Customer Reviews

Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I bought it because of the very high ratings.

Initially, the book looked useful and "fair" but I thought it all revolved around 2 or 3 great and important ideas about the buyers psychology. Now I finished it and found it GREAT !

As an alternative about the same issues, IMHO I'd suggest Brian Tracy's "Advanced selling strategies".
It has much more ideas on more issues but they're not so well developed.

It is often said that "people buy people" and Michale Bosworth's book "Solution Selling" explains why. Can you remember buying a big ticket item and not having to be "closed" on the deal? Well I can, and Solution Selling explains exactly how that happened. Michael Bosworth crystalizes the process that all great sales people use every day to become one of the 20% that make 80% of the sales. Once you have read this book, you will recognize "Solution Selling" techniques being used by the sales masters to effectively create relationships that close the sale. These techniques can be used to create win-win relationships in the workplace, or to make increased sales. I have benefitted greatly from reading this book and I say "Don't let this one get away without reading it!" Thanks Michael Bosworth for demystifying the sales process and letting us know why sales people are, and should be, the most highly paid people in the world.

Bosworth sells us all on solution selling. He teaches us how to sell everything from shoes to software. IBM recommends this book as the definitive guide to their sales strategy. Bosworth provides numerous examples, case studies, and most importantly he explains and analyzes each of them. But perhaps the best example of solution selling is the book itself -- it solution-sells the concept of solution selling, from catching our attention, demonstrating that a problem exists, asking us questions, and finally prescribing a solution: solution selling. A must read for anyone in sales or business in general

I liked SPIN SELLING better as they both covered the same ground with similar approach, but SPIN SELLING seemed better researched and had 4 steps where this had 9. Spin Selling was a better read too.

However, it is entirely possible that had I read this before reading Spin Selling, I would have gained more from this, and hence liked it more.

I gave this book one star only to indicate that it was not for me, it may well be for people in other fields of selling. I actually work in the timeshare-business and since timeshare is also a "big ticket"-item I thought this could be the right book for me. First of all, let me state that I have read many books on sales and this is by far the most boring one that I have read so far. "Scripts", descriptions of specific sales-calls and so on, I personally don't like that AT ALL. If you find yourself in pretty much the same situation on every call you may find this book could be too versatile for you, it just covers too many different scenarios in order for me to find how it could benefit me. If you wanna find out about how to do a proper intent-statement on the phone etc. or sell stuff to companies, then maybe you should go for it, but a tough, not very inspiring read. And every book on sales should be inspiring. Selling is a creative process, this book is only technical. I really wanted to like it. I just couldn't.

Once you have read it, you would want to share it with others. This is how good Michael Bosworth's book "Solution Selling" is. From clarifying the difference between Features, Advantages and Benefits (which a lot of sales people still mixed up), to complex solution selling process, the book has given losts of good illustration with practical examples. Especially in "3 levels of buyers needs", "10 faces of buyer pain", "Price Negotiation" etc.

The book uses the buyers' prespective to help readers to understand what the buyers think at each stage in their decision process which is a good way to demonstrate his theory behind.

Solution selling is a long and complex process, with the approach and process Bosworth described, it helps a lot in defining the actions and precautions we need to take in day to day solution selling process.

If I can only pick one of the chapters in the book, I must recommend you to read, at least, how Bosworth uses the "9-block vision processing model" to see solution selling in the buyer's viewpoint, steps by steps showing what a solution sales/consultant should react in response to different level of the buyer's pain.

If I have knew/bought this book earlier, I might not need to spend my last few years going through the hard way. It is definitely a book to read and the book to keep ...

What will you get out of this book? You will learn to make the process of selling a very formidable strategic and competitive advantage on top of all the other advantages you may already have (technical competence, etc.). This possibility alone immediately convinced me to get this book without a moment's hesitation.

First of all, let me say that this book is aimed at showing you more than just selling services. It is aimed at teaching you how to sell anything (services or products) that is difficult to sell - intangible, hard to describe, or expensive.

I am most familiar with selling services so I will restrict this review to this one aspect of the book. If you are in consulting, you have already experienced the deleterious effects of a bad sale several times in your career.

But if you are the salesperson responsible for selling these services, you really don't see any way out of the most common situations that lead to the bad sales! I have been both a sales person trying to sell and the project manager trying to implement these badly sold projects. Before reading this book, I strongly felt that there was no solution (no pun intended). One of my really good friends recommended this book after hearing my complaints. I started reading it a bit at a time and it has taken me several months to put this theory into practice. And I am still learning (nowhere close to sales excellence). But there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel for anyone stuck in a similar situation because of what's in this book.

The book is divided into three parts - 10 Faces of Pain, Strategies to facilitate, influence, and control the buying process, and Solution selling in action. Through out the book, the author uses several realistic examples in a dialogue fashion to clearly show the problem at hand. The first part sets the stage so that you are ready for the solution, the second part outlines and describes in detail 10 different strategies, and the last part is full of success stories of people or companies that used these strategies to eliminate their selling pain.

If you are having trouble selling something, do not hesitate to get this book. I have not regretted this purchase even once! My only recommendation is to spend a lot of time understanding every aspect of the solution selling process so you can master it. Good luck!

Can't say enough about this book and this sales process. IT WORKS and has made me LOTS of money. A highly recommended read, and great companion (not replacement) to the sales traning course by the same name.

Remember, it's 20 years old & large-ticket sales have gotten considerably more complex in 20 years ( I guess that's why he has written a NEW book, due out in June).

When coupled with more strategic processes like MH Bluesheets/Strategic Selling and/or LAMP, this can be an effective way to manage enterprise sales cycles.

"premature elaboration" is still the 2nd most-common mistake I see out there today, so if it helps you cure that alone, it's worth the [money].

In my estimation, this book picks up where the New Strategic Selling, the New Conceptual Selling, and Successful Large Account Management leave off. The first three books are also excellent and focus on the strategic aspects of selling and marketing. This book is focused on the tactical aspects of selling and sales management with a good primer on negotiating with buyers.