Difficulties in selling and sales management |
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| 21 Jul 2008 | Written by: Keith M. Eades |
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The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell
Chapter 1, Looking for Solutions
Learn about the difficulties in selling, sales management and executive management that are addressed in the solution selling sales process. This chapter lists the many challenges salespeople, sales managers and executives face on a daily basis.
The New Solution Selling
Table of contents:
 The solution selling technique
Using the sales process
Difficulties in selling and sales management
Difficulties in selling and sales management
DIFFICULTIES IN SELLING, SALES MANAGEMENT, AND EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT
In addition to integrating both knowledge and skills, Solution Selling
addresses specific selling, sales management, and executive management
difficulties. What follows are some of the challenges we often see
and hear as we begin to work with our clients. See how many of these
issues you can relate to.
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| Excerpted with permission from The New Solution Selling: The Revolutionary Sales Process That is Changing the Way People Sell, by Keith M. Eades, Copyright 2004. Published by McGraw-Hill, November, 2003, ISBN 0071435395. For more information about this book and other titles, please visit McGraw-Hill Professional. |
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Typical Selling Difficulties
I'm having a hard time meeting, much less exceeding, my
sales quota.
Our product isn't competitive anymore.
Buyers tell me our services cost too much and they can't
justify them.
They wouldn't let me in at the right level.
If only my manager would have discounted.
The consultant didn't do a good job.
I lose control of our prospects at the end of the sell cycle.
We got in too late.
The prospect didn't know what they wanted.
We missed the needs of certain committee members.
I get an opportunity started and our resellers drop the ball.
My manager tells me what to do, not how to do it.
My competition's website is great, and we get outsold before
we even get started.
Management demands detailed written sales forecasts—do
they want me to sell or fill out forms?
Prospects can buy the same capabilities from someone else,
so I have to outsell my competition to win the business.
Typical Sales Management Difficulties
t's becoming increasingly difficult to predict revenue.
My salespeople are comfortable calling on technical and end
users but are ineffective with executive management.
Many of our salespeople wing it.
We lose more to no decision than to any single competitor.
Only a few of our new hires develop into top producers.
There must be something wrong with our hiring model.
Salespeople take sales support or technical people with them
on too many calls.
Marketing efforts are out of sync with our sales efforts.
Salespeople blame losses on the product.
As soon as the pipeline looks good, prospecting stops.
We're making our numbers but it's too tough. Life is too
short to work this hard!
It's difficult to find new opportunities, so we end up responding
to RFPs or Tenders wired for our competition.
By the time I'm asked to get involved, it's usually too late.
Qualifying out of opportunities doesn't seem to be in our
vocabulary.
Quarter-end fire drills have become a way of life.
Typical Executive Management Difficulties
Getting accurate revenue forecast is a nightmare.
All our strategic initiatives are dependent on making our revenue
goals.
The sales group is a mystery. Other groups in the company
are much easier to hold accountable.
We make great products in this company. Why can't we sell
them?
Growing cost is not the problem; growing revenues is.
We missed our quarterly revenue number. Fortunately, it was
on the plus side. What would have happened if it had been
on the negative side?
In the next chapter, we explore the underlying principles and concepts
of the Solution Selling sales process, which will serve as a springboard
to each step in the process and the rest of the book.
Read other excerpts and download more sample chapters from our CRM and call center bookshelf
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