Customer Reviews

The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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This book is great and has helped me tremendously in being more confident in prospecting new business for my line of work. It gives excellent advise on deal making - everything from the initial sales call to closing the deal. It hits on points critical to strategic planning and developing a strong sales action plan. An A+++ book!!

This will Teache you how to go into a Sales call, With a plan, outline and a goal, Very good worth buying, giving to your sales managers.

This is the BIBLE for customer focused consultative selling!

If you are a sales professional or manager interested in revving things up and taking your sales team to the next level this is the program to do it! Step by step instructions for detailed account management , opportunity assessment , identification and how to build trust, get the customer to help you understand their needs and then to help you close the deal!

The system is like all Miller- Heiman programs- very detailed and filled with examples. This is perfect for helping salespeople who tend to go to one person at a client and not expand into the account- learn about other people and how they can influence decisions. Underlying message is the more your know- the less you hear "NO!"

I first did this program as a salesperson over 10 years ago- since then I have taught the program 4 times- I personally learn each time I do so. Other programs by Miller-Heiman are all built upon this program and its sister program Customer Focused Selling. Their advanced LAMP ( Large Account Management ) program requires this as a pre-requisite.

Clients of Miller-Heiman include big pharmaceutical companies, top automotive manufacturers and suppliers, I took a class in Chicago with the sales team responsible for selling the big 3 transmissions! Telecon companies use Miller-Heiman. Electronics mega-sellers use the system. Can your business benefit from the system designed to maximize the output of every sales call?

Great book to read before your next sales team meeting.

I purchased this book a couple of years ago when I was trying to break into medical sales. I didn't get the job I was interviewing for, but this book has subsequently rewarded me in ways I couldn't have imagined at the time. It's not just a book about completing the complex sale. It's a book about how to get what you want out of life. Or perhaps more accurately, it's a book that opens your eyes up to how many important things in your life are actually a complex sale.

This book is filled with specific instructions to help keep you focused on the outcome you desire, and prepared to manage the influences that can either help you or hurt you along the way. Nothing is left to chance. Red flags are identified, strategies are developed, and win/win solutions are created all the way around. The natural result is good will, and customers who feel like you helped them fill the gap between where they were, and where they needed to be.

This book is perfect for anyone who has developed a lot of technical expertise in a given field, but might be a bit inexperienced or even naive when it comes to politics. We've all had great ideas shot down by people whose motives were less than laudable. Don't waste precious time and energy getting angry that these people have rank and authority. Learn how to manage them! This book shows you how.

Highly recommended.

This is a fantastic book and definitely warrants the praise thats been lavished upon it for the past 15-20 years. However, be forewarned, the book isn't an easy read. You should also be aware that, at 424-pages, it isn't a quick read either. However, if you're willing to put in the requisite time and effort, you will find one of the best books on "complex" sales ever written. I also highly recommend Bosworth's "Solution Selling" and Parinello's "Selling to Vito." Any and all of these three books are established classics. Overall grade: B+/A-

I read this book to prepare myself for a salescourse at the company where I work. As it turns out I am no salesman, but the trainer did note that I had a very good insight into the salesprocess. So good, in fact, that he advised me to become a selling consultant for my company instead of a salesman. All that, thanks to having read this book in combination with "The New Conceptual Selling" (also by Heiman). If you really want to start selling, you must read this book!

Stephen E. Heiman, Diane Sanchez, and Tad Tuleja provide a practical, dynamic framework to approach complex selling from both a strategic and tactical point of view. Like a general, a salesperson must first master the art of planning his/her forces before being able to approach a customer/prospect effectively. Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja rightly recommend that their audience think about one complex selling situation that they have dealt with and analyse it using the six key elements to consider in a complex selling. The six elements are the following: buying influences, red flags/areas of strengths, response modes, wins/results, ideal customer profile, and sales funnel. Although the audience can first consider that exercise a chore, they will derive a lot of value from it by internalizing the author's framework. Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja correctly remind their audience that the salesperson needs to have a broad understanding of his/her competition. Competition includes not only direct competitive offerings and substitutes, but also customer/prospect's options such as doing nothing, in sourcing, or resource reallocation for other purposes. Furthermore, Heiman, Sanchez, and Tuleja recommend that their audience adopt a "side" strategy and not a "face" strategy by focusing first on customer/prospect's needs and not primarily on a narrowly defined competition. With a little bit of practice, the framework described above becomes second nature and allows the audience to eventually use it in a multitude of settings. For example, applying for a job is often similar to complex selling. The job seeker needs to make a mutually beneficial value proposition not only to the hiring manager(s), but also to the assistant (s), the receptionist and any other relevant persons who can make a difference in hiring him/her or not. Similarly, a fundraiser could use the above-mentioned framework to raise funds on behalf of his/her non-profit organization.

This book teaches me how to be a successful sales person. From prospecting the customers to closing the sales, this book gives me a clear guideline to follow. Relationship marketing is one of the concepts that author highly emphasizes because of repeat purchase of the customers. Moreover, having a good evaluation system is the key to succeed. To be a successful sales person, you should understand your own strengths and weaknesses so that you can turn your weaknesses to your strengths.
This book also contains a step-by-step workshop of strategic selling. It is a valuable teaching model for all of us.

Useful and self-contained. To anyone involved in selling, both tangibles and intangibles, this book provides a basic and powerful methodology based on a "non-manipulative selling philosophy" that is easy to understand and rather straight forward to apply. It is specially good for seasoned salespersons that can recognize familiar components of the traditional sales approach and that have the true experience to value "life-long" realtionships with customers. For consultants and sellers of intangibles, it provides a valid road map to identify role-players and decision-makers. For new salespersons, it helps them to think strategically. The authors seem to forget the permanent pressure salespeople have and the way sales objectives are set, so some comments do no fit the real world (like relinquishing an account, or letting a client go away), and fall in a rather romantic view of the profession. Although at first it seems geared toward large corporate and tangible accounts, with a little manipulation and some easing of documentation (desk-time) requirements, the methodology can be used in any selling environment. It is straight-forward and simple to use; reduces uncertainty about the process and provides the user (the salesperson) a sense of control over his/her environment and participants. Since change is a constant, and salespeople are inmersed today in a variety of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategies and techniques, this books fits nicely within it since it is the Customer and our Relationship with him/her that is at the center of it. It is a good, solid investment.

After sitting the class with the Miller Heiman instructor, Bob Pisant (he's very good!) the book and its recommendations provided greater tangible "how-to's". Worthwhile investment for the career sales professional engaged in complex sales cycles.