Monday, March 12, 2012

Big Sales Opportunities Need Winning Competitive Strategies

Strengthen Relationships By Beating The Competition

Past Relationships Are Trumped by the Winning Strategy

Great experiences at your touch points during a customer's buying cycle will earn you an invitation to begin your selling cycle and a mutually advantageous business relationship.


Developing insight into the customer's products, business model, politics and culture will prepare you to adeptly navigate their power base and beat the competitor's strategy - keys to winning a large sales opportunity.

The customer power base will take notice of your strategic approach.  Many will want their sales teams to emulate your process You've already proven that your strategy is aligned with their best interests, so they'll invite you to compete for future opportunities so they can watch you in action.

According to Holden International, only 3% of B2B companies vie for large opportunities at a strategic level. Just 17% earn political support[24% compete at the feature/benefit level; 56% at the value-added level.]

If your company is "strategically competent", you will improve the probability of winning.  Strong relationships and loyalty will become byproducts.

If not, you'll need a strong change agent to address the high level of resistance by managers and sales reps who won't want to expand their comfort zones.  Motivate a "strategically favorable" emotional response by rationally engaging them to believe that status quo risk is greater than moving forward.

Watch this 7-minute video on Holden's Power Base Selling.

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