Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect and Win in High Stakes Sales

With so many sales books in the market, it's rare that one book can be so different, and valuable. In Exceptional Selling, Thull explores how sales people can create exceptional sales conversations with customers that lead to exceptional results for the buyer and seller. But this isn't a book about building rapport as a means to closing a sale. Instead, it's an in-depth approach to winning the complex sale. Thull suggests that many of the traditional sales techniques lead to lost sales, and he offers a new way to manage the sales process. The chapter on why no one buys a value proposition is worth the price of the book. And it's a good example of how Thull throws out conventional wisdom, while also giving us something to put in its place. This is a well-written book, probably Thull's best one yet.

First of all, a disclaimer. I've known Jeff Thull for six years and when I came to him I had been successful at selling. Six year later, my "game" looks nothing like it did back then. I now know that I was typical of most persuasive salespeople--one who talked too much, listened too little and relied on the very paradigm that Jeff so eloquently describes early in this book. I had been trained in the gold standards of my time, including Professional Selling Skills, Miller-Heiman, SPIN, Solution Selling, Target Account Selling and the like. When I failed to connect with my prospects on getting started, I frequently blamed it on the inability for them to understand my value offering, which caused me to think they weren't sophisticated enough to get it because I was certainly explaining it well. This book will help those of you who always thought there was something fundamentally wrong with the so called "consultative selling processes" and haven't been able to understand what that might be. It clearly defines for you the things you might be doing which only reinforce the typical sales stereotype. And it gives a clear roadmap to accomplish that goal (it's always amazed me how many authors talk so academically about how the sales process should go, yet never give instruction on how-to.) If you have the privilege of knowing Jeff personally, you know that he's a modest, down-to-earth communicator whose temperament and unassuming mindset are ideal for establishing what he calls the "atmosphere of cooperation." If you don't, you'll readily see that his writing style isn't one of "I've been there and I know", but rather one that reasons with you and gets you to question the real truths of your client communication. There are far too many lessons in this latest effort to crystallize them here, but if I can allow me to make one recommendation--don't cherry pick the nuggets and adopt them to your current sales process. Instead, approach this work as a litmus test for the true effectiveness of your current customer interaction strategy and be willing to realize that there's a better way. Unless you're a competitor of mine. Then keep on interrogating your prospects and giving those great presentations.

I sell ERP software in Southern California. The past year has been a real struggle-increased competition, a lot of no-decisions and long sales cycles. While I've been exposed to sales theories such as "Solution Selling" before, it's been a real struggle to implement it. I find myself slipping into "sales" mode too often. But "Exceptional Selling" has been a TRUE eye-opener. Jeff Thull's concept of becoming a trusted advisor instead of a sales person WORKS. After studying the book, I went to my first appointment with the sole intention of using the diagnostic mindset-asking questions to see where the problems really are. Even though the company is just looking for a small CRM package, I told them that I wanted to talk to all the different departments to make sure that CRM is the right answer to solve their issues. At the end of our meeting the prospect told me that she wanted to sign an NDA because I was asking questions and acting like a "Business Analyst" rather than a sales person. I've got appointments with the different departments next week. Talk about validation! Today I met with a prospect who describes himself as a "Tough Sell." You should have seen the surprise on his face when, in my opening statement, I told the prospect that I wasn't there to sell him anything and that I had no product to show him or to talk about; I was just there to explore so that we could both make a quality business decision. Our scheduled half-hour meeting stretched to two hours and I'm going back next week to meet with other departments. I've always been PROUD of my career but the one thing I've NEVER wanted to be was a stereotypical sales person. Now I have a NEW role--Trusted Advisor If you're tired of average sales; tired of long sales cycles, cut-throat competition and eroding profits then you owe it to yourself to read "Exceptional Selling" and use the material. I believe it can truly be a career-changing event for you.

If you are a sales, business developer or account representative that sells complex services or products, this is a must-read that can't help but change your career in a very positive way. The strategic process and tactical how-to's included in this book are truly as the title suggests. They are Exceptional. Implementing this process will take you from a good consultative sales person to an excellent diagnostic business developer. I would strongly suggest not just reading this, but rather studying and implementing this if you want to see a behavioral change for the positive. The Prime Process described in the book promotes and requires genuine integrity by diagnosing a prospective client's situation to see if there are symptoms that require a need for the value of your offering. Salespeople can now discover early in the process if a prospective client is genuinely in need of their product or service long before they waste a lot of their own time as well as the client's time with an unneeded solution. With this in mind, long-term client loyalty is much more likely than with the typical "consultative" sales approach that most salespeople use. The framework for the process and the research done through multiple internal and external sources of client intelligence will allow you to formulate a value assumption (instead of a "canned" value proposition)that shows your prospective client respect and relevancy when it's time to get face-to-face with the "C-Suite" people. In a nutshell, the Prime Process is a four fold process of discover, diagnose, design and deliver. I've read dozens of business development, client loyalty and sales books and have attended a number of high-level sales courses...this one tops them all.

In his previously published books, Jeff Thull introduced and then developed several separate but related core concepts which would help those in sales "to compete and win when the stakes are high" (Mastering the Complex Sale) and how to close the value gap, increase margins, and win the complex sale (The Prime Solution). In this volume, he explains "how [high-performing salespeople, `the best of the best'] connect and win in high stakes sales." Over time, Thull's core concepts remain essentially the same; however, as he interacts with those who hear him speak and with those who read his books, and as he observes changes in an increasingly more complex - and more competitive - marketplace, he fine-tunes his earlier insights and enriches the frame-of-reference within which he presents them as well as new insights. "The book is about creating conversations that achieve relevancy, credibility, and respect between individuals, no matter what the context." Thull carefully organizes and presents his material within three Parts. First, in Chapters 1-3, he explores the communication barriers that stand between salespeople and their customers; next, in Chapters 4-7, he guides his reader through four series of conversations that result in exceptional sales; finally, in Chapters 8 and 9, he explores how to establish exceptional credibility and cement it with the ability to overcome two of the most difficult conversational challenges in today's complex sales environment: "the urgent need to quantify value and the demand that salespeople engage with customers at the highest levels of their organizations." Over the course of nine chapters, Thull establishes and then sustains a direct and informal (i.e. conversational) rapport with his reader. He thoroughly examines the conversational mind-set, strategies, and skills that power exceptional selling. Of special interest to me is Thull's focus on various misconceptions about high-performance salesmanship. Those whom he refers to as "high-performing salespeople, `the best of the best'," consistently and convincingly demonstrate that most traditional ideas about sales are no longer appropriate. For example: Myth: "All prospects will buy." Reality: Only certain customers will and should buy. Myth: "A good salesperson can sell anything to anybody." Reality: A good salesperson weeds out poor prospects and focuses on high-gain opportunities. Myth: "Customers know what they need; it's my job to deliver it." Reality: Customers can be unclear and even wrong about their needs; the salesperson's responsibility is to complete an accurate diagnosis of need(s). Myth: "Never walk away when money is on the table." Reality: Always walk away unless certain that you can improve the prospect's business. Myth: "The customer is always right." Reality: The customer needs and deserves professional guidance to make an appropriate decision. According to Thull, many (too many) salespersons never develop what he characterizes as th