shows you how to position yourself and ask questions in such a way so that the customer feels in control of the process. I actually have had prospects close themselves.

The ideas and plans in 'Solution Selling' require a great deal of hard work for the sales person to implement, but trust me, it will pay off. Not only that, if you love sales like I do, it will help sales be fun again.

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars recommended reading (with some reservations), February 15, 2001

By	Sid Sahni (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to differentiate himself/herself in sales today. It examies the role of the "seller" and tries to position him/her as the "buying facilitator." Conceptually, it is difficult to argue with Mike's line of reasoning and process. However, I tried to examine some of my recent sales opportunities as I was reading this book, and found several execeptions that justified deviating from the process prescribed herein. Therefore, it goes back to the traditional wisdom in sales that every opportunity is unique in some way and should be treated as such. There is no one "silver bullet" process to go about winning opportunities (which is the paradigm I sense from this book).

3 additional drawbacks that are worth commenting on regarding the book: First of all, despite what Mike might claim, the book is biased towards selling products or products and services as opposed to pure services. Secondly, I think customers are more intelligent than what Mike gives them credit for. He presents them as being generally unaware of solutions for their problems, but discusses them in the context of being shrewd buyers. My experience is that most customers are fairly well-read and informed through journals and periodicals and even the hype (even for their "latent needs") - and this information has not necessarily been shaped by a competitor that entered the process earlier. Additionally, I have not found my customers to be as vicious price negotiators as Mike portrays them to be in his examples. Finally, my impression is that Mike's selling process assumes some level of brand recognition in favor of the seller's product/company. I think companies have a harder time letting you shape their vision if they have never worked with you before or heard of you!

For those that are aware of SPIN selling - the concept is very similar but the implementation is unique to the way Mike perceives and describes the problem. Even so, the book is insightful and worth a read!

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A friend of mine sold me on this book, August 22, 2000

By	Phil Scanlan (Fremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I was asking a friend of mine who is Director of Sales for a very successful business for some tips on how to improve our sales performance.

As CEO of an internet language translation startup, Worldlingo.com, we didn't have any established sales processes or procedures. So I figured lets do what successful sales organizations do - hence the request for advice.

Anyhow to cut a long story short, he frequently referenced this book and the process contained therein. Here are some of the key things he mentioned:

- Many top sales people tend to intuitively follow this Solution Selling process, but many other sales people work just as hard but do not achieve the same results. This book guides those others through a proven sales process.

- As a CEO you need to be able to accurately forcast sales, but traditional "pipelines" are not very accurate. The framework laid out in this book will give you a much better guide.

- This framework will make it much easier to identify where sales people are tripping up and help them to improve that part of their performance.

- Shows you how to apply lessons from your existing customers to improve your selling efforts.

So I read the book and found it every bit as good as my friend said it was. We are going to adopt this Solution Selling methodology at Worldlingo.com and think it will provide a solid foundation for our sales group.

I gave it 4 stars rather than 5, because I thought the last quarter of the book which focused on case studies was not as good as it could have been.

But the first three quarters was very good.