CustomerCentric Selling

The concepts contained in this book are not new. Their presentation, however, is.The authors outline why people buy -- and when and from whom. It should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan. Although the word "selling" in the title, but this book more of a business manual is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual. There are no clever opening lines, or guaranteed PowerPoint templates. If you spend time with the book you will gain much more-an understanding of what you sell, to whom you should be selling it and where to go to find them.If your managers read it, they will develop a new a concept of how to message and manage their sales process. Bosworth and Holland believe customer centric selling contains seven basic concepts:1. Sales are based on conversations, not presentations.2. Asking relevant questions versus rendering opinions.3. Solutions rather than relationships earn buyers' respect.4. Target businesspeople versus users.5. Sell usage, not reliance.6. Salespeople manage managers rather than needing to be managed.7. Enable buyers rather than selling them.Managers and Salespeople who spent time with this book will add value to their organizations. If you are responsible for moving product, this book is a must read.

As reviewed in our January 6, 2004 issue:Let's cut to the chase: This is the best book on sales we've read in many, many years."CustomerCentric Selling" doesn't break new ground with sales tricks and techniques; rather, its strength is in the fact that it ties sales, marketing, and business imperatives together in a way that has the potential to turn conventional selling approaches on their collective ears.In fact, there's a bit of a paradox here: If you're a dyed-in-the-wool software sales rep with a quota to meet or beat, you may be disappointed in this book, because you won't find any magic bullets you can employ to meet your month-end number. If you are that beleaguered sales rep, you may even find yourself annoyed with Bosworth and Holland, because their message is that your obsession with quotas is misguided. That's easy for them to say, right? They don't have a sales VP banging them on the head every Monday morning. But that's exactly the point: If you're that rep, get your sales VP to read "CustomerCentric Selling" Better yet, get the company's CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, VP marketing, investors, and board of directors to read it. "CustomerCentric Selling" does such a superb job of outlining why people buy -- and when and from whom -- it should be required reading prior to the creation of any business plan.Yes, it has the word "selling" in the title, but this book is a really a business book more than it is a sales manual. Bosworth and Holland won't give you 15 clever opening lines for telesales, or 12 terrific PowerPoint templates. But they will help you understand what it is that you're selling, whom you should be selling it to, where you should find them, and how you can refine and manage the messaging as well as the sales process.In other words: Read this book when you're ready to stop screwing around. Read this book when you've realized that selling to early adopters isn't really selling, it's order-taking. Read this book if you're tired of acting as referee between marketing and sales.Although "CustomerCentric Selling" isn't written specifically to software people, the fact that the authors have spent most of their lives with technology companies permeates every page. Because it applies a sales perspective to Geof Moore's chasm concepts, the relevance for software companies is very high indeed.

I've read all the top, 'usual suspect' sales books. Before reading CustomerCentric Selling, I was most impressed with Mastering the Complex Sale, by Jeff Thull. Mr. Thull has summarized current sales challenges in a very compelling and distinctive way. However Mike Bosworth demonstrates that he is the true thought-leader, the virtuoso in this field, and is most generous in providing a wealth of practical how to detail that isn't the case in Mr Thull's book.I work with a multi-billion dollar revenue vendor serving the bio-tech industry. I will be taking immediate action to bring Mr. Bosworth's CustomerCentric Selling organization in to assist with our sales & marketing processes.

Measurable sales process - Can you explain your sales process in a way that one activity leads logically from one to another, so that a customer or someone from outside your industry could understand it. If you cannot, the chances are you do not actually have a process. Therefore your forecasts and selling activities are a series of "fire drill and Hail Mary" activities.It is simply "the doing whatever it takes process." CustomerCentric Selling has a sales process defined in Chapter 5 that is worth the price of the book, because when you implement your sales force automation with no measurable process the Sales Force Automation software just "sucks faster".Sales Ready Messaging- addresses the gap between marketing and customer messages and is the "next big thing" in selling. If you or your sales people don't know what to say to a high level buying influence you/they might say anything.(including exactly the wrong thing, because "you will be delegated to who you talk like." Sales ready messaging connects marketing, selling, and sales force automation together in a way no other methodology does. Check out recent Selling Power publications and the American Marketing Association and see Chapter 8 of this text.This book avoids the gimmicks and overly aggressive behavior suggestions from other books and sets the standard for selling solutions in 2004 and beyond leaving Solution Selling, Selling to Vito, SPIN and the rest in its wake.

I successfully relied on Mike Bosworth's methodology for decades as I sold "disruptive" technologies. Now a Sales and Marketing EVP, my staff, I and our customers are ready for a change. The people who make the buy decisions now, the motivations, and every stage of the process has shifted. Buyers are more savvy. This is both a plus (it's no longer disruptive technology, but core) and a negative (because they've been burned). These changes are met head-on in this book with practical advice that can be implemented immediately from my newbies to my seasoned reps and marketers. I'm making this text required reading for my whole staff. It helps us migrate from traditional marketing and selling to what works in today's more sophisticated environment.