Buyer behavior has changed, putting them much more in control of their purchasing process. They gather information through the Internet from a wide variety of online sources and as a result, most buyers are keeping sellers out of their buying process until much later than what was once the norm. This book helps sales professionals collaborate with today’s buyers, showing how the most effective sellers succeed, and even thrive, in this era of new buyers, new selling roles, and new technologies. In The Collaborative Sale, you will learn:

• How buyer behavior has changed, and how sellers must adapt to survive
• Three emerging sales roles needed to be effective in today’s market
• Why a Solution Selling philosophy is more relevant today than ever before
• How to build and leverage knowledge to become experts for customers
• How to become a micro-marketer to gain access to prospects
• How to manage risk in today’s complex sales cycles
• How to add real value in every engagement with customers
• How to negotiate effectively, without caving in on price
• How to build a robust pipeline of sales opportunities and achieve goals
• How to use verifiable outcomes to manage deals and predict future revenues

The Collaborative Sale shows how to align effectively with today’s buyers, helping them to succeed in overcoming their problems and challenges, and in so doing, creating value for customers, for solution suppliers, and for sales professionals.

KEITH M. EADES is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sales Performance International, one of the largest sales improvement companies in the world. Founded in 1988, the company does business in over 54 countries. Keith is one of the leading authorities on transforming companies into world-class sales organizations and is a bestselling author of The New Solution Selling.

TIMOTHY T. SULLIVAN is the Director of Business Development for Sales Performance International. Tim is a frequent public speaker and published author on advanced sales and marketing practices.

Foreword David Stein xi

Preface xv

Acknowledgements xix

Definitions xxi

Part I  Foundations of the Collaborative Sale 1

1 “The Story” and What’s Behind The Collaborative Sale 3

The Collaborative Sale 7

What is sales collaboration? 9 

2 Solution Selling Meets the New Buyer 13

The Emergence of the New Buyer - Buyer 2.0 16

The Effect of Information Access on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 16

The Millennials are Coming 21

The Effect of Economic Uncertainty on Buyer 2.0 Behavior 23

Buyer 2.0 vs. Buyer 1.0 27

Adapting to the Buyer 2.0 Paradigm 28

The Relevancy of Solution Selling and the Evolution of the Collaborative Sale 33

The Story (continued) 35

3 What the New Buyers Expect: Situational Fluency 39

Seller Agility 42

Situational Fluency 44

Components of Situational Fluency 45

Hiring for Situational Fluency 50

Developing Situational Fluency 51

Technology’s Role in Situational Fluency 53

Part II Three Personae of the Collaborative Sale 57

4 The Micro-Marketer Persona 59

Why Be a Micro-Marketer? 60

Micro-Marketers Demonstrate Situational Fluency – with Constraint 62

Micro-Marketers Create Their Own Personal Brand 63

Planning and Executing a Micro-Marketer Strategy 66

Enabling the Micro-Marketer Persona 74

The Story (continued) 82

5 The Visualizer Persona 85

What a Visualizer? 85

Buyer States and Strength of Vision 91

Visualizer Conversations 95

Embracing the Visualizer Persona 99

The Story (continued) 101

6 The Value Driver Persona 105

Focusing on Value 107

What is the Value Driver Persona? 107

Using a Collaboration Plan – a Buyer Alignment and Risk Mitigation Strategy 115

The Myth of Control 118

Create an Online Collaboration Site 119

Collaborating to Close 121

Enabling the Value Driver Persona 122

The Story (continued) 124

Part III Making the Collaborative Sale a Reality 127

7 Establishing a Dynamic Sales Process 129

Buyer-Aligned Sales Process 134

Dynamic Sales Process 135

Automating Dynamic Sales Processes 137

Expanding the View of Sales Process 138

Sales Process Enables Management and Marketing 140

8 Coaching the Collaborative Sale 143

Sales Management Cadence 144

Motivation 151
 
9 Implementing The Collaborative Sale 157

Right Process: Buyer-Aligned Learning and Development 159

Right People: Talent Assessment and Analytics 162

Right Tools: Focused Enablement 167

Committing to Success – Individually and Organizationally 177

Epilogue 179

Afterword 181

Appendix 183

EssentialCompetencies for The Collaborative Sale 183

Additional Collaborative Selling Tools 186

Contributors 195

KeithM. Eades 195

Timothy T. Sullivan 195

Robert Kear 196

James N. “Jimmy” Touchstone 197

Dave Christofaro 197

Kenneth Cross 198

Tamela M. Rich 198

Index 199